Last year since things were fairly miserable, I found that I couldn’t concentrate on a more serious novel, so figuring that people like myself would like a fun distraction, I wrote and published some short stories set in my D&D campaign world.
To my dismay this year hasn’t been much easier, and I found myself writing more stories as a distraction. I planned on putting these into a follow up book for this summer, just some more goofy fun since we can all use a distraction. As is often the case, what I started with was simple enough, by the time I was finished with a full draft however, I realized that while the stories should still be a nice distraction, they were way more ambitious than what I’d intended when I started out.
Fortunately I have good critique partners and beta readers, and fortunately I was lucky enough to have the means to hire an editor. (If you’re looking for a freelance editor, I highly recommend him. Also any typos found in this book were definitely put there by me after his edits, or put in by the Typo Gnomes. Relentless little fuckers, the Typo Gnomes.)
Whereas the stories in the last volume were all set in the same period of my campaign world, the Fourth Age which is the High Middle Ages era of Olkhar, for this book I wrote one story for each of ten ages, from the earliest tribes of men and orcs, to the inhabitants of Olkhar voyaging through their galaxy on the Space Vessel Tides.
Each story is set in a different era with a matching mashup of genres and influences.
Man and Orc: early tribes of men and orcs fight for the glory of their gods, while the gods themselves watch and play. When I was working on my History Degree I took a lot of classics classes and remember reading Gilgamesh and Hesiod as well as Homer. Although this story is told in prose, I think those classes are a big influence on it.
Empire and Entropy: Quintus buries his father and contends with contracts, rebels, and cults in the waning days of the Elven Empire. My History Degree’s focusses were Ancient Medieval Europe and British History, but within that my main interest was the use of street violence in Roman politics. Clodius Pulcher is one of my all time favorite historical figures, and although he lived in the end of the Republican Period and this story clearly corresponds more with the middle of the Imperial Period, I was thinking about his career a lot as I wrote this. Additional inspiration came from I Claudius and from Steven Saylor’s mystery series set in Rome.
The Witch: in the Dark Ages of Olkhar, Kara the innkeepers’ daughter walks the line between helping a woman accused of witchcraft and keeping her family safe from the inquisitors. I think this story was inspired by folklore, but also drew from stories about witch hunts in medieval Europe.
The Inquisition: Sister Yu must find missing clerics for his grace, the Bishop of Tides. Sister Yu is such a fun character to write I had to pick her for writing another tale in the Fourth Age.
Rum and Powder: Emma writes for the budding newspaper trade. When a large shipment of gunpowder goes missing, will she get the story, or blown to bits? I’ve been researching a lot of early modern European History for a novel idea that keeps splitting into different ideas. It was nice to get a chance to use some of it in this story. Additional inspiration: The Adventures of a Simpleton, the 17th century novel about a characters misadventures during the 30 Years War.
Glamours and Galas: Can two people who desire to achieve more than wearing the best finery to the latest balls come together to not be wedded? My wife and I were watching Bridgerton and she wondered aloud, why they didn’t just talk to one another and work the situation out. My response was that if people would just talk to one another it would undo 80% of drama in general and 100% of Regency Drama in particular. So this is my take on a Jane Austen style story, but with halflings and half elves and magicks.
The Fire at the Docks: For hardboiled PI Stesha Asho, the case of a lifetime may prove his end. The obvious homage here is to The Maltese Falcon, but there are other influences in play as well. Maybe it’s because I’m from southern California, but I always preferred Chandler’s Marlowe to Hammett’s Spade or Continental Op. One of my critique partners read this and requested a novella with the same character. A draft already exists. Maybe that will be next year’s “summer” project.
Reality’s Edge: As Olkhar’s atomic age and space race begins there’s a feeling that anything is possible. And yet there’s that feeling that everything is wrong at the same time, that reality is unraveling under some fever dream logic. This was heavily influenced by Philip K Dick’s writing, as well as Chris Claremont’s, who I think brought a particularly wonderful brand of the weird into comics (before Grant Morrison came along and really ran with the weird (why Doom Patrol and The Invisibles are my two favorite series ever.)) This is the longest piece in the book, approaching novellette length.
Algorithms and Pyromancy: In an era when information is power, Sara and her crew are tasked with breaking into the systems of one of the most powerful oligarchs in the City of Tides. When it all goes wrong they must find out who set them up, and how can they possible find their way to safety. The opening line is an homage to Neuromancer, but there’s a lot of influence from all the early cyberpunk authors on this story.
The Space Vessel Tides: The crew of the Space Vessel Tides must rescue the crew of another ship trapped on a planet going through their own medieval era. But it all gets complicated as the planet’s princess is to be offered in sacrifice to a dragon. The obvious influence is the original series of Star Trek, it borders on being a fantasy parody, but there are also references to Blake’s 7, the series which along with cyberpunk books and comics made me want to write.
What started as a simple distraction grew into something I’m truly proud of. I hope that you check it out and enjoy reading it.
