New Story Poll Results

The Poll to decide the next story has come to a close, and I gotta say, the results were surprising. Stories that I thought were shoe-ins for the top three languished at the middle of the pack or the bottom, and those that I thought would do poorly are pretty high up on the list. However, pretty much since day one, three have led the pack. The results are as follows:

1. The Diadochi (237)

2. Conquest (235)

3. Going Native: Rewritten (232)

4. Path of Creation (130)

5. Ghastly Adventures (108)

6. Rebel Path (106)

7. Risk It All (93)

8. Greatest Stage (91)

9. Duality (82)

10. Broken Kalediscope (70)

As mentioned in the poll, I have the right to choose the top three as the winner, which in this poll is...

Going Native: Rewritten.

Of the top three, it's the story I'm most prepared to write -- I have my notes, I have my outline, and I have a pretty decent backlog. It's also a story that I've been itching to get back to for some time, so I'm feeling the muse for it.

Conquest was my second pick, but between the two, I'm just more ready for Going Native. The chapters for Conquest are a bit girthier, so that slows down building up a backlog when every chapter is between 10-15k words. There's also a few things I would like to rework in the AOT arc of Conquest, like sliding in an extra chapter before the end of the AOT jump. I'm also fiddling a with a few plot threads with Broken Kalediscope, since they're set in the same galaxy. So, in short, Conquest feels like it needs a little time in the oven before I'm ready to call it ready to serve.

The Diadochi doing so well surprised me, but in hindsight, it shouldn't have. Legends Never Die is one of my most popular stories, so I'm sure a chunk of my audience are alt-history fans. I mostly included it because I wanted to see how it would stack up against what I thought were the heavy hitters. Between the three, this story is the one I'm least prepared for -- I have a few chapters already in the backlog, but I have about 7 books about the Diadochi and Ancient Persia to read. It's absolutely a story that I'm going to be working on in my free time, however. And since it's going to be a shorter story than my other works, we have a chance of seeing it in the rotation sooner than later.

On that note, Going Native will be posted in a few weeks. I'm going to let the last chapter of Best of Intentions trickle down to the public release, which means A Golden Path will be updated weekly for about two weeks. This, in large part, is to finally put an end to the confusion about the Monday slot. Going forward, AGP and GN:R will have four chapters posted in advance, like all other stories, rather than two as AGP and BoI did. I'll also probably take a week off once the last chapter of Best of Intentions goes live.

Thank you all for your participation and your continued support! And I hope you look forward to what's coming next!