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who haven't seen me for a long while want to know what I'm working on now. I think it's time to put all of the answers in
one place so I can stop yakking until I'm hoarse and they're regretting they asked.
I write speculative fiction, no more, no less. It's the only label I've found that's wide enough to apply to a series of works
that throws elements of science fiction, fantasy (urban, dark and otherwise), mystery, suspense, psychological thriller,
magical realism, and just about anything else that's available and looks good at the time into a blender. If you didn't follow
that sentence, that's okay. You're not alone.
The easiest way to explain what I write is to say that you'll eventually find it in the SciFi/Fantasy section, and that it's not
going to be easy to describe to your friends. It's got dragons and unicorns and spaceships and all sorts of other things that
you normally wouldn't find in the same book, but hopefully will assume belong there as they all get along so well together.
So now that I've explained (or more precisely failed to explain) what it's all about in general, let's get specific. Here's what
the author is currently working on (or will work on soon, honestly). The vast majority of the titles below are working titles,
mind - the author does not claim that her genius extends to particularly brilliant titles. But the stories themselves, I trust,
will make up for that.
"Body of interconnected works of stunning
scope and brilliance."
What's it all about? Every writer has to ask and answer that question, hopefully near the beginning of their career
or current book.
It's about decisions and choices and figuring out what's right for the story. At the end of all that, we hope that
what we've decided is right for our stories is also right for our readers.
I decided long ago that I wasn't interested in writing books with no relation to each other beyond sharing the same
author. At first, that was because I couldn't imagine writing something that didn't have Dusty Morgan in it. Later,
when I met other folks who intrigued me almost as much as she did, I decided it was fine to expand my scope. But
everything's still related to everything else. Why not? After all, I chose the whole Universe to write in. If that
Universe doesn't have enough nifty stuff in it to keep me frantically writing for the rest of my life, well, that's just
silly. Why would I need to create a different Universe for every story, with different laws of physics and different
histories and all that when the Universe I've got is big and strong and flexible enough to contain very nearly every
story I could ever want to tell?
Therefore, I'm strictly a one-Universe writer. Not that I haven't been tempted to stray at times - I have, there's a
damned lot of attractive ideas out there - but I'm just looking. Besides, most ideas end up slotting right into my
Universe whether they looked like they could or not.
So what binds this Universe together? What makes it One instead of One Thousand?
For one thing, there's a war on. Has been for some time. In fact, the main corpus of my work deals with folks
dealing with that war. And it all started 15 billion years ago, when the previous Universe imploded and then
exploded out in one ginormous Big Bang to create the present one. In that instant, something went terribly wrong,
and Order was left out. Ever since, it's been a melee between the Eternals, who are beings who embody the only
Order that made it in, and Entropy, which would just as soon Order took a hike and left everything to get on with
heat death and so on.
Which is all rather a misnomer, as these forces have no consciousness as we understand it, but have been
personified in the Eternals that represent them, and thus seem to have hopes and aspirations and ideals and desires
just like the rest of us.
Fast forward a few billion years, and you get to the first fruits of the Eternals' attempts to create order - galaxies,
stars, planets, life, all fighting against the Entropy that threatens to swallow them. It comes to its first head
18,000 years ago, during the War of a Thousand Years. At the end of that conflict, only two Eternals remained,
and life was in a very tight spot indeed.
Begin the corpus. Because, you see, very simply, everything I have written and have planned can be summed up as
events that result from the outcome of that war, which was really only one phase of a war that has been fought
since the beginning of time.
From here, we'll follow along as the war heats and cools, as worlds are destroyed and saved, as people great and
small do their best to survive in a Universe that, for all of its incredible beauty, is also very hostile to life and doing
its level best to destroy them. At core, everything comes down to one thing: the struggle to live life while trying
also to keep Entropy from trumping Order, which would lead to the heat-death of the Universe. Heat death? Yes.
Total Entropy. A soup of featureless particles spread evenly throughout a dead Universe, where temperatures are
only a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and nothing at all, not even the Eternals, can survive.
The stakes don't get any higher, really.
A thousand years after the War of a Thousand Years ended, Xtalea is at the pinnacle of her civilization. She is counted
among the most beautiful and prosperous worlds in the Known Universe, and it seems that her halcyon summer will never
end.
In this age, a young boy named Ticaal Sorven begins learning war at the knee of a veteran who knows that no era of peace
can ever last, and that Ticaal's considerable power will be needed in Xtalea's defense when peace ends. Ticaal rises through
the military until he is accounted as a legend, fighting defensive actions on other worlds, waiting for the day when the war
the old man warned him of comes to Xtalea herself. But it's not until after his military career has ended that he meets the
man whose presence on Xtalea means her end, and is called to fight a battle to save her that seems utterly hopeless from the
start.
This story - how Ticaal Sorven became the most legendary soraani of all time; how Silahnova, born on worlds destined for
utter annihilation, became so interwoven with both Ticaal and Xtalea that he abandoned duty and became known by his
Xtalean name forever after; how the Xtaleans fought to preserve the place most precious to them and became who they are
now - is one that has always captivated me. This is where it began: this is where it will end, with Xtalea.
Every civilization has its defining moments, when everything teeters on the brink and its fate could go either way. For
Athesea, as for the rest of the civilized worlds bound together by her, the Seven Months War was that moment.
The Seven Months War eclipsed even the War of a Thousand Years in sheer destruction. This is the first time the fighting
actually spreads to Athesea itself, and the results are catastrophic. It begins, as so often is the case, quietly, with a single
event that doesn't seem to have world-shattering significance at the time. It begins with Kalsenah ne'Shadah, created to be
the Guardian who will, with the Restorer, end the conflict between Order and Entropy that has raged since the beginning of
time. One event causes her to become lost in the fog of war.
Fate is a creature of chance and probability and possibility. Sometimes, Fate very unkindly leads us down the wrong path,
and when you're someone of Kalsenah ne'Shadah's stature and influence, that path can take empires down with you. This is
a novel about choice, and chance, and the desperate scramble to preserve a fragment of something with which to rebuild
when everything else has been burned into ash and smoke.
For fifty years, the Breagha Faire has fought a shadow war to keep Earth from succumbing to Sha'daal. At this critical
time, when the final battles of this endless war are about to be fought, when the Restorer has been born and it's clear that
the Guardian must be somewhere on the horizon, they're being eliminated at an alarming rate by an assassin they know only
as Trinity. It's becoming certain that, if they don't find a way to stop him and defeat the enemy employing him, Earth's part
in that final fight will be as base stock for Sha'daal's Legions. For the proud warriors of Earth, this is not a good option.
And then Trinity himself walks through the door with a proposition: give me so many millions of dollars and amnesty, and I
will hand you your enemy.
The Breagha Faire is forced to reconcile honor with expediency, forgiveness with vegeance, and partner with an ally who is
likely to sell them to the next-highest bidder. When that bidder is Sha'daal, it begins to look certain that this deal with the
devil was a bargain sealed with fairy gold.
(I don't want to boast. I really don't. But I think Adrian "Trinity" Sykes is going to emerge as one of the great antiheroes of
all time. Test readers assure me that they love to hate him and hate to love him, just as I do.)
Book One
Miraldo is falling prey to a previously unknown civilization of warriors that threaten to annihilate her within months.
Athesea is pressed by a series of brushfire wars that have traditionally heralded the outbreak of something much larger and
nastier. And after nearly a year of peace, the Breagha Faire is again under attack, this time by a serial killer who threatens
to expose them in the worst possible way at the worst possible moment. All of the signs point to the final war coming far
earlier and harder than anyone expected, and the Guardian is nowhere in sight. Without her, they have no hope of winning,
and the Universe itself will die in this conflict.
Dusty Morgan is an FBI profiler who has never believed in fate, prophecy, or very much of anything outside of her job. She
certainly never expected a serial killer she was chasing to land her in the middle of a universal war. She never saw herself as
a world savior, much less a worlds' savior, and is most definitely not prepared to hear that her grandfather, in conjunction
with the Breagha Faire's mysterious founder Luther Novotny, has spent her lifetime grooming her for just such a role. She's
torn between loyalties and duties, walking a razor's edge between destruction and rescue, and with the secret knowledge
that she is not the Guardian everyone believes.
Book Two
The Star Crystal, the one artifact that could grant Athesea and her allies enough power to win the war, has been reforged
and lost. The Masters have been defeated, but something far worse is coming behind them. Every positive, it seems, has
been followed by a negative, and the war hasn't yet begun.
The war begins in earnest here, with betrayal, with blood, and ending with a battle that will destroy what little hope still
remained.
Book Three
It is three weeks before the end of all things. For the first time in 2,500 years, Athesea comes under direct assault. The
Balance they spent the entirety of their existence maintaining is about to shatter. Every day sees the death of more worlds.
Not even veterans of the Seven Months War believed that the end would be this bad.
In the heart of things, Dusty finds herself pushed to the outer limits of endurance, and discovers what it takes to make a
false Guardian true. Unfortunately, it seems to mean leading all of the forces of Order to their valiant deaths....
collections
This collection of stories all follow a common theme: things going desperately wrong, the wrong choices made, disasters
brought on by bad decisions or good ambushed by chance. It covers the gaps in all of that history, bridging the span from
just after the War of a Thousand Years to the moment the trilogy starts.
History has a huge impact on the present. In this collection, we see how choices made tens of thousands of years ago can
still come back to haunt the people living now.
There are all kinds of stories to tell that show why Outlanders are the way they are. Events small and not-so-small, personal
stories, intimate stories, cultural stories, myths, legends and all sorts of miscellany that don't fit inside the tight confines of a
trilogy and certainly can't be called Cautionary Tales will find their way here. We'll get an eye-witness view to the series of
poems exchanged between Nahkorah and her friend Disahnahle that defined the relationship between the Plains Cousins and
Mountain Cousin Drusavs and is still celebrated in festival today. We'll walk a Bktarian labyrinth with Sovaal Kaavoraan
and find out why that stripped him of the last joy left in his soul. We'll see how Jusadan Kilderic became the Restorer, and
we'll make many other stops along the way to sample the best of many other worlds.
Breagha Faire
Everybody starts somewhere. This collection will contain the origin stories of many of the most prominent members of the
Breagha Faire, and a good bit of juicy history besides. By the time this one comes out, it's just possible there will be enough
fans to actually enjoy a group of stories written mainly to give the author background for the novels, but at the same time
also showed her that people's histories are just as interesting as their presents.
I told you this Universe was big enough to keep me working happily for the rest of my life. There's a whole slew of other
stuff, some of which I won't mention because it'll give too many clues to how the books end. But let's just say that if I'm a
prolific writer at age 90, I'll still have far more on my plate than I have years to finish. Which is precisely how it should be.