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Ferren and the Invaders of Heaven is a rebirth of Ferren and the Invasion of Heaven. I liked the 20-year-old Penguin title too much to go for something completely different – just enough difference to make sure GoodReads and cataloguing systems generally don’t lump it in with the old book as a mere second edition. In fact, it’s a total rewrite – born from the same world and premise and many of the same ideas, but nothing’s exactly the same and much is radically new.

I wasn’t expecting to rewrite as comprehensively I did. Having raised the level and intensity of Book 2, I had to go higher again for Book 3. And I could, because the changes to Book 2 had opened up new possibilities for Book 3. The rethink of the second – Ferren and the White Doctor which became Ferren and the Doomsday Mission – flowed through into the final book. And the best part of it was the feeling that I was unearthing the true book that the old Penguin version was always meant to be. At last, I was making good on the potential seen by that band of devoted fans who’d fought so long and hard to have the trilogy reissued!

Somehow it always seems to happen with revisions, that changes gather and accumulate on the way through. Even with much smaller revisions that aren’t rewrites, one change brings more and more changes in its wake. But not normally on the scale of the changes to Ferren and the Invaders of Heaven

I think the most important thing that separates the new IFWG version from the old Penguin version are the changes in focus. Over those 20 years when the trilogy lay quietly in the back of my mind, I came to see what mattered most and needed to be brought forward.

For example, the telescopic metal tower that the Humen build and use to transport their troops up to the First Altitude of Heaven. When I wrote the first version, it was hard to imagine all the details, and I tried to skim over it. Bad move! Because what you shy away from always comes back to bite you (Writer’s Motto). The tower needs to be central to the way we experience the story – and now it is. Lying at the back of my mind all those years, it seemed to have gained reality and solidity … at last I could describe it as fully as it deserved, through the experience of Ferren, Miriael and friends going up on one of its platforms. And even before that, it looms as a mystery almost from the start of the book.

That’s just one example – there are many more, but I don’t want to give away spoilers! Here’s the cover of the old Penguin version, by the way. I still really like it – best of the three they did.

I’m hoping that, with the new Invaders of Heaven, the Ferren Trilogy finally achieves the goal of every trilogy. We all know the goal, every writer knows the goal – but it’s so, so hard to achieve! I fell short with the old Penguin Heaven and Earth Trilogy, I fell short with the three Eddon and Vail books, I fell short with the Worldshaker duology that was originally going to be a trilogy. The goal is to grow every book out of the one before, but with new, unexpected developments, and to raise the stakes higher and higher each time. (You know how movie sequels always tend to have bigger explosions, more fights and car chases – upping the ante in terms of impact, but maybe nothing else.)

For a writer, the usual problem is that you’ve maxxed out your imagination on Book 1. Then when a publisher says, ‘the same but more so’, where do you go next? You’ve been totally immersed in one story, you’ve wrapped it up, only now you need a bigger one to encompass the previous. So easy – I don’t think!

The irony with the Ferren books is that the ideas I came up with to convert a standalone into a trilogy do actually raise the stakes and expand the scene every time. At least, they always had that potential. And when I set to writing, the Morphs had a bigger part to play, Asmodai had a bigger part to play, even the long-ago Weather Wars and the Fallen Angels’ return to Heaven – so many elements became more central than I’d ever realised. But first time around – well, the old Ferren and the Invasion of Heaven makes a fair final book, but the old Ferren and the White Doctor was only ever a bridge to get across to it.

This time around, fingers crossed! I think I’ve done it, but I’m not the judge …

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