In November 2005, for National Novel Writing Month, I came up with the concept of Array Wars—a "Star Wars/Matrix parody crossover" novel. Over the next few years (finally completing the story in early 2013) I wrote three novels, a complete trilogy which left a few threads hanging to allow me to pick it back up if I wished.
I had a lot of fun writing it, and everybody who read it seemed to like it. I was happy with what I'd managed to produce—a pop-culture-heavy mish-mash of characters and situations plucked from a bunch of different science fiction universes, with a few original characters thrown in for good measure—and while it was certainly not publishable, I did get it printed up in paperback for distribution to friends and family. I had ebooks available here, for download. Those novels—a few copies, at least—exist, out in the world.
Except. Except they are problematic. Some of the cheap humour (mostly in, but not limited to, the character names) is sexist, racist, and homophobic.
As I progressed through the series, I was also becoming active on Tumblr and Twitter. My social conscience (and consciousness) was given a healthy shove in the right direction, and I started thinking about how I could make my later work more inclusive, but in many ways I found I'd painted myself into a corner. The third book in the series shows signs of these awakenings, but it was still locked into its less-than-stellar origins. And oh, those cringeworthy character names!
I like to think I've grown as a person in the 14 years since I began working on Array Wars, and I can no longer, in good conscience, make those novels available here.
However, despite its problematic beginnings, I still think the Array Wars concept has promise. There were some good ideas in there that deserve another chance. At its core, the original Star Wars trilogy on which my work was most closely based is a story of redemption—and so it seems only fitting that I should redeem Array Wars (and myself) by rebooting the concept.
Array Wars will be back. It will still be unpublishable (based, as it is, on a bunch of characters now owned by Disney, not to mention Paramount and others) but at least I'll no longer feel embarrassed to mention it in polite company...
Imagine if people were trapped inside a virtual reality, a dream inside a machine, knowing only what they see. Now, imagine if this virtual reality was one of many, based upon popular entertainments. Imagine it had been running for a very long time, and was beginning to show signs of age: data is becoming corrupted, and the boundaries between realities are breaking down.
This was the original idea behind Array Wars: a means of combining Star Wars and The Matrix into a single crossover narrative. I wanted to tackle a couple of the sillier flaws from the original movies (which I love; don't get me wrong) but that was about as far as it went.
For the rewrite, I shall stick to this same basic premise—but perhaps take the idea of crumbling boundaries a little further, and reign in the whole "corruption of names" angle somewhat.
And, of course, try to do better on every level.