boeklogboek: One question for Jean Johnson.

As you perhaps already know, I am a big fan of Jean Johnson’s Theirs Not To Reason Why series, a psychic military sci-fi series (reviews can be found on my blog). I have also read and enjoyed all the books in the Sons of Destiny series, which is paranormal/fantasy romance, and the books related to that world.

I just finished reading The Tower, the first book in the Guardians of Destiny, and liked it very much. The book is related to the Sons of Destiny series, and I have pre-ordered the second book, called The Grove, which will be out in December. The third book, called The Guild will be published in May 2014.

I can hardly wait for Hellfire though, which is the third book in the Theirs Not To Reason Why series, which will be published on July 30. And the fourth book called Damnation will be out in August 2014.

Hellfire: The third book in the Theirs Not to Reason Why series, to be published July 30, 2013.

Her story began in the national bestsellers A Soldier's Duty and An Officer's Duty. Now Ia is captain and commander at the helm of Hellfire, where she is finally free to chart the course for the fulfilment of her destiny…
As captain, Ia must now assemble a crew that can rise to the ultimate challenge of saving the galaxy. The hardest part will be getting them to believe her, to trust in her prophecies. If they don't, her own crew will end up being the biggest obstacle in her race against time.
The Salik are breaking through the Blockade, plunging the known galaxy into war. Ia cannot stop it this time, nor does she want to. This is the terrible price she has seen all along—that some must pay with their lives so that others might live. Now only time itself can prove whether each member of her crew is merely a soldier or truly one of Ia's Damned.

There is a lot of information on Jean’s website, but I would love to let Jean tell us more about her upcoming books and series.

Aurian: Hi Jean, can you please tell me and my readers what your plans are for the future? How many books have you planned for Ia, any spin offs in the works? I have already named those that are scheduled so far, but what are you working on at the moment, what have you finished that is not published yet, are there even more genres you want to try?

Jean: Hi, Aurian. My plans for the future involve lots and lots of books. No, really. The series with Ia, Theirs Not To Reason Why, will have 4 books in it, so DAMNATION will be the last in that series. I do have plenty of other tales to tell in that universe, however, including what will happen three hundred years down the road when Ia’s biggest prophecies start coming true. But before I can get to that series, I’ve been asked by Ginjer (editor-in-chief at Ace Books) to fill in some of the backstory of this universe, so my next science fiction series will actually go back in time to about two hundred years before Ia’s era.

That’s the story of when the Terrans reached out into space, made First Contact with the Salik, met up with the V’Dan, and realized, “What the heck—these people are Humans??” and the V’Dan will also get the shock of their lives. The series isn’t yet under contract, but I know it’ll be a triology, a first-contact/political novel following the Terrans’ reactions, a similar first-contact/political novel following the V’Dan reactions, and then the third novel will be focused on the fallout of what later generations (Ia’s era) will come to call the First Salik War.

On top of all this, as you pointed out, I have a new fantasy romance series going, the Guardians of Destiny. Like the Sons of Destiny series, there will be eight books all told; the first four are under contract, and I’ll be taking a little break to work on The First Salik War series (tentative name for it) before working on the last four books in the Guardians set.

At the same time—oh yes, I’m double-booked for the foreseeable future!—I will be writing and launching a straight-to-ebook (to be followed by printed versions) with Ace/Roc, and it will be pure high fantasy. It’s based off the universe in which I put one of my fantasy romance short stories, “Birthright” in the ELEMENTAL MAGIC multi-author anthology, but will be pretty much straight fantasy for its genre.

The Flame Sea series will be a bit different from the others, as it will be an open-ended series. I have enough stories sketched out for easily a dozen tales, with a timeline spanning thousands of years of history. The first three novels are currently titled DAWN OF THE FLAME SEA, GODS OF THE FLAME SEA, and DEMONS OF THE FLAME SEA. These will also be about half the length of my usual novels, but I’ll still be packing them with all my favorite bits of adventure, world-building, character development, and other fun stuff.

And somewhere in there...somewhere, I need to squeeze out a few more short stories in the Vulland Chronicles, my free-to-read steampunky universe found on my website, www.JeanJohnson.net The paid-to-write-it stuff has to come first, of course, but I still have plenty of plans for the VC universe, never fear!

As for any other genres...whoo...hmm... Fantasy romance, high fantasy, first contact science fiction, military science fiction, steampunk fiction... Looks like I’m a bit full-up on my schedule all the way to nearly the end of 2014. Ask me again next year, maybe? My plot-bunnies have a distressing habit of mutating and breeding, so anything’s possible.

Aurian: Wow, I love this news, I am looking forward to reading whatever you will write in the future, thank you Jean for taking the time for this interview.

If you want to know more about Jean and her books, you can find her here:
Twitter: @JeanJAuthor
Website: here
Facebook: here