Friday, August 10, 2012

Geis Chronicles


Geis Chronicles?  What's that?

Geis is the setting I created for my writing.  It is predominantly a fantasy setting but I refer to it as 'rune pulp'.

Basically, I wanted to pay tribute to those literary pioneers who wrote stories for pennies and changed the imagination of the world; the pulps.  Many writers cite JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings for inspiring their love of fantasy.  Mine was Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.  I was in fifth grade when I picked up A Princess of Mars and admittedly, I picked it up because the cover had a half-naked woman on it.  What I found beneath that cover changed my world.  The images in my mind of John Carter's adventures on Mars, whom the locals called Barsoom, fired my imagination in a way very little has since.  One thing that I love about the pulps to this day was the fearless way the authors wrote whatever came to their minds.  It didn't occur to either Mr Burroughs or his editor that having technology mixed with magic was incongruous.  Flying ships, guns, swords and sorcery all mixed together in a beautiful story.

That's why Geis is the way it is.  Originally, it was a fantasy setting.  Kinda plain vanilla without any real innovation.  My stories were filled with tropes of fantasy writing and while I think they were entertaining, they just didn't fire my imagination.

Then, while talking with a friend of mine, I hit upon the solution.  There was no reason I couldn't have airplanes or guns or the internet on Geis.  So I do.  I had to really dig in deep to find the logical connections that would enable me to have all of that in an acceptable manner for the demanding audiences of today's fiction.  People want their escape to make sense.  That's why I'm creating this blog: to explain exactly what it is that I've created and as a means for me to communicate with my audience (which right now is about five) on my thoughts on the creation.  There is a history here, a thought process and even - dare I say it - logic to how I've set up the world.

So settle in, because I hope you find this entertaining or interesting.  Even more, I hope you find it educational after you read my stories.

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