With The Armageddon Protocol (paperback, Kindle), author Dan Moren is presenting the final book in The Galactic Cold War series.
Though as he explains in the following email interview about this sci-fi space opera spy novel, “final” might not be the right word…
For people who didn’t read the first three books — The Bayern Agenda, The Aleph Extraction, and The Nova Incident — or the interviews we did about them (which you can read here, here, and here, respectfully), what is The Galactic Cold War series about, and when and where is it set?
The Galactic Cold War series, true to its name, focuses on a conflict between two superpowers, set some five hundred years in the future. Two major human factions, the Commonwealth of Independent Systems and the Illyrican Empire, have emerged and divided up the known galaxy between them. Over the course of the past couple decades, they’ve settled into an uneasy stalemate, but it’s constantly in danger of escalating back into open war.
The stories follow Simon Kovalic and his team of Commonwealth special operatives as they try to keep this cold war from tipping into a hot one.
And then for people have read the books, and can thus ignore me writing SPOILER ALERT, what is The Armageddon Protocol about, and when is it set in relation to The Nova Incident?
For those who read The Nova Incident, you might recall it ended up on a bit of a cliffhanger: Kovalic and his boss, the enigmatic general, had been arrested for treason against the Commonwealth.
The Armageddon Protocol dives right into things, picking up exactly where that Nova off, as Kovalic and the general try to unwind what’s going on and decide how they’re going to get out of this particular pickle.
When in the process of writing the earlier books did you get the idea for The Armageddon Protocol, and what inspired it?
I’ve had the entire idea for The Galactic Cold War series in my head for a number of years, so Armageddon has always been on the radar. I wanted to do a classic “on the run” story, where the very system that our heroes have been trying to protect is turned against them, and they’re faced to escape and evade without many of their usual tricks and assets at their disposal.
The other books in the Galactic Cold War series were sci-fi space opera spy stories. Is it safe to assume The Armageddon Protocol is as well?
The Armageddon Protocol follows very much in that vein, though it perhaps amps up the spy action and intrigue. Agendas, counter-agendas, wheels within wheels — it’s your classic espionage adventure, in space.
So, are there any writers, or specific stories, that had a big influence on The Armageddon Protocol, but not on the other Galactic Cold War novels?
I continue to draw from similar influences: on the sci-fi side, books like Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga and Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn trilogy are really my guiding stars, in terms of being able to portray a science-fictional universe in which people still feel believably like people. They also both have their fair share of intrigue and spy action, which helps.
On the thriller side, John Le Carré can’t be beat for classic espionage tales, but in recent years I think Mick Herron’s Slough House novels has kind of become emblematic of the modern take on spy stories. They’re a little more approachable, and they take a very different point of view, but still manage to channel a lot of the same ideas and questions.
How about such non-literary influences as movies, TV shows, or games?
Such movies as The Fugitive or Three Days of the Condor, and more recently Captain America: The Winter Soldier have all been inspirations here. I love having that sense of our team being in real danger, beset on every side, not knowing who they can trust, and being all on their own, out in the cold.
The TV adaptation of Slow Horses and film versions of Le Carré’s work — the stellar Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy from 2011, for example, also starring Gary Oldman who definitely gets around! — have also provided a certain kind of tone that I aimed to capture.
As we’ve been discussing, The Armageddon Protocol is the fourth book in The Galactic Cold War series. But it’s also the last book. You kind of touched upon this already, but did you decide ahead of time that Armageddon would be the end, or did you realize while you were writing it that it would be a good time to stop?
While Armageddon was not really intended to be the end of the entire story of this universe, it did seem like a reasonable place to end this chapter. Without giving too much away, the characters are at a certain place by the end of the story where it made sense to give them a breather. Some of the ongoing threads of the series have been brought to a conclusion, even if there are some other issues still hovering in the background.
All good things must come to an end, as the saying goes. To me a beginning demands an ending. There’s nothing worse than a story that just trails off. I wanted to complete the story in my head and get to this point where I could wrap up a major plot line, hopefully bringing answers to questions that go back several books. There are more stories to write, both in and out of this universe, and I’m going to keep trucking along.
Now, in the interview we did about The Nova Incident, we talked about how you’d written some short stories in the Galactic Cold War series, but had no plans for a collection of them, something you reiterated in the interview about The Aleph Extraction, except you added, “I think I’d need a few more stories to do so.” Did you ever write any more stories? Say, enough for a collection?
I’ve actually written a handful of short stories now: this very week, to coincide with Armageddon‘s release, I’m putting out my fourth in The Galactic Cold War universe, entitled “Sleeping Wolves.” It follows a side character from an earlier novel and gives us a perspective that we haven’t really had in the series so far: inside the Illyrican intelligence service.
I do like the idea of collecting the stories when I’ve got a few more under my belt — and I definitely have a couple more ideas for stories in mind. It would be cool to do something like Lois McMaster Bujold’s Borders Of Infinity, which collects several stories from the Vorkosigan universe, then sews them together with a framing story, though that might be a bit more ambitious. But I love the idea of keeping the universe spinning through these smaller stories — it gives me a chance to explore places, people, and ideas that I don’t necessarily have the time to flesh out in a novel.
So, is there anything else someone might need to know about The Armageddon Protocol or the Galactic Cold War series?
I’ve been brewing this universe up since I was in my early 20s, and here in my mid-40s it feels weird to think that it might be at an end. But I love this world and these characters so much that I highly doubt this is the last we’ll see of them. It’s been an utter delight to share all these stories with everyone and I hope they enjoy reading them as much as I have writing them.
Finally, if someone enjoys The Armageddon Protocol, and they’ve read the rest of the Galactic Cold War series — including The Caledonian Gambit, which is, because of publishing nonsense, part of the series but technically not — what sci-fi spy novel of someone else’s would you suggest they read next?
Two come to mind. One is Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire, which really does galactic intrigue right: culture clashes, a central mystery to unwind, and a real cinematic big screen feel.
The other is The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, is set in the present day and has more of a supernatural bent, but is a really fun speculative spy novel set against the backdrop of a British intelligence agency. It’s a heck of a read and one of my favorites of the last many years.
