I've decided to finish "Tusker IV: Rise of the Cloven" since Ragnarok has set out to get a cover from Mike Corley for it. So they are trusting me to get it done.

The biggest challenge will be to get my head into it. That may take a day or two. I need to get immersed again in that world. Feeling a little whipsawed, my own fault, because I went from not quite finishing Zombielander, to doing Fires of Allah, to having some thoughts about how to fix Snaked, to now doing Tuskers IV, all within about a week.

So this is what I'm going to do for the next month, dammit.

I was half done. (Actually more than that, but I cannibalized much of it for book 3).

So this first half is all told from the "good guys" point of view; the humans and pigs who have banded together for survival.

So question #1. Do I bring in the other two factions somewhere in the first half? I have the humans who hate pigs side, and the pigs who hate humans side, and the "good guys" are in the middle.

So I get halfway through, then jump ahead a couple of years, and the good guys have developed a nice cooperative culture. But somehow both other sides find about about them and converge on them where an all-out battle takes place.

Question #2. How much explaining do I need to do about what happened in the first 3 books? How likely is it that anyone would read the 4th book in the series without reading the first 4?

But I do believe all books should have a satisfying story arc on their own. So I have to at least try.

I have a few days to really think about this and get a good sense of what I want to do. I have a "thematic" structure, so I figure the plot will follow. And again, as with all these half finished books, the second half is almost always more action-packed, which for me is easier to write.