It’s finally time to start talking about the next installment of The Rangers of Walden series… and start talking about the new (old) book of the series.

Back when I first released this series, this was the second book. As many have noticed, it’s now the third book of the series and like the former first and new second book of the “director’s cut”, there are some key differences here as well.

Long story short, a few years ago I decided to take down the original series because my writing had come so far that I felt my favourite series (this one) deserved my best work.

Now, I’ve tried to keep enough of the original feel of the books that readers liked so it doesn’t feel too different, but I also took quite a bit of the feedback on how to fix what was wrong with the originals.

The primary complaint was how big the cast was and how difficult it was to keep track of them all.

I agreed, so there were a quite a few characters who ended up merged or replaced with more popular “clones” of each one. Others, because this is a post-apocalyptic western, unfortunately found their stories end as early as in the first book. Although, sometimes I name my background characters and there isn’t much reason to keep track of a character I may have named but you’ll only see once much like extras in movies.

Come to think of it, maybe that may have contributed to the confusion.

Another big change was limiting how many points of view there were without losing major and minor threads. Instead of the dreaded “head hop”, I instead rewrote every single scene in the books to be from the point of view (except in very rare and limited circumstances) to be from one of the four major characters. So, we still have the same interwoven themes and threads like Game of Thrones, but not half a million points of view to muddle and make confusion and as each thread weaves together, I pick one character to “tell the story” from their perspective.

The Last Iron Horse picks up after A Season of Wolves, and is still in its place before Between Silence and Fire (which I’m still working on). It’s much, much later than I expected everything to be due to some health issues early last year (I caught COVID, and it was severe enough to require a stay in the hospital) that plagued me all summer. I’m feeling much better now, and I’m well enough (finally) to return to my normal life but I won’t lie and say that COVID managed to set me back on a few things other than just my writing that also need to be taken care of. This is why this third book has taken so long to come out when it really should have been released in May of 2023, but here we are in March 2024 and it’s only now in the final stages of editing.

But, thankfully, we’re back on track and I’m back to work so we get the rest of the books out including the all new novel of the series, Whispers on the Wind.

The old reading order:

1. After Oil (now split into Ashes in Winter and A Season of Wolves)
2. The Last Iron Horse
3. Between Silence and Fire
4. Ghostwalker

The new reading order:

1. Ashes in Winter
2. A Season of Wolves
3. The Last Iron Horse
4. Between Silence and Fire
5. Ghostwalker
6. Whispers on the Wind

If everything goes to plan, all of these should be out no later than early 2025, with everything that was previously published back on shelves before Christmas 2024.

As soon as the preorder goes live for The Last Iron Horse, I’ll immediately let you know (be dancing in the street) and it will be on this blog.