Regaining Home: The Final Novel of the Redemption Trilogy
Posted on February 1, 2013 by Flames
The long-delayed conclusion to the Redemption Trilogy — in which four heroes face their world’s most dangerous villain.
In 2006, White Silver Publishing released Into the Reach, the first novel of the Redemption Trilogy. In 2007, Departure followed. Soon after, White Silver folded, and the third book, Regaining Home, was never published. A draft of the manuscript is complete but was never finished.
In 2010, White Silver released the rights to publish the novels back to Alana Abbott, and now Alana — with the team of editor extraordinaire Shawn Merwin and amazing artist Lindsay Archer — is making plans to finish Regaining Home for release as an e-book.
The Kickstarter budget includes the following:
Original Art: Lindsay Archer has agreed to produce an original front cover painting for Regaining Home.
Editing: Shawn Merwin is again on board to edit — and make awesome — the manuscript by Alana.
Re-writing: Alana Abbott will be revamping the original manuscript to improve it prior to sending it to Shawn Merwin for editing.
Publishing: Once all the other steps are complete, Alana Abbott will format and design the e-book editions, in multiple formats, for Regaining Home.
Find out more information and support this project at Kickstarter.com!
Tags | dark-fantasy
Thanks so much for getting the word out!
I helped fund this kickstarter and ended up extremely dissatisfied.
While abiding by the letter of the kickstarter rules, she definitely failed to uphold the intent. Namely a “good faith” effort to go forward with the backer reward.
When I discovered the vignette had a tiny word count as compared to the story reward and was told that my prompt could not possibly be completed, I noted my surprise and feeling that the vignette had been misrepresented. I should note, that having taken the time to look at the definition of a standard vignette again, I’m beginning to wonder if this response was in fact an outright lie, particularly after having consulted other authors and been assured that some version of what I wanted could have been completed within the limitations of a vignette.
She offered to alter my backer reward to correct this and I suggested I provide additional monetary compensation to qualify for the story level as this would seem to correct the issue. She then came up with additional problems with the prompt and noted she could no longer change backer rewards via kickstarter/amazon. I suggested another method such as paypal/check (as other kickstarters had done in the past) and corrected my prompt to address all of her objections.
Instead of making it clear that she was unwilling to accept other methods of providing monetary compensation aside from kickstarter/amazon so I could decide if I wanted to try and work within the confines of the vignette as she saw it, she summarily ended the conversation because of my lack of interest in another reward and refunded my money. Her last communication projected an intent to avoid doing the work at all rather than making a good faith effort to complete it. In other words she attempted a “bait and switch.” Presenting two options that would have provided little to no additional effort on her part rather than the comparatively time consuming project she had originally offered.
When she complained over aspects of the original prompt, I altered it to address all of her stated concerns, even when she argued that a short story could not be anything but fiction (despite the plethora of works that exist simultaneously in both the non-fiction and short story categories). It was not until the end when she made clear that the purpose was not to work with me to get a backer reward that fulfilled my desires within its stated intent, but to force another reward down my throat so that she would not have to make a good faith effort to complete a difficult job that she had advertised and accepted.
When writing to the public, she made a show of willing to do her “best to accomodate” genres, her preference that she have a character type to work with and examples giving those characters motivations, and complete openness as far as setting so long as the material was rated PG13 and under. When presented with a topic she was unwilling to complete, she attempted to obfuscate this fact with fake helpfulness and problems with the prompt structure. When this was dealt with, realizing she had no grounds for refusing, she summarily dropped the project, dashing my hopes and wasting both our time and effort.
As to the job itself, I asked her to write about an event in my life that I find confusing and she already has knowledge of in the hopes that I would find her story illuminating. There is no breach of privacy, the parties involved insisted they were straightforward and I have all the information I need. However, because she found the topic difficult, she chose not to rise to the challenge of attempting to portray the interrelationships between people and the failures that sometimes occur. Given the wording of her guidelines and the apparent intent: to challenge her as a writer to write about things a reader might like to see in an attempt to improve herself and challenge her limits, I find this an odd and unfortunately cowardly response. Her guidelines could have produced far more uncomfortable but still interesting pieces. Hitler’s speech after winning World War II, a soldier taking part in genocide tracking down civilians, a boy at the funeral of his mother, or any of a number of topics that could be done without entering into the R category. All with opportunities to show character types and create mood in ways that may challenge her.
Perhaps it was because she had intended to publish the vignettes/stories later, and didn’t wish to do so about people she knew. Then it would have been reasonable to suggest changing the names of the characters to conceal identities, but this objection was never raised. Perhaps she thought by removing the one vignette requested she would be able to dodge the extra work of making that vignette available to the other backers as well. I don’t know I can only give my opinion based on her actions, and as near as I can tell, she was unwilling to live up to her promise and did her best to avoid her responsibility.
I would complain to Kickstarter, but given that kickstarter has historically done a poor job of holding people accountable, I am following the example of other dissatisfied customers and complaining on other places on the internet. While I do appreciate having my money refunded, I do feel it my duty to note the appalling failure of customer service in that last e-mail, not to mention warning others of the emotional letdown and wasted effort they are likely to suffer when buying her products.
The prompt guidelines as sent out to show I am not taking them out of context:
Connections: If you’re looking for a short story that features any of the characters or settings I’ve written before (whether in an anthology piece or from the novels — or even from my games!), let me know, and we can skip the rest of the details. If not:
Genre: What style of story or snippet do you want? I am strongest in fantasy or urban fantasy, but I’m happy to work with superheros, science fiction, light horror, Western, space/weird Western, or pulp adventure. Mystery or other unlisted genres will be more of a challenge for me, but I’ll certainly do my best to accommodate!
Setting: Where and when would you like the story or snippet to take place? This can be as vague as “long ago in a land far far away” or as specific as Detroit in the 1950s.
Characters: I would prefer if you gave me a character type to work with here. Ideas like “female superhero trying to get into a superteam” or “young swordfighter trying to prove his mettle” give me a better idea of the type of story that you want than a name and physical description.