Hello again, everybody!
If this month’s post is a tad later than usual, its title should hopefully be all the explanation needed 😛 .
It’s been a satisfyingly invigorating/brutal month of work for this year’s NaNoWriMo. My chosen project (tentatively titled Quest For Utopia, essentially a second prequel to a planned trilogy, building on the first, A Murder in Utopia) has shown me once again the difficulties and pitfalls of writing fantasy after working so long in the genre of Alternate History and sci-fi in general. Though I’m getting closer every day to the 50K word count finish line, this work, and the earlier prequel, unfortunately won’t be finished for some time; nevertheless, one day it will grace book and e-shelves alike! For those who can’t wait that long for details, here’s the (current) synopsis from the book’s Nano project page:
“Over three centuries have passed since “the Blaze”: a near-extinction level event caused by combined, sudden climatic shift and nuclear war. In the aftermath of this catastrophe, the remaining humans began to band together, to survive in the face of famine, disease, wild weather, and attacks by “Degraded” and other hideous creatures arising from “the Blaze”…and to understand and master the “Lux”: a new, magic-like energy that now exists in all humans, granting them everything from greater strength, vision and speed compared to pre-“Blaze” humans, to the power to heal, project energy–and perhaps even more. As the centuries pass, new civilizations arise, along with new legends of powerful beings and objects…and new, dark threats to humanity.
“Samuel Bonhomme (descendant of Jacob Harke, Carol Miller and Pastor King from A Murder in Utopia) has lived in the hamlet of New Utopia (built on the ruins of Zwolle, in what was once the Sabine River Valley) since he was born, and expects to do so the rest of his days. Working as an apprentice cartographer/surveyor, de facto town historian, and teacher at the local school, he appears to have little in the way of exceptional “Lux” ability, and is content to spend his time teaching, mapping, and poring over books, charts, and pre- & post-“Blaze” stories and legends.
“Then, one day, Travis Hauck, a long-lost relative, arrives in town, with his gang of warriors and all-around misfits working their way across North America as traveling musicians and “Webbers” (nomadic smugglers, named for the long-ago, near-mythical “Web”, or Internet). Hauck urges Samuel to join him on a startling, dangerous quest in search of the legendary “Preacher’s Cup”, a Holy Grail-like object that once belonged to their distant ancestor, Pastor King, and is believed to possess incredible restorative Lux powers. Samuel is reluctant to join, despite his love of lore and ancient history; thanks to this, he knows well what seeking the Cup has done to his distant kin. But others seek the Cup as well, or seek to prevent Hauck’s group (and any connected to them) from finding it. And so Samuel is pushed to join the quest, traveling through lands, wonders and dangers he has never seen, facing threats he can’t imagine…and finding a strength and destiny he never knew.”
In other news, my Unbound crowdfund scifi novel Discarded has finally gone through the last round of edits, and is now in the hands of the proofreaders and typesetters. No definite word has come down as yet, but the estimated release date is still in Spring 2021; I’ll keep you all posted on any changes, as ever.
Finally, for anyone who might need a new read for Thanksgiving, or know of someone who might, my Alternate History novella Obsidian & Steel is once again on sale on Kindle this week, through Sunday (11/29)! Check out or pass along the link below, keep up the masking and social distancing, and I’ll see you again in December!
Mark Anthony Ciccone 