It has been a long time coming. I wasn't sure I could do it. But then there was the first book, coming when I was good and ready by 2022. And I knew by the middle of writing it that there would be a second book - and with a second book it had to be a trilogy. Then came the hard part: a fourth book.
My first two trilogies (THE DREAM LAND TRILOGY and the STEFAN SZEKELY VAMPIRE TRILOGY) both lent themselves to a fourth book. However, while I started a fourth book for each trilogy, they went nowhere due to other things taking my time. This time, I have time and plenty of it, plus a multigenerational cast that loves to throw plots at me.
I know it can be confusing with news and updates on Books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 scattered around the platforms. Let me do a quick summary of each book and make clear the status of each without giving away too much of the story.
The initial idea came, obviously, from the very real pandemic we experienced early in 2020. I wanted to write such a story but it was too immediate for me to create fiction. A couple years later, with further thought and planning and the return to normal, I had a way to start it and knew how the story would proceed - without any consideration at the time of it being more than a one-off stand-alone novel. I would begin the story in a pandemic much like what we experienced, using references we can all identify, but start my novel after six years of it, now a lot worse and with a lot more collapsing of society.
Autistic teen son Sandy narrates what he and his sassy single mother go through in deciding to flee the city and what they endure once they leave. Mom is a professional tuba player and music professor; Sandy just started virtual college. Heading for his grandparents' small farm, they discover that the ravages of the city have spread into the countryside. What was to be a safe place to wait out the rest of the pandemic becomes a dead end. Plan B goes into effect. They travel on to find other relatives and discover how they have been managing, with plenty of tales of horror and grief. Plan B becomes Plan C. A lot goes wrong as they continue seeking a sanctuary. Eventually, they return to the coastal island where they've vacationed during past summers, a place now with its own unsettling rules. (More here.)
[Note: Unlike a lot of pandemic/plague and apocalyptic stories, FLU SEASON doesn't rely on zombies or other tropes of science fiction but strives to present a realistic world not far from what we might actually experience in the immediate future.]
Sandy narrates the journey he and his teen cousin Hannah are forced to undergo through the savage 'outerlands', bearing Mom's tuba and Baby Isla. They seek sanctuary but find the land even more dangerous, lawlessness everywhere, and face dangers that make them tougher. They also encounter the start of fighting between factions of the remnant government and rebels while finding other friends and relatives. Sandy must quickly become a man, to make his mother proud and his wife confident of his ability to protect them. (More here.)
[Note: Although our pandemic began in late 2019, in order to keep the story from becoming dated, I do not give a specific year in the series. You can think of Book 1 as beginning in 2026, if you like; count up for the next 80 years to cover subsequent generations.]
Narrated by Isla - at the beginning she is a child of four, old age by the final pages. She hides out with her parents in the forest of a national park. They soon meet other survivalists and agree to work together and protect each other. Believing they may be the last of humanity, they try to have more births. Adapting to the lawless post-pandemic world is difficult enough, but then Sandy is taken away to serve in a militia - escapes, captured by the other side to fight for them, then put in a POW camp. Later marauders come, taking the women away. Isla grows up in the idyllic forest as a child but she must become strong as a teen and as a young woman in order to survive the traumas of the newly reconstructed society. She only finds comfort and safety in her later years - as documented by her last child, Fritz, who becomes a video technician in the rebuilt society. (More here.)
Fritz returns to the capital from rehabilitation, bitter and disillusioned, unsure why he was sent there or who sent him. He knows it is because of the video he made of his elderly mother telling her stories of the pandemic years and the lawlessness that followed. Now the government says none of it happened and Fritz must learn the 'true' history. As he struggles to settle into his new life, miserable and paranoid, his neurotic behavior gets him into trouble again - until Big Sister herself confronts him and offers a hard bargain. (More here.)
5 The Granddaughter's Tale (complete; coming later in 2024)
Fritz's daughter Maggie moves out west to Skinner Canyon with her mother and brothers, a place where their cousin Faith fled from the national park years before. Now grown up, Maggie gains a sister in her cousin Eve, as she plans to start a town band, trying to follow the legacy of her great-great-grandmother Polly (Sandy's mother). First, she must return to the capital to reclaim the tuba. It seems an impossible task, especially when she makes a few missteps. But her staunch determination takes her into the post-pandemic music world.
6 A Grandson's Revenge (tentative title; drafting)
Leaving Skinner Canyon, Fritz's grandson goes with his uncle's posse in pursuit of a notorious outlaw, then gets separated, finds himself in trouble and suffers through dangerous situations which change him into an outlaw himself.
I'm certain that by the time I have finished Book 6 and launched it, I may be out of ideas. This plan also thwarts any attempt I have considered of finishing a few unfinished works sitting on my computer. For example, when I was 13, I mapped out a vast medieval epic - too large for me to start in those days of manual typewriters so I put it aside for my retirement years. Then I write this Flu Season series instead!
However, in Book 5, I manage to tie the story to the way things will be in the future that is that unfinished medieval epic (starts in the year 3000). I also let characters mention the way things are over in Europe during the Book 5 time period, thus linking Flu Season with the Stefan Szekely Vampire Trilogy (Book 2 starts in 2028, Book 3 starts in 2099). (More here.)
However, in Book 5, I manage to tie the story to the way things will be in the future that is that unfinished medieval epic (starts in the year 3000). I also let characters mention the way things are over in Europe during the Book 5 time period, thus linking Flu Season with the Stefan Szekely Vampire Trilogy (Book 2 starts in 2028, Book 3 starts in 2099). (More here.)
Aren't words amazing?
(C) Copyright 2010-2024 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.
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