It was in October of 2016 that I published my science fiction novel, Icon-Violet. That’s about 4 years ago, but it feels a lot further back than that. Still, if you’ve written a novel you probably know that the details of these things never really disappear. After three drafts and countless edits, Icon-Violet got rooted pretty deeply in my mind.
When writing the book, I had an entire series plotted out, a saga that would span six novels in total. But even before I’d finished the first entry, I was aware it would be a long time before I’d get back to it. The realities of self-publishing meant that Icon-Violet was unlikely to get much attention and it made a lot more sense to move onto projects that had a better chance of taking off. Indeed, though the book is probably the best-reviewed of any of my work, it mostly only managed to reach a select few.
Well, here we are in 2020 and I’ve never really stopped thinking about the potential sequels for the series. With the upcoming launch of my new video project, Content Lit, I thought it was as good a time as any to apply some updates to Icon-Violet that have been taking up some brain space for far too long.
Yep, I’ve gone and done a George Lucas.
If you’re to buy a copy of Icon-Violet today, it will actually be a second edition in which I’ve made some adjustments to the original text.
As the years have gone by, I might not have published anything else in the Icon-Spectrum universe, but I’ve been forever at work figuring out some kinks in the world-building. Essentially, there are one or two elements I’d like to introduce in the sequels. It felt a little inelegant to introduce these elements out of the blue, so I used my captain’s prerogative to foreshadow them in the original novel’s text.
So what does this mean for readers who already own a copy of Icon-Violet? Do the people who gave it such kind reviews have to read it again? Nope. I can update you right here:
To put it simply, I just added an extra layer to the conformity schema system (the platform that ensures each person in the Participant Expansion is held to such a high standard of good behaviour.) Originally, I thought it was important that the Participant Expansion government should be run entirely by humans. While I recognised it would be near impossible for them to successfully develop their centuries-long plans without the assistance of some extremely advanced AI, I omitted to mention any such program so that I could emphasise that the most important decisions were being made by people, not computers. However, as time has gone by, I’ve developed some really intriguing ideas of how to play with the tension between humanity and the technology they utilise.
As such, the latest version of Icon-Violet now includes a scattering of references to something called the Principal Intelligence. It doesn’t change the story in any way. In fact, it’s barely established what it is. The Icon-Violet new fans are set to discover is almost exactly the same as the old one, though I’ll admit I succumbed to another temptation that George Lucas did and tidied up some other minor details while I was in there…
Get Your Copy of the New Icon-Violet
If you’re a completionist, I do encourage you to check out the updated version. And if you haven’t read Icon-Violet before, now is the perfect time to jump in: if all goes well in the next few months the Icon-Spectrum saga might continue a lot sooner than even I would have expected.
Buy Icon-Violet on Amazon in ebook and Paperback formats
