Ian Lewis's Blog: Ian Lewis Fiction
November 11, 2024
The next installment of the Reeve is here!
I’m thrilled to announce the release of Riders of the Black Cowl, book three in the Reeve series. Billed as a Gothic Western series, the Reeve is probably better categorized as Weird West. If you’re not unfamiliar with that sub-genre, think of the The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. But even then, the Reeve is a completely different animal.
You might’ve picked up on the comic book-ish leanings of the first book, From Legend. There are some heavy Batman influences (maybe a bit heavy-handed, I’ll admit), and the complexity and depth of the plot are meant to coincide with what would be suitable for a graphic novel. But there’s the whole Western vibe with which to contend: Logan Hale’s position as the Reeve (a Sheriff type of character) and the manhunt that ensues in the second half of the novel.
The Western angle is what stood as a more prominent influence for the second book, Villains—specifically, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West. The dense, evocative descriptions coupled with the grim proceedings of that tale allowed Villains to become a dark, intricate, layered story that featured its own Batman-esque rogues’ gallery of antagonists.
In keeping with reading a Western novel to correspond with the writing process, I read Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove as I set out to write Riders. It was a great read, and I was really struck by the characterizations and how well-drawn they were. And so, I endeavored to create similarly well-crafted, quirky characters. It also helped immensely that both Lonesome Dove and Riders are sort of “road trip” books.
The philosophical thrust is still there, of course. The series’ examination of whether a greatest conceivable being exists surfaces in Riders as the Cosmological Argument. Perhaps some readers will find these sections too dense for their liking; I don’t know. But they are peppered throughout and don’t constitute the primary flow of the story. I encourage readers to consider them even if they do appear daunting at first blush.
So, where does that leave us? A short and sweet announcement for an approximately 70,000-word novel. I’m not sure anyone reads these posts anyway. But if anyone does, rest assured there are two more Reeve books to go! But before that, a palate cleanser. Keep an eye out for a new book and character next year (hopefully!).
You might’ve picked up on the comic book-ish leanings of the first book, From Legend. There are some heavy Batman influences (maybe a bit heavy-handed, I’ll admit), and the complexity and depth of the plot are meant to coincide with what would be suitable for a graphic novel. But there’s the whole Western vibe with which to contend: Logan Hale’s position as the Reeve (a Sheriff type of character) and the manhunt that ensues in the second half of the novel.
The Western angle is what stood as a more prominent influence for the second book, Villains—specifically, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West. The dense, evocative descriptions coupled with the grim proceedings of that tale allowed Villains to become a dark, intricate, layered story that featured its own Batman-esque rogues’ gallery of antagonists.
In keeping with reading a Western novel to correspond with the writing process, I read Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove as I set out to write Riders. It was a great read, and I was really struck by the characterizations and how well-drawn they were. And so, I endeavored to create similarly well-crafted, quirky characters. It also helped immensely that both Lonesome Dove and Riders are sort of “road trip” books.
The philosophical thrust is still there, of course. The series’ examination of whether a greatest conceivable being exists surfaces in Riders as the Cosmological Argument. Perhaps some readers will find these sections too dense for their liking; I don’t know. But they are peppered throughout and don’t constitute the primary flow of the story. I encourage readers to consider them even if they do appear daunting at first blush.
So, where does that leave us? A short and sweet announcement for an approximately 70,000-word novel. I’m not sure anyone reads these posts anyway. But if anyone does, rest assured there are two more Reeve books to go! But before that, a palate cleanser. Keep an eye out for a new book and character next year (hopefully!).
May 29, 2023
The Driver has reached the end—The Blinding End
I’m happy, exhausted, relieved, and somewhat sad to announce the final release in the Driver series: The Blinding End. I’ve lived with the Driver for the last sixteen years, and when I first conceived of him, I had no intent for a series nor conception of what one might look like. But here I am, five books later, on a journey that took me from an unexpected release with a small eBook press to independently publishing on my own.
The Blinding End is something of an encapsulation of what the Driver series is, or perhaps what I always intended it to be. When I started out with The Camaro Murders, it was a purely selfish creative urge that at the end of which I determined if I were going to continue writing, I’d better have a reason to do so. There had to be something I was trying to convey—I needed to have an aim, a truth. Otherwise, art doesn’t really have a point, does it?
And so, a glimmer of The Blinding End (or its denouement, rather) has always been in my head. How I got there would be the question, but I knew I wanted to continue with the experimental bent of the first book, playing around with POV and format—something I did throughout the rest of the series. And so, it will please fans of the first book to know this is the most unorthodox entry of them all, containing both first- and third-person narratives, chapters, short stories, newspaper articles, poetry (even an Epic Poem), songs, memories, photographs, and other fragments. There’s even an in-novel novelette.
The book is ambitious for sure, weaving in the prior stories’ styles and themes everywhere from the blurb to the chapter titles to the writing itself. I would even suggest the cover is in some way evocative of all the others. The Blinding End is truly the culmination of the series, both literally and figuratively. And while it was a lot of fun to write, it was difficult, too. I was trying to balance the organic development of the tale with tying together loose threads and wrapping up plot lines and character arcs as well as properly framing the metaphysical aspects of it.
If you recall, this is the third book in an in-series trilogy that began with Beacon Road Bedlam. So, there are a number of things in motion, not the least of which is the antagonism between Sheriff Hildersham and Tad Ozzel, a reporter turned villain. Ozzel’s search for the truth doesn’t quite overshadow Hildersham’s nor the Driver’s own search, but it does in fact instigate the penultimate events. But it’s the metaphysical thread woven throughout the story that was trickiest—I needed to surface it in an intelligible manner without giving too much away. There needed to be some mystery about it as there also needed to be the promise of understanding it. It’s a delicate balance to be struck between opacity and translucence, between obscurity and clarity. Yet there is always something elusive about the transcendent, something that always seems to evade when you try to articulate it.
Another thing I struggled with is the darkness of the book. All along, I’ve tried not to be gratuitous with things, but I also wanted the books to be realistic—and in the case of The Blinding End, I really wanted to raise the stakes for the Driver. I needed him to be in such a pit of despair that he could no longer rely on himself. All the same, I knew I had to turn things around at some point. Or at least I wanted to. I didn’t think it was fair to beat the reader down with morosity over an entire series and not provide some sort of payoff or relief.
And therein lies the point, the thrust of it all. While the Driver’s actions, however well-intentioned he may have thought they were, are what gets him into hot water with Malveinous, it’s really the Driver’s aim (or lack thereof) that constitutes his real problem. He’s not aligned with anything other than his pride, and Malveinous comes to represent the wages of that. And it’s a bottomless, meaningless, void awaiting him—a madness that will swallow his very existence whole. Who or what can save him from that?
Well, I don’t want to spoil things too much for you. There’s something of a fever dream at the end, something akin to how I remember the end of G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Some readers may enjoy it. Others will not, perhaps seeing it as a flimsy guise for a Christological Logos archetype (a guise that’s not so much flimsy as not even there). I suppose it may go over some readers’ heads.
At any rate, I may or may not have succeeded on that end of things. But my hope is that readers will at least be entertained by my strange meanderings that I saw so clearly in my mind but struggled to capture on the page. It’s a hard thing for this author to accept that while a piece of art may have been objectively crafted, there is always the reader’s subjective perception of it that may carry them far afield from what was intended. And I can’t blame them, for I am guilty of the same thing with the art I consume.
But perhaps they might agree that their ability to subjectively perceive such things bears within it an inherent assumption of objectivity, that the mechanisms by which they see and think and speak rely upon a common foundation, a reason, a Logos—a Word.
The Blinding End is something of an encapsulation of what the Driver series is, or perhaps what I always intended it to be. When I started out with The Camaro Murders, it was a purely selfish creative urge that at the end of which I determined if I were going to continue writing, I’d better have a reason to do so. There had to be something I was trying to convey—I needed to have an aim, a truth. Otherwise, art doesn’t really have a point, does it?
And so, a glimmer of The Blinding End (or its denouement, rather) has always been in my head. How I got there would be the question, but I knew I wanted to continue with the experimental bent of the first book, playing around with POV and format—something I did throughout the rest of the series. And so, it will please fans of the first book to know this is the most unorthodox entry of them all, containing both first- and third-person narratives, chapters, short stories, newspaper articles, poetry (even an Epic Poem), songs, memories, photographs, and other fragments. There’s even an in-novel novelette.
The book is ambitious for sure, weaving in the prior stories’ styles and themes everywhere from the blurb to the chapter titles to the writing itself. I would even suggest the cover is in some way evocative of all the others. The Blinding End is truly the culmination of the series, both literally and figuratively. And while it was a lot of fun to write, it was difficult, too. I was trying to balance the organic development of the tale with tying together loose threads and wrapping up plot lines and character arcs as well as properly framing the metaphysical aspects of it.
If you recall, this is the third book in an in-series trilogy that began with Beacon Road Bedlam. So, there are a number of things in motion, not the least of which is the antagonism between Sheriff Hildersham and Tad Ozzel, a reporter turned villain. Ozzel’s search for the truth doesn’t quite overshadow Hildersham’s nor the Driver’s own search, but it does in fact instigate the penultimate events. But it’s the metaphysical thread woven throughout the story that was trickiest—I needed to surface it in an intelligible manner without giving too much away. There needed to be some mystery about it as there also needed to be the promise of understanding it. It’s a delicate balance to be struck between opacity and translucence, between obscurity and clarity. Yet there is always something elusive about the transcendent, something that always seems to evade when you try to articulate it.
Another thing I struggled with is the darkness of the book. All along, I’ve tried not to be gratuitous with things, but I also wanted the books to be realistic—and in the case of The Blinding End, I really wanted to raise the stakes for the Driver. I needed him to be in such a pit of despair that he could no longer rely on himself. All the same, I knew I had to turn things around at some point. Or at least I wanted to. I didn’t think it was fair to beat the reader down with morosity over an entire series and not provide some sort of payoff or relief.
And therein lies the point, the thrust of it all. While the Driver’s actions, however well-intentioned he may have thought they were, are what gets him into hot water with Malveinous, it’s really the Driver’s aim (or lack thereof) that constitutes his real problem. He’s not aligned with anything other than his pride, and Malveinous comes to represent the wages of that. And it’s a bottomless, meaningless, void awaiting him—a madness that will swallow his very existence whole. Who or what can save him from that?
Well, I don’t want to spoil things too much for you. There’s something of a fever dream at the end, something akin to how I remember the end of G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Some readers may enjoy it. Others will not, perhaps seeing it as a flimsy guise for a Christological Logos archetype (a guise that’s not so much flimsy as not even there). I suppose it may go over some readers’ heads.
At any rate, I may or may not have succeeded on that end of things. But my hope is that readers will at least be entertained by my strange meanderings that I saw so clearly in my mind but struggled to capture on the page. It’s a hard thing for this author to accept that while a piece of art may have been objectively crafted, there is always the reader’s subjective perception of it that may carry them far afield from what was intended. And I can’t blame them, for I am guilty of the same thing with the art I consume.
But perhaps they might agree that their ability to subjectively perceive such things bears within it an inherent assumption of objectivity, that the mechanisms by which they see and think and speak rely upon a common foundation, a reason, a Logos—a Word.
September 27, 2022
Promptly Written: Volume 4...and the current state of affairs
It's a release day for me and fellow author Matt Sugerik. The fourth volume of our Promptly Written short fiction anthology is now available on Amazon in eBook and paperback editions. You can also read for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
This volume contains all the stories from season four of the Promptly Written podcast, where Matt and I each tackle a monthly crowd-sourced writing prompt. If you haven't listened, the gag is that Matt and I are very different writers, thinkers, and people in general, and so it's fun to see how each of us handles the prompts from month to month. There are no genre restrictions nor word limit, though we try to stay between 1000-2000 words apiece if we can. The podcast sort of acts as the audiobook edition of the stories if you'd rather listen than read.
On other fronts, I am working on the fifth and final book in the Driver series. It's something to which I've been looking forward for a while, and now that I'm working on it, I'm finding it to be slow going. It will likely be the most unorthodox entry in the series yet, so if you liked the first book, then this one is for you!
The book will be a patchwork of narrative, poems, songs, short stories, memories, articles, etc. On top of that, the subject matter will be decidedly metaphysical, and the plot will exhibit more of a fantastic style than prior entries. Still, it will reflect aspects of each book that came before it, and my hope is that this installment will allow me to do justice to the Driver concept in a way that I haven't been able to thus far. Be on the lookout for a 2023 release, if all goes well.
This volume contains all the stories from season four of the Promptly Written podcast, where Matt and I each tackle a monthly crowd-sourced writing prompt. If you haven't listened, the gag is that Matt and I are very different writers, thinkers, and people in general, and so it's fun to see how each of us handles the prompts from month to month. There are no genre restrictions nor word limit, though we try to stay between 1000-2000 words apiece if we can. The podcast sort of acts as the audiobook edition of the stories if you'd rather listen than read.
On other fronts, I am working on the fifth and final book in the Driver series. It's something to which I've been looking forward for a while, and now that I'm working on it, I'm finding it to be slow going. It will likely be the most unorthodox entry in the series yet, so if you liked the first book, then this one is for you!
The book will be a patchwork of narrative, poems, songs, short stories, memories, articles, etc. On top of that, the subject matter will be decidedly metaphysical, and the plot will exhibit more of a fantastic style than prior entries. Still, it will reflect aspects of each book that came before it, and my hope is that this installment will allow me to do justice to the Driver concept in a way that I haven't been able to thus far. Be on the lookout for a 2023 release, if all goes well.
December 20, 2021
New release: Villains
I’m really excited to announce the release of book two in the Reeve series: Villains. Clocking in around 99,000 words, Villains continues the Gothic Western saga which imagines an alternate, post-alchemy version of North America as seen in From Legend, the first installment released in 2019.
This story came together faster than I anticipated, which plays into my desire to remain prolific. Ideas consume me for a limited amount of time before I become bored with them, and so getting a project over the finish line is freeing in a way—it gives one a sense of accomplishment as well as kindles a desire to tackle something new.
I was reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy at the outset of the writing process, and it really invigorated my efforts from a style perspective. Specifically, I leaned more toward a relaxed-but-not-quite-stream-of-consciousness approach along with the use of polysyndeton. McCarthy has such a way of painting a picture that’s very much unrestrained by convention or even punctuation. While I didn’t abandon convention to the extent he does, I let my thoughts widen a bit and paid less attention to trying to explicitly define what was in my mind’s eye. Instead, I wanted to let the reader get carried away by their own imagination by what I hope is evocative prose.
If you’ve read From Legend, you’ll know it left things in a bit of a lurch. The primary protagonist—Logan Hale—made a very unexpected decision at a pivotal moment in the story. Villains picks up immediately after that, leaving no uncertainty as to where Logan’s head is at or what’s become of his once fervent desire to protect his city. The Batman mythos runs strong in his character, maybe too strong, but that’s how he lives in my mind, and so that’s how he’s portrayed. And it’s that obsessive, brooding nature that continues to dog him as he tries to overcome his failures.
The book features a Batman-esque rogues' gallery of ne’er do wells as well, many of which feature in their own POV chapters. I don’t often enjoy writing from the antagonists’ perspective, but in this case, it was an interesting exercise because it forced me to consider what makes people evil, or rather why people make evil choices. The question of whether objective moral values and duties exist is an important idea in the book as it pertains to the philosophical underpinnings that will feature throughout the series: the exploration of whether a greatest conceivable being exists—what the book refers to as the Absolute, or what we would colloquially call God.
This is really my enterprise here, the examination of four philosophical arguments in each of the subsequent books. Villains focuses on the Moral Argument for the existence of God, and I went back and forth regarding how prominently to feature it. I didn’t know whether to bury it in symbolism or surface it in dialogue. I ended up mostly opting for the latter since I don’t think I’m skilled enough to do the former.
And I don’t know if it works. I don’t know if it’s too on the nose. I don’t know if it comes off as too intellectually snooty. Too dry, perhaps. I waffle about my opinion of it, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. The book could be brilliant, or it could be the work of a hack (who most certainly relied on greater thinkers than himself in any case). It could be a muddled mess in between—but it’s what I wrote, and it’s time to let it out into the world. My limited abilities will only permit so much polish before it’s as good as it’s going to get.
The following quote from J.R.R. Tolkien captures my cautiously optimistic sentiment knowing that my endeavors, however noble I want them to be, are imperfect:
“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.”
I hope you enjoy Villains; I truly enjoyed writing it. The narrative is dark but ultimately doesn’t leave you hopeless. And I think that’s the takeaway—that despite every horrific reason one might have to view life as something of unavoidable despair, there is a glimmer still, meaning to be found, something that enables one to endure the long, hard road ahead.
This story came together faster than I anticipated, which plays into my desire to remain prolific. Ideas consume me for a limited amount of time before I become bored with them, and so getting a project over the finish line is freeing in a way—it gives one a sense of accomplishment as well as kindles a desire to tackle something new.
I was reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy at the outset of the writing process, and it really invigorated my efforts from a style perspective. Specifically, I leaned more toward a relaxed-but-not-quite-stream-of-consciousness approach along with the use of polysyndeton. McCarthy has such a way of painting a picture that’s very much unrestrained by convention or even punctuation. While I didn’t abandon convention to the extent he does, I let my thoughts widen a bit and paid less attention to trying to explicitly define what was in my mind’s eye. Instead, I wanted to let the reader get carried away by their own imagination by what I hope is evocative prose.
If you’ve read From Legend, you’ll know it left things in a bit of a lurch. The primary protagonist—Logan Hale—made a very unexpected decision at a pivotal moment in the story. Villains picks up immediately after that, leaving no uncertainty as to where Logan’s head is at or what’s become of his once fervent desire to protect his city. The Batman mythos runs strong in his character, maybe too strong, but that’s how he lives in my mind, and so that’s how he’s portrayed. And it’s that obsessive, brooding nature that continues to dog him as he tries to overcome his failures.
The book features a Batman-esque rogues' gallery of ne’er do wells as well, many of which feature in their own POV chapters. I don’t often enjoy writing from the antagonists’ perspective, but in this case, it was an interesting exercise because it forced me to consider what makes people evil, or rather why people make evil choices. The question of whether objective moral values and duties exist is an important idea in the book as it pertains to the philosophical underpinnings that will feature throughout the series: the exploration of whether a greatest conceivable being exists—what the book refers to as the Absolute, or what we would colloquially call God.
This is really my enterprise here, the examination of four philosophical arguments in each of the subsequent books. Villains focuses on the Moral Argument for the existence of God, and I went back and forth regarding how prominently to feature it. I didn’t know whether to bury it in symbolism or surface it in dialogue. I ended up mostly opting for the latter since I don’t think I’m skilled enough to do the former.
And I don’t know if it works. I don’t know if it’s too on the nose. I don’t know if it comes off as too intellectually snooty. Too dry, perhaps. I waffle about my opinion of it, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. The book could be brilliant, or it could be the work of a hack (who most certainly relied on greater thinkers than himself in any case). It could be a muddled mess in between—but it’s what I wrote, and it’s time to let it out into the world. My limited abilities will only permit so much polish before it’s as good as it’s going to get.
The following quote from J.R.R. Tolkien captures my cautiously optimistic sentiment knowing that my endeavors, however noble I want them to be, are imperfect:
“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.”
I hope you enjoy Villains; I truly enjoyed writing it. The narrative is dark but ultimately doesn’t leave you hopeless. And I think that’s the takeaway—that despite every horrific reason one might have to view life as something of unavoidable despair, there is a glimmer still, meaning to be found, something that enables one to endure the long, hard road ahead.
November 30, 2020
Promptly Written Volume 2 and retooling From Legend
Let me be the first to say I'm impressed the Promptly Written Podcast is two seasons old. When my friend and fellow author Matt Sugerik set out with the idea of short fiction based on crowd-sourced writing prompts, I wasn't sure if we'd have enough in the tank from month to month. But here we are, and Promptly Written Volume 2 is now available for your reading pleasure!
It was another great year of unexpected stories and good conversation. My favorite stories are "The Mouse King" (my veiled rant about how Disney ruined Star Wars) and "The Truth Might Be Out There" (a fun little tale quite literally laden with conspiracy theories) Give the show a listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or the Promptly Written website. Or if you'd like to read the stories instead, the book is available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback copies will follow shortly.
On another note, I did something I've never done before, and that was re-work a prior novel. I'm not going to lie; I hate admitting that. But it was a combination of having read Blood Meridian this summer (and subsequently feeling inspired and invigorated as a writer) and recognizing a cadence issue in hindsight that prompted me to take another look at From Legend, which is the first book in what will be a Gothic Western series with philosophical underpinnings.
I'm a lot happier with the result--and fear not if you've already read the book. The story did not change, only the sentence structure in some cases or in others, the addition of more descriptive prose. And if you haven't read the book, give it a whirl if you think a Batman-inspired western that takes place in an alternate version of North America sounds like fun. I'm working on book 2 right now, and it's shaping up to be better than the first.
It was another great year of unexpected stories and good conversation. My favorite stories are "The Mouse King" (my veiled rant about how Disney ruined Star Wars) and "The Truth Might Be Out There" (a fun little tale quite literally laden with conspiracy theories) Give the show a listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or the Promptly Written website. Or if you'd like to read the stories instead, the book is available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited. Paperback copies will follow shortly.
On another note, I did something I've never done before, and that was re-work a prior novel. I'm not going to lie; I hate admitting that. But it was a combination of having read Blood Meridian this summer (and subsequently feeling inspired and invigorated as a writer) and recognizing a cadence issue in hindsight that prompted me to take another look at From Legend, which is the first book in what will be a Gothic Western series with philosophical underpinnings.
I'm a lot happier with the result--and fear not if you've already read the book. The story did not change, only the sentence structure in some cases or in others, the addition of more descriptive prose. And if you haven't read the book, give it a whirl if you think a Batman-inspired western that takes place in an alternate version of North America sounds like fun. I'm working on book 2 right now, and it's shaping up to be better than the first.
June 1, 2020
New Release: Winterfield Nights
The Driver is back! Winterfield Nights is a short novel that stands as book four in the Driver series. It's also the second book in what will be a trilogy within the series, starting with Beacon Road Bedlam.
It's a great feeling to finally put the finishing touches on a book and be done with it. Even at 50,000 words, it's a lot of work, and there's always the question in the back of your mind of whether you effectively communicated your vision. A book can always "be better" I suppose, but at some point, you have to let go and call it done. Otherwise, you'll forever be pulling a George Lucas and tweaking things to death.
As usual, Winterfield Nights is a bit experimental in format since this series is sort of my sandbox to do whatever I want. I was going for something really moody and atmospheric and thought I could leverage multiple points of view to accomplish this: third-person for those poetic details and first-person to get the authentic character nuances to come through.
Each chapter begins in third-person to set the scene before shifting to the viewpoint character's first-person narration. Think of it as peeling back the outer narrative in order to get to the inner narrative. Originally, I wanted each chapter to seamlessly shift back and forth between third and first, sort of allowing the characters to provide their own commentary on different parts of the outer narrative. While that worked for some chapters, it didn't for others, and I didn't want to sacrifice readability for sake of the format. So, in the end I went with only one shift per chapter.
What's so cool about this book (for me, anyway) is that it sees two previously unpublished short stories come to life: "For the Taking" and "Vigilante." Since both stories take place in the same universe, it wasn't difficult to repurpose them for use in Winterfield Nights. I also wanted there to be an episodic feel from one chapter to another, which again, made it easy to weave these stories into the greater plot.
"For the Taking" was the story of Will Sparks and his townie friends' hasty plan to rob a bar on Thanksgiving Eve whereas "Vigilante" was the story of Eddie Slocumb, a family man who tracked a serial killer in the eighties. And for those of you paying attention, Sheriff Hildersham makes mention of the latter in The Camaro Murders ("Some folks still talk about the strangulations near the end of ’87.").
Both Will and Eddie round out a cast of desperate characters in Winterfield Nights that features the return of Tad Ozzel from Beacon Road Bedlam. Man, what a turd that Ozzel guy is. His single-minded focus on uncovering what he thinks is the suppression of truth makes him increasingly malevolent as he and the rest of the characters blindly race to their respective points of no return. Sheriff Hildersham comes along for the ride in this one, but while Beacon was more of a Sheriff story, Winterfield is more of an Ozzel story.
Of course, it's just as much a Driver story, as any Driver book always will be. And while the Driver is somewhat one-dimensional even after four books (he was first envisioned primarily as a plot device), he's sufficiently nonspecific to perhaps allow readers to identify with someone stuck in a situation they can't get out of, observing things they can't abide, even if said reader isn't pursued by a ghostly being named Malveinous.
At the end of the day, Winterfield Nights is really a thriller at heart, as you'll see in the last quarter of the book as all the loose threads come together. I think that's what I've been doing all along with this series—writing thrillers—albeit in a roundabout, Gothic, noir-ish, Supernatural way. I'm not sure how else to classify them.
So, what is this story really about? I'll admit the blurb is intentionally vague. It's meant to reflect that episodic quality I mentioned further up where the reader gets to observe the goings-on of a dismal town called Winterfield. There's some crime (inspired by real life events from Youngstown, Ohio), vigilante antics, small-town desperation, and the Driver's ongoing fight for his soul.
Be sure to get your electronic or paperback copy of Winterfield Nights on Amazon, and if you enjoy the book, please leave a rating or review.
Next up, The Reeve Book Two.
It's a great feeling to finally put the finishing touches on a book and be done with it. Even at 50,000 words, it's a lot of work, and there's always the question in the back of your mind of whether you effectively communicated your vision. A book can always "be better" I suppose, but at some point, you have to let go and call it done. Otherwise, you'll forever be pulling a George Lucas and tweaking things to death.
As usual, Winterfield Nights is a bit experimental in format since this series is sort of my sandbox to do whatever I want. I was going for something really moody and atmospheric and thought I could leverage multiple points of view to accomplish this: third-person for those poetic details and first-person to get the authentic character nuances to come through.
Each chapter begins in third-person to set the scene before shifting to the viewpoint character's first-person narration. Think of it as peeling back the outer narrative in order to get to the inner narrative. Originally, I wanted each chapter to seamlessly shift back and forth between third and first, sort of allowing the characters to provide their own commentary on different parts of the outer narrative. While that worked for some chapters, it didn't for others, and I didn't want to sacrifice readability for sake of the format. So, in the end I went with only one shift per chapter.
What's so cool about this book (for me, anyway) is that it sees two previously unpublished short stories come to life: "For the Taking" and "Vigilante." Since both stories take place in the same universe, it wasn't difficult to repurpose them for use in Winterfield Nights. I also wanted there to be an episodic feel from one chapter to another, which again, made it easy to weave these stories into the greater plot.
"For the Taking" was the story of Will Sparks and his townie friends' hasty plan to rob a bar on Thanksgiving Eve whereas "Vigilante" was the story of Eddie Slocumb, a family man who tracked a serial killer in the eighties. And for those of you paying attention, Sheriff Hildersham makes mention of the latter in The Camaro Murders ("Some folks still talk about the strangulations near the end of ’87.").
Both Will and Eddie round out a cast of desperate characters in Winterfield Nights that features the return of Tad Ozzel from Beacon Road Bedlam. Man, what a turd that Ozzel guy is. His single-minded focus on uncovering what he thinks is the suppression of truth makes him increasingly malevolent as he and the rest of the characters blindly race to their respective points of no return. Sheriff Hildersham comes along for the ride in this one, but while Beacon was more of a Sheriff story, Winterfield is more of an Ozzel story.
Of course, it's just as much a Driver story, as any Driver book always will be. And while the Driver is somewhat one-dimensional even after four books (he was first envisioned primarily as a plot device), he's sufficiently nonspecific to perhaps allow readers to identify with someone stuck in a situation they can't get out of, observing things they can't abide, even if said reader isn't pursued by a ghostly being named Malveinous.
At the end of the day, Winterfield Nights is really a thriller at heart, as you'll see in the last quarter of the book as all the loose threads come together. I think that's what I've been doing all along with this series—writing thrillers—albeit in a roundabout, Gothic, noir-ish, Supernatural way. I'm not sure how else to classify them.
So, what is this story really about? I'll admit the blurb is intentionally vague. It's meant to reflect that episodic quality I mentioned further up where the reader gets to observe the goings-on of a dismal town called Winterfield. There's some crime (inspired by real life events from Youngstown, Ohio), vigilante antics, small-town desperation, and the Driver's ongoing fight for his soul.
Be sure to get your electronic or paperback copy of Winterfield Nights on Amazon, and if you enjoy the book, please leave a rating or review.
Next up, The Reeve Book Two.
January 8, 2020
Promptly Written Volume 1 and the SPFBO Sampler
It's been a while since my last post. A long while. But I assure you I've been busy. I'm working on the fourth book in the Driver series which I hope to have out sometime this year--hopefully by summer. I've also been writing monthly installments for the Promptly Written Podcast, which brings me to some overdue news:
The first season's worth of stories are now available in Promptly Written Volume 1. Get a copy wherever eBooks are sold, or if you prefer paperback, hit up Amazon:
https://books2read.com/u/m2r291
The first season turned out really well, and Matt (my co-host) and I had a lot of fun tackling the prompts from month to month. I hope you'll tune in and listen at some point. We run the gamut of genres and often end up with stories 180 degrees off of one another.
I also participated in the 5th annual Self Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO) contest. My entry was From Legend (a Gothic Western heavily influenced by Batman). Though I didn't make it into the finals, I got a respectable review out of it and hopefully some exposure to new readers. If you haven't read From Legend yet, you can check out the first five chapters in the SPFBO Sampler, along with excerpts from many other participants in this year's and past contests. The best part is it's free. You can download it here:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ett75g3wn3
Well, it's back to writing. Keep an eye out for the next book!
The first season's worth of stories are now available in Promptly Written Volume 1. Get a copy wherever eBooks are sold, or if you prefer paperback, hit up Amazon:
https://books2read.com/u/m2r291
The first season turned out really well, and Matt (my co-host) and I had a lot of fun tackling the prompts from month to month. I hope you'll tune in and listen at some point. We run the gamut of genres and often end up with stories 180 degrees off of one another.
I also participated in the 5th annual Self Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO) contest. My entry was From Legend (a Gothic Western heavily influenced by Batman). Though I didn't make it into the finals, I got a respectable review out of it and hopefully some exposure to new readers. If you haven't read From Legend yet, you can check out the first five chapters in the SPFBO Sampler, along with excerpts from many other participants in this year's and past contests. The best part is it's free. You can download it here:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ett75g3wn3
Well, it's back to writing. Keep an eye out for the next book!
April 8, 2019
Batman, a Fantasy, and a Western all in a blender
I'm excited to announce the release of my new novel! "The Reeve Book I: From Legend" is the first in what will be a five-book Historical Fantasy series. There's a lot that went into this story from a conceptual viewpoint, so much that I worried whether I could effectively articulate my vision. The title of this very post is how I went about describing it to people early on. Sounds kind of out there, right? Well, all along my goal was to write something accessible, and in the end, I feel I was able to temper the narrative despite the ambitious nature of the project. So, let's dive in.
It started out with an abstract idea that came out of left field, very much undeveloped. I was looking at my mundane surroundings, wondering what my environment would look like in context of a Fantasy novel—sort of an alternate reality, if you will. This idea was so unexpected because I'm not a big Fantasy guy. There are some exceptions (notably the original Star Wars trilogy—and before you say it's Sci Fi and not Fantasy, let me say two words that recently changed my mind on this: Space Wizards), but magic, dragons, elves, orcs, and the like are just not my thing. At least not the classic, medieval interpretation of them.
I quickly abandoned the idea of a medieval version of Northeast Ohio because of that, but the alternate history idea stuck with me, and more specifically the idea of a stunted world. Not the kind where we progress as normal and then at some point in the future there's an apocalyptic event, but rather at some point in the past something terrible happens, and the present as we know it never occurs.
In the world I posited, things go awry in the 1100s. Here are the assumptions I provide to the reader at the beginning of the book:
Man once pursued alchemy seeking the purification of the human body and soul. Fueled by his vanity and pride, his pursuit gave birth instead to bastard mutations and obfuscation of knowledge, culture, and religion. The world has since been plunged into darkness.
Fast-forward centuries later, and the world has followed a trajectory somewhat different than our own: the Japanese reach North America before the Europeans do, Gothic architecture finds its home on the shores of Lake Erie, and technology is more or less at a Colonial/Victorian level despite it being the year 2017. I still needed a plot and characters, though.
Enter the album Koi No Yokan by the Deftones. I've talked before about how much music influences my writing. In this case I was listening to this album a lot during the germination stages of the novel, and subsequently the pacing and to a certain extent the plot were inspired by it. The lyrics in the first and final tracks especially fueled some of the concepts/scenes; they suggested things to my rampant imagination that just stuck.
A bigger influence, though, might be the Batman archetype, as a co-worker phrased it. I like the term so I'm running with it. I've always been fascinated with the Batman universe, and so the protagonist is to a large extent modeled on the "world's greatest detective." Whereas Batman is a polymath and a supreme athlete, Logan Hale/The Reeve is an approximation of that. Physically imposing, brooding, athletic, well-read. And yeah, he likes to prowl from above. Some of it's a bit on the nose, but I reasoned that even Batman had his influences (see Zorro and The Shadow).
The Reeve isn't a vigilante, however. He's a lawman—more or less a sheriff type of character. In fact, the word "sheriff" is derived from the term "Shire-Reeve." Hence the Reeve. And therein lies the subtle Western influences. Logan is the highest peace officer in the city of Beldenridge, and it's his devotion (or is it an obsession?) that prompts him to set out on a desperate trail into the unknown, pitted against the elements.
There's a lot to be said about Beldenridge (modern day Avon/Avon Lake). It's the grand ideal of its founder's intent to build the perfect city—sort of the Cyrus Pinkney/Gotham idea that I remember from the Destroyer storyline in Batman. I tried to capture the muted pallor of autumn skies in Northeast Ohio as well as the fickle weather. It's often such a depressing, washed out effect that permeates the feel of a damp morning along Lake Erie; I hope I did that justice. There are also some Easter eggs throughout the book for those who know Lorain County history.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the philosophical thrust that will underpin the series. You don't get too much of it in the first book—just a hint, really—but there will be something for all you thinking types as everything unfolds. The gist is that I've found myself consumed with the idea that it's logically impossible for God not to exist. Or worded another way, it's logically incoherent to even ask whether God exists.
Now if you're first inclination is to go running to Richard Dawkins complaining about flying spaghetti monsters or magical sky buddies, ask yourself if you aren't railing against a caricature or perhaps a popularized stereotype. My project isn't to advocate for any particular belief system, only to outline the philosophical concept of what we'll colloquially refer to as God, supported by arguments that have an inescapable cumulative effect. I want to strip away dogma and preconceptions as well as emotionally-driven responses, and then distill things down to logic and reason. The question isn't whether you'll like the conclusion or even find it palatable; the question is whether you can give it intellectual assent.
As it stands, here's my plan with regard to where these arguments will be featured:
Book 2: The Moral Argument
Book 3: The Fine-Tuning Argument
Book 4: The Cosmological Argument
Book 5: The Ontological Argument
Book 1 hints at Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, but it's brief since "From Legend" is very much a setup for the rest of the series. The challenge for me is going to be how I can weave these arguments into the narrative while still telling a good yarn! I hope you stick it out to see if I succeed.
You can buy a copy of "From Legend" wherever eBooks are sold, or if you want a paperback, you can order from Amazon (which should be available in a day or two).
As always, thanks for reading, and please take the time to leave a rating/review.
It started out with an abstract idea that came out of left field, very much undeveloped. I was looking at my mundane surroundings, wondering what my environment would look like in context of a Fantasy novel—sort of an alternate reality, if you will. This idea was so unexpected because I'm not a big Fantasy guy. There are some exceptions (notably the original Star Wars trilogy—and before you say it's Sci Fi and not Fantasy, let me say two words that recently changed my mind on this: Space Wizards), but magic, dragons, elves, orcs, and the like are just not my thing. At least not the classic, medieval interpretation of them.
I quickly abandoned the idea of a medieval version of Northeast Ohio because of that, but the alternate history idea stuck with me, and more specifically the idea of a stunted world. Not the kind where we progress as normal and then at some point in the future there's an apocalyptic event, but rather at some point in the past something terrible happens, and the present as we know it never occurs.
In the world I posited, things go awry in the 1100s. Here are the assumptions I provide to the reader at the beginning of the book:
Man once pursued alchemy seeking the purification of the human body and soul. Fueled by his vanity and pride, his pursuit gave birth instead to bastard mutations and obfuscation of knowledge, culture, and religion. The world has since been plunged into darkness.
Fast-forward centuries later, and the world has followed a trajectory somewhat different than our own: the Japanese reach North America before the Europeans do, Gothic architecture finds its home on the shores of Lake Erie, and technology is more or less at a Colonial/Victorian level despite it being the year 2017. I still needed a plot and characters, though.
Enter the album Koi No Yokan by the Deftones. I've talked before about how much music influences my writing. In this case I was listening to this album a lot during the germination stages of the novel, and subsequently the pacing and to a certain extent the plot were inspired by it. The lyrics in the first and final tracks especially fueled some of the concepts/scenes; they suggested things to my rampant imagination that just stuck.
A bigger influence, though, might be the Batman archetype, as a co-worker phrased it. I like the term so I'm running with it. I've always been fascinated with the Batman universe, and so the protagonist is to a large extent modeled on the "world's greatest detective." Whereas Batman is a polymath and a supreme athlete, Logan Hale/The Reeve is an approximation of that. Physically imposing, brooding, athletic, well-read. And yeah, he likes to prowl from above. Some of it's a bit on the nose, but I reasoned that even Batman had his influences (see Zorro and The Shadow).
The Reeve isn't a vigilante, however. He's a lawman—more or less a sheriff type of character. In fact, the word "sheriff" is derived from the term "Shire-Reeve." Hence the Reeve. And therein lies the subtle Western influences. Logan is the highest peace officer in the city of Beldenridge, and it's his devotion (or is it an obsession?) that prompts him to set out on a desperate trail into the unknown, pitted against the elements.
There's a lot to be said about Beldenridge (modern day Avon/Avon Lake). It's the grand ideal of its founder's intent to build the perfect city—sort of the Cyrus Pinkney/Gotham idea that I remember from the Destroyer storyline in Batman. I tried to capture the muted pallor of autumn skies in Northeast Ohio as well as the fickle weather. It's often such a depressing, washed out effect that permeates the feel of a damp morning along Lake Erie; I hope I did that justice. There are also some Easter eggs throughout the book for those who know Lorain County history.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the philosophical thrust that will underpin the series. You don't get too much of it in the first book—just a hint, really—but there will be something for all you thinking types as everything unfolds. The gist is that I've found myself consumed with the idea that it's logically impossible for God not to exist. Or worded another way, it's logically incoherent to even ask whether God exists.
Now if you're first inclination is to go running to Richard Dawkins complaining about flying spaghetti monsters or magical sky buddies, ask yourself if you aren't railing against a caricature or perhaps a popularized stereotype. My project isn't to advocate for any particular belief system, only to outline the philosophical concept of what we'll colloquially refer to as God, supported by arguments that have an inescapable cumulative effect. I want to strip away dogma and preconceptions as well as emotionally-driven responses, and then distill things down to logic and reason. The question isn't whether you'll like the conclusion or even find it palatable; the question is whether you can give it intellectual assent.
As it stands, here's my plan with regard to where these arguments will be featured:
Book 2: The Moral Argument
Book 3: The Fine-Tuning Argument
Book 4: The Cosmological Argument
Book 5: The Ontological Argument
Book 1 hints at Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, but it's brief since "From Legend" is very much a setup for the rest of the series. The challenge for me is going to be how I can weave these arguments into the narrative while still telling a good yarn! I hope you stick it out to see if I succeed.
You can buy a copy of "From Legend" wherever eBooks are sold, or if you want a paperback, you can order from Amazon (which should be available in a day or two).
As always, thanks for reading, and please take the time to leave a rating/review.
September 28, 2018
A podcasting adventure...
I'm excited to announce a new writing project: The Promptly Written Podcast. I'm teaming up with my friend and fellow writer Matt Sugerik on a monthly writing exercise. The idea is simple. We'll each take an identical writing prompt and write two flash-fiction stories. Each episode we'll read our stories and then have a discussion about the writing process, inspirations, etc.
The fun part is you the listener will have a chance to provide input and vote on prompts from month to month. Then at the end of the year, we'll publish an anthology of the past year's stories. We may even open up a reddit so you can write along with us.
This is definitely new territory for me. Anyone who knows me understands how reclusive I like to be; I've always wanted readers to find interest in my stories rather than me personally. So it's with a bit of trepidation that I set out on this project.
Matt and I have been friends for quite some time, despite the fact that we are polar opposites on so many things. This of course will make for interesting dichotomies with respect to how we craft our narratives using the same prompt. It also puts me out there in the public sphere a lot further than I've ever wanted to be, and the inevitable scrutiny that comes with it. Matt has his sense of humor and I have mine; he has his way of speaking and I have mine. You get the idea. It's going to be an interesting ride with lots of twists and turns, so I hope you'll respect each of our creative drives as well as our viewpoints that might creep in from time to time. At the end of the day, we want to write good stories rather than use the podcast as a soapbox.
When you have a moment, check us out on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or the Prompt Written Podcast website:
https://www.promptlywrittenpodcast.com/
The fun part is you the listener will have a chance to provide input and vote on prompts from month to month. Then at the end of the year, we'll publish an anthology of the past year's stories. We may even open up a reddit so you can write along with us.
This is definitely new territory for me. Anyone who knows me understands how reclusive I like to be; I've always wanted readers to find interest in my stories rather than me personally. So it's with a bit of trepidation that I set out on this project.
Matt and I have been friends for quite some time, despite the fact that we are polar opposites on so many things. This of course will make for interesting dichotomies with respect to how we craft our narratives using the same prompt. It also puts me out there in the public sphere a lot further than I've ever wanted to be, and the inevitable scrutiny that comes with it. Matt has his sense of humor and I have mine; he has his way of speaking and I have mine. You get the idea. It's going to be an interesting ride with lots of twists and turns, so I hope you'll respect each of our creative drives as well as our viewpoints that might creep in from time to time. At the end of the day, we want to write good stories rather than use the podcast as a soapbox.
When you have a moment, check us out on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or the Prompt Written Podcast website:
https://www.promptlywrittenpodcast.com/
April 7, 2018
New release! Part 2: A few spoilers
The release of And I Will Lead the Revolt is finally here! Lots of late nights and writing on lunch breaks has hopefully paid off. This series went from an inside joke to an "I'll write this just for fun" type of thing to a narrative that outgrew either of those.
If you read any of the posts related to the release of Godspeed, Carry My Bullet, you'll know that the genesis of the story was rooted in a joke among co-workers. We envisioned ourselves as characters in this dystopian version of the U.S. I promised to write a story about it just for the heck of it. Well, once I plotted everything out, a new animal emerged which eclipsed the underpinnings. And it exceeded what could be considered one book.
All the same, I didn't see this as a series I wanted to take on for the long haul. There's certainly the potential to do so; there's so much terrain to explore, but it's not a universe that interests me as much as others, nor is a mass market thriller something that captivates me from a stylistic perspective. So it had to have an end.
Enter Seth Sloane. Whereas Godspeed is sort of Bobby's story, Revolt is Seth's story. Seth is a committed, capable member of the Military Police, and I was intrigued with the idea of seeing things from the other side. The Military Police are painted as this evil force in Godspeed, but then you see that Seth is just another guy trying to get by and provide for his family. I thought that antagonism mirrored a lot of what we see today with the left and right rhetoric. My theory is that if you took away all of the hot button issues and boiled things down to the bare essentials, we'd find we have a lot more in common than we think.
I try to press that point with a lot of parallels that I draw between these characters. Sometimes it's overt, like multiple characters going through the same experience such as being in prison or on their way to prison. In other cases, it's less obvious. Characters' beliefs are challenged, and they usually get pushed into situations that grate against their fabric. Even with the final chapters with armed revolt against the respective governments, there is always a common thread between what's happening.
And that leads into the outer plot. With Revolt being the end of the series, I had to steer everything toward some type of resolution. You leave off at the end of Godspeed with Bobby having perpetrated a terrible act of public murder, the Raider in a lurch with the shootout with MPs, and Bon having just gunned down two men in order to rescue the young Katie. So things were very much up in the air.
The most obvious thing was the restoration of constitutional government. The Sons of Washington reveal that's their goal in Godspeed, and whatever one might change about our current government, it seemed the most logical choice when faced with the Directorate and the Valiant. So I went with it, but that entailed some research on the Constitution itself. I didn't have time for this to be an all consuming thing, but found that Hillsdale College's free online Constitution 101 class to be super-helpful. It reinforced some things I already knew, taught me some things I didn't know or else had forgotten, and even reversed some things I thought I knew:
http://lp.hillsdale.edu/constitution-...
Two concepts came out of this research that really resonated with me: 1. Consent of the governed, and 2. Natural rights. The idea that people consent to a certain form of government, not due to some arbitrary reason or any right of one person over another, for the sole purpose of securing one's rights, was a powerful one. And it's not important whether one agrees with these concepts or the best way to apply them; I simply wanted to distill down the original philosophy and acknowledge this was where the founders' heads were at.
These concepts ultimately drove much of the plot. I had to think about a group like the Sons of Washington, and what would they believe and how might they go about achieving their ends, and these seemed like appropriate motivators. But as I said in the previous post, the story is truly carried along by the characters. The weaving of their sub plots is what will keep you turning the pages. And with their cross-section of world views (Christian, Agnostic, and Atheist), you get different perspectives as the events unfold.
There's so much more that could be said, but I'd rather let you get a copy of the book and draw your own conclusions. Thanks for reading.
If you read any of the posts related to the release of Godspeed, Carry My Bullet, you'll know that the genesis of the story was rooted in a joke among co-workers. We envisioned ourselves as characters in this dystopian version of the U.S. I promised to write a story about it just for the heck of it. Well, once I plotted everything out, a new animal emerged which eclipsed the underpinnings. And it exceeded what could be considered one book.
All the same, I didn't see this as a series I wanted to take on for the long haul. There's certainly the potential to do so; there's so much terrain to explore, but it's not a universe that interests me as much as others, nor is a mass market thriller something that captivates me from a stylistic perspective. So it had to have an end.
Enter Seth Sloane. Whereas Godspeed is sort of Bobby's story, Revolt is Seth's story. Seth is a committed, capable member of the Military Police, and I was intrigued with the idea of seeing things from the other side. The Military Police are painted as this evil force in Godspeed, but then you see that Seth is just another guy trying to get by and provide for his family. I thought that antagonism mirrored a lot of what we see today with the left and right rhetoric. My theory is that if you took away all of the hot button issues and boiled things down to the bare essentials, we'd find we have a lot more in common than we think.
I try to press that point with a lot of parallels that I draw between these characters. Sometimes it's overt, like multiple characters going through the same experience such as being in prison or on their way to prison. In other cases, it's less obvious. Characters' beliefs are challenged, and they usually get pushed into situations that grate against their fabric. Even with the final chapters with armed revolt against the respective governments, there is always a common thread between what's happening.
And that leads into the outer plot. With Revolt being the end of the series, I had to steer everything toward some type of resolution. You leave off at the end of Godspeed with Bobby having perpetrated a terrible act of public murder, the Raider in a lurch with the shootout with MPs, and Bon having just gunned down two men in order to rescue the young Katie. So things were very much up in the air.
The most obvious thing was the restoration of constitutional government. The Sons of Washington reveal that's their goal in Godspeed, and whatever one might change about our current government, it seemed the most logical choice when faced with the Directorate and the Valiant. So I went with it, but that entailed some research on the Constitution itself. I didn't have time for this to be an all consuming thing, but found that Hillsdale College's free online Constitution 101 class to be super-helpful. It reinforced some things I already knew, taught me some things I didn't know or else had forgotten, and even reversed some things I thought I knew:
http://lp.hillsdale.edu/constitution-...
Two concepts came out of this research that really resonated with me: 1. Consent of the governed, and 2. Natural rights. The idea that people consent to a certain form of government, not due to some arbitrary reason or any right of one person over another, for the sole purpose of securing one's rights, was a powerful one. And it's not important whether one agrees with these concepts or the best way to apply them; I simply wanted to distill down the original philosophy and acknowledge this was where the founders' heads were at.
These concepts ultimately drove much of the plot. I had to think about a group like the Sons of Washington, and what would they believe and how might they go about achieving their ends, and these seemed like appropriate motivators. But as I said in the previous post, the story is truly carried along by the characters. The weaving of their sub plots is what will keep you turning the pages. And with their cross-section of world views (Christian, Agnostic, and Atheist), you get different perspectives as the events unfold.
There's so much more that could be said, but I'd rather let you get a copy of the book and draw your own conclusions. Thanks for reading.
