Everybody loves the bad guy.

Why else would the villains get all of the good background music?

Years ago, after the first Star Wars flick came out, you saw at least twenty Darth Vaders walking around the Cons for every Luke Skywalker out there.

I wanted Mickolai to have a real enemy, somebody badder than Adolph Hitler, Ghingus Khan, Ming the Merciless, and Joe Stalin all balled into one!

I wanted him to be BAD! An Evil creature from a race of biologically evil creatures. Vastly powerful, and ancient beyond human comprehension. They had to be totally alien, with not a shred of humanity in them.

And yet they had to be convincing. The culture, the biology, the economics, the warfare --- all had to be completely rational and probable.

The result was Kren.

I took him from being a mindless mining slave through three thousand years of fighting and working to become the most powerful individual on his planet.

And when a new planet suitable for colonization was found, and Kren's planet won the interstellar lottery, Kren was chosen to conquer it, to tame it, and to own it!

The beautiful new planet was New Yugoslavia, where Mickolai had made his home and was raising his family.

I think that it is the best book I've ever written, and actually, pervert that I probably am, I found myself kind of liking Kren.

The excellent Jim Baen doesn't. He thinks that the whole series is dead, and has insisted that I work on other things.

I'd love to prove him wrong, but that can only be done with large book sales. If you liked the book and the series, and if you want to read more of them, please tell all of your friends to go out and buy a copy.

Please hype it wherever you go. If we can get the ball rolling properly, I'll be permitted to write some more of them.

Enjoy.