Goodreads asked M.D. Presley:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

M.D. Presley The first germ to Sol's Harvest came from The Last Airbender (the cartoon, not the terrible movie; obviously). It had such an intricate and vibrant world that I wanted to see if I could develop a new fantasy world that was equally as inviting as a thought experiment. I obviously failed, because how do you top that show? You can't, but that's where it all started.

The second inspiration came from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. I've often thought that too much fantasy spends its times focused on mimicking medieval Europe, and so the American Civil War seemed like an interesting experience to fold into my existing fantasy world I had developed.

The third inspiration came from the first season of True Detective (is it odd that all my inspirations for a book came from TV?). I loved how they used two different timelines to juxtapose the characters so as to build mystery as well as giving decades of development to build a character study around. Plus, you know, it was relentlessly nihilistic.

So yeah, that was my goal: To build a bright and inviting fantasy world and then paint over it in gray with a nihilistic civil war. Because I'm a jerk apparently.

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