The Pioneer Sessions

Hello, dreamers. And welcome to the 2026 edition of the “Pioneer Sessions”.

For the uninitiated, I began this annual event last year, when I decided to take some time out during the summer to reassess the overall direction of my series of novels and all short fiction related to them. The goal was to step back and revise the shared timeline of these works amid necessary changes while writing (and later rewriting) Seven Days on Samarkand.

When you write a novel, funny things can happen. It never turns out exactly the way you intended; things change on the fly for story purposes. Stephen King has long maintained that a good novel should surprise the writer. And I’ve gotten to the point where if I’m writing a novel and everything’s going exactly according to plan, I assume something is wrong.

So needless to say, writing Seven Days on Samarkand threw a couple of monkey wrenches into the works. As such, I’m taking time to fully reexamine the trajectory if what will likely become my life’s work as a writer. And it all starts with the big picture.

Things Change

Long before I first put proverbial pen to paper, I had a clear idea of where Seven Days on Samarkand would lead. A multi-generational story spanning hundreds of years, depicting humanity’s slow and often troubled expansion into interstellar space.

At the outset, the core concept of the story was the innately doomed nature of pioneers. Human history, particularly that of the United States, shows a cycle of settlement. Brave (or desperate) individuals leave crowded cities seeking space and opportunity on the frontier. They work tirelessly to build lives for themselves, expanding the reach of humanity. But these individuals unwittingly stretch the boundaries of civilization, making it easier for less intrepid individuals to live in the new settlements they’ve created. Ultimately, their efforts succeed in transforming their frontier into a place no different than the one they left.

As a result, many of the legendary pioneers of American history became tragic figures: people who tamed the wilderness only to find themselves living in a world that no longer needed them. My main character, Randall Holmes, was largely modeled after Davy Crockett. But while writing Seven Days on Samarkand, the core theme of the story shifted from a sort of futuristic Manifest Destiny to one closer to my heart:

Conservation.

Ultimately, the story ceased to be purely about the Pioneers and instead became a tale of Samarkand itself: a wild, unspoiled planet. The Pioneers were no longer simply leaving Earth to tame the wilderness and live on their own terms; they were environmentalists, seeking to prove that humanity could live alongside nature, rather than pave over it. To coexist, rather than coopt.

As I wrote Seven Days on Samarkand, the entire story shifted before my eyes. And in the end, I decided it was easier (and more genuine) to allow the story to unfold as it was and change the rest of the series later, rather than try and force SDoS to fit into my plan better.

And so, here we are.

Follow the Words

I have a personal motto in writing: “Follow the words”. Write the story you’re feeling at the moment, not the one you think will be trendier or more marketable. Allow stories to unfold as they’re meant to, rather than trying to wrestle them into submission. Good writing doesn’t feel like driving a car. It’s more like a negotiation. Sooner or later a good story takes on a life of its own. Your only real choice is to let it guide you to wherever it’s meant to be.

Watch for next week’s post on the Pioneer Sessions, where I’ll discuss my overarching timeline for the Pioneer Era: what I know, what I no longer know, and where I think it’s headed. – MK