Starcraft: The Dark Templar Trilogy, Book 1: Firstborn

When describing this to folks I call it, “Bladerunner meets Indiana Jones.”

I haven’t written as many StarCraft books as WoW books, but I’ve always enjoyed them. My first adventure in that universe was to write an original series with only a few pre-existing characters. My archaeologist Jake Ramsey, and the assassin/guard R.M. Dahl are two of my very favorite characters, and helping to establish some essential biology regarding the protoss was pretty awesome.

Trilogies are tough things to corral, and Blizzard was very supportive of the direction I wanted to take. While it’s a big story, my love for the small moments, the human (or protoss) heart, are very much a part of the story.

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Blizzard wanted to use this book to introduce Valerian Mengsk—Emperor Arcturus Mensk’s son he had kept hidden from the world. The tricky thing was, they hadn’t done a lot of character work or even art to share with me. It’s nice to have freedom with a character, but it’s also nice to have a leeeetle more to go on then “He’s blond with gray eyes, and we don’t know if he’s going to be good or evil.”  Eeeep! Fortunately, my take on this character seems to have pleased Blizzard as well as most readers. --Christie

Jake Ramsey — an unassuming, yet talented archaeologist — has been given the chance of a lifetime. Hired to investigate a recently unearthed Xel'Naga temple, he knows this latest assignment will open up whole new possibilities for his career. Yet, when Jake discovers the remains of a long-dead protoss mystic, his hopes and dreams are irrevocably drowned in a flood of alien memories. Bonded to the spirit of the dead protoss, Jake has become the sole inheritor of the protoss's total history — every event, every thought — every feeling.

Struggling to maintain his own fragile identity amidst the raging psychic storm in his mind, Jake soon realizes that he has stumbled upon a secret so cataclysmic in magnitude — that it will shake the very foundations of the universe.