Foreword
Paradigms Lost is a greatly expanded edition of Digital Knight, my first published work. It is not just a polishing and slight reworking of Digital Knight—indeed, in many areas I have tried not to touch the writing overmuch, as I don’t want to damage the “flavor” that made it work in the first place.
What I have done is add incidents and actions that would have happened—foreshadowing and “crossover” events that are part of Jason’s universe—but which I didn’t fully know when I first wrote Digital Knight, some portions of which were written as far back as 1987 and 1988. I have also reconciled a few contradictions and confusing incidents to make more sense and clarified the dating of the stories, as some readers might have found it unclear; Jason’s adventures begin in April 1999.
In addition to these changes—some of which are quite substantial—I have included two more of Jason’s adventures, “Shadow of Fear” and “Trial Run,” to make this a truly worthwhile read for those of you who may have read the original. Overall, this means that more than a short novel’s worth of material has been added to Paradigms Lost; the original Digital Knight was about 103,000 words, while Paradigms Lost runs well over 160,000.
Jason’s world is very like ours . . . but not precisely, and it changes for him as time goes on. His adventures also connect—sometimes in surprising ways—with other stories and events in his universe. Those who have read Phoenix Rising will perhaps not be surprised to see his encounters with a certain young man, and possibly make other connections with things that have happened . . . or will happen.
Join Jason, then . . . on the day that everything changed.