So here it is. How to Succeed in Evil: Edwin Windsor. The final book in the series. Which is not to say the last book in the series but the 4th book. Confused? So was I, but I can explain. But first, if you’re a subscriber, you can get the full book (as well as the rest of the series) on the subscriber rewards page.

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There’s a lot of great stuff in this book. I took what was going to be three novellas and replotted it into a novel. Topper finally gains his confidence, Agnes falls in love, Edwin finally gets the office he deserves. We get to spend a lot of time with Unstoppabull and a new villain, The Wild Card.

The Wild Card started off as a riff on the Joker (Because you can’t have a ‘Batman’ without a ‘Joker’) but in the end became a character I really like. A failed close-up magician who sets out for revenge on terrible patrons.

Before it’s all said and done, Cuthbert gets a break and even the Lynx gets a win. Everyone’s arc is brought home in the end.

Why did you write this series out of order?

When I wrote the original How to Succeed in Evil I didn’t know what I was doing. Not with writing a novel, not with publishing, not with… well, anything really. I was in over my head. Which, in my opinion, is the most important step in doing creative work. A serious creative process works like this:

Jump out of plane
Figure out how to open parachute

And lot of how I have improved as a writer is just facing the free-fall moments bravely. Staying in the discomfort and pressing ahead even when I don’t know which way to go. Some call it trusting the process, but it really is trusting that you will be able to figure it out when you need to.

I heard this great quote about creating things. “Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must.” And what that means for me is that, to do your best work, you’ve got to put yourself into an impossible position and force your genius to go to work. Or, perhaps, more correctly the daimon of Greek mythology. It’s not you exactly, but it’s the thing that shows up every once in a while and helps you be more than you are.

To illustrate, Edwin Windsor is a character that is smarter than I am. And it shouldn’t be possible for me to write that. But it is. And the plot twists and brilliant schemes in this and the other books aren’t my idea exactly. They showed up in the process of me asking myself, what would a smarter person do.

The amazing thing is that this phenomenon works for everybody. If you have a problem and you don’t know what to do, ask yourself what a smarter person would do and it will bring clarity and fresh ideas, every time.

The Last Book?

I wrote the books all out of order. And for years I didn’t know how to “finish” the series. Then I asked myself what a better author would do with the source material. Specifically, I approached it like a television showrunner would. What’s the best story I can find in the source material? And hands down, the character with the furthest journey is Topper. Edwin is the genius. He’s Sherlock Holmes. Superhuman, infallible, overpowered. There aren’t many obstacles to him, so there’s not much of a story to tell for him.

But Topper, he’s the underdog. The little guy. The one who shouldn’t win, but somehow does. So I made that the arc of the new books. And this book is the bridge between the ‘prequel’ books and How to Succeed in Evil and Hostile Takeover. Logically and artistically, the arc is complete. But what happens in the end?

I think I know what happens to Edwin Windsor in the end. But for the purposes of the story, there is no end. It’s like Pinky and the Brain. They do the same thing they do every night, they try to take over the world. Sherlock Holmes never has an ending, not really. He still exists in fictional space, brilliantly deducing. Edwin and Topper and Agnes will struggle to get crazy people with crazy powers to do more rational and profitable things.

But is this really it? No more How to Succeed in Evil?

Well, I have an idea of writing a series of fake interviews with Edwin where he evaluates villains. Say, Edwin Windsor on Malthusian folly of Thanos. But as for the series, I’m done with the series and the genre. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s a bad genre for discovery. Sure, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books are wonderful and sell a ton, but what do you Google to find more of those kind of books?

And is there any traffic for that that an independent author can use to gain more visibility? I can find a way that the genre works for that. So, I must put it down. Now without some sadness, but also not without some joy.

I’ve been writing How to Succeed in Evil since 2005. I did podcast episodes, a promotional comic, several stabs at TV series and seven books. And now, I can say that it’s done. For me, it’s been a long, sometimes rocky journey to the finish, but it feels great to be able to say

I finished.

Patrick E. McLean

Book Release: Edwin Windsor!

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