Home | About Mel | Contact | About DreamCraft | Books in print | Shop | Privacy | Newsletter

Books in print
HELLGATE series
NARC series
Vampyre series
Science Fiction
Fantasy
Historicals
Sea stories
Shorter works
Freebies
Shop
Gallery


What's new?
What's due?





Caveat
All titles on this website feature GLBT characters and situations. If you will be offended, please read no further. By further exploring this site, you agree that you are of age in your part of the world, and are fully aware of the content of books and art displayed here. All images on this site are copyright. Site contents © DreamCraft, 2018
an overview of the NARC series ... cult gay science fiction by Mal Keegan. Publishing history back to the first edition, and a look at the brand-new 2008 covers.
the NARC covers by digital artist Jade ... a montage


Above: The Jade cover art for the full series in paperback. NOTE: the final trilogy (all 390,000 words of it) falls under one cover,
The ENDGAME OMNIBUS

__________


Below: The Nicholas Hoar cover for the 1993 GMP issue of DEATH'S HEAD and the 1994 GMP issue of EQUINOX
the GMP cover for Death's Head, 1992 the GMP cover for Equniox, 1993
It all began with DEATH'S HEAD, originally published in 1991, in abridged form by GMP in the UK. A year later came EQUINOX, the second of the Jarrat and Stone books ... and then a ten-year lull while GMP, as a business, wound down and merged itself into the much larger Millivres-Prowler Group.

Many readers still don't relize that DEATH'S HEAD was heavily abridged in the GMP version. If you're reading the old GMP paperback, you're 25,000 words short of getting the whole picture ... you definitely need to be reading the UNabridged version!

Not until Mel Keegan entered into the long-term creative partnership with DreamCraft Multimedia did the NARC books stir back to life, and they took off in 2004/05 the way they should have fifteen long years ago.

The third novel, SCORPIO, was published in September 2004, and Mel has dusted off old notebooks: the story outlines for NARC books which were planned and of necessity shelved, so long ago.

Next came STOPOVER, which we whimsically called 'NARC #3.5," since it's a slim volume which falls between SCORPIO and APHELION. It's the same length as most of the SF novels of the 1960s — about 44,000 words ... and MK had actually intended it to be the prolog to APHELION.

Halfway through the writing, we all realized Keegan had 'done it again,' and the novel was going to run way too long. We cut STOPOVER out of APHELION and released it as a stand-alone early in 2007, while APHELION followed along later.

Then, alas, came a long, long drought. With Mel's health failing and Jade retiring, between 2007 and 2018, NARC went onto old ... but it nagged away in the back of Mel's mind, that the series wasn't finished, and needed to be finished.

A respite from health difficulties in 2017/2018 brought Mel back to the keyboard with a will. SCIMITAR, BASILISK and ENDGAME were written "back to back," coming in at just a whisker under 400,000 words. Yes, you read that right. In mid-2018 they're being released under one cover as THE ENDGAME OMNIBUS, in ebook format for Kindle, Nook, PC, Mac, whatever: Mobi, PDF and EPUB. (Sadly, it's physically impossible for a print on demand publisher to produce a 900pp paperback, so the three books are being issued in three volumes, due in August or September of 2018 -- remember to allow time for the book packaging process, and the delivery of proof copies to Austalia by mail. It ain't quick.

__________


The NARC books became not merely a possibility, but a reality, with the DreamCraft reissue of EQUINOX, and a year later, the restoration of DEATH'S HEAD.

This restoration project was an immense task. "Lost" text -- whole scenes and a sub-plot -- were put back in, and the whole book was re-proofed, given a light edit to bring the tech up to date (a wise move, given the length of time since it was originally published). DEATH' HEAD UNABRIDGED was shipped in March '04, and reception from readers was overwhelming. Advance orders were several times more than DreamCraft had expected, and the reader response has been better than we could have hoped for (and we'd already had high hopes to begin with).

Early in 2008, DreamCraft switched over to printing and binding in the USA/Can and UK/Eur, using the services of the POG 'giant,' Lulu.com., and, subsequently, Amazon's own printshop, CreateSpace.

To celebrate the move, we struck an entirely set of new covers.

Mel Keegan's readers frequently disagree on what might be their favorite book or genre, but on one issue they're solidly in agreement: gay-themed science fiction doesn't get any better than this! (Having said that, however, we can hear a wail going up in the background, from the folks who actually prefer the historicals. In fact, 25% of readers do prefer (gay) historical fiction, and something like 10% read mostly only contemporary fiction. Guys — name your poison, as the saying goes: the odds are excellent, you'll find it in these pages.)



Want to know more about NARC?
Click here for a collection of articles, interviews and features which open a window into this amazing world!
The covers for the 2012/2018 reissue of the complete series:

the 2008 cover for Death's Head the 2008 cover for Equniox the 2008cover for Scorpio

the 2008 cover for Stopover the 2008 cover for Aphelion

In paperback -- click the thumbnails to view the full wrap-around covers:



__________




Jade herself remains a great NARC fan, and across the years indulged herself in a vast body of artwork produced in the "3D render workshop" of DAZ Studio. Care to take a peek?!


Mel Keegan OnLine is designed and powered by DreamCraft