Like most authors, I rue the 1 and 2 star reviews. This book is FREE everywhere and someone gave it 1 star after reading 4% of the book which is like three and a half pages. This seems unfair because three and a half pages barely sets the first scene in the story! A couple other people implied that it didn’t feel like a whole story.
So I asked my go-to critical reader to help me figure out what is wrong. She had been unavailable when Dagger was due to release. She pointed out that Dagger’s story was more of an epilogue to the series, and specifically Axel Rex.
Somewhere in the middle of writing it, I realized the series had come to a point where civilization was well on its way to revival within Enclave territories. Most of the conflict that made the stories interesting, had been resolved. Yet, I wanted to resolve Dagger’s fate as it was left hanging after the incident that ‘killed’ him. This is how the novella essentially became a long epilogue for the series.
I made it free, hoping it would draw the new readers to go back and read the rest of the series. The plan was partially successful, but the way I presented it in the blurb apparently lead new readers to expect more than it was meant to be. So, made a few small revisions in the story and revised the blurb i.e. the description seen below.
I am considering a spin off series set in the same time period but outside the reclaimed Enclave territory with cyborgs helping people as they find them. That’s one of the things I have on the back burner.
New Dagger Blurb
Dagger Jack is a spinoff novella about a peripheral character introduced in Axel Rex. He was left clinically dead with catastrophic injuries sustained in an ambush by rogue cyborgs.
When he was awakened at the cyborg production facility south of Chicago, his life was mapped out for him. After he helped rebuild a city and a starport destroyed during an interstellar war, he would become a Protector in one of the rural communities reclaimed from the overlords in the east.
When he awakens the second time, he doesn’t want to be a protector. Just before he went down, he scented his female. He wants to go back to find her before he has fully recovered.
He was made for war but only her love would make him whole again.
Note: This book can be read as a standalone, but reading the previous books in the series will enhance reading this story.