Excellent news! I've been really enjoying the series.
One question, though, is there an overarching plan for the series? Or is it mostly a series of utterly unrelated stories on the same theme?
Simon Painter
Shropshire, UK
Great question. I think it's inevitable now that there is some progressive thread through the stories. Initially, back before Escape Pod was even a glint in Steve's eye, there were five short stories that led to a full length novel -
Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw
Heart and Souls
Off White Lies
Freedom's Burden
The Deep End
Of these stories only two have appeared at Escape Pod from this original list, Iron Bars and Off-White Lies, though I've submitted all but one of them, "Freedom's Burden". "Heart and Souls" has been completely rewritten now as "Send in the Clowns", "The Deep End" was rewritten as "A Handshake, A Gold Watch, A Candle" and Freedom's Burden is being rewritten now.
The point of the stories was to lead to the novel where a billionaire industrialist decides to eliminate the Union as his first step in seizing the US Government. He nearly succeeds. The Novel follows the characters from the Miami Pyramid, who appear fully in A Handshake, A Gold Watch, A Candle, and the main characters from Freedom's Burden, as well as a few sympathetic normals, and of course, a real, honest to goodness villain.
Now, however, in the intervening years and as the series as become so popular here at Escape Pod, I've changed or edited the stories to add more pre-novel chaos to the series. The novel will more than likely be cannibalized for more short stories later, but who knows. It's third person, and reads very strangely compared to the shorts. I don't think fans of the series would dig the change in presentation in the novel for that reason.
Anyway, the way I have set up the series now, there are 10 stories in the "Union Dues" series. These are
Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw (Megaton in jail, features Darksider as a cameo)
Off-White Lies (Nova, the Luminary, creates a villain team led by Emerald Blaze. Ultra Magnus and Johnny Proton make cameo appearances)
A Handshake, A Gold Watch, A Candle (Johnny Proton and Titanica deal with Ultra Magnus' festering madness, i.e. the flip side to Off-White Lies)
The Baby and the Bathwater (Kinetic Girl recruits the baby. Darksider makes a cameo appearance)
Cleanup in Aisle 5 (Skeleton Steele has a bad day at Super Mall Mart. Titanica makes a cameo appearance)
Send in the Clowns (Jenny Chrome makes a laughing stock out of the Union. Megaton and Darksider are secondary characters. Skeleton Steele makes cameo appearance)
All That We Leave Behind (Tim Armstrong manifests and makes a deal with Megaton)
The Time of our Lives (Spoonbender is drummed out of the Union for incompetence. Jenny Chrome is a secondary character as is Tim Armstrong)
Tabula Rasa (Captain Colossal loses his memory following a horrific injury. Skeleton Steele is a secondary character. This is the only story told from the POV of a normal)
All About the Sponsors (A Luminary dies. The remaining Luminaries must now set the course for the Union, this story flashes back to the creation of The Union in the 1950s)
The original series is supposed to end with "All About the Sponsors". This story tells the origin of the Union as the death of a Luminary threatens to expose decades of buried deception to the general public. Of these ten stories the only one that may not survive is Tabula Rasa, I wrote it seven different times from seven different angles and I just can't make the damn thing work. I've also pulled most of the ethical stuff from that as padding for the second series of stories so it's sort of moot. If I was to make all of these truly stand-alone it would be very difficult to maintain reader/listener interest as I'd have to constantly re-intruduce concepts, rules, and jargon that is used in each story leaving less and less time for the actual story. I'd also run the risk of having to write almost nothing but origin stories, and no one wants that. The reason that so many characters appear in each others stories is that it helps set a linear timeline without truly serializing the series.
For example, in A Handshake, A Gold Watch, A Candle, Titanica is punished for her sexual relationship with Johnny Proton and transferred to Salt Lake City. She shows up in the jet during Cleanup in Aisle 5 because she is in transit to Salt Lake City. It's a way for me to keep track of the events that tie the stories loosely together and therefore maintain some semblance of continuity. Darksider's appearances lead to his final showing in All About the Sponsors, but by then he's a changed character and when the true history of the Union is revealed, deals with it completely differently than he would have if the revelations happened in Iron Bars. His character has the most cameos and he is meant to represent the audience's growing jaded attitude towards the Union and its leadership.
Finally, without being able to reflect on some measure of the past events in the past stories, or foreshadow something in the future, like, for example, the dissolusion of the Union, there would be less reason to listen to them. The stories are carefully written to avoid being a serial though, and can, for the most part, be enjoyed as stand alone tales, but to really enjoy the scope of the series hearing all the stories makes for a more well defined and thorough experience.
You coul also think of the first ten stories like a game of Jenga, and each story is another piece of the Union that's taken out. By the tenth story the whole Union is ready to collapse.
"Freedom's Burden" will become a transition story leading to a five story set called, loosely, "The Team Shikaragaki Stories", the first of which, "The Ballad of Kitty Momoiro" is already in final draft.
The first ten stories doesn't mean I won't go back and write more within that particular time frame of the universe, but I am concentrating now on the personal stories in the second series, which will bring a much more intimate dimension to the UD universe.
And hey, don't tell anyone, but Union Dues might even be a TV show in a year or two!
