I've once again considered the merits of combining the first two books, and am currently putting together a new book that combines the stories. The first two parts of the series cover the same timeline, but show different characters and events. Each book has a different focus and theme. It works pretty well, but it also has a price. The first story introduces too many characters while remaining a short read. The plot is simplistic and doesn't offer many surprising elements outside of the events themselves, at least when compared to the second book. Combining everything will add immediate depth to the characters and would also address some important pacing issues.
As I'm stitching together this document by combining everything in the right chronological order, there are a few distinct issues that I will need to fix. The opening to the two books do not work together. I would essentially need to rewrite the beginning of the book. Second, the endings also don't fit together, either. The same event is shown twice, but with different scenes. There is also quite a lot of poetry stuffed around both climaxes, which would look clunky if pasted together. Lastly, I like both of my book covers and don't really want to change them. Now, I can split this new story into halves and put a cliffhanger in the middle, but the second book cover would still need to be edited with at least a change of title. The second book primarily revolves around the Surveyor and the humans interacting with the World of Dreams. Now, this is present from the start, so the cover no longer seems relevant even if the title better matches the new content.
This updated story also needs to be edited within if all the parts are to flow together, and this will have to come at a later date. I'm still working on the new content in book four, which will still take some time to finish since I barely did anything over the holidays. However, even if it does mean extra work, I think the change is a positive one. After all, it will be a lot easier to get input from beta readers once the two books are combined.
