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.

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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.

Pre-Fall Update & BBQ Picnic

What a glorious time of the year! Usually this is my least favorite time: hottest part of the year, having to return to school, cicadas by day, crickets by night, all the things I planned to do during the summer but didn't.... Anyway, those days are gone and I can sit back and watch others go back to school (hah hah!) as I go off to various doctor appointments hoping for the best.

As we head toward yet another autumn, I am preparing to launch my newest novel, the fifth in the FLU SEASON series, which began as a stand-alone, then became a trilogy and birthed a sequel and - now - another sequel. A sixth book is in the works and should be out in 2025 if we make it that far.

Book 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER is really one of my favorite books of all 19 novels I've written to date. It has a compelling narrator/protagonist with an intriguing storyline and a host of obstacles to her goals which resolve in logical ways yet in dramatic fashion. Good messages, beautiful descriptions, snappy dialogue, clever homages to works of music and literature, and a lot of moral gray area.

Set ten years after the end of Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD (June 2024) in the western town of a restored post-pandemic, post-reconstruction era, child Maggie of Book 4 is now a grown woman with her own life who thinks starting a kid's band is what the town needs. It also gives her a handy excuse to play the family tuba - previously owned by her dad, his mother, her grandmother, and on back to World War II. 

Book 6: THE GRANDSON (coming in 2025) is set fifteen years after the end of Book 5. That puts readers approximately in the 2150s. The world is harsh and a dangerous new threat from the east coast is spreading across to the same western town where Maggie is an old woman. But no spoilers.

To summarize this series of post-pandemic novels, I thought it might be amusing to match first and last paragraphs - the exact first paragraph(s) and the final paragraph(s) - as well as give you other basic information.

1 THE BOOK OF MOM (Nov. 2022)

Narrator/Protagonist: Sandy, the autistic teen son of a single mother (a music professor and tuba player). Focus: Mom's behavior, decisions.

opening:

Mom told me she named me Sandy because she was lounging on a beach when I was conceived. I got only bits and pieces of the story until I was a teenager. Then one night, half-drunk with sorrow at yet another pandemic spreading over us, she held me close, like I was still her baby, and gave up the whole tale.

ending:

In the end some of us would survive.

It wasn’t so much the conveyor belt of viruses and variants that killed us but ourselves. Trained month after month to be suspicious of each other, we eventually unleashed our pent-up fury, driving hate into everything around us, without mercy, and that was our end.

That was also our beginning. 

2 THE WAY OF THE SON (May 2023)

Narrator/Protagonist: Sandy. Focus: He and his cousin Hannah and baby Isla.

opening:

What was that?

Another snap of a twig somewhere in this forest, just as dusk is creeping upon me. Somebody coming to kill us, or just a woodland critter? I’m not supposed to be afraid. Even so, I put my pen down and reach for Mom’s pistol on the grass beside me, give it a pat.

ending:

She wrenches her hand free, points across the slope.

“Dee-dee,” she says, and we turn to see the whitetail doe and her fawn quietly feeding between the trees, unafraid of us, like it is the most natural thing in the world.

3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Sept. 2023)

Narrator/Protagonist: Isla, daughter of Sandy and Hannah. Focus: Isla's life from age 4 to 79.

opening:

My daddy liked to say there are two kinds of fear: the dark kind and the light kind. You’ll have to face both of them sooner or later, he would remind me. The dark kind is shapeless, without limits, yet lacking detail, a huge menacing presence that you know will get you. It is immense, bigger than you, bigger than your family. The only thing to do is hide and hope it ignores you, gets bored and moves on. Or else you can shine a light on it. Sometimes, the light will scare it away. But sometimes the light will enrage it more.

ending: 

It’s time for them to carry on.

For you to carry on! Choose from among you who will play that ancient tuba to call forth everyone to build this world back. Who will take up Tubal-Cain’s great horn and blow the world into existence? Which one of you?

4 THE BOOK OF DAD (June 2024)

Narrator/Protagonist: Fritz (who prefers to go by Frank), Isla's last child. Focus: Fritz's life in the capital after returning from forced rehabilitation.

opening:

I have to get out. I’m beginning to realize how much I hate this place: this cold, gray city straining at the cusp of winter, ready to bite back anyone who dares smile or lets show the happy thought born of some unexpected joy (an unapproved word no longer allowed); nor the anticipation of a holiday break and welcome time spent with family. Forbidden. 

ending:

P.S. I really don’t mind a tuba. We ain’t got no music here but some banjos.

5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER (coming in Sept. 2024)

Narrator/Protagonist: Maggie, grown daughter of Fritz. Focus: Maggie's life out west and her musical ambitions.

opening:

“Ain’t it just short fer Margaret?” asks this thin woman in the plain beige dress, not looking at all appropriate for a funeral. She wears a sincere smile, though, like a child, but her long hair is uncombed and she smells like she hasn’t bathed in a while.

“I don’t really know,” I respond, a bit put off by her abruptness. “I’ve always been called Maggie. Never really thought about it.”

ending:

[sorry, that's a spoiler]

6 THE GRANDSON (sometime in 2025)

Narrator/Protagonist: Jacob "Jake" Little Bear (Maggie's adopted grandson). Focus: Jake's life as the town doctor's assistant and the one who uncovers what's happened to a character in Book 5.

opening:

A lone rider approaches out of the orange palette painting the sky across the horizon, as it has for many days, many weeks, the sun refusing to set at night, the glow continuing. Townsfolk feel the itchy heat, smell the fire, yet its source is too far off to be known, something from the distant east and its dirty industry perhaps that cries out in the night for production or a groan of dissatisfaction at what humanity has done to this world in only a few short centuries of miscalculation. We’ve wrought what we’ve sown, some like to say.

ending: 

[not yet written]

In these final days of my career, my eyes go bleary, my fingers hit the keys less precisely, and my energy is reduced. I write about two hours a day, occasionally at other times when the ideas strike and more so when I'm deep in the throes of creation. But I am in no real hurry; only the calendar races me. It may be a form of insanity, but making up stuff keeps my mind going and my body follows. I try to keep it going - will keep it going as long as I can. One reason I like to make each book, even in a series, able to stand as a satisfying conclusion to what has come before so the story can stand as finished even if I don't get to finish the next book. That itself is a kind of game I play, so far a stalemate. I've made my move and I wait.

Thanks as always for your support. I write for my own pleasure and I like to share what I create. If you read it and like it, that's great. If you don't like what I write, that too is quite all right. For me the writing is the main thing. If anyone buys a book, if anyone reads and reviews a book, that is a bonus. That part is already long past the part that gives me satisfaction. 

Happy reading!

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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.

FLU SEASON 3: Dawn of the Daughters

LAUNCHING Sept. 1, 2023!

The conclusion to my pandemic/post-pandemic trilogy is about to launch. Officially it is September 1, 2023, but you can pre-order the Kindle edition now. Paperback edition will be available on September 1, too, so you will have something to read over the long weekend.

If you have read Books 1 and 2, then you know what's been happening and will feel right at home on page 1 of Book 3. Although the years aren't clearly spelled out, Book 1 covers roughly 2026-28 and Book 2 the adventurous year of 2028-29. If you haven't read Books 1 and 2, you could still jump right into Book 3 (roughly 2030-2103) and the characters will get you caught up on what's been happening. As a family saga covering the life of the main character, Book 3 is on the long side but reads fairly quickly in my humble opinion (148,000 words). Only my epic fantasy novel is longer (233,000 words). I've already started a "sequel" to the trilogy which will continue the story further into the future.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

Book 1 FLU SEASON: THE BOOK OF MOM
The pandemic of 2020-22 has ended, thankfully for us - but what if its worst days continued, extending to 6 years? Follow autistic teen Sandy and his sassy single Mom (& her tuba) as they flee a city in collapse for the hope of sanctuary with relatives in the countryside. But even there, chaos follows them and a crucial Plan B takes them to other relatives' homes, then to an island sanctuary where they hope to wait out the pandemic.

Book 2 FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON
Sanctuary from a pandemic is only good if you can stay there. Rules are harsh, jealousy abounds. When Sandy and his young family are exiled from the island, he struggles to find a way to save them while they face the worsening situation in years 7 and 8 of the pandemic. Without Mom to guide him, Sandy must take on all the responsibilities for their survival in the lawless outerlands. He tries his best but the best-laid plans seldom go as expected.

Book 3 FLU SEASON 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS
There is no safe space - except maybe hiding away in the forest of a national park. Sandy and his young family settle in a dug-out home and life is briefly idyllic. But when others have the same idea, Sandy's family faces a variety of new opportunities and challenges. While Sandy gets caught up in the civil war between North and South, marauders harangue the survivalists in the national park. As the post-pandemic world starts to recover, it is Sandy's daughter who must carry the family forward, no matter the difficulties she must face protecting her mother, sisters, and their daughters.

You can click over to the series page here, or to the Book 3 page here to read a sample. But I'll give you the first 2 pages right below here. Then you can click over to get a copy for yourself. (I prefer the paperbacks so I can carry them around and show them off to everyone, but that's me.)

The narrator in Book 3 is Isla Augustine Baumann, born in a later chapter of Book 1 and carried around through Book 2. In Book 3 she tells the story of her parents, her siblings, the friends and enemies she encounters. Starting at age 2, she takes us through the full experience of living - or trying to live - in a collapsed society bent on rebuilding but not quite there yet. Nothing will be the same as it was before the 10-year pandemic. That age is finished, forgotten. And with Isla at age 79 so is the oral history of that awful time.

The FLU SEASON trilogy could be seen as science fiction because it deals with a situation in the near-future. It could be classified as dystopian fiction because of the way society falls into ruin and how people must struggle to survive. It could also be called a family saga because it covers about 80 years and four generations of the same family. In these days of genre smashing, I think I've achieved a satisfying melding of all of them - with natural humor and occasional joy as much as horrors and sacrifices. While there is no message in particular I wish to push in this novel, the characters repeat a few that they take to heart - but I'll let you come upon them on your own. I do not take sides but allow Good and Evil to spar on a neutral stage for the entertainment and possibly enlightenment of readers.

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this dramatic trilogy. If you do, please leave a review on the Amazon page and tell your friends. I appreciate every reader who takes a chance on whatever I create. Thank you!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 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.