It’s been a long time since I could say “I have a new book out.” But at last, I can. Viking Tomorrow has been in the works for a very long time. I’m pretty sure the first draft was finished at the end of July in 2015. So what happened? A lot, but very little that actually influenced the delay, believe it or not.

For this book, unlike past collaborations, Jeremy and I did everything together. In the past, when I’ve worked on his characters (like with the Chess Team books Callsign: Deep Blue, Ragnarok, and Omega—and even on the Endgame non-fic book about Chess Team), those characters had already been created and already had background stories. With Refuge, I was in on the creation of the characters and the ideas for the series, but most of it came from Jeremy, and I had to tie together the loose ends from his part of the story and from Daniel Boucher, Robert Swartwood, and David McAfee as well. But with The Berserker Saga, of which Viking Tomorrow is Book 1, Jeremy and I created everything equally.

I brought him an idea of Mad Max meets The History Channel’s Viking’s, with a female protagonist, and then we batted the idea around a lot, ultimately shifting the action from a post-apocalyptic US to a ravaged and mutated post-apoc Europe, and stretching what would have been one book to three. The result was Viking Tomorrow, and hopefully two more sequels: Viking Extinction and Viking Apocalypse. More on those in a bit.

So what happened to slow down Viking Tomorrow’s release? The first thing, which was pretty cool and which happened before the book was finished being written, was Jeremy having the idea that we ought to get covers done with a live model. He found a fantastic photographer, Kevin Ouellette, from Amazing DJ Music/Sounds and Photography in Portland, ME, and we looked through his photos of extant models. We needed someone who looked Nordic, and who fit the part of Val. We needn’t have worried.

Photo courtesy of

Amazing DJ Music/Sounds and Photography

I saw this image seconds into scrolling through Kevin’s fantastic model shots, and I knew we had found our cover model, who at the time had only just been named in the story. Britney Holtan was fantastic and put in a full day of poses in ridiculous positions for us, while Kevin took hundreds and hundreds of shots, constantly innovating and coming up with great ideas. In the end we had the shots we needed to make great memes and the three book covers we needed. Jeremy then applied his artistic talents to adding the make-up and backgrounds to Britney and transforming her into Val, our fearless berserker protagonist from the book.

Other delays to the release of the novel involved illnesses, me dealing with a nasty divorce that stretched almost two years, and mundane things like shifting Jeremy’s release schedule around to release other books that were ready sooner. But finally, the book is out. But will the story continue? That’s up to you.

Lately we’ve had to re-evaluate our release schedule and our choices regarding which books to write first (at last count I had around 90 ideas for novels to write, just on my own). Obviously, money plays a large part in these decisions. Jeremy recently had to shut down or wrap up or even abandon many of his series, as the standalone novels were selling way better than the next novel in the [fill in the blank] series. I’ve looked at my own sales over the years and made choices designed to pay the bills, which is why no one has seen the sequel to Resurrect yet. (I’m now calling it Ice Sheet instead of Frozen, and it should finally see the light of day in 2018, but that’s another story.) So how can you help here? Well, if Viking Tomorrow doesn’t do really well, then we’ll need to adjust the story from a three book saga to just Viking Tomorrow and one sequel. Meaning we’ll need to condense a lot from two books into just one. And if Viking Tomorrow doesn’t make the grade sales-wise, we might even need to cancel any forthcoming sequels and focus on what will help us pay the bills. What we need is for you to share links on social media, and buy the book, and leave a review on Amazon. That simple. Tell people we don’t know about the book, and maybe they will check it out, too. Leave a review saying you liked the book (assuming you did), and more people will be convinced to buy the book.

Me? I’d like to see this series soar. I’d love it if the books sold crazy good, and we needed to go back to Kevin and get more pictures of Britney to use on a second trilogy of books, and I’d love it if Hollywood came knocking to make the films or a TV series, and Britney could be the star of that series, with Kevin getting pulled aboard as an art consultant, too. I’m spreading the word however I can and hoping to keep writing these great characters. So check out the description of the first book and nab a copy at the link below, and please help spread the word.

 

Viking Tomorrow

Book 1 of The Berserker Saga

Jeremy Robinson & Kane Gilmour

 

Description:

The world is barely holding on. A century after a series of apocalyptic events, humanity is struggling to survive. In the frigid north of Scandinavia, people have returned to farming, fishing, and fighting amongst themselves, living as their ancient Viking ancestors once did. But their days in the world are numbered.

The last tattered remnants of humankind have become barren. No new live births have occurred in over a decade. When the remaining population dies, the human race will end.

When a call goes out to the greatest fighters in the North, men capable of surviving a long journey and crushing any obstacle in their path, a young female berserker named Val takes up the challenge. With her eyes hidden behind red-lens goggles, she violently proves her worth, seizes control of a small band of fellow berserkers, and heads south to claim her prize: the first glimmer of hope for a tomorrow.

Traveling deep into the wastes of Europe, surrounded by dangerous landscapes and the mutated creatures that populate them, they find themselves pursued by enemies determined to stop them at all costs. Attacked from without and betrayed from within, Val fights for the future, and if she fails, humanity fails along with her.

Jeremy Robinson and Kane Gilmour imagine a world that has survived multiple apocalyptic events, mixing the savagery of the History Channel’s Vikings with the frenetic chase scenes of Mad Max, resulting in a high-octane battle raging across Europe with the fate of humanity at stake.