Some information on upcoming posts

 Dear readers,

Let me take you back a ways - to the start of my writing/publishing venture. Back to 1988, when it all got started. It was then that I attended a medical conference, and over lunch with my colleagues, we griped about how disgusted we were with medical dramas of the time. It was a combination of how they never got the details right, but even more, how none showed truly how it felt to be a physician, the incredible hours and the incredible fatigue that we all came to regard as part of our chosen profession. And then we also talked about what it was that made us physicians - how it was more than the technology and the medical wonders which we came to take for granted. There was something else, something even more basic - it was our relationship with our patients which defined our profession. Little did I know that, years later, the patient-physician relationship would be systematically eroded, and the practice of medicine might never recover.

In any event, on the way back home, I envisioned a story of medicine, across the ages, in which a physician of our age, would be transported to an age in which he had his training and skills intact, but he had none of the technological back-up (no blood tests, no X-rays, no cardiac monitors, etc), and he was expected to act as a physician.

When I got back home, I began writing this story, and The Book of Drachma began to take shape. After completing book one (Laminar Flow), I tried to interest publishers of the time in my book, but I never heard from them (little did I know that one needed an agent if one expected to get published). After writing a few more chapters, I put the story aside, and it was filed among my papers in my office, where it stayed for the next twenty years.

Then, in about 2010, I casually mentioned that I had written a novel. One of the office staff said that she would be happy to transcribe it into a Word-compatible format, and so I resurrected the old Amiga-generated paperwork, and Michelle began working on my novel, which I then posted, one chapter per week on my blog. It took some time, but it did raise a following, and I quickly finished my novel (a trilogy, rather than a single entity, per my publisher). 

My publisher was Tate Publishing, in Oklahoma. They did publish my first trilogy, titled The Book of Drachma as a three book set (Laminar Flow, Coaptation, Turbulence and Restoration). I did get some traction, particularly in the Oklahoma City area, and I entered into an agreement with my publisher to put together another trilogy, and the new novel

was started. They did publish the first book in the second trilogy (Heir of Drachma, The Healer's Defense). But then, my publisher got himself and his father arrested and charged with extortion, fraud and the like, and my publishing venture fell flat.

I, however, was not done with the story, and I went ahead and self-published my first trilogy, and, having fallen in love with a number of the characters, continued writing. My first trilogy is available as either paperback or ebook format on Amazon and some other sources. My second trilogy I have not yet published, but I have continued writing, as is evident from my blog. And I have proposal for you - If you want, I will be happy to send you a copy of The Healer's Defense, if you read my first trilogy (my email address is: drachmabook@gmail.com). Also, you have a copy of my second book in the trilogy (Center Game, Heir of Drachma, Book Two) available on my blog, in an unedited, raw version. And now I have written some (eleven) chapters of Shepperton's Sacrifice, Heir of Drachma, Book Three, and I plan to again put one chapter monthly on my blog. So, watch for them!