As he has often stated, Author Stephen Swartz has always been fascinated by other places and other cultures and languages. That life-long interest translates into the kind of stories he writes, full of exotic locations and smatterings of other cultures and their languages. In that sense, every novel he has written has certain attributes which can be easily cataloged. For example, each novel has characters who use languages other than English. As a linguist, Swartz enjoys dabbling in that intersection of culture and language. Each novel has exotic locations, as well, including another planet.
To keep them clear, I've created this handy-dandy chart--just as any good archivist would.
Title
|
Genre
|
Settings/Time
|
Languages
|
Plot
|
A Beautiful Chill
|
Literary/ Romance
|
Wichita, Kansas;
Padre Island, Texas;
Toronto, Canada;
Akureyri & Reykjavik, Iceland - 1999-2000
|
English, Icelandic
|
Boy meets younger wrong girl
|
After Ilium
|
Literary/ Adventure
|
Greece, Aegean Sea, Istanbul & the ruins of Troy, Turkey - 1993
|
English, Turkish, Greek
|
Boy meets older wrong girl
|
The Dream Land I,
Long Distance Voyager
|
Sci-Fi/ Steampunk
|
Kansas City, Missouri; various places on planet Ghoupallesz - Earth time: 1975-1983
|
English, Ghoupallean, Zetin, Roue
|
Boy loses girl, finds another
|
The Dream Land II, Dreams
of Future’s Past
|
Sci-Fi/ Steampunk
|
Kansas City, Missouri; various places on planet Ghoupallesz - Earth time: 1983-1986
|
English, French, Ghoupallean, Zetin, Roue, Danid
|
Boy searches for girl, loses everything else
|
The Dream Land III, Diaspora
|
Sci-Fi/ Steampunk
|
Kansas City, Missouri; various places on planet Ghoupallesz - Earth time: 1989-1993
|
English, Ghoupallean, Zetin, Roue, Danid, Kobareli
|
Girl doesn't look for boy but there's a comet coming anyway
|
A Dry Patch of Skin
(coming Fall 2014)
|
Literary/ Horror
|
Oklahoma City; Utica, New York; New Orleans;
Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Croatia - 2012-2014
|
English, French, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Croatian
|
Boy meets skin disease, fears losing girl
|
Aiko
(coming in 2015)
|
Literary/ Romance
|
Seattle;
Hawaii;
Nagoya & Ishikawa, Japan - 1986-1991
|
English, Japanese
|
Boy loses girl, finds their daughter
|
Year of the Tiger
(coming in 2015)
|
Literary/ Adventure
|
Kansas City, Missouri;
India: Bombay, Jaipur & other locations - 1986
|
English, Hindi
|
Boy meets tiger
|
A Time of Kings
(coming in 2016)
|
Sci-Fi/ Fantasy
|
Kingdom of Chicago and other locations in the lands of the Americus - 2990-3089
|
English, French, Spanish, Arabic
|
Brothers meet their fates
|
Boldface = available now in print or for Kindle, or coming this fall.
I hope this chart will provide useful information to aid you in choosing your next reading club selection or something delightful to escape reality on some weekend. Happy reading!
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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.
I love that chart! That is a useful tool!
ReplyDeleteIt seems I posted a reply a while back but I see it did not stick. Now I've forgotten what I wrote. Thus, it must have been very important.
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