Hey all, Robin here. I’m Michael’s “alpha reader,” which means I’m the first person to get his book after it’s done. I never (well there was one case), get to read anything until it’s fully written, and Michael looks to me for candid feedback.
When I read the original version of Esrahaddon, I had a few problems. The main one being that I felt that Michael kept “rewinding the book.” You see, I’ve heard Michael give advice to aspiring authors over the years, and I knew that one of the biggest lessons he teaches is the importance of the “take off” and “the landing.” After finishing the chapter called Hekkabah, I thought the plane (book) had a nice take off and we were flying along just fine and then . . . he switched over to other characters, and I felt like yet another plane was taking off. That by itself wasn’t good, but given the book’s name and because I was already invested in Esrahaddon, the shift to others left me annoyed.
I found myself reading about the two advisors from Merredydd. And that was an interesting chapter, although it felt a bit like “filler.” Then we jumped to yet another character, Jerish. And at that point I felt like Michael had launched three planes instead of one.
Another problem I had was that Jerish’s background was remarkably similar to Esrahaddon’s. They both left their homes (which weren’t nice places), at a rather young age and came to Percepliquis for training. Neither had any friends, both were skilled. And so all the time I was reading Jerish’s backstory I kept thinking, “Haven’t I just read this?”
My last problem was a big one. Because I really wanted to like Jerish. I’m a huge Hadrian fan (from the Riyria books), and I was hoping to see something similar in Jerish since they both have a common set of rules to live by. But after reading Jerish’s chapters, I wasn’t drawn to him. He seemed overly immature and the word that just kept coming to my mind was “petulant.” Now, as he got older, he did get better, and I thought there was some really touching aspects related to his relationship with Master Rawlings, but by that time I already had locked Jerish out of my heart, and I wasn’t won back.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how the book could be fixed. The thought of deleting all those words didn’t occur to me. Michael had spent months writing them, and I thought he would “rework” rather than “discard” those chapters. So, he went away, and when I got the book back, seven chapters and 31,000+ words had disappeared. There were also changes to other chapters (not presented here), because some of the deleted information had to be re-incorporated elsewhere. After the changes, I thought the book was much better, and obviously so did Michael — because he never would change anything unless he agreed.
As part of the Esrahaddon Kickstarter, we set (and reached) a stretch goal to put these "missing scenes" out and about in the world. And so here they are. I will be posting each chapter directly after this introduction. Before I send you off to read them I want to mention a few things.
First there has been no copyediting done to these chapters, so they are likely to be rough - really rough. Once they were cut, we considered them "in the trash," and it didn't make sense to go back and clean them up.
Second, Jerish’s personality was adjusted, and I don’t want people to think of these chapters as an “Author’s Edition” where the book is restored to its former glory. In fact, just the opposite is true. After cutting and correcting, the version of the book you have read IS the author’s preferred edition.
The table below lists the chapter titles in the early portion of the book where the cut scenes were removed. I color coded them, and it helps to illustrate just how long we were “away” from Esrahaddon, the main character. The colors I'm using are green for Esrahaddon, purple for Jerish, blue for Mawyndulë, and red for Sadarshakar.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Actual Book As Originally written 1: Tigerwolves 1: Tigerwolves 2. The Forest 2. The Forest 3. Goblins 3. Goblins 4. Hekkabah 4. Hekkabah 5. The Nyphron Church 5. The Nyphron Church 6. Sadarshakar 7. The Problem Child 8. Knightly Virtues 6. The Longest Day 9. The Longest Day 10. The New Boy 11. The Tournament 12. The Duel 7. The First City 13. The First City 8. Tree House 14. Tree House 9. Rappaport & Wardley 15. Rappaport & Wardley 10. The Warlord 16. The Warlord 11. Riddle of the Rogue 17. Riddle of the Rogue 18. Surprising Son 19. Eber-on-Aston 19. Eber-on-Aston
You’ll notice that the chart stops at the chapter titled “Eber-on-Aston” and from there on, the book is the same in both the “long” and the “short” versions. To start reading the deleted scenes, click "Next Chapter" and keep going until you finish with "Surprising Son."