You may notice that this blog has been going for 15 years. That in itself may seem amazing, but it hasn't been without its ups and downs. My goal now is to maintain it with one post per month minimum so I have a neat calendar listing on the right side.
Funny story: It was late and I thought to do a last-minute check of the details in all the spaces and pages of the publication process only to come up to the final button. I mistook that button for the "save" button and, having pressed it, the book was launched. But, not to worry, for it was finished, polished, and ready to go. I simply wished to make July 1 the publication date. Seeing the next day that it had actually been launched, I scrambled to check the details of the print edition, then went ahead and launched the paperback, too. Now both are "live" and available to you.
Get them both here: Da Link!
THE GRANDSONS concludes the Flu Season Saga in epic fashion: a feisty Western set in the future, with unexpected science-fiction oddities, outlandish courtroom theatrics, and tear-jerking family drama.
The Principal Players:
Jake Baumann - flaneur/narrator of the 'present' storyline, dentist and coroner
Assorted townsfolk: Deputy Cal; Doc Baker; Judge Robinson; Mr. Duda & Mr. Hitchens, attorneys-at-law; colorful trial witnesses; random phantoms and freaks
Maggie Baumann - Jake's grandmother (his mother was adopted by Maggie) & Bart's mother
Bart Baumann - son of Maggie, a teenage boy at the start, full grown man later*
The Culpepper Sisters: Trinity, eldest, "the mean one"; **Trina, "the quiet one"; Triss, "the silly one", outlaws
Nick Ramos - gamekeeper at The Facility
Marina Kvashenaya - scientist at The Facility
Jesus Alvarez - a traveler, follower of the Brethren
*The "15 years earlier" section is written in 3rd-person, as though it's been pieced together by a writer telling what he's heard.
**Who is the "main character" in THE GRANDSONS? I'll just say that Trina is in the first scene and the final scene, connecting with both Bart and Jake. Anything more would be spoiler.
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The Story:
Part 1 - A stranger comes to town bearing two bodies on a cart. The woman is well-known and the deputy takes her into custody to get answers to questions left unanswered for fifteen years. A trial begins, trying to tie her to the crimes of her sisters and an outlaw known as Bad Bart. Jake, town dentist and coroner, gets involved: he sees the woman as someone to save. Jake's grandmother, Maggie (from Book 5), just wants to know what happened to her son the past fifteen years when everyone thought he was dead.
Part 2 - More than 100 years after a pandemic and civil war broke apart the nation (Books 1-3), a new reconstituted America struggles between tyranny in the east and survival in the west (Books 4 & 5). In this western territory, fatherless teen Bart Baumann is stuck between his nagging mother and a domineering uncle, the sheriff, Bart is in a hurry to grow up. Going on a posse after an outlaw gang gives Bart the chance to show everyone he's a man. But that plan doesn't go as expected and his life is forever changed.
Young Bart becomes lost in the wilderness. He stumbles upon the camp of a trio of gunslinger sisters who take him in, teach him the business. As Bart grows up he comes into conflict with the older sister while entering a romance with the middle sister. When his bad deeds earn him a high bounty, he realizes it's better to go straight and live a normal life, but where can he and his young family go? He checks the surrounding towns for a good home.
The answer is forced on him as they are chased by a posse of lawmen into the "forbidden zone", the land west of the western territory. There they discover what has happened to the nation: destruction that has left the land devoid of people. They try to survive in the new environment, a daily struggle finding food and defending against dangers - until they find a hidden facility of scientists who believe the air and land outdoors is poisonous, even as they work to create children immune to the poisons. However, Bart can't help himself: acting badly once more, they must flee again.
Finally settling with one of the scientists from the facility in an abandoned house outside a long-destroyed city, they think they are alone and can just live their lives - only to be caught in battles between religious fanatics and foreign soldiers. A wandering wiseman convinces Bart there's no need to go further west: nothing there. Then a devastating tragedy compels them to return east, where they hope to meet up with the other sisters and live a normal life.
Finally settling with one of the scientists from the facility in an abandoned house outside a long-destroyed city, they think they are alone and can just live their lives - only to be caught in battles between religious fanatics and foreign soldiers. A wandering wiseman convinces Bart there's no need to go further west: nothing there. Then a devastating tragedy compels them to return east, where they hope to meet up with the other sisters and live a normal life.
Part 3 - But the sisters have gotten into more serious trouble while they've been away. Bart becomes an unwitting participant in a final tragedy that threatens to separate him from his found family. The trial in Part 1 concludes with agonizing testimony and an explanation for the nuclear holocaust threatening them. Questions are answered. Yet it is left to Bart's cousin Jake to reconcile everything, especially setting the record straight for future generations.
Stats for Nerds:
File created: May 21, 2024
Draft finished: February 17, 2025
(Approximately 1 year between launch of Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD and THE GRANDSONS, with Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER between them.)
Final revision completed (not counting extra tweaks/edits): April 27, 2025
File created: May 21, 2024
Draft finished: February 17, 2025
(Approximately 1 year between launch of Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD and THE GRANDSONS, with Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER between them.)
Final revision completed (not counting extra tweaks/edits): April 27, 2025
Pages (including blank pages between chapters; not including frontmatter and endmatter pages): 542
Final word count (not including chapter division marks, etc.): 148,000
Sessions (opening file to work on it): 1561
Is this actually the conclusion of the FLU SEASON Saga?
Well, folks.... Before THE GRANDSONS was even half-way done with revisions, I started another book, set 200+ years after the end of THE GRANDSONS, to be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, which follows two ancestors of the family in Book 6 as the world further descends into chaos and a plain medieval society becomes the norm in Missouri. It is written as a comedy, a farce, if you will, yet with a warm-hearted finish that connects with my earlier novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, which is set 8000 years in the future.
Well, folks.... Before THE GRANDSONS was even half-way done with revisions, I started another book, set 200+ years after the end of THE GRANDSONS, to be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, which follows two ancestors of the family in Book 6 as the world further descends into chaos and a plain medieval society becomes the norm in Missouri. It is written as a comedy, a farce, if you will, yet with a warm-hearted finish that connects with my earlier novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, which is set 8000 years in the future.
Happy reading!
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