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If you read The Ocoda Chronicles years ago, I want you to know something: the books you read then are not quite the books available today.

Over the years, I've continued working on this series. I've gone back through the books, revised the writing, corrected problems, improved the presentation, and remastered the series while preserving the characters, story, and universe that made The Ocoda Chronicles what it is.

Some of you have been with Caleb and his family almost from the beginning. You...

For years, the scenes in The Ocoda Chronicles existed in two places: in my imagination and in the imagination of the people reading the books.

I knew what I saw when I wrote them. I could picture the ships, the corridors, the alien worlds, and the characters moving through them. But I've always wondered what my readers saw.

That's one of the things I love about books. I can describe a scene, but once you read it, part of it belongs to you. You supply the faces, the sounds, the movement, and all...

People sometimes ask me what The Ocoda Chronicles is really about. They see the spaceships, the battles, the alien civilizations, and the technology. Those are the exciting parts, but they aren't the reason I spent decades writing this series.

The reason is much simpler.

I wanted to give my children heroes.

When I was growing up, my father died when I was nine years old. My mother did everything she could to provide for us, but she also carried burdens of her own. Much of her life revolved...

I Never Learned to Write. I Learned to Tell Stories.

If you ask me where I learned to write, the honest answer is simple: nowhere.

I've never taken a college writing course. I've never sat in a classroom where someone explained plot structure, character arcs, or the "correct" way to build a novel. No professor handed me a diploma that said I was qualified to write fiction.

Everything I've learned has come from decades of trial and error.

For nearly thirty years, I've studied stories the only way...

Why Ronin Will Always Be Special to Me

Every author has one book that feels different.

For me, that book is Ronin.

When I began writing The Ocoda Chronicles, I always knew where the story was headed. Paladin introduced the universe. Lost Heroes expanded it. But from the very beginning, I knew there would come a point where everything changed.

That point is Ronin.

This is where the series stops being the story of one man and becomes the story of a family, a legacy, and generations of people whose...