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Tuesday Monsoon.
Like, crazy stupid around here. Staying in. Just made soup. Might have coffee in a bit.
Been editing Boundary Shock Quarterly. Knew this was going to be a difficult issue. “Sword and Sorcery and Starships,” Ended up with only about 45k words submitted and a couple of those stories I might have rejected if I’d had 100k.
Instead, I asked the Fabulous Publisher Babe™ to write me something. And I am spinning up a new universe as well. (Knew I might need it. Been planning for a couple of weeks.)
Start with Norse mythology, which folks in the US know reasonably well after all the Thor and Avenger movies over the last 15 years. I went kinda deep into a lot of corners I’ve never really explored, and ended up creating a new universe that takes our world (early 23rd Century Earth, as it were) and going to a spot well after Ragnarok, when Midgard has been almost destroyed and the Nine Realms have been chunked off in pieces. Got a Dune vibe going, but instead of Paul we’ll have Signy Muirgen. And with most of the gods slain, the main backstage villains will be Thrud (Daughter of Thor and Sif), Gnoss (daughter of Freyja), and Skathi, ex-wife of Njord and occasionally booty call of Odin.
Calling it The Inheritors, for the three gods present having Mjolnir, Gungnir, and Gram. Really more of an Iliad tone with how the gods interact with humans, mostly just influencing things for now, but I’ve been building this to be at least as big as Scattered Tribes in scope. And about as dark.
And hey, every time you push the publish button, this might be the story that catapults you into the stratosphere, so I’m ready if more Epic Magic Space Opera is the thing that people decide that they need.
Because what exactly is a god? The Norse delve into that one pretty deeply, so I have hooks I can use to draw on for stories. And because I’m setting it after Ragnarok, I can do pretty much anything I want, using only those folks who survived. Or the ones who were so minor that they didn’t appear in any of the great stories. (Most of the Vanir, it seems, went home either before or after the battle, rather than dying there. Twilight of the Aesir and death of most of the giants, rather than complete destruction of everything, if you will.)
Having fun. About 6k into the first story. It will be in BSQ 031.
Hopefully, you’ve all gone out and bought BSQ 030/Fading Empires, so you have Brother Jon #1 that sets things up. The series makes a hell of a lot more sense in that case, though I’ve tried to keep things mostly coherent.
Other than that not a lot going on. Dojo last night where we’ve moved from Monday morning to Monday night and Sensei has brought over a big chunk of his former Isshynryu folks to start learning GoJu. I know this curriculum better than they do. They’re more experienced at other things.
Gonna be fun. Gonna be new.
What are you doing to break the anti-stodgy?
shade and sweet water,
b
West of the Mountains, WA
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