Monday, July 11, 2011

About Mr. Was




Mr. Was, published in 1996, was my first “young adult” novel. Although not conceived as a novel for teens, when I finished writing the book I discovered that the main character, Jack Lund, was a teenager for most (but not all) of the story. This happened more or less by accident. Mr. Was is a time travel story. It covers much of Jack Lund’s life, and it happened that his experiences as a teen made for better storytelling.




Since then, Mr. Was has been through several editions. At this time, it is available in mass market paperback for $6.99. That is about to change. In a few months, a new trade paperback (large format) edition of Mr. Was will become available for $8.99, replacing the smaller mass market version. It will have a cool new cover design, and will include several minor corrections to the original text.



The timing of this reissue is fortuitous. The Obsidian Blade, the first book in my sci-fi trilogy, The Klaatu Diskos, will be released in April, 2012. The Obsidian Blade employs several of the concepts first developed for Mr. Was, and although it is not a “sequel” in the usual sense (the characters and settings are all different), I nevertheless think of it as a continuation.

Some people say that Mr. Was is my best book.  I do not agree, but I will say that during the writing process, Mr. Was surprised me in ways that none of my other books have.



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