After a month of edits and rewrites and lots of red ink from a pair of really good writer friends, Blue Crucible is off to the publisher! As I submitted it, the document sat at around 92,500 words, or 315 double-spaced pages. I have no idea what that will translate into in terms of Kindle pages or the paperback version, but it’s in the realm of a longer novel for the Fallen World series.

The story begins on the day of the fall itself: May 1st, 2067. It follows a mounted police officer trainer as he, his subordinates, and the men and women of numerous visiting police departments fight to restore order to a city spared from direct nuclear attack but still hit with an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to bring down most of the electrical grid and disable most vehicles. Horses will be the main mode of transportation, so it’s a good thing so many mounted officers are gathered together in one spot. And things are going great, until Teledyne and Obsidian – the two Megacorporations responsible for the nuclear exchange that destroyed most of the nation – start a shooting war in the city of Columbia. The officers are ordered to stand down and let the two fight it out, but as civilian casualties rise, how many of the good men and women of the Thin Blue Line are going to just stand by and watch? Not many, that’s for sure.

Expect lots of gunfights, horses, a titanic clash between a Teledyne Specialist and an Obsidian Agent, and regular officers caught in-between as they try to serve and protect.