Author's Word - The Defenseless

   It is a special pleasure for me to publish this novel. It is my first, and thus it has been rejected most times by established publishers…

   This is the very first book of ten (or eleven) in the Janus Clan series:

   Ten stories (or so) about the wild man in the modern world, forty years of wandering before the Phoenix is rising from its ashes.

   It usually takes me about ten years to complete a book, from start to the final finishing touch. But with The Defenseless it has taken me thirty-seven years. It has been a long, long Journey, from the moment I first glimpsed the story in my fevered dreams when I was twelve.

   My first version was about 50 000 words. I quickly grew dissatisfied with that one. My second was about 150 000 words. The main difference between those, written in the late seventies and early eighties, and this, final one is that I know more, now, much more, about everything, and that I’ve learned to write dialogue. The dialogue in the two first versions sucked, quite frankly. I have strived to keep the original mood, though, the fact that the story was originally written by a teenager, which is manifesting in a number of ways. It’s the same story, in spite of the minor and major changes in approach when it comes to telling it. I also remember it all, the context and my state of mind when I wrote it.

   This book is very different from all others I’ve written, even different considering that I always strive to make each new book I write different from the previous, to always and passionately seek new ground. I see that in every sentence, every paragraph, perspective and inclination.

   Ted isn’t me, even if he is fairly close, at least in some aspects, and all major characters I write or wrote are usually both demonic and idealistic versions of myself. Like any writer and artist I use what I experience and observe, both good and bad.

   This novel is me, like every story I tell is me.

   1977

   1982

   2003

   One Sherwood Forest 2010-06-16

   The Sherwood Forest isn’t a place, but a state of mind.

  

  

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   Amos Keppler's stories, poems, music and art published on the web. 99 percent of everything published on the Midnight Fire Arena is done by him.