Let's Talk City of the Invaders

This book originally started as a simple children's story in a collection called Facets of Fantasy. (The new, currently published version of Facets does not include this story and has a product page on this website.) This old little story, called The Trouble with Taranui, was just a germ of an idea for these 2 siblings living in a futuristic world that had a more realistic approach than most dystopian. Yes, there's a collapse of sorts, now far in the past, but the society's a lot more complex than most "lights-go-out" books make it out to be. Exploration has even continued, with colonies on Mars and the moon, and on earth there's a small minority called the EC who continue old traditions. The world is disruptive and poorly organized, but not as angsty and violent as you might expect. 

The original story was about these siblings, Frank and Katia running into trouble while putting on theatricals required by their EC community. But the story grew and grew and grew. I wrote a longer expansion about 4 years later and then kept adding bits after that. Frank and Katia got cousins who lived among the invaders, and the plot grew a little less immature and more dangerous. This book became an ebook, but was abandoned and never made it to print.

​While sorting my books, I picked it back up and found the world had a reality and resonance to it that I couldn't explain. So I revived it, added a paperback, and the next thing I knew, I was making a sequel. (Another story I'd written, called Consuela, more on that in another post.) The world of Palladia--what I call informally the "Frank and Katia" world--just slowly wove itself into more and more certainty over years. It's been almost a decade since that original little short story and today there's a sequel. I'm almost amused to realize a third book might not be too far in the future. It always feels strange when a world grows organically like that, in the telling, whether you want it or not. I'm excited about the Chronicles of Palladia series and I know readers will share that excitement because this story is pulling towards someone. I can feel it. 

And there will be more updates.