Putting the Epic in A TIME OF KINGS

It seems we are living in heroic times, as suggested by the plethora of books and movies we encounter these days - and for the past few years. With the expansion of the fantasy genre into new, long series and the proffering of movies based on ancient classic tales, it is easy to look back and bring the past forward for our modern judgment. Or, in the alternative, invent new tales for our modern times that reflect ancient ways and wisdom for either our scrutiny or nostalgic remembrance or both. Yet, what about the future? What about our future?

Since the arrival of our dastardly pandemic days, I've sought to make sense of our lot in life - our fate. And in that effort I wrote a novel, which became a trilogy, to which I then added another trilogy - sequel by sequel. Together we lived through the lives of six generations (a few more in flashbacks) that bring us from today (or a few years back) well into the latter 2100s. Not many of us today will be around to read them in the time period in which the stories are set. So I feel fairly safe in "predicting" the turn we will take from our current America to our future America.

 

I jumped ahead a bit just to have some fun in THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (2025). I could've made it a free-standing new novel but I felt drawn to tie it back to the two trilogies of the pandemic era and after, continuing the Baumann legacy. Then, when I could've just started yet another whole new novel (one that's based on a story idea from my teen years), I chose to invent a narrator who is also of the Baumann lineage - just to keep the theme going. That solved the problem I was having in deciding who best to tell the story of these twin princes who battle each other and nearly destroy the Realm of Chicageaux in the year 3030. 

I know, I know, I know. Some of you will say "But that hasn't happened yet, so maybe it won't ever happen." Gotcha. Let me give you this: "Maybe it will happen." Who can say for sure? I know there are those who see a future of advanced technology. That's great - if you want to lean into that. (Yes, I'm looking at you, AI overlords.) But I foresee a collapse of civilization (read the FLU SEASON Saga) and in the rebuilding, again and again, we find ourselves at the level of civilization as what we would call a medieval society, with all the usual trappings such as walled cities, castles, kings and queens, fighting on horseback with spears and swords while wearing armor. America never had a medieval period . . . in the past. So perhaps we have to wait for it in the future?

How did we get here? I've answered that in previous blog posts. The quick answer is what I've just said: pandemic leading to socio-economic collapse and civil war (local warlords fighting for control of territory). That leads to a realigning of states, in essence a new nation: the Americus. Try and try as those in power might, the rebirth of a "modern" society doesn't last for long. That failure along with deadly accidents and natural disasters and we have to rebuild again. Baumann family members and others like them survive by fleeing to the wild West. Yet other forces still rise to threaten a peaceful existence. The only solution is to build walls - around towns, let them become cities, then capitals of city-states that can be called kingdoms.

In my ribald comedy THE WARRIORS BAUMANN our two brothers are first on a trek to the capital city of Louis (the former St. Louis) in the kingdom of Missouri. Arriving in the walled city, they encounter obstacles to their plans in the form of the dastardly decadence of the city and its Court. This "return" to the past brings new meaning to the idea of what goes around comes around. By then, finished with this "break" from the dire tale of Bad Bart in THE GRANDSONS, I felt finally ready to write my great tome: the masterpiece I'd been training all of my life to be able to write: A TIME OF KINGS.

The title of this epic novel comes from the title of a musical overture I played as a member of my high school band (the tuba part). At our concert, I had my mother hold a small cassette tape recorder with microphone on a cord so I would get a copy of the music. (This was the '70s.) To this day I have not been able to locate information about that piece of music - even with YouTube and the internet at my disposal. I still do not know who the composer was although I felt certain of a couple choices - but the internet said no. This overture was always a part of the story from the first time we played through it in Band class. (I also used much more similar music during the writing and revision of this epic novel.)

Epic novel! I keep calling it that for good reasons. It is a long story (525 pages). It covers the narrator's entire life (80 years). It has depth and breadth in its drama. The story is vast - it concerns an entire Realm and its fate - and I dare compare it with other "epic" stories put to the page. Tolkien, Tolstoy, Cornwell come to mind. But this is my story, completely of my own invention - absolutely no AI assistance. In keeping to this epic scope, we begin with a famous battle that has ramifications throughout the rest of the novel. Then, the core of the novel is a war between twin princes - which also has ramifications throughout the rest of the novel - the aftermath of the war, as it were. Before, during, and after this war we explore the thoughts and actions, the choices, the costs of those choices, in every action the major players undertake. 

Our narrator, at first a boy on a battlefield, is introduced as a flaneur ("observer without being a participant") who becomes a side character, then a co-player, and ultimately a protagonist of his own in the latter portion of the book - mirroring his rise in rank. Along the way, we meet other characters - including several women of note - the queen herself, fair princesses or a devious one, commoners, women warriors, tavern wenches with opinions, wives and sisters - each with richly drawn story arcs of their own. We get the whole experience of a future-medieval society from the Royal Court to the servants, from the military to the domestic precincts, from the war camp to the palace finery. And as always in a book written by me, I offer a satisfactory ending - neither sad nor happy but decidedly realistic.

A TIME OF KINGS launches on August 8, 2026 in both paperback and for Kindle. More info about the story itself and the major characters in particular in the next blog post. 

Meantime, the next novel, BARON HARON, a so-called "cozy romantasy" is finished at my beta reader as I type this. I hope to offer it by the end of the year. And work continues on a novel to follow BARON HARON - further into the dark future as I strive to meet up with my 2017 novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS.

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

(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.

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!

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

(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 2

What a happy holiday season it is whenever I have a new book out into the world!

This year that new book is THE WARRIORS BAUMANN (<click to get your copy), a ribald tale of two brothers on a mission in future-medieval Missouri. What is future-medieval? It is a genre in which the story is set in a medieval-level society but located in the future from our present day. How does that work? I'm glad you asked, because I've literally written six books to explain how a modern society can devolve into a less civilized society. I refer to the FLU SEASON Saga, a series of stand-alone novels with a shared timeline and crossover characters. Start anywhere; you get whatever info you need to understand that particular story. Hint: It begins with a 10-year pandemic, then gets worse (with some ups and downs while attempting to restore civilization), until there isn't much left but desperate people killing over food. Then, eventually, people start to rebuild, and after some time we are up to a medieval-level society.

States have turned into kingdoms and the capital cities have walls around them for protection. Kings rule. Warriors keep the roads clear. Traveling troupes of actors and minstrels ply their trade. One seeks to rise in status and join the Court crowd with all their frivolous finery and dour decadence. It is an ordered society. THE WARRIORS BAUMANN unfolds in such a setting as the clever older, shorter brother named Rory persuades his brawny younger brother Stank (Stanley K. Baumann) to join him on his plan to wed Princess Majory and thus become a duke. They are not prepared, however, for the trials of the Royal Road to the capital nor the plethora of schemes and gambits of the Court crowd. Success is fairly uncertain until the final scene.

Before even the FLU SEASON Saga, a small library of various stories was written, as shown in the graphic below. Once in college, the stories compiled, many based on the science fiction I had been reading in my youth. My first long work was a rip-off of Orwell's 1984; the difference in my take being that the protagonist turns out to be a plant who works from the inside to undo the tyrannical state. Titled In Pursuit of Freedom, I eventually wrote it as a screenplay and had it optioned by a Hollywood studio for a year before they dropped the project and all rights returned to me. It remains unfinished as a novel - only as the novella I typed up during high school days.

My next longform work was YEAR OF THE TIGER, which began as a sci-fi short story I wrote in college. I took the professor's advice to reset the story on Earth rather than an alien planet. So I chose a tiger as the counterpoint to a man driven insane by dreams of himself as a tiger. That story, too, became a screenplay - the easiest way to get the full story on paper back in typewriter days. I swore to turn it into a novel and I tried several times but the complicated story stood firm. Finally, after years of revision, I thought I'd gotten it just right, and published it only in 2020, when the world was in pandemic fever and nobody was buying books. A fellow author from India read it and pronounced it a fine book (her review here).

Back to the early days. I finally sat down and wrote the great masterpiece I'd envisioned based on some wildly ridiculous tales of adventure from my youth reset on an alien world. I called it THE DREAM LAND and included a version of myself and girlfriend of the time as protagonists exploring another world through an interdimensional doorway. While almost comic-bookish at first, the story through revisions got more serious, more scientific, and darker as these two Earth people learn to function in the new society and gradually rise in status - though not without considerable problems. All right, done. I'd set it down for the record.

But what happens next? I had lingering questions so I started in immediately on Book 2 of what would become a trilogy. The first book set up all the tropes of interdimensional fiction so the second book used them straightaway, focusing on the how and why - then using a time travel/change history theme (things don't go well in the end). Then I wrote Book 3 to solve the problems encountered in Book 2 (undoing the history that was changed because it made everything worse + an approaching comet). The end of a good trilogy.

In the middle of Book 2 (Dreams of Future's Past), however, I got stopped by a plot conundrum. For the next ten years I didn't write fiction. I wrote scholarly articles, grad school papers, a non-fiction thesis, and finally a Ph.D. dissertation. While teaching English after all my education, I read a student's sci-fi story which reminded me of my unfinished book. I returned to it, suddenly knowing how to get through the plot conundrum. It wasn't from anything in the student's story; rather the act of taking some fiction into my brain unlocked it and fresh ideas flowed. So I finished that book and went straight into Book 3 (Diaspora). 

Also while working on Book 1 of THE DREAM LAND Trilogy, I went to Japan to teach English. I used my experiences living there for five years and from earlier experiences living in Hawaii (thanks, Army!) to write a romance novel, AIKO. Then my subsequent Master of Fine Arts thesis was a novel titled A BEAUTIFUL CHILL, another kind of romance (what I dubbed an 'anti-romance') set on the same college campus (Ah ha! Take that, professors and colleagues!). Still another book came while I lived in South Texas and attended the university there for a Masters of Arts in English (thinking to return to Japan and teach again). Several courses in rhetoric inspired me to write a version of The Iliad and The Odyssey - putting a modern young man touring the ruins of Troy (Ilium) with an older woman named Helen. Awkward. That book, AFTER ILIUM, although not the first written, became my first book to be published as a longish novella. Next came The Dream Land trilogy, followed by A Beautiful Chill, and Aiko. I thought I was done.

How did this wave of publishing get started? I'm glad you asked because there is an answer. You see, being busy with grad school and then teaching (back in the US), I had little time to write new books. Meanwhile, the publishing world had moved on; the process changed. Instead of mailing a box of paper to an agent or publisher with a self-address stamped envelope for a reply (they didn't return to box of paper unless you included return postage), we now used this thing they were calling e-mail: you sent a message (cover letter) via this system and attached a sample manuscript file (1 to 3 chapters). Instead of waiting 6 months to a year for a reply, you could expect a reply in 3 to 8 weeks. I sent manuscripts around using both methods. Got some nibbles, no hooks. Did have a couple agents briefly. In the end it was neither method which got me published. It was the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition that first got my books noticed. I entered it three years in a row but did not win. However, through the ranking process I was noticed.

I am, if nothing else, a special case. While in a hospital one day, I acknowledged to myself that if I could do anything before saying goodbye, it would be to see one of my novels published - and praised, reviewed, with movie deals, etc. in some of the dreams. So I entered the ABNA competition on that whim, got some attention, and hooked up with some small press folks. I thought at the time "this is good, this is enough" and didn't pursue more lucrative avenues. I should have tossed my hat into a wider ring. But I also thought I had no more ideas and so there was little point in trying to go big or go home. I was already home, and that was fine. Thus, I've been in the same Myrddin Publishing Group sphere of influence ever since. 

As the next book is written and the next, and the next, I keep looking back and wondering what life might have been like if I had struck out for something more traditional. Going for a Big Five publisher. As it was, I believed I wouldn't write another book so the end of my writing career, such as it was, was fine. I had done enough to satisfy my desire to see my books in print (and on Kindle). I kept on teaching.

Then I got a new idea for a book: a vampire novel.  [TO BE CONTINUED]


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

(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.

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

(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.

Legacy Media and the time of death

Legacy. It's a big word. It means everything, all you've done, all you hoped to do but didn't get around to it, your hopes and dreams, and perhaps things you've said. It can mean something or go for naught. I don't make the rules.

Those of you who may have followed this blog know when and how it began. You may recall why I started it. (Recap: as a place for supplementary material for my interdimensional sci-fi trilogy THE DREAM LAND.) It has evolved  in many different ways. Now it is contracting to one post per month. Trends come and go; it used to be the thing but now, with all the podcasting and TikTok videos, a blog - which you actually have to read to get anything out of - is a dying commodity. However, it's the only medium I'm good at.

That said, I've come to realize how my writing legacy - what may be made of it - is likely to go. In 2010 I found myself declaring that if I were able to do one thing before I died, it would be to get a novel of mine published. By 2011, I had done that albeit in a disagreeable mode; then had to do it again in 2012 to make things right. But it counted. I had a few novels already written from pre-internet days which I revised again and published. Then I found myself writing completely new books. That seemed just fine. I enjoyed telling the stories I told.

We faced an unexpected situation in 2020 that became untenable as the months went on. All I could do, staying at home, was imagine what I could write during this 'free time': a pandemic novel. Sure, a lot of writers took on the theme. As a science-fiction reader/writer, a plague similar to what we were all experiencing at that time didn't seem too fantastic. How to make it a more interesting story? I would start my pandemic book in the sixth year of the pandemic, after everything we experienced (lockdowns, shortages, fear, tyranny, etc.) got much worse.

That began the FLU SEASON saga - actually a stand-alone novel which blossomed into a trilogy before the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM (2022), was published. I quickly built on that story with a second book using the same characters; what would happen next in this situation? THE WAY OF THE SON (2023) was published, and before I finished revisions I started the next book, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (2023), which I believed would complete the trilogy. I got our fictional family through the pandemic, the lawlessness, the reconstruction of a new society. I felt comfortable leaving them at that time.

However, funny how muses work. One night a mysterious voice spoke to me: "If you write it they will read it." I had an idea for the next chapter and so I wrote what I called a sequel, not realizing it would be the start of a new trilogy: THE BOOK OF DAD (2024). Of course, the ideas did not stop there and before I published that sequel, I'd started a newer sequel, THE GRANDDAUGHTER (2024), a more light-hearted, more romantic story that would leave a sweet taste in readers. However, when I get to the final chapter, I always want to think ahead to what would happen after that final page.

Therefore, I began writing THE GRANDSONS (forthcoming in 2025) which picks up the story at the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER and jumps ahead fifteen years. The western territory of the rebuilt nation is a rough land and only our heroine has made it a nice place with her musical talents. But her son is a problem. This becomes an epic tale of relationships and sheer survival, the struggle to survive in a harsh land and what our main characters learn about each other and themselves by going through that gauntlet. (More details in the next blog post.)

THE GRANDSONS was meant to be my final novel even as I read back through it, revising and editing as I went. I began the publication process, still expecting this book to be the end of the family saga, now up to the year 2185 by the final page. I declared my writing career done. Oh, I might put together a collection of my short stories just for sheets and googles. But it didn't take more than a few days for me to realize that without a writing project I would likely die sooner rather than later. I needed a project - but what?

Then, without trying to think of a new idea - not even considering continuing this same series - an idea popped into my head as I sat waiting for the trailers to start before the movie I'd chosen to see. Before the trailers! I saw a barbarian fellow in a forest with a sword - and I knew it was the same series but further into the future, say 2350 or so, a couple hundred years beyond the end of THE GRANDSONS. The world has gotten more barbaric, medieval even, heading to the great epic tome I plotted as a 13 year old boy. I titled it A TIME OF KINGS after the overture we were playing at the time in my junior high band because the music perfectly fit the story I was devising. Later I turned my outline and notes into a screenplay in college, then attempted to novelize it later but got busy with other things.

In my only Epic Fantasy - titled EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS (2017) - characters in year 8000 would mention ancient times and the War of the Five Princes which is a direct reference to my early novel idea/screenplay, covering events of the years 2980-3070. And voila! as they say in France. A new novel was born: something to tie the FLU SEASON Saga to this EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS. The Baumann family, fleeing a city in chaos during the sixth year of the pandemic, survives through many hardships to eventually produce a boy who is saved from battle by the King of the Missourites (capital city: Louis) in 2980. That boy grows up at court, but becomes instrumental in instigating the War of the Five Princes and, in the war's aftermath, he becomes .... [spoiler alert].

So I have started this new novel, more epic fantasy than sci-fi/post-apocalyptic America. I'm titling it THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, focused on two brothers of a brood of brothers, hoping to make good in their destinies in the barbaric land. And, not to have to wait for another idea, the book which would come next shall be titled SONS OF STANK (Stank a.k.a. Stanley K. Baumann). After this book comes the infamous A TIME OF KINGS in which I finally finish novelizing the screenplay (plus notes made since then), regardless of any similarities with the GAME OF THRONES universe. First of all, my series is set in future America, not a fantasy world.

I still may not get to all of that. It's the reason I have written each book in the series to work well as a stand-alone: a complete story, satisfying in itself, without the requirement to read previous books or to read the following books. I give readers all they need to know from previous books to understand the current book but without too much backstory. Keep checking back to see my progress. I may falter and fail to finish this final trilogy, but I shall give my all to the project for without something to keep me out of trouble I shall without fail get into trouble, and that isn't good for anyone.

UPDATE: THE GRANDSONS was such a delightful project that it simply flowed. I have moved up the publication date from mid-fall to mid-summer. Look for it!

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

(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.

The Usual February Blues

In the greater scheme of things, February is clean-up time. Saddled with both fresh starts and fading glory, the second month is inexplicably stuffed full of many major events. 

First comes Groundhog Day which applies only to Pennsylvania but for whom many other folks rely. 

Next comes the Super Bowl, the biggest bowl ever to be filled! This year, however, the vaunted champions did not capture the trifecta. Never fear, I fully expect the team to return to the big game next season, perhaps facing the same opponent.

After the big game comes the little one's birthday, although she is not so little now, all grown up and on her own in an exciting career. 

Then we have the Day of Presidents, formerly Mr. Lincoln's birthday. Rather than celebrate the two most important presidents, Lincoln and Washington, Congress swept all the top politicians into a single day. Thus, such chief executives as Millard Fillmore and William Henry Harrison (president for only eight days) get equal billing with the heavy hitters, like Mr. Taft and Mr. McKinley.

It is a slow slog into March and hopes of Spring Break after that, but we need those two weeks to rest and prepare for what we've all been waiting for. And what is that, you may be wondering?

The completion of the first full draft of the final volume in my FLU SEASON Saga (formerly a trilogy and two sequels), THE GRANDSONS (a.k.a. Book 6).

Now I shall read and revise, as is my usual routine, ready or not. THE GRANDSONS is a long story, a novel within a novel, but I trust the story will be sufficiently engaging to keep the pages turning as you experience the post-apocalyptic landscape though a host of Western tropes and outlaw vibes, futuristic cities, religious fervor, territorial conquests, nuclear disaster and impending doom for everyone! Yes, an uplifting epic for everyone!

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter:

A crowd gathers to see who this figure might be, as none have come from the east for years – none worth addressing, at the least. Stragglers with tales of flameless fire and putrid illness. A wave of death. Fleeing criminals hoping for a break. The rare lost tax man or some ignorant seeker of opportunity, random scalawags and bold outlaws. A gunslinger or two. A foolish family hoping to survive.

Dark in road-rough garb, the figure glares from beneath the rim of the felt hat at the townsfolk gathered: passersby, the curious, morning shoppers, businessmen going to offices. Another cow town, the stranger seems to acknowledge with a disappointed shift of chin. They’re harmless, and unarmed, the dark figure notes.

The figure, looking more to be a woman in man’s clothing as the people examine, lays her hand upon the grip of one of two pistols set upon her hips, ready to use it.

“Skinner Canyon?” asks the stranger in mild tone.

“Yes, ma’am,” says an older man, wiping his moist brow, beady eyes set in a permanent squint. “This’s the place.” He gives her a long look, not approving. “What’s yer bidness in town?”

Townsfolk can see the two pieces of cargo lain in the cart. There is a crudely constructed wooden box, looking like pine, large enough and in the shape to hold a laid-out man. The wood is well-smudged with dirt, grimy like it was dragged up from the earth. A coffin, they presume, nailed tightly shut. Who could be inside? 

The trend these days when querying agents and publishers is to construct what is called a Mood Board or Vision Board using snippets of images, perhaps brief text, to help entice would-be investors in the story. I get it. Like a Pinterest posting, which I did long ago. Here is one I threw together last night. It should give you a good feel for the story.

More details next time. I'll give away some of the plot but with no spoilers. You will recognize some characters from Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER and some of the setting from that novel. This novel, however, moves far from that town into truly sci-fi territory without (I hope) getting too sci-fi techy or relying too much on familiar tropes of a post-apocalyptic world (zombies, etc.). I have an overall positive view of the future, but one which turns away from the technology that kills us all in most sci-fi movies. The ending here may not be "happy" in a Mary Sue sense, but will be satisfying.

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

(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.

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.

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

(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.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER Launches!

The fifth book in the FLU SEASON series, THE GRANDDAUGHTER, launches today or tomorrow depending on the internet gods, while the ebook version for Kindle has already been available since September 10. Click here to get the ebook - the paperback link will be here as soon as I get it (should be September 15). 

UPDATE (9/15): Due to the vagaries of the internet the paperback version's availability will be delayed by 2-3 days.

UPDATE (9/16)! The book gods have ruled! The paperback link is here. Thanks for your patience.

You can get the entire series (five books) here.

Does that end the series? Hmmm. I thought I was writing a stand-alone novel when I wrote the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, but I realized half way into it that the story would have to continue. Because I couldn't see a two-book series, I immediately went for a trilogy while writing Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON. However, as I was concluding Book 3, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I had ideas for another book. Then, while writing Book 4, THE BOOK OF DAD (out this past June), I had ideas for Book 5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER. I began to wonder when the madness would end while hoping it never would. (I am currently well into the writing of Book 6, THE GRANDSON, which should be the final book in the series.)

FLU SEASON is a series. Each book follows after the previous book. Each book, however, is a stand-alone novel, complete in itself. A lot of series are set up this way: yes, you are meant to read them in order for the best experience but each volume can stand as its own story regardless of having read other volumes. A character may appear in more than one book and the timeline traverses the series, and in that way they are linked. But standing as individual novels, the characters do catch you up and give you what you need to know from earlier books so you're not left confused. (Note: I never make use of the infamous "As you know, Bob..." constructions.

Here is a look at what you can expect in each novel of the series, as tweeted previously.

FLU SEASON (Book 1): THE BOOK OF MOM

Everything was fine, just me and Mom. And her precious tuba. Then the pandemic came and everyone had to adapt to a new normal. Until the new normal became unbearable.

We awoke one morning and the news was worse than before. Food rationing, no power, gas lines. Mom decided we should leave, wait it out at my grandparents' farm, but danger followed us, all the way to the coast, trying to find safety with family members who instead needed our help more than we needed theirs.

I had to trust Mom to find a sanctuary - hopefully not an island where other survivors are trying to set up their own society with rules as strict as back in the city. And definitely not a place where our family secrets will be exposed. 

That's the last thing we need as we wait for this pandemic to end.

FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON

Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail. 

Now you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow, and it's every man for himself.

I call it the Way of the Son - definitely not the way Mom would've gone. 

The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that’s already set before you. Yet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place. You have to find your way back home again, wherever that may be - even through a deadly pandemic.

FLU SEASON 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS

It was hard enough trying to start from scratch after the pandemic destroyed half of everything. Best to settle far from anyone, hiding in the forest of a national park.

But with militia from the new government coming by, rebels still on the loose, and new neighbors settling nearby, the new normal was a mix of intense danger and surprising joy.

But which kind of life would win in the end?

How can you raise a bunch of daughters in this kind of world?

Hiding away in the forest of a national park, Sandy's family (from Books 1 & 2) waits for the world to return to normal.

But they soon discover other families have the same idea. As the survivalists of the national park work together, his family faces challenges and opportunities. They suffer through the vagaries of an on-going civil war between North and South territories. 

The conflict splits the family into convergent destinies, leaving Sandy's daughter, Isla, to carry the family into the future, living to witness the reconstruction of a new society.

Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD

Fritz is sent for rehabilitation, then assigned a street cleaner job in the city, just for making a video exposing the true history of the ten-year pandemic and civil war that followed - based on everything his mother, Isla, has told him all his life - whether he wanted to hear it or not.

 

Now he finds himself in trouble again in the capital city as he tries to make sense of this Ideal Society. With weekly counseling and constant surveillance, Fritz is going crazy. Only getting back his family's tuba might save him.

That crime sets him up for a crucial act which lands him in the Department of Social Order. Only a reprieve by the Governor herself - the self-styled Big Sister - can save him this time. But it comes with a cost, one he may not be able to pay.  

The next chapter in the FLU SEASON saga follows Isla's youngest child, now grown and a husband and father, as he fights for truth, justice, and a way out.

FLU SEASON 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER

Isla Baumann is born in the seventh year of the great pandemic (Books 1-3). Her last child, Fritz, goes to the capital (Books 3-4) and suffers under the restored government's oppression. His children escape to a small town in the western corner of the nation.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5) follows Maggie's life as a young woman with ambition stuck in a dusty cowtown. She decides what this post-pandemic town needs is a children's band. But first she must return to the dirty capital to claim the family's tuba. 

Following in her great-great-grandmother's footsteps, she vows to play the tuba and gets a musical instrument salesman to help her start the band. But there are plenty of obstacles to achieving her goals, a struggle which brings her to the ultimate decision that will save the capital and the nation.

I hope you enjoy this pandemic/post-pandemic/dystopian family saga which, back in March 2020, I didn't intend to write. But I had some time on my hands while staying home the rest of the year. This is the result and I'm quite pleased with it. Even as I get older and other things work less well, my twisted mind can still dream up twisted stories to entertain myself - and you, if you so choose. Thanks as always for your support all of these years.

I expect FLU SEASON 6: THE GRANDSON to be finished sometime in 2025, likely toward autumn as I'm not in any hurry. 

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

(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.