More About Palladia

The second Palladia book, Consuela, is in its final stages. The cover is coming along. I'm going to use this model (though not sure about this particular image. I've narrowed down to 9 poses of her.) But I'm going to choose soon, so I'll go ahead and put the cover up to give a general idea of the direction. The cover still has a lot of work though, and after moving the entire book into a radically different setting from before, I've taken a week or two off to cool down before I go through with a fine-tooth comb. 

Palladia is set about 300 years from now. I stalled with creating it after City of the Invaders, until I came back and realized Frank and Katia had never enthralled readers very much. They were just a platform to start the conversation. It was the world that had potential to move forward. I'm currently planning 5 books, my first series. I sometimes tried to make sequels for my stories, but it never worked because the story had been told. In Palladia, the story is just beginning. I hope by the end we'll know what this world is about and perhaps have a bit of insight into why people are so interested in this genre. What kind of people resonate with futuristic scifi and what are they seeing their daily lives that makes them talk using this sort of narrative? So here's a basic overview of the world's structure. 
There are a lot of people groups in the Palladia world. Palladia is one of several countries in a region where a former society collapsed in the past. 
The second story, Consuela, takes place in Belaria, a neighboring country to Palladia.Mars, the Moon, and one of the moons of Jupiter have inhabited colonies. The Martians are called Alpheans and appear to be Asian. Their culture is extremely advanced technologically and socially compared to the Palladians. The Lunaians also seem wealthy, but are little shown so far. I hope to explore Alphea and Luna at least a little in the third and fourth books. These places are called outerplanetary and their residents are Outerplaneters.In Palladia, there are three kinds of people: the "invaders," who seem dominant and control city-states, the main unit of Palladian government; "EC," who are a minority remnant of a previous culture and subject to the Invaders; and the "technical class," a special subdivision of invaders who have much hidden rivalry and hostility to the EC. The EC are the only officially literate class, but the technical class often hold similar jobs and are beady about  the EC's supposed elite position. The outerplanetary colonies don't have these three divisions, and don't think in "invaders" and "EC." People from Earth can visit them, but the Alpheans especially think this viewpoint distinctive to the Palladia region. They also disapprove of it, in essence.  All of these situations in Palladia are mirroring something in real life that I believe a lot of people see. This is the case with all such stories, because no one can truly see the future, obviously. Futuristic is talking about trends coming from our own time and imagining them heading on. In all my stories, as I blogged before, there's a bad guy who needs to be uncovered. And it's not who you think. In other posts I'll talk about my stories in depth so it's visible what they are talking about. (Assuming the idea they are fantasies about me are out of the way, they must be about something else.)

Who is the bad guy in Palladia? It seems to be the "Invaders," but by the second book you'll see they are slicker and more advanced than the first book makes them out to be. In City of the Invaders they're mostly bandits and gangsters. And their relationship with the EC is increasingly unclear, as we get to seem them actually interacting in daily, normal way. Also part of the second book. Are the EC really the good guys? And what role do all the other groups have in the mix? You should pay close attention. 

And there will be more updates.