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All Nick Ashton ever wanted to be was a good cop Dominick Ashton is a rookie cop in the headquarters of Her Majesty's Imperial Police. Unfortunately, in an Empire full of corruption, treason, and upheaval, that's one of the most corrupt organizations of them all. But Ashton is a straight shooter. Can he do the job he's trained to do without perverting his honor, or will crooked cops take him out instead? And what will happen when he's called upon to solve a case for the Empress herself? AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHANIE OSBORNEMPIRE: Imperial Police runs parallel to EMPIRE: Usurper and EMPIRE: Tyrant? Yes. Dominick Ashton has always dreamed of being a detective. He graduates the Imperial Police Academy late in the reign of Ilithyia I, only to find that IPD Headquarters is corrupt. The Imperial Police Trilogy parallels the first six main-plot EMPIRE books, and the end of the trilogy will lead into the next main-plot EMPIRE book. This is another trilogy? Yes. The EMPIRE series is all trilogies. It allows for more story development and more epic story arcs. In this case, it follows Nick Ashton through his entire career in the Imperial Police, with the changes in the Empire as backdrop to the story. This is your second outing in one of Rich Weyand's universes. You seem to enjoy working with him. He and I get along great. He's easy to work with, a great writer, and comes up with some really cool universes and characters. I like his writing in general, and the stories get me caught up in them. It's fun for me to write in them. We both have science backgrounds, we're politically compatible, we both write fast, and we're both pantsers - we don't use outlines. So I don't have to give him an outline for approval. We plotstorm, where we come up with the basic plot concept for the story arc, then he turns me loose. I try to double-check with him before making any big decisions, though. But the really cool thing is, HE LETS ME USE HIS MAIN CHARACTERS! A lot of authors don't let you do that if you're writing in their universe, but Rich does. That means these aren't just side stories, these are part of the big picture, just told from the parallel perspective of a different character. Nick Ashton is the protagonist of this trilogy, yes, but he does interact with the main characters of Rich's trilogies - Bobby, Dee, Amanda, and Saaret. That makes it even more special. So Rich has a light editorial touch? He seems like the sort of person who might be more controlling. Nah. He knows I recognize my responsibility in writing in his universe. I'm honored he trusts me with that responsibility. He doesn't interfere at all. Quite the opposite - every few days I'm bugging him about some idea that I've had, wanting to make sure I remember this or that correctly, or "where is X in the timeline/books?" I want to make sure I am as true to the universe and the characters and HIS vision as I can possibly be. He's drawn me maps from scratch based on what's in his head, hunted up photos to depict what something looks like, all kinds of stuff like that. And then he lets me write it as I see it happening. How long did it take to write EMPIRE: Imperial Police? This book is heavily intertwined with the previous books, particularly EMPIRE: Usurper & EMPIRE: Tyrant. I realized partway into it that I was thinking about the book wrong. It didn't have tension, didn't have drama, because I was thinking about what had come before -- so I had to go back and rethink it. I rewrote some stuff, and came at my plot concept from a different angle. And then it worked. So that added about a month extra, at least a week of which was just thinking. So all told, about three months. Is there an EMPIRE trilogy after the Imperial Police trilogy? Rich is writing The Legacy of Trajan trilogy. After that, he and I are talking about two more trilogies!

'A master of the genre' The TimesThe seventh novel in Anthony Riches' acclaimed Empire sequence brings Marcus Aquila back to Rome, hunting the men who destroyed his family. But the revenge he craves may cost him and those around him dearly.The young centurion's urge to exact his own brutal justice upon the shadowy cabal of assassins who butchered his family means that he must face them on their own ground, risking his own death at their hands.A senator, a gang boss, a praetorian officer and, deadliest of all, champion gladiator Mortiferum - the Death Bringer - lie in wait. The knives are unsheathed, and ready for blood . . .

'A master of the genre' The TimesThe Tungrian auxiliary cohorts return to Hadrian's Wall after their successful Dacian campaign, only to find Britannia in chaos. The legions are overstretched, struggling to man the forts of the northern frontier in the face of increasing barbarian resistance. The Tungrians are the only soldiers who can be sent into the northern wastes, far beyond the long abandoned wall built by Antoninus, where a lost symbol of imperial power of the Sixth Victorious Legion is reputed to await them. Protected by an impassable swamp and hidden in a fortress atop a high mountain, the eagle of the Sixth legion must be recovered if the legion is to survive. Marcus and his men must penetrate the heart of the enemy's strength, ghosting through a deadly wilderness patrolled by vicious huntresses before breaching the walls of the Fang, an all-but-impregnable fort, if they are to rescue the legion's venerated standard. If successful their escape will be twice as perilous, with the might of a barbarian tribe at their heels.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EMPIRE? The Galactic Empire is in a century-long period of decline. Emperor Augustus VI knows it. Ninety years old, he's seen it happen during his lifetime. He wants to stop it. His problem: none of his advisers sees it, and every measure he takes to stop it fails. Historian James Ardmore sees it, too. Researching it has been his life's work. He submits his three-volume analysis for publication, but it's banned by Imperial censors. Gail Burke sees it up close and personal. An Imperial Marine officer, she's been court-martialed for following Imperial regulations. Now she awaits the outcome of an appeal on the charges. Together can they rescue the Empire from collapse? INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND When does this story occur? The blurb says the Empire is in a century-long decline. EMPIRE: Renewal takes place in the middle of the fourth century of the Galactic Era, about three hundred years after Emperor Trajan died. EMPIRE: Succession left the Empire in good shape, with a good ruler, and measures in place to protect the Throne. Three centuries later, the wheels have started to come off. So what happened? As will often happen in good times, people forgot what got them there. Why some traditions were the way they were. They forgot the lessons of the past and stopped doing the things that had made them successful. The end result of that is decline. Sounds depressing. Oh, it is. Which is why I didn't write a book about the decline. I pick up the story when an Emperor who sees what's going on decides to do something about it. To stop the decline. That's where we pick up our story for this trilogy. The blurb mentions the Emperor, the Historian, and the Marine. I take it that's the Marine on the cover? Yes. Captain Gail Anne Burke. She's one of the main characters of the story. Young, beautiful, intelligent, and devoted to the Empire. She plays a critical role. It looks like you have another new cover artist. Yes, Rotwang Studio, which is Luca Oleastri and his partner. They're based in Italy. I've got him doing all three covers for the Renewal Trilogy. And that's a scene from the book? Oh, yes. Captain Burke ends up being in the right place at the right time to cause a little mayhem.

Forty years ago, the Emperor Trajan committed to supporting the Western colonies and not interfering in their politics. But when some colonies fall into tyranny, must he support despotism without intervening? Officially, yes. Unofficially, not so much. The Empress Amanda and Dieter Stauss conspire to overthrow the tyrannies, sending in a mechanized brigade of retired Imperial Marines. Brigadier General Ann Turley (IM, ret) has to figure out how to sneak an armored invasion force onto Julian, overturn the government, and not just kill everyone who gets in her way. For an Imperial Marine, that's a tough assignment. But Section Six sends Paul Gulliver, and he has his own ideas. INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND EMPIRE 13? Where's EMPIRE 10, 11, and 12? We decided to number the EMPIRE series by their internal timeframe. Here are the trilogies, both available and in the works: I - 1,2,3 Domestic AffairsII - 4,5,6 Foreign AffairsIII - 7,8,9 Imperial PoliceIV - 10,11,12 Section SixV - 13,14,15 SuccessionVI - 16,17,18 RenewalVII - 19,20,21 The Department The series of books that follows the Throne are I, II, V, and VI. The series of books that follows the police and investigation activities is III, IV, and VII. So you shouldn't read either of those series out of order, but you can read either in order without reading the other. EMPIRE 10, 11, and 12 will be out the first half of next year. EMPIRE 13 is set quite a while after EMPIRE 6. It begins forty-one years after EMPIRE 6, when Bobby and Amanda are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He's 84 and she's 76, and he's been on the Throne fifty-one years. What's the problem in EMPIRE 13? The Emperor committed to supporting the Western colonies, and also to not interfering in their internal politics. They have to have a plebiscite as to whether to annex to the Empire after fifty years, but that's it. The problem is that a few of those colonies have fallen into tyranny, with the end result that the Emperor is oath-bound to supporting tyranny. He can't like that much, but what can he do? He can't do anything, but he also won't interfere if someone else does. So Dieter Stauss, under urging by Amanda, pulls a Marine brigadier general out of retirement, and her job is to knock over the government of Julian, one of the tyrannies. That sounds like it could get kinetic. With an entire mechanized brigade of retired Imperial Marines? Why, yes. Yes, it does. What's on the cover? Brigadier General Ann Turley (IM, ret) and Paul Gulliver, an Imperial agent with Section Six, standing before an M15 Imperial Marines main battle tank. It's a big tank, about 1.5 times the size of a US M1A2 in each dimension, so about three and a half times the volume of an M1A2.

If you can't stand the heat.... All hell is breaking loose between the Sintaran Empire and the other space nations. Which means Imperial City is a hotbed of the espionage, intrigue and machinations spanning most of human space. Nick Ashton is the guy where the buck stops. But can he and his team prevent the other star nations from making off with state secrets? And who's targeting the Throne?

Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you? Cleaning up the Imperial Police on Sintar turns out to be harder than Nick Ashton thought, when surviving members of the "old guard" infiltrate Headquarters and conspire to kill him and Director Carter in order to take over. But is one of their trusted number part of the conspiracy? Who can they trust? Meanwhile, tensions are rising between other star nations and the Sintaran Empire, and the focal point is Imperial City. Can Ashton and the others eliminate the conspirators before they're eliminated? And can they do it in time to aid the Emperor?

The Council Revolt has started. The Council has struck at the Throne. As the Council plots to place their own candidate on the Throne, a single survivor is dragged out of the fires burning in the Imperial Residence. Hoping to take advantage of the capital's chaos, enemies internal and external move against the Empire. With enemies without and within, can the new ruler hope to save the Sintaran Empire? INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND Some readers were upset at you about the ending to the second book of EMPIRE. Yes, but it was inevitable. The Council would not subside, would not buckle under to the Throne. In fact, they were elevating even looser cannons into their midst to carry the fight to the Throne. And yet, the Throne had to let them strike first, to keep clean hands in the matter. There was only one way that was going to come out. This was planned from the start as a five-book series, right? At least. Five books were rough-plotted before I started. As it shook out, the first three books form a trilogy, the first EMPIRE trilogy. As such, the second book doesn't have a happy ending, which is pretty typical of trilogies. There is at least one more trilogy in the EMPIRE universe. The main character of this book is Robert Allen Dunham? Bobby Dunham. Yes. EMPIRE was always the story of Bobby Dunham, from my very earliest plotting, for reasons that will become abundantly clear in the next trilogy. But if you look back to book 1, to the very beginning of the book, the first person you meet of that next generation is Bobby, out hunting at age fourteen. He is the hero of the series. And he takes the reign name Trajan? Yes. Trajan was the second of Rome's so-called Five Good Emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Trajan was the best of them, the best emperor Rome ever had, and perhaps the best emperor anyone ever had, anywhere. Like Bobby, he was a commoner and a military man, and instituted reforms and kept the peace, even as he suppressed border wars by the simple expedient of winning them. He is Bobby's role model. How long did this book take to write? Thirty-three days, for 80,000 words. That's about 2500 words per day average, which is a pretty comfortable pace for me. I write just about every day. I can have 5500 word days and 500 word days. It depends on how clear the plot right in front of me is. If it's clear, I write about as fast as I can type, until I hit a spot where I can't see what happens next. Then I go stare out the window. So you do make it up as you go along? Yes, absolutely. I often have no clue -- or only a vague idea -- of what is beyond the piece I'm writing at the moment. I had no idea that Amanda Peters existed until I was a quarter of the way into this book. She just came around the corner of the lane in the gardens one day, singing and dancing. It makes it fun and exciting for me to write, and I hope it also makes it fun and exciting to read. The cover continues your use of artist drawings for this series. Yes. Aaron Griffin is the artist once again. He's a tremendously talented artist in the UK. I signed him for the whole series. What's next in EMPIRE? The first book of the second trilogy, tentatively titled EMPIRE: Warlord. This one won't be out in a month, though. I don't see it in my head yet, beyond the gross plot points. I have to think through a lot of military technology, not so I can describe it, but I have to know how it works or I can't write about it. I can't plot around it. Any hints about EMPIRE: Warlord? Let's just say that not everyone is happy about how well the Sintaran Empire is doing under its new management, and leave it at that.

THE REFORMS MUST CONTINUE At the age of twenty-seven, Deanna Dunham Garrity has become the Empress of Sintar, absolute ruler of 150,000 worlds and their 300 trillion inhabitants. She would continue the reforms of her predecessor, but the Imperial Council stands in her way. How intractable will the Council be? How hard are they willing to push back to maintain their graft and corruption? Will the confrontation turn violent? And if it does, will the new Empress and her loyalists be able to prevail against the Council? And what of the Empire? Can even the sweeping Sintaran Empire survive the confrontation? INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND How long did it take to write EMPIRE: Usurper? About 55 days. Normally, I can write a novel in a month or so, averaging 2000 to 2500 words per day. I only averaged 1400 words a day on EMPIRE: Usurper, because it has a lot of moving parts and because I didn't take a month off after completing it. I sort of took my time writing it instead. What's the basic plotline? Deanna becomes Empress of Sintar at age 27. We followed her in the first book, how she was cured of this terrible disease by Imperial medicine, how she got a scholarship to university, and how she became the Empress's assistant in trying to reform the corrupt bureaucracy. She feels she owes, literally, her whole life to the Empire, and she is determined to do right by it. This book follows her efforts to continue and step up her predecessor's reforms, against the plotting and machinations of the bureaucracy. Does the confrontation between Throne and Council turn violent? Yes, and that's all I'll say about it. Major spoilers are possible. Is there anything controversial in EMPIRE: Usurper? We would find their justice system strange. They have police, and courts, and rights of evidence, trial by jury, and all the rest, just as most Western countries do. That is the system of low justice. But the sovereign, in this case the Empress, also has a system of high justice. She can find anyone guilty of crimes against the Throne. She is judge, jury, and executioner. That is likely to be strange for someone raised on Western values. What about the cover? That's another incredible original artwork by Aaron Griffin, an exceptional young artist in the UK I found via the net. It depicts Deanna -- now the Empress Ilithyia II -- on the day of her coronation. The storm clouds gathering behind her are emblematic of the coming conflict. What comes next in EMPIRE? The Throne strikes back against the Council. The Throne must prevail for the Empire to survive.

Ruling over the vast bureaucracy of the Sintaran Empire is the Imperial Council. It's only check: The Empress, whose every decree is binding law. The corruption of the bureaucracy has reached staggering proportions when a true reformer ascends to the Throne. She has a long-term plan to reform the Empire. But can the new Empress and her young allies succeed? And at what cost? AN INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND Is EMPIRE part of the Childers Universe, or a completely new series? EMPIRE is a completely new series. I wrote myself out of a job in Childers. Jan Childers solves the interstellar war problem, so life gets much less interesting from a novelist's point of view. The Childers books start a few hundred years in the future, and span about three hundred years. EMPIRE is likely a thousand years or so in the future, and spans only about thirty years across all five planned books. What are the core technologies underlying the science in EMPIRE? Fully immersive virtual reality is here. I think direct neural VR is virtually a certainty. Hyperspace is here as well, although it works differently than in the Childers Universe. I need hyperspace to have interstellar travel while not violating normal-space physics, but it's only a one-layer hyperspace, not the multi-layered hyperspace of Childers. Finally, EMPIRE has quantum-entanglement radios, which allows something like the Web across the entire EMPIRE. Real-time connectivity. So you can stream video across light years in real time. Are you doing something new here with plotting? Yes. Childers grew organically. I didn't have five books in mind at the start. I didn't even know if Childers was going to be novel-length. I just started writing. Each book in the series was planned after the last book was done. For EMPIRE, I had a five-book story arc laid out before I started this first book. So what's the grand scheme? Well, without getting into spoilers, the five-book arc is the story of Robert Allan Dunham. I can't say any more without major spoilers. This first book is the story of how Bobby Dunham, his sister Dee, and their friends grow up and ally with the Empress to reform a hugely corrupt Imperial bureaucracy. The cover blurb says the Empire is 150,000 planets and 300 trillion human beings. That's a huge scale. Yes, but it's still a human story. If you had told someone in 1000 AD that in 2000 AD there would be cities with twenty million people in them, countries with over a billion people, and seven billion people on Earth, they would have thought you were crazy. Even Rome at the height of its power had a population of barely a million. So there are lots of planets, and lots of people, but the human story is still about what does this person do, how does this person's life unfold, against this bigger backdrop. How did EMPIRE write? Was it fast? EMPIRE: Reformer is 88000 words and took 44 days to write, so about 2000 words a day. That includes non-writing days. I take off one day a week even in mid-novel, and sometimes I have to take a day off to rake leaves or something. I usually write about 2500 words per writing day, and that maintained through this book. What about the cover? That's a departure for you. For the Childers books, I used photography of real people. I have seen a lot of book covers that were artwork, and the characters often just weren't real to me. They weren't human, but more like a detailed cartoon. Lifeless. But I found a wonderful artist on-line, Aaron Griffin in England. Even very raw sketches from him catch the humanity of his subject, like a pencil drawing could just start talking to you. They're alive. He's a terrific young talent, and I contracted with him for the five-book series.

A DEADLY NEW PLOT AGAINST THE THRONE! Two assassination attempts against the Throne have failed spectacularly in the last five years. One by Sector Governor Piotr Shubin and the other by the plutocratic ruling families of the old Democracy of Planets. All that has resulted from the families' failed attempt to assassinate Empress Arsinoe is the families' spies being caught, the families' allies being recruited to the Throne, and much of the families' wealth being confiscated. So the plutocratic ruling families of the old Democracy of Planets hatch a new, simpler plan to overthrow the Empire. Nuke Imperial City! Troy Donahue and Travis Geary race to find and disable the nuke, while the Emperor and Empress contemplate a draconian final solution to the plutocrat families. AN INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND The plutocrats plan to nuke Imperial City? As a rather spectacular means of assassination. Yes. It has the additional benefit of destroying much of the structure of the Imperial government as well. They hope to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. Doesn't Imperial City have protections against bombardment? Of course. So their plan is more subtle: smuggle a nuke into the city. A ten-megaton ship-to-ship warhead doesn't have to be in the Imperial Palace to accomplish their goals. Close counts with nuclear weapons, particularly big ones. They'll kill at least fifty million people in the capital, and tens or hundreds of trillions will die in the ensuing chaos and civil war, but they don't care, as long as they can grab power. So the bad guys are the plutocrats once again. Who are the good guys this time? The Co-Consul and his wife, the Imperial Investigations Office, the Zoo, the Imperial Marines and the Imperial Police are all here. The Department, of course, and Pitney, Donahue, Odom, and Dickens are back. And some Imperial Marine Academy cadets - Travis Geary, Nathan Benton, and their friend Sean Boyle - step in to play a surprising role. Assuming the immediate threat is overcome, what is the Throne's solution to these repeated attempts? One solution is to kill them all, all billion or so descendants of the original plotters against the Emperor Trajan. But an opportunity presents itself to adopt a more subtle solution, and Burke shows her growing finesse and wisdom as a ruler. What's next for EMPIRE? Stephanie Osborn in working on the Section Six Trilogy - EMPIRE books #10, #11, and #12 - and there is a possibility for her to write the Department Trilogy, about Pitney, Donahue, Dickens, and Odom. That would be EMPIRE books #19, #20, and #21. Then I think EMPIRE is complete. What's next for you, then? I'm working up a new universe, a new series, called Galactic Survey. It's about one way humanity might get to the stars.

Robert Allen Dunham IV, the Emperor Trajan, is dead. Daniel Whittier Parnell, the Heir to the Throne, is three weeks' spacing away. In the interregnum, renegade sector governors advance their own candidate for the Throne, Provence Sector Governor Jerome Goulet. The Galactic Empire hovers on the brink of civil war. Amanda Peters comes up with a daring plan to save the Empire, while putting the proper Heir on the Throne. Ann Turley, Paul Gulliver, Marie Louise Bouchard and Dieter Stauss conspire with Peters to carry out her plan, under the very nose of the would-be Emperor. Once more, the fate of the Empire hangs on Amanda's insight and cunning in her most high-stakes move of all! INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND So this is the conclusion of another trilogy? Yes. The EMPIRE series is constructed as a series of trilogies. While each individual book has an ending, in that the conflict that is the major feature of that book is resolved, the big story arcs are completed in the third volume of each trilogy. Each trilogy includes enough background that it can be read on its own, independent of the other trilogies in the series, though I think the best experience is to read them all through. And what is the big story arc of this trilogy? The aging Emperor. It's not much of a spoiler, given the cover illustration and the title, that Emperor Trajan dies at the opening of this third book. The big problem is that the Heir to the Throne is over a thousand light-years away, on Garland. It will take him three weeks to get back, which is more than enough time for people to cause trouble. Who are the movers and shakers in this book? The good guys are all people we've met before. Amanda Peters, the Emperor's widow; Daniel Parnell, the Heir to the Throne; Marie Louise Bouchard and her mother, Marena Prieto; and Ann Turley and Paul Gulliver, the Section Six agents. The bad guys are new to this book. Amanda Peters is how old in this book? How big of a role does she play? She's 88 years old at the beginning of EMPIRE: Succession. I hadn't expected Amanda to play that large a role when I started the book, but she was right there in the Imperial Palace, had the loyalty of the staff, and felt a personal responsibility to see Bobby's preferred Heir on the Throne. Between that and her understanding of people and power, she was the obvious character to be the ringleader of the plan to install the rightful Heir without causing a civil war. With this trilogy concluded, what's next for EMPIRE? The next trilogy is another one from me, the Renewal Trilogy. A couple hundred years after EMPIRE: Succession, the Empire is deteriorating. Spiraling into decline. Why is that, and can the sitting Emperor save the situation? After that, it's at least one trilogy from Stephanie Osborn. Empire 10, 11, and 12 is the Section Six trilogy. It continues the story of Nick Ashton as he sets up and runs the Emperor's private intelligence operation. That will fill in the gap we left in the numbering scheme. And these will continue coming out on a monthly basis? That's the plan. We'll see if we can pull it off.