One point six million words. 1,560,000 plus some assorted thousands here and there -- that is the total number of words I have written over the course of 22 books in the Mack Bolan, Executioner, and Stony Man series for Gold Eagle/WorldWide Library. When it was announced that Harper Collins was buying Harlequin Enterprises, which publishes mostly womens romance fiction and also the Gold Eagle imprints, I thought it would not be long before things changed. This week word was handed down that Harlequin is choosing to focus on its womens fiction lines, where it truly makes its money, and not on the mens adventure imprints that have existed since 1981. I dont regret this decision. While its unfortunate that the series has ended in its current form, its possible that Linda Pendleton, original series author Don Pendletons widow, will do something with the series, as shes indicated her family holds the rights. A Mack Bolan movie starring Bradley Cooper has been discussed in Hollywood. The original 37 Executioner novels written by Don Pendleton are being released as ebooks this month. The series has a future -- I just dont know what it will be. As for me, while I will miss the characters with whom I spent countless coffee-fueled, sleep-deprived hours (and those 1.6 million words), after 22 volumes (a paltry number compared to some whove written for the series for many more years), I am satisfied. I am proud of my contributions to a series that I first came to love while reading my fathers collection of Executioner books when I was a teenager. Im proud that I can say I enjoyed that series very much as a young man... and came to one day contribute to it as an older one. Im proud to have been able to pay tribute to the ideals of justice against crime and predation that Mack Bolan and Stony Man represent. I also welcome the chance to do new things. Writing Mack Bolan occupied a tremendous amount of my time -- time that I may now devote to other projects. If the opportunity arises to return to Mack Bolans endless war, I will gladly do so. Until then, Ill let him enjoy the rest hes earned... and I, with respect to writing his adventures, will do the same.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 04:52:26 +0000