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Saint Cochrane’s World is a first novel. As in, the first novel I wrote that I felt was of professional quality. I knew it had flaws, and I half-heartedly attempted to market it to small presses and eBook publishers. One even accepted the book for publication, then promptly went out of business. I never attempted to send it to agents, but I probably should have, since my current agent had requested to see it at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference in 1999 after I pitched the idea to him. It was 2005 before I felt it was ‘done’ enough to send it to anyone.
I was soon working on my second novel, called Reunion Day, which eventually morphed into Impulse, Volume I of my Lightship Chronicles series for DAW Books and Del Rey UK. But always there was Saint Cochrane's World, looming in the back of my mind. I stole from it, characters and places and settings and even the final line of my trilogy, spoken in Defiant:
“Over? It hasn't even begun.”
Those words were spoken by Dane Cochrane in SCW, and Peter Cochrane in Defiant. Saint Cochrane’s World was always intended as the first novel in a trilogy that takes place about a millennia after the events of The Lightship Chronicles. Though it is not a direct sequel in any way, Speedwing and Saint Cochrane’s World and The Lightship Chronicles books are all connected through the Cochrane family of Quantar and their impact on a growing, burgeoning, galactic empire. I had intended to write 10 novels in this saga. So far 4 have been published.
Saint Cochrane’s World has always been dear to my heart. It was my first book, my first attempt at writing professional fiction. I’m not embarrassed by it at all. It’s overly romantic, a bit too sincere in places, and has plenty of bumps and bruises in it. But I love this book, because of what it represented; a start in my professional writing career.
For those reasons and many others, I’m presenting it to you here as a bit of a gift. A look into ‘what might have been’, an extension of the Lightship Chronicles universe. It’s not the best thing I ever wrote, but it is my favorite, and I think it deserves to be seen, to have its day in the sun.
I hope you enjoy it.
Dave Bara
August, 2017