Earth Blood was one of many mini-series Gold Eagle put out in the early to mid 90's.

These were series designed to test the waters, to see what sold well and what didn't. Evidently there was not enough in sales to continue any of them, but eventually Outlanders became the series that sold enough to remain as a permanent series.

I worked at Gold Eagle up until 1989. I can't speak about the later series, but the earlier ones were NOT designed to test the waters. They were always intended to be limited series.

It's been at least a decade since I read the Earthblood books, but as I recall the story comes to a satisfactory conclusion while still leaving the door open for future stories (that never happened). But the pacing of the overall story was very definitely designed as a trilogy.

If I recall -and I cant be bothered to go look at the moment, the 1st edition DL books ran ads at the back saying it was just a trilogy. Don't quote me on this but I'm sure they did.

I was told by both Eva Kovacs and Feroze that all of the GE trilogies were pilots for full series.

Earthblood was no exception...the first couple of books did very well and there were preliminary plans to turn it into a full series after the third book.

However, there was a such a long gap between the second book and the third, the sales on the final novel were so low the decision was made not to follow up with a series.

There were other, more complicated issues at work, too.

Baz, GE's director at the time--pre-Feroze--had intended Deathlands to be a limted series. That, I DO know for a fact. But if I recall correctly, the intention was for 6 books. However, the mind dims after 25 years. Well, at least this mind dims.

I know in the supplementary material for Encounter, the pitch for Deathlands was very specifically targeted for it to really be the story of Doc's journey, ending with his eventual return to his family.

Posted By Wordsmith-reprise on 19 Oct 2011 04:04 PM
Baz, GE's director at the time--pre-Feroze--had intended Deathlands to be a limted series. That, I DO know for a fact. But if I recall correctly, the intention was for 6 books. However, the mind dims after 25 years. Well, at least this mind dims.

Ah well that would explain a letter I have from GE that is about 20 years old telling me that the series had been cancelled after book 12 "Latitude Zero". I recall it arrived about a week before book 13 "Seeedling"

Oh the good old days eh...

it wold have been good if the series had gone on more than three books thou. i still need to get book 3 to see how it all ends.
what other stories did gold egle do that had only a few books in them. they wold be good to read as it woldnt be hard to get all the books in the series this way.

LJ also wrote Survival 2000, a three book series for Ge under the name of James McPhee.

There were at least a dozen other three or four book series GE put out around that same time.