The Disenchanted Kingdom: Sneak Previews!

It is the year 2721 … or is it?  The world has gone through a major calamity called the Meltdown.  Absolutely everything changed; all order was overthrown.  Miraculously, humanity survived.  The Meltdown was followed by the Metamorphosis.  A way of life was re-established, a stable society.  But all accurate historical records have been lost in the Meltdown.  What is left, is a humanity uncertain of its origins, uncertain of its own true nature.  Most people suppress this uncertainty and go on with life; the post-meltdown society is cautious and conservative.  But for some people this is not enough.  Valerie, born as a humble farm girl, has always been one to ask distressing questions and engage in strange pursuits.  She has studied philosophy, pursued a career as a musician, and even participated in the revived, high-risk sport of gladiatorial combat.  In this she was preceded by her sister Vivienne, who actually died in the ring, to the immense distress of their mother Vera.  Based on her sister’s experiences Valerie has concluded that the fighting actually serves a crucial purpose, that the World Mind, the enigmatic entity guiding their society, wants people to fight and even to risk death!   Death might be a kind of singularity, similar to the Meltdown itself – an event that changes everything, that maybe even opens a gateway into a different order of existence.  The World Mind cannot die but yearns to know what death is, what lies behind it.  The extreme discipline of the gladiators promises something new – the possibility to approach death as closely as possible, and yet to still pull back, having glimpsed the other side.

But what if there was a way to go completely to the other side … and come back again?

Valerie believes Vivienne almost managed to do this.  She believes her sister did glimpse the other side, even before her death.  She herself has not … until the day when she is seriously injured in the ring.  Her mind detaches, for all purposes, entirely from her body and she finds herself in a wholly new realm …

That is where the story starts!  The Disenchanted Kingdom is merely the first of a series of twelve stories that I’m planning.  They are about the adventures of Valerie and her companions in the new world, the new universe she discovers.  I’m not going to say too much now.  There are basically two different ‘story lines’ … the one is the adventures she experiences in the new world, the things she does and the people she meets, and the second line will gradually reveal the back story of Valerie and her entire world, the details of the Meltdown and the Metamorphosis.  It will also deal with the implications of the new world, the new universe.  Is it the afterlife, or just one of an infinitude of different possible afterlives – or new lives in new worlds?   Is it real?   Is it a hallucination?  Or is it some kind of artificial construct?  How is it related to Valerie’s own world?  She will also be challenged to face questions about her own nature, her own reality.  Are the people of the Metamorphosis still the same in nature as the humanity that had gone before it, that had been destroyed by the Meltdown?  And what is the World Mind, exactly?  What is it that the World Mind so desperately needs to know, that it is sending people to death and beyond?  Her adventures will even confront her with the deepest questions of all, about the meaning of existence, and about the nature of the soul.  Will she be able to learn what she needs to learn, and return with this knowledge to her own world?

The adventures themselves will be fairly light and enjoyable reading – I hope! – of epic quests in fantasy-style settings populated by a variety of wondrous people, beasts and beings – but then underneath it there will be this serious contemplative current of Valerie coming to terms with the meaning and implications of everything, so there is philosophy in it as well.  But it is a work of fiction, set in an entirely fictional universe/universes with their own kinds of cosmological order, and not to be taken too seriously!  I don’t try to proclaim any ‘truths’ … but rather to offer ideas, ideas that may challenge our own ideas about what is ‘real’ and what are the ultimates of existence.  But I leave the final conclusions to the reader!

For now, here are some sneak previews, all of them scenes from the first adventure ‘The Disenchanted Kingdom’ … actually scenes from the beginning of the adventure since I’m still not very far with the work of illustrating it.  I hope, however, they pique your curiosity a bit!  The stories themselves are coming to DA soon!