The Clone Empire

Penning my author’s notes is one of my favorite parts of the book-writing process because it gives me a chance to create a snapshot of my work. Snapshots are interesting anomalies. They do not explain the past or give a hint of what lies ahead; they simply describe the moment. Look at a photograph of John F. Kennedy stepping off the plane in Dallas, and you see a young, handsome politician with a promising future. There is nothing to indicate that tragedy looms ahead.

Today is Thursday, March 25, 2010. I have just completed the first round of revisions of The Clone Empire. You, looking backward in time, are holding the book that from my perspective must still undergo another round of revisions.

I finished my rewrite at 7:23 P.M. and plan to go to sleep early this evening as I will begin work on a young-adult novel early tomorrow morning. I am also nearly halfway through the first draft of The Clone Redemption, book seven in the Wayson Harris saga.

And there is more good news. Chris and Ed, two of my closest friends, are getting married in a few days. I am traveling to attend their wedding. Two days after I come home from the wedding, I will fly to Hawaii to teach at a college. I will return home in June, just in time for my daughter’s high-school graduation.

Needless to say, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen so much excitement around the Kent household.

So, a few words about the writing of The Clone Empire, the novel I am just now putting to bed.

It is fitting that the first Double Y clone to speak in this book bears the name Kit Lewis, because in a very real way, the Double Y clones were his idea. The real Kit Lewis is one of the regulars on my Sad Sam’s Palace website. As I was writing The Clone Betrayal, he wrote in to ask if perhaps the reason Wayson Harris was so tough was because the scientists who created Liberators used two Y chromosomes instead of an X and a Y.

The idea had never occurred to me, but I liked it. And so, as my way of saying thank you, I had Harris beat Kit’s literary effigy to mush, then I had Ray Freeman shoot him in the head, then I had him frozen, stripped, and autopsied.

Thanks, Kit. No good deed goes unpunished, eh.

I have other people I need to thank as well. As always, the lovely and talented Anne at Ace made all the difference with this book. When I first submitted The Clone Empire, I wrote the epilogue from the point of view of Captain Hironobu Takahashi. All of my test readers loved the concept once I explained it to them; but that was only after they asked, “Why is Harris going by the name Takahashi?”

Since the rest of the book was told from Wayson’s perspective, switching heads created confusion. Anne found a solution, of course. Tell the epilogue from the third-person perspective. Duh!

The lovely and talented Rachel Johnson also helped with this novel. She always does; and, as always, I appreciate her help.

As of this snapshot, this will be the penultimate installment in the Harris saga. I am eternally grateful to the kind folks at Ace Books for publishing my novels; and I am equally grateful to you for reading them.

Steven L. Kent