What's this comedy thing?

Now that most people are reading THE GRANDSONS, my latest offering in the FLU SEASON  Saga and presumably the concluding volume, I find myself recently finishing a brand new novel based on the same family but set further into the future.

Funny story. As I usually do, I completed the draft of THE GRANDSONS and immediately went through the reading and revising phase until I had made it something I could live with. Then, as I typically do, I set it aside for a month. The idea is to come back and read it through again with fresh eyes. (I also send it to my beta reader during this month.)  I felt good about this latest epic, a tour-de-force if ever there was one (well, by me). It turns out to be my second-longest novel after only my EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (in 2017).

Speaking of EF*WD, I'd been trying to make my Grand Timeline meet up with EF*WD and laid some seeds for it in THE GRANDSONS - could be merely Easter eggs that some may find. So I was joking about a story that could bridge THE GRANDSONS (set in 2155-85) and EF*WD (set c. 8000), stretched as it may be, and an idea came to me. It was only a scene, but I decided to type it out, see if it was something. Then I slept on it. I came back and wrote more, had a couple chapters written and most of a plot figured out by the time I returned to THE GRANDSONS for the fresh re-reading.

So, as I worked through THE GRANDSONS again, I started my days by writing on this new novel. This became my routine: composing new text for the new novel, then working on revision/editing on the finished novel. This went on for two months. Once THE GRANDSONS was finished and ready to launch, I had a good portion of what I was thinking then would only be a novella already complete. Even on launch day (which came unexpectedly early) I typed on the new novel. Yes, I knew it would make it to novel length. I've been promoting THE GRANDSONS even while I have the urge to talk about my newest book. It's the writer's constant conundrum.

With THE GRANDSONS out for a month already, I finally got to the end of the new book, what I've titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN.

Now I can go full-tilt yacking about the "next" volume in the FLU SEASON series, this one set in the year 2330. From the start I felt like writing a comedy. At first, the humor was coming from the main character's reactions to the other main character's predicaments, how ridiculous it all was. Then the comedy grew chapter by chapter until I had to put myself, as author, into the final chapter, as the supreme 'meta-fiction' conceit!

The story involves a pair of rogues: Rory and Stank. Rory is the older yet shorter brother, a clever fellow; Stank (short for Stanley K. Baumann) is the younger yet much bigger brother, a warrior. We find them on the road to the capital because Rory intends to wed the princess. He needs his mighty brother to be his champion and fight a duke to clear a path for Rory. Much occurs along the road, of course, and in towns they visit along the way. The real comedy unfolds when they arrive at the capital city, known to them as Louis, set on a bluff overlooking the Missippi River. Yes, we have traveled through the savage Ozarks, crossed future medieval Missouri, with mentions of events in the past that explain how we got here.

Stank needs long hair.

While each book I've written has moments of comedy - because people will be funny, say funny things, react in quite humorous ways - this is the first novel in which I took off the reins and let my wildest imagination explode. I broke all the rules of 'good writing' to create comedic moments. 

Characters may speak using alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds, e.g. 'laughingly loose lips') especially in the capital. There is much clever wordplay and puns. Insults flung! The ridiculous situations continue as well as characters' reactions to the ridiculousness. 

For example, Rory thinks the princess will be happy to wed him because their eyes happened to meet for a moment at a public gathering, she on the balcony and he among the crowd below, a full year earlier. Stank is a loyal brother despite doubting his brother's tale. They often clash, chastise each other, joke around - more comedy! 

Could be Rory?

And, in the final dramatic turn, ridiculous situations get resolved (or not) in even more ridiculous ways. I even allow myself to become a character in one crucial scene - the very definition of 'meta-fiction' (i.e., where a creative work or its creator references itself in the work). However, in this case, in this odd tale, it works. You'll see. Believe me. 

And the origin of the dragons in EF*WD is revealed to those who have been waiting since 2017 for the information. As a "regressionist" (one who sees the future as a regression of society to an older, less technologically-driven civilization, as opposed to "progressive" or "tech-bro utopia"), I've been pushing us further down the civilization ladder across six books until we literally 'return to the future' of medieval life, this time set in Missouri.

THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is complete and will now undergo the usual revision stage, then editing, then polishing, then setting it aside (will I start yet another book?), then a fresh read-through with more revision and editing, and then publication. Could be ready by December 2025. Then you'll be able to see what's so funny!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2025 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.

Themes in the FLU SEASON Saga

By now you've gotten your copy of THE GRANDSONS and are quickly learning what happened to Bart, the young son of Maggie from Book 5. It is a tragic story, but not without some joys, as Maggie wishes for her son. Even Bart himself sees connections between events in his life and those who went before him.

Now that THE GRANDSONS (Book 6) has launched (albeit unexpectedly early), I can reveal some of the themes that weave through the series. In this latest volume, I didn't hold back letting the theme show. It is in the epigram at the beginning, a quote from "The Way of the Son" - the opera Maggie composes based on the notebooks of her great-grandfather, Sandy. In fact, Book 2 is titled THE WAY OF THE SON and follows Sandy and his young family as they struggle to survive after leaving the island where they briefly had sanctuary. That year-long adventure becomes a test for Sandy. He nearly succeeds only to ultimately fail in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Book 3).

The Way of the Son is fraught with danger, menace at every turn, and a lot of stupid mistakes that pop up when you least can handle them.

 

Sandy writes the line in one of his notebooks, and Maggie draws from it for her opera at the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5). Bart sees the start of her composing effort before he disappears. Yet the theme stays with Bart, haunts him, providing a challenge for him. He takes it as a test for himself, believing he must do better than his ancestor did. Bart, too, has many of the same flaws and does the same kind of things Sandy failed at. Bart is a flawed character, in literary critic terms, who tries and tries but fails as much as he succeeds. Partly it is due to his circumstances, but more often his varied choices, perceptions, and how moments turn him back and forth like a weathervane in the wind. In the end, the storm comes for him.

As THE GRANDSONS launches, I've been writing a new book, what I could call Book 7. It began as a lark, something to do while THE GRANDSONS sat to await one more read-through/revision. Tying the timeline together with other books of mine (see this post), I set this new story more than 200 years after Bart's time. Civilization has fallen further, become medieval - even in Missouri. It shall be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN.

At one point our heroes meet some actors who perform the famous play "The Way of the Son" - based on the songfest by Maggie Baumann. Everyone knows some of the songs from the old opera, it seems. As a comedy, Book 7 plays the play for laughs, twists lines so they now sound like legend rather than the scribbling of a desperate teen boy trying to save his young wife and daughter during a pandemic.

Another major theme in the series involves the often tumultuous relationship between mothers and sons.

THE BOOK OF MOM (Book 1) gives us Sandy and his single, never-married mother, Polly, a music professor and tuba player. She's gotten along on her own for most of her life and often lords over her autistic son. Sandy sees her behavior as love, protecting him, encouraging him to stand tall and be strong as the pandemic worsens and they flee their city. It is time for him to be tough, so his mother pushes him, teases him, makes him be strong for what lies ahead. Up to a point where Sandy realizes his mother's weaknesses and unrealistic advice. He tries to save her only to fail. His failure gets him and his young wife/cousin exiled from the island sanctuary - leading to THE WAY OF THE SON where he must grow up fast and take charge, though often making mistakes - much like Bart does in Book 6.

To a lessor extent, there is mother - daughter conflict in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, but adult Sandy still struggles to reconcile his relationship with his mother. 

As baby Isla grows into a young woman, she becomes the mother who has conflicts with her own son, Fritz (who goes by Frank in adulthood). Fritz also tries to figure out his mother in THE BOOK OF DAD (Book 4) as she reaches the end of her life. Being in the reconstructed capital with all of its Ideal Society rules and restrictions, Fritz/Frank fights to tell the truth about what happened during and after the pandemic - even as government entities, including his own older half-sister (Isla's daughter) who is now in charge, refuse to accept it as truth. This Big Sister insists the pandemic never happened: only a few localized pockets of sickness. Fritz/Frank upholds his mother's lived experiences to his detriment.

And in THE GRANDSONS we find young Bart at odds with his mother, Maggie, who wishes him to follow in her musical footsteps only to see him take more interest in his uncle's ranch and desire to follow him as a lawman. As Bart struggles to "find himself" he knows he can't face his mother again after what has happened. Yet his mother continues to haunt him as he goes through his life. Dreams, nightmares, visions, voices, ghosts seem to rag on him too many times, keeping him on edge. 

A final major theme weaving through the series is the idea of needing someone to carry on: the family name, the family blood, ideas about connectedness and salvation in survival. 

In each book characters raise the idea of carrying on the family, like it is a crucial task - which would make sense in a time of pandemic, virus, and death. Who will survive? By golly, we need someone to survive. That idea pressures the characters to try to have babies. Even a group of scientists has set up a breeding program since half the population has been lost through disease, war, and starvation. 

It isn't so much a matter of the author's personal beliefs (I know many people do not want children or are unable to have children), but in this story setting the urgency to make a baby is truly a matter of survival. It is a realistic situation, a plausible mindset. Each generation in the series eventually must rely on the younger generation to care for them and to carry on the family, to continue civilization, and therefore humanity - a universal theme.

This final theme shall definitely reappear in THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, leading to the ultimate novel to be titled: A TIME OF KINGS.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2025 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.