Xeno Xoo Lost Chapters: Preface and Setup
After writing Ship Show, I decided the Reassembly series needed at least one book packed with weird aliens. Having (quite unintentionally) planted the seeds for that with the introduction of the ranse in book 1 and the oblique reference to the Myadan Zoo (colloquially referred to as the Xeno Xoo), I dove in.
For the most part, I don’t waste much energy writing. I spend a lot of time on an outline, chapter by chapter, and I mostly stick to it. With Xeno Xoo, I had outlined like four chapters that took place on Durandia, Denk Junt’s home world. But as I got into writing about Durandia and Denk’s people, I got into his whole backstory. In Rocket Repo, he mentions that a guy named Ingo took his girl, Pyna. I was like, “Well, I can’t leave that thread just dangling.” When the dust settled, four chapters had turned into eleven. That’s about a quarter of the book spent on a relatively tangential slice of the plot.
Ultimately, the Durandia sequence took seven chapters, which still is maybe a bit too long but I like how it turned out. But since I labored for at least two or three weeks on the ones I didn’t use, I figured I’d leave them here, if only to expose my favorite one, titled “Safety Video,” to the light of day. To be sure, there’s some good stuff here. Some is bonkers, some is actually poignant. In that sense, it was a good fit. But it did bog things down.
If you have yet to read the actual published Xeno Xoo, I strongly recommend you start there and circle back. Though these chapters are quite different, some of the same things happen to advance the plot. You’ve been warned. Minor spoilers follow.
The Setup
When Geddy finally escapes Verdithea, having lost Oz to a mysterious interloper, he finds that the Fiz has disappeared. Later on, he and Jel have to figure out where the hell the ship went.
Since Oz is his top priority, Geddy and Jel follow a faint lead to Stemir, Jel’s home planet. Hijinks ensue, and they get Oz back with an unexpected bonus captive, Dr. Krezek, who had been kidnapped by the Zelnads to produce an ultra-powerful sex pheromone.
After a bit of sleuthing, their best guess is that Denk took the ship to Durandia, which is experiencing some kind of existential crisis.
The first missing chapter begins after they’ve landed at Wuntara Station, Durandia’s small spaceport.
Enjoy!