I've been doing this subconsciously for longer than I have been doing it consciously. After thirty books, including hardback novellas and short story collections, as well as more than 140 published short stories, I'm realizing that many of them live in the same universe and am beginning to impose an intentionality to them.
Books like Grunt Life, Grunt Traitor and Grunt Hero, clearly can't be part of the shared universe because I basically fuck up the planet until there's only a few of us left.
Similarly, I can't include Empire of Salt (Zombies) or the Vampire Outlaw books (SF). But there are a lot I can include.
What made me do this?
It really struck me last year when I was planning to write Dead Sky, which I just turned in last week to Solaris Boos. I knew I was going to have astral projection (Spoiler) in the book, so I hearkened all the way back to my first novel, Scarecrow Gods, which also included astral projection. By having the same astral rules, I made them shared universe.
I'm also referencing characters, ideas, and units from other books. I've yet to have a character cross over, but I'm planning that now. A little late after 30 books, I know, but better late than never.
Well, I do have a Special Unit 77 appearing in Dead Sky, so maybe that's a crossover.
Then I saw a Patreon only post (I think--or was it a newsletter--cant find it--maybe a FB post, oh well) from Brian Keene that listed all the books and stories in his universe. Knowing how much Brian puts out (lol), it was an impressive list. So I figured I'd better up my game and do the same so my fans can get what they want. My list isn't going to be complete for awhile, because I'm in the seemingly forever process of recording all of my short stories and novellas into a data base, but I have to start somewhere.
I'm not sure what to call it but for now I'll use the mega lame name of The Shared Universe of Weston Ochse.
Here they are so far:
Novels in Progress:
Books like Grunt Life, Grunt Traitor and Grunt Hero, clearly can't be part of the shared universe because I basically fuck up the planet until there's only a few of us left.
Similarly, I can't include Empire of Salt (Zombies) or the Vampire Outlaw books (SF). But there are a lot I can include.
What made me do this?
It really struck me last year when I was planning to write Dead Sky, which I just turned in last week to Solaris Boos. I knew I was going to have astral projection (Spoiler) in the book, so I hearkened all the way back to my first novel, Scarecrow Gods, which also included astral projection. By having the same astral rules, I made them shared universe.
I'm also referencing characters, ideas, and units from other books. I've yet to have a character cross over, but I'm planning that now. A little late after 30 books, I know, but better late than never.
Well, I do have a Special Unit 77 appearing in Dead Sky, so maybe that's a crossover.
Then I saw a Patreon only post (I think--or was it a newsletter--cant find it--maybe a FB post, oh well) from Brian Keene that listed all the books and stories in his universe. Knowing how much Brian puts out (lol), it was an impressive list. So I figured I'd better up my game and do the same so my fans can get what they want. My list isn't going to be complete for awhile, because I'm in the seemingly forever process of recording all of my short stories and novellas into a data base, but I have to start somewhere.
I'm not sure what to call it but for now I'll use the mega lame name of The Shared Universe of Weston Ochse.
Here they are so far:
Novels:
- Scarecrow Gods
- Recalled to Life
- The Golden Thread
- SEAL Team 666
- ST666: Age of Blood
- ST666: Reign of Evil
- Burning Sky
- Dead Sky
- Cold War Gothic (Special Unit 77)
- The Bohemian Grove(Special Unit 77)
Novels in Progress:
- Oberon
- The Red Unicorn
- The Devils Swing
- The Murder King
- Free Riders
- Bone Chase
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