A Medieval Future in Mirth & Madness!

Greetings, weary readers! 

I hear your claims, feel your pains, and in most ways agree. You have need of summerly encounters with worthy word-hoards. You have found the fare lacking thus far. Yet fear not for the summer has yet to conclude and in the interval we may yet partake of a tome or two.

Those of you who have followed this blog may have already found a means by which to endure the summer days. I speak of the ribald comedy THE WARRIORS BAUMANN. This comic relief has been available since this past December (2025) though it is rightly a summer tale. You may read about its origins and some of its delicious content hither (part 1) and thither (part 2).

Next on our future medieval line up we have the might epic A TIME OF KINGS, which shall become available to you and yours upon the 8 of August in this summer. Much has been said about this dramatic turn, according to those responsible for and those so engaged in the War of the Five Princes. This seminal event in our future history is mentioned in my earlier written work: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS - where it is treated with the reverence of an ancient legend. And so I have emboldened a fine descendant of the family Baumann, a Royal physician, to tell us this great tale in impressive and passionate detail.

While A TIME OF KINGS is true to its realistic nature, a brief mention of dragons is included in order to anticipate the scourge of  aerial beasts in that earlier written tome which is set much later in the timeline. While THE WARRIORS BAUMANN is set in 2353 Missouri, A TIME OF KINGS covers the range from Tulsa to Louis, from Chicageaux to Cinnati, from 2988 to 3079. This leads us to EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS set in the year 8000. 

However, behold the sacred interval! 

Between the end of A TIME OF KINGS and the start of EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, we have a brand-new book of the kind oft called the "cozy" version of a "romantasy" (romance + fantasy; yet are not all romances actually fantasies? I ask you.). This tale sees the wayward grandson of our fine narrator in A TIME OF KINGS set out on his own quest across the remnants of the upper midwest region of the Americus. This lively tale has just concluded and should be available for the winter holiday gift-giving event. Let us title it thus: BARON HARON TELLS THE TALE OF "A POET, A PRIEST, AND A PRINCE GO INTO A TAVERN". 

It should be noted that this 93,000 word "romantasy" novel began on March 15 and the complete draft was finished on June 15. It bears some sort of a notable accounting. All this was done while awaiting beta reader feedback on the final version of A TIME OF KINGS. Now the revision and editing work begins on Baron Haron's fine tale. More details revealed soon.

And then, just as we put the final word count upon this quest/cozy/romantasy novel, we have suddenly proposed the next book in a series which had not existed only seven years ago. It should be a story of desperation, of survival of the fittest, of the extended Baumann family in, say, the year 3220. But I get ahead of myself. 

To Recap: When Polly Baumann (music professor and tuba player) takes her teen son Sandy out of the city in the sixth year of a worsening pandemic, our grand narrative is set in motion. All does not end well in each volume's entry, yet some member of the family carries on, pushes the narrative forward, and so we come episode by episode through the lawlessness, the civil war, the reconstruction of a new "Ideal Society" - only to have to escape from its tyranny to a western enclave in what many may know today as southwest Kansas. Descendants of that Kansas family hold on....

This covers the six books of the FLU SEASON SAGA. We then advance to 2353 with THE WARRIORS BAUMANN in a medieval Missouri, then to 2988-3079 with A TIME OF KINGS. You can see the pattern: try and try again yet fail and fail again to set our world aright, ever and ever, each in its interval, each in its turn, until we are at the year 8000 with dragons reigning the skies.

In other news, we can now report that this grand narrative and its timeline include the largest novels I've written: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (233,000), DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Flu Season, Book 3) (151,000), THE GRANDSONS (Flu Season, Book 6) (178,000), and A TIME OF KINGS (187,000). And yet they each read surprisingly quick; the story moves along. Sandwiched between these are a pair of thinner works of equal delight: THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (94,000) and the just-finished BARON HARON TELLS THE TALE... (93,000). 

Furthermore, I can reveal that in all 23 of my published or soon-to-be published novels I have composed collectively with 2,755,000 words. For those deeper into statistics, I can declare that the 6 books of the Flu Season Saga + The Warriors Baumann, A Time of Kings, and Baron Haron consist of 1,129,000 words in total. For those interested in my smallest books, they are AFTER ILIUM (79,000) and A GIRL CALLED WOLF (86,000).

NEXT TIME: All about A TIME OF KINGS: A Who's Who of Ne'er-do-wells!

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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.

THE WARRIORS BAUMANN & The Writing Life, part 4

You have likely finished reading THE WARRIORS BAUMANN by now. I have described my latest book as a ribald comedy (i.e., humor often based on naughty references) set in a future-medieval age of the Americus, a collection of kingdoms mirroring the former states. Future-medieval is meant to describe a medieval society which has developed many years from our present day - into the future, not brought forward from the past. How does that happen? Well, simply put, after a great plague ravaged the population, survivors were forced to rebuild. At the time of our story, society has gradually risen from the struggle to survive to a more civilized era of a medieval society - featuring castles and kings, swords and armor, horses and hounds. They have not intentionally taken their ideas from the past but have come upon them freely as daily life became more settled.

The year is 2353 and our story focuses on two brothers on a mission (see previous posts) first on the Royal Road (what remains of Interstate 44), and the walled city of Louis with its giant silver arch - what once was Saint Louis in the state of Missouri, now the kingdom of Missoura. Life is good in Louis, especially if you are part of the Court crowd, where all manner of decadence is arrayed for your pleasures. Into this melange, our two brothers appear: the older, shorter brother believing he will wed the princess and his larger brawny brother ready to remove a dastardly duke who is in the way of nuptials.

That is our story and we have sworn to stick with it.

I have mentioned in previous posts how THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (Dec. 2025) is connected to the FLU SEASON Saga. Our two brothers are descendants of two Baumann sons in Book 6: THE GRANDSONS (2025), set in the "wild" western territory of a destroyed nation. The book ended with them settling in the north-central area of today's Oklahoma. Now, in THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, we follow mighty warrior Stanley K. Baumann as he leaves Wichita in the Kanza territory, heading east to meet up with his brother, the conniving redhead Rory Baumann. The year is 2353.

How did this whole timeline begin? It's fair to ask, here in this year of 2026. In Book 1: THE BOOK OF MOM (Nov. 2022), our story opens in the sixth year of a pandemic. Modeled after our own pandemic experience, I extended the worst effects of it for six more years - until Mom has had enough and knows it will never get better. She takes her teen son and her tuba and flees the city for the hope of safety with relatives in the countryside. But things do not go as planned. In Book 2: THE WAY OF THE SON (May 2023), that teen son sets out on his own with wife and baby, seeking a safer place to survive. They encounter all kinds of misery, including warring factions trying to control a town. They end up hiding in the forest of a national park. In Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Sept. 2023), that baby, named Isla, has grown into a young lady as the family works with other survivors who have settled in the  national park. But marauders and militia come to disrupt what is almost an idyllic life. That teen son, now a grown man, is taken away to fight in the final civil war between north and south forces but he manages to escape. Then the mother, daughters, sisters are captured and taken away from the national park to the rebuilt city in the north where they suffer the hardships of the new society. Isla escapes and makes her way back to the national park and eventually further south to the marshes where she lives out her final days. That concludes the first trilogy of the series. 

I thought I had finished the series, a trilogy being enough work on one story idea. But there was more to contemplate. And I soon was starting a new book in the series. 

I chose to follow Isla's last son born in Book 3. In Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD (June 2024) I let him, now a father, tell about his life in the tyrannical capital, where the first return of lost technology is pushed into surveillance and punishment of citizens. His daughter, Maggie, escapes the city for a home in the western territory. In Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Sept. 2024), Maggie, now grown into a young lady, takes on the role of school teacher and decides what their sorry town needs is a kids' band. Her adventures eventually lead to her success as an orchestra conductor in the capital she once fled. However, she retires to her western home, content to compose music. It's a bit of a spoiler for Book 5 but her teen son insists on going on a posse with her brother the sheriff in Book 6: THE GRANDSONS (June 2025) only to never return. That story of Bart Baumann makes up the bulk of the book with a frame story in the 'present' narrated by Jake Baumann, Maggie's grown nephew, where a trial lets all the pieces of the puzzle come together. The book ends with the grandsons. Now we are surely done with the series - right?

 

You might think so but you'd be wrong. Story ideas have always come to me. In writing the FLU SEASON series, I was beginning the next book even as I was revising the current book. Each story built off what came before so it was easy to keep going. I chose the best character to tell the story and launched into a new narrative. But much of the series is dark, often violent, so I sought something lighter. I tried to tell a lighter story in Book 5 with Maggie and her friendship with musical instrument salesman Hal Hill mirroring the plot line of that old musical The Music Man, which I had enjoyed as a boy. Then the next book, THE GRANDSONS, took us back into a violent, dark epic.

I didn't need to tie THE WARRIORS BAUMANN to the FLU SEASON series, but it was fun to make some associations - and why couldn't they be descendants? Certainly after our real  pandemic experience and writing this pandemic apocalyptic saga I needed - really needed - something lighter, a fun story. In fact, writing THE WARRIORS BAUMANN was so much fun I finished it in record time. I relished the ruse as much as the potent puns and witty wiles of the decadent society in the capital city of Louis. There is normal violence and sexual references for such a setting, in that time and place, yet nothing is told in a graphic manner; thus it is suitable for even adolescent readers. I made ample use of all manner of comedic effects, going deliberately for the joke, letting ridiculous situations compound, stitched scenes together with lavish wordplay. I even employ a play within the story: the handwritten notebooks of the son in Book 1-3 that is the source material for an opera composed by Maggie in Book 5, become a theater stage-play, a somewhat mythologized telling, in this Book 7. So many connections. But it's all in good fun!

Thus, we see the real experiences of our 2020-22 pandemic era led to a series about a pandemic ravaged society which, not actually specified, goes from presumably 2026 (Book 1) to sometime in the 2190s by the end of Book 6, to a major leap to 2353 for Book 7. It has been my most productive era. Granted, I've had nothing more to do with my teaching career now that I've retired. Yet, it is the writing which keeps me going. I get depressed when a book is published and sent out into the world. Then I have nothing to do. During the writing of these 7 books, with each one starting before the previous book launched, that was not a problem. Even now, a new book has taken hold of me. In fact, I've just finished the complete draft of it and now I begin revision. 

I call it A TIME OF KINGS. It concerns twin princes battling each other for the King's throne, set in the Americus, the collection of kingdoms between Missouri and eastern Ohio. This epic is centered on the Realm of Chicageaux and in its capital of New Cago. When the twin princes and their siblings take provinces of the Realm to rule, war begins between New Cago and Cinnati, with forces from surrounding city-states joining in. The ungainly outcome of the war sweeps down through the history that follows. In this medieval epic, our narrator is a Baumann, though his identity is hidden for much of the book: starting as a boy caught in a battle in Chapter 1 to an old man in the epilogue. That roughly covers the years 2975 to 3080. Such is life. Such is the writing life. Now - finally - I have no further ideas. 

More about A TIME OF KINGS in a future blog. Thanks as always for your support. Enjoy these tales told for your entertainment and enlightenment.

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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.

The Writing Life: Behind the Scenes of the FLU SEASON Series

Ever since we were stuck at home during our infamous lockdown era, when I blithely declared I shall write a pandemic novel because I then had enough time free to do it, I got into a regular pattern. I arose at about the same time as when I would go off to the job, grab some coffee, and sit myself at the computer freshly booted up. I would review any notes I'd made since the previous writing session as I started playing the musical soundtrack to the story. I usually had an idea of what came next so I would back up and read through what I'd previously written, editing as I went. I like to call this "thickening" the scene. I tend to write lean and go back to add all of the descriptions, character thoughts and feelings, and making sure there are enough nods and sighs. That sends me into unwritten territory. I do the best I can, knowing I will edit it the next day, and again later, as much as needed. As the music evokes the scene, I imagine sitting in a movie theater and watching the action unfold on the screen that's at the front of my mind. I try to get it all down on the computer screen as best I can.

The remainder of the day I do not write (but I continue to think through what I've just written and what may come next). Occasionally an idea flares up in the afternoon that will prompt me to write a little, at least enough that I won't forget it. Same with the evening. Once I am far enough into the story, it tends to stay with me, constantly playing in my head, sending me on scenarios of the next episode, running lines of dialog as though I've just left the theater after watching the entire movie. This cinematic process has been with me from before the pandemic pause yet it has especially been my method while working on the FLU SEASON series, which began as a stand-alone novel only to become a trilogy and now, as I work on the sixth book, a full series.

Perhaps it is easier working on a series because the world is the same, and you have the same cast of characters. However, characters grow up. That is my forte, I believe: being able to write a character as a child, then a teenager, a young adult, and on to an elderly person all while keeping the personality - and shifts of that personality due to aging and the various experiences which shape a person - identifiable as the same person. I first did that in my semi-biographical novel A GIRL CALLED WOLF where I fleshed out a compelling story of a more compelling real life of a friend of a friend. That book began in her infancy and took her up through her adult age. I hadn't planned anything but realized after finishing it that I had managed to achieve something special, yet I had to give credit to all of the then-recent study of psychology and life stages. With plenty of linguistic training, I could plausibly replicate the speech patterns of various ages, especially an uneducated child as well as an adult whose first language isn't English.

In the FLU SEASON series, I have done it again (hopefully) by bringing characters to life as babies and tending to them as they grow across the pages and even into a subsequent novel. Take Isla Baumann, for example, who is born toward the end of Book 1: THE BOOK OF MOM, narrated by Mom's teenage son Sandy. As a baby she doesn't have much to do, but in Book 2: THE WAY OF THE SON, when Sandy takes his wife and baby into the savage Outerlands, Isla starts to develop her own personality, even displaying unique supernatural powers in trying to communicate with her parents - who obviously do not understand her. At the beginning of Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, Isla is a little girl of 4 and so attuned to her environment that she can serve as narrator of the novel. She goes through her life, from a child to a teenager, to young womanhood, to middle age and to the end of her days by the end of this book. Her perspective changes in keeping with the awful things and the good things that happen.

I'd thought that would be the end of the series, just a trilogy that said most of what I wanted to get across to readers experiencing a realistic near-future following the hardship of a 10-year pandemic and collapse of society that resulted from it. But I had more ideas. Toward the end of Book 3, society was rebuilding, returning to some semblance of order although we find it rather skewed in unpleasant ways.

In Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD 

I bring in Isla's last child, a boy named Fritz (named after the family patriarch) who was born at the end of Book 3. Now he is a grown man with a family but in trouble with the government due to his making of a video of elderly Isla telling her stores about the decades of trouble she lived through. But now the government wants to disavow all of the hardship, the official narrative being that the pandemic was mild and the decades of lawlessness weren't so bad. Fritz is a nervous man and gets into further trouble in the novel, but doing so reveals much of what is wrong with the new, rebuilt society. In Book 3, Fritz's family is mentioned briefly. In Book 4, we meet his children: 2 brothers and young Maggie, all stuck in the oppressive capital city.

Fritz narrates his own story in Book 4, but we get a glimpse of a 10 year-old Maggie. In Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER, she is a grown woman living out west and still figuring what to do with her life. She has the background of Isla's grandmother and father, who played the family's tuba before Isla took it over. But music is frowned upon in the capital and the tuba was put in a museum of naughty devices. The first step, Maggie decides with her older cousin Eve, is to return there and claim the tuba - if it still exists. Next she will start a kids band in her small town, enlisting the aid and advice of a music salesman from a nearby city. Both plans lead her into dangerous territory and constant trouble. By the end of the novel, Maggie is a mature woman set in her career. 

Maggie is the crossover character, tying the first three books to the second three books. Yet like the others mentioned above, she is introduced as a precocious child and we are allowed to follow her literally through her life into her senior years in Book 6: THE GRANDSONS (not yet published). Do not be confused by the title of this current work-in-progress, for the title refers to three characters who are each a grandson to one of the other characters - including a surprise guest in the final chapter. This final volume is expected to be ready later in 2025. I do not expect there will be a seventh book in the series; however, I will have set up the future world used in my already-publish epic fantasy novel: EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, which is set in the year 8000. In it, those characters make frequent references to an ancient war which occurs in the year 3000. Maggie passes to her reward in the later-2100s with the world already going mad and mentions made of what is happening in Maggie's lifetime that foreshadows these future events. (I've blogged about this linkage previously here.) I also managed to tie in my vampire trilogy (A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, SUNRISE, and SUNSET) which, being pre-pandemic when written, had characters in 2028 fail to mention such an event, thus correcting the timeline.

After five completed books in the series, I feel I know each of the principal characters as well as my own family, perhaps better, as though I've lived with them all of their lives - which I actually have. I was there when they were born and again when they die. This is the reason for writing, for imagining. It is a kind of role-playing game which is acceptable in polite society. I can play in the garden of my own design, and in that time and place, I can live out my remaining days with a fair amount of pleasure - which I'm happy to share with you. Thanks, as always, for your continuing support.

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(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.