A Medieval Trilogy . . . of a sort!

Last month I formally introduced my forthcoming epic novel A TIME OF KINGS. Its premise is a war between twin princes which tears apart the realm. The war is fought between Chicageaux and Cinnati. Simple enough, I thought. Based on a story idea I had in junior high school and fully realized as a screenplay in college, with attempts at novelization that failed, I finally have finished this labor of love and now find the great tome complete in every way. In fact, much to my satisfaction. Better than I ever could've imagined as a 13-year old who never expected to write novels in his later years. You can read more about the story and its origins in my previous blog post. In this post, I shall discuss some interesting statistics I've found.

I began The Book of Mom back in 2020 - what turned out to be the first book of the FLU SEASON Saga. That was the start of our beloved pandemic, the source of six books of family drama. Well enough. First a trilogy. Then a sequel, and another book, and a final book to complete a second trilogy. Then it got interesting when I jumped head-first into the future by a couple of centuries to offer a medieval world where two brothers, descendants of the Flu Season Saga's Baumann family, set out on a journey across Missouri to the capital city of Louis in 2353. 

THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is written as a ribald comedy, the humor unhidden and often bordering on the ridiculous, with twists and turns that no reader would expect, right up to the final unlikely scene sometime in the past. Is this novel the final volume of the FLU SEASON Saga, or is it the start of a new trilogy? A trilogy with each volume set in the future medieval America where former states are now kingdoms and wars are fought with swords and arrows? Could it be so? Following THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (intro post here), we go further into the future, deeper into a medieval society that America never had but will have in the future. Like, maybe try 3000 AD - long enough for survivors of catastrophe to rebuild and eventually reach the level of a medieval society.

Hold on! Wait a minute. That's never been tried before. Stories set in a future America, sure. They tend to be full of technology, perhaps oppressive technology, the true dystopia disguised as utopia. Yet has there been a future America, with places named, which is based on a medieval society? I think not. Show me the scrolls where scribes tell it, if you can! This was my idea back in the late '70s when the Oil Crisis had me predicting we would eventually be back to riding horses. No gunpowder would force us to use swords (I was into fencing at that time). And the rest followed logically. Jump to 2020 and we have instead a convenient pandemic to crush civilization (in the FLU SEASON Saga the pandemic goes on for 10 to 14 years depending on location).

I was finalizing my apocalyptic Western, THE GRANDSONS (Book 6 of the FLU SEASON Saga) when I got the "crazy" idea for THE WARRIORS BAUMANN. I began taking notes on Sept. 10 in 2025 and made a file to begin writing the book on Oct. 14, 2025. I completed the full draft of the novel on Dec. 6, 2025 - a truly quick write. I was having so much fun the book practically wrote itself while I got credit for slapping the keyboard 2-3 hours each day. At a "slim" 290 pages, my computer notes that I spent 24 hours in total for editing it (time with the file open following the date it was first completed). The published book came to 94,000 words. As a cross-over or genre-mashing novel, it is having a hard time finding its best audience. Yet a few have come upon it (see this review from Goodreads).

While I waited for a new artist to [not] deliver the cover art (not my usual, trusty artist), I began what I had been planning to work on during my retirement years: A TIME OF KINGS. I knew it would be a bear of an epic, so I decided to wait until I had the time to devote to it completely. Fancy that! I finished this most magnificent epic in record time. I felt the story flowing through me, straight onto the page. I made the file for the manuscript on August 6, 2025 - knowing I would write it next. I came to the end of the full draft on March 7, 2026 - a few weeks ago. Again, my computer counts 340 hours of editing! Final page count is 545 with 187,000 words - an epic for sure!

The way I write is to compose new scenes each morning, then edit previous scenes. Or vice-versa. Thus, I do not write and rewrite full drafts. There is no true "second draft" and "third draft" - only when I've finished the whole thing do I go back over an already well-edited manuscript to make changes. By working constantly on revision and editing even while writing new pages, the finished manuscript is close to its final form. That's is my method, and the more I write and the more "natural" the story flows from me, the fewer changes are needed in the final reading.

Today I finished my final read-through of A TIME OF KINGS, making minor changes as needed (a changed word here, a cut sentence there, a line of dialogue added, a pesky error corrected). Now we proceed to the beta reader while I occupy myself on...what? Another new novel? Seriously? I'm like a shark: if it doesn't keep swimming it dies. If I don't keep writing, I will probably get bored and fall asleep. 

So I started a new novel, set in the same world as A TIME OF KINGS. I see it as a quest/journey story, a kind of Canterbury Tales where multiple characters appear, tell their tales, and exit while our narrator continues on. That narrator is [spoiler] the offspring of a major player in A TIME OF KINGS. Furthermore, I can say - because a certain faction of fellow authors may wish to know - this final book of my Medieval America Trilogy(tm) seems to be turning into a "Cozy Romantasy" even as I type this blog post. Pshaw! 

Just you wait and see! 

A TIME OF KINGS comes out later this year, as early as July, as late as September.

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(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.

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.