Back to the Future in A TIME OF KINGS

Dear Gentlereaders,

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you will see that this blog was started in 2010, a year which will live in infamy. Moreover, we have been blogging consistently for 16 years, with the rare break here and there. It is amazing how the passage of time stands firm against our proclivities and all manner of counterproduction. Perhaps that is why time, and history, fascinate me so. In my writing life, I have seldom written stories set in the past - although the book may be published later such that the story appears to be in the past. 

My FLU SEASON Saga is different in that I very much focus on history. That is to say, the unfolding of a future history. We began with THE BOOK OF MOM, written in 2020-21, which was only intended to be a one-off stand-alone novel. Being in the first lockdowns of 2020, I could imagine our everyday life falling lower month by month until life became unbearable. So I set that book six years into a longer pandemic. That was the beginning of our history which now culminates in my epic tome A TIME OF KINGS.

Let us say that THE BOOK OF MOM is set in 2026 (i.e., six years into a longer pandemic), and continues a couple years further in the next book, THE WAY OF THE SON. Then we have Book 3, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, which follows Isla's life from age 2 to her death at age 79. That would take us to the year 2105. 

Maggie, granddaughter of Isla, is born in 2100. She appears in Book 4 THE BOOK OF DAD as a child and tells her own story as an adult in Book 5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER. She appears again in Book 6 THE GRANDSONS where she dies at age 85. That would be the year 2185. Maggie's grandsons live out their lives and, as families tend to do, they produce descendants. 

By 2353 the world has changed dramatically from what Maggie knew. We find that the future isn't what anyone thought it would be. The world has not grown full of technological wonders - as many tech bros dream - but fallen into regressive circumstances, especially in the western territory Maggie knew. With yet another rebuilding we achieve something at the level of a medieval society. States are now kingdoms. Cities of note have walls to protect them against the attacks of barbarians and rival cities. Outside of the cities the land is full of savagery as desperate people struggle to survive. Into this condition we find THE WARRIORS BAUMANN on a mission that takes them up the Royal Road (a.k.a. remnants of I-44) to the city of Louis, capital of the Kingdom of Missoura. Their odd episode there becomes the stuff of legend and the tale of the Red Duke is synonymous with the Wormwood catastrophe that scourges the earth, forcing survivors underground for decades.

And we build again. We follow the previous plan, often borrowing from old books: walled cities, horseback raiders, kingdoms with their kings and queens. 

The world of 2988 finds armies from Missoura, Kanza, Arkan, and Okala fighting the hordes of 'Slammers' from Tejas - which opens A TIME OF KINGS. A boy lost on the battlefield is saved by the victorious king, adopted and taken back to Louis, given the name Jack. We learn he is from the Baumann family in the Kanza territory and his true name is Frank, which he regains later.

In Chapter 2 of A TIME OF KINGS, we get an overview of this history as seen from Jack's perspective in the 2990s:

Little did I know all that had transpired before my birth. They knew, and acted on this history: all the conflicts year after year, the changing border lines, the people caught between them, the threats and challenges and treaties and travels to and from towns across a vast land that once had been a nation of states united as one. Later I saw the old maps in the Court, could see how the maps of today, what the King called the Americus, matched those of old, what were titled United American States in the early days. One Court scholar told me there were even earlier, older forms of the nation under the name America in various versions going back a thousand years.

It was a great plague that stopped a future that seemed already dissolving before their eyes. Lasted ten years, longer in some places. I heard how half of everyone died, and the other half were forced to scavenge for whatever food remained as none was grown nor taken to storage. Others became thieves and scoundrels, preying on those who were trying to survive. It was desperate times, the old scholar told me as though he had lived through it. He said his grandmother had a book – a scroll opened and pressed flat: sleeves of parchment stitched together, covered with ink-stroked words that held meaning for those who knew how to uncode the marks.

Gradually, as I was told, those good people who remained formed communities, bonding through marriages and their shared effort in gathering and growing food. They would stand together against the bad people who seemed determined to oppose everything, who might form a militia or band of marauders to raid and steal from the good people. Desperate times, the scholar told me again and again. We were supposed to be fortunate now: we had a mighty kingdom and a strong castle and an army to protect us, and plenty of food produced in the fields outside the walls.

There was a brief period, I learned, when the world grew back to the way it had been before the great plague: cities rebuilt, industry renewed. They relearned from books how to gain energy in the form of a shock that linked house to house. That left people able to see in the night, the shock causing glass bulbs to glow. In time, they made things which could capture the image of a person and save it, called camera box. These came to be used to watch everyone, to be certain they acted properly and in good faith with the government in the old capital on the east coast. Yet that old capital, and other cities on the coast were long ago destroyed by God’s holy hand, wiped away by a cleansing fire.

“It is the reason many of us ventured west,” said the old scholar.

They went as far as the mountains west of Kanza territory, then turned back. Some settled in the plains. Nothing worth searching for beyond those mountains. Here in the wooded hills and fertile river valleys they found an ideal home.

That became my home: the capital city of Louis, where I grew into my youth under the watchful eye of King Alex – until his death. I was made a member of the Court with a document given with the name of the King drawn upon the parchment. With that elegantly drawn name at the bottom of the document, I became a ward of the Court, adopted son of the King.

(Read more of what this epic novel is about in the previous blog post.)

History is downhill, it seems, from cause and action, the mainstream of our epic tale. Our narrator, Jack, is born in 2980 and dies in the year 3079. At first he is a mere flaneur observing the world he occupies. Then he is invited into the central story as a side character only to bloom into the main protagonist as his own life takes over the focus of the novel. In the epilogue, an elderly Jack tells his grandchildren and great-grandchildren the story of his life. One participant is Baby Haron, who is Jack's grandson asleep in a basket.

History will continue in the next novel, where this Haron has grown into a fine young man, bearing the title of Baron by birth. Yet he is unsettled in his life, and seeks a worthy wife to give him status. His tale is our next novel: BARON HARON TELLS HIS TALES. It is completed as I type this blog post. Look for this "cozy romantasy" by the end of this year - set mostly in the year 3095. These three novels: The Warriors Baumann, A Time of Kings, and Baron Haron Tells His Tales will constitute my "future medieval trilogy".

As always, thank you for your support. I write because I enjoy inventing interesting stories. I am pleased to share them with you. I hope you will enjoy them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2026 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.