Meridium. That's how. In Barra-Dohn, and the world of The Wandering, meridium is both the source and the currency of power. Meridium was discovered in Barra-Dohn, and the city built an empire with it, both by using meridium against her enemies and by selling it to the world. The key was always to be two or three steps ahead of everyone else in understanding at least its martial applications.

The great Academy of Barra-Dohn made sure that happened, and in its walls, the men and women of the Academy labored ceaselessly to unlock the secrets of this great power. Over time, generation by generation, Barra-Dohn and much of the world began to put its hope and trust in meridium, and Kalos who had made meridium, as he had made all things, was largely forgotten. The Temple of Kalos was essentially abandoned, becoming over time the home of the Academy. Out with the old God, in with the new.

A storm is coming, though, and with it a power greater than any Barra-Dohn has ever seen, and all the meridium in the world won't save it.

Part of my early planning for this series, several years ago when I started to first plan and brainstorm about it, was to create a new fantasy world that was truly a 'world.' What I mean by that, is that it is typical to create fantasy worlds that, more or less, are just really, really big continents. This is very convenient for placing maps in the front of books - all the action takes place on the single land mass, there laid out neatly for you - but I liked the idea of trying to generate a complete globe.

This concept fit very nicely with the idea of a story like The Wandering that was to follow the adventures of a small band of exiles as they traversed this new world. And so, I committed to a larger geographic vision than a single continent and began to map out an arc for the series that would involve stops in very different locales.

There are dangers here, in that people could fall in love with a place and regret leaving it, or a reader might feel that they are skimming across the surface of the world and not really getting to see its depth, but hopefully these pitfalls will be avoided and the sheer variety of encounters and cultures will entertain as the story unfolds.

As a final note, I've been thinking about some of my possible influences here, and two come to mind fairly readily. As a kid, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite Narnia book, in large measure because each separate island felt like its own separate story/world, and I liked the variety. More recently, I have very much enjoyed Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, both the original trilogy and the four he wrote much, much later in life, and they present not just a variety of continents on a large globe, but a variety of planets in a huge galaxy. The scope of what I'm attempting is large, but not nearly that large, so hopefully I'll be able to create a varied and fantastical world of similar enjoyment to these others.

I guess we'll see!

All right, I'm just going to put this right out there. Anyone who has a blog or personal website or whatever and just ignores the 29th of February is crazy. How can you do that? You won't get another chance to post on the 29th of February until 2012!

So, whatever mundane duties your life and maintaining it might require of you today, you have to take a minute to celebrate leap year. What a cool notion, that every 4 years, we get a bonus day. Hey everybody, the month that got seriously short-changed when days were being handed out just got its once-every-four-years reprieve. Sure, it's still the shortest month of the year like it is every year, but com'on, at least it's able this year to put in a respectable showing.

Sadly, like most things in life, it can't last. Night will fall. February will pass quietly away. We'll wake up and it will be March. And then? Then the long wait for 2/29/12 will begin.

I'm sure when I wrote that, February 29th, 2012, seemed impossibly far away. Well, I guess it wasn't, cause here we are. Of course, the knowledge that it wasn't impossibly far way doesn't stop me from making the same mistake again, but you agree with me, don't you? Doesn't February 29, 2016, feel like a long, long time away?

I know that it'll be here before I know it, but I don't want to think too much about that, as it'll mean both my kids will be in High School and my son on the brink of graduation. (Oh no, college bills!) And - to tie this to my new series - it'll most likely mean that at least the first trilogy in The Wandering will be in print. Now that's enjoyable to think about!

Let's do this again in four years, shall we?

And make no mistake, the harder land is deliberate, setting the tone for a much harder world.

Barra-Dohn - the city of might and power - is the city's current name. Once, long ago, it was known as Zeru-Shalim, the city of light and peace. The name has changed, though, as the city and those who live in it have changed. Indeed, the name has changed, as all the world has changed. For Kalos, who made the world, has been forgotten. Consequently, light and peace - though still desirable, to be sure - pale by comparison with might and power.

Barra-Dohn is indeed mighty, and it is powerful. For there, a thousand years ago, the secret of meridium was discovered. There, the power of meridium was unleashed, and now Barra-Dohn rules over the Five Cities, who were once her equal. Now, Barra-Dohn is the seat of an empire that covers all of Aralyn.

And in Barra-Dohn there lives a King, Eirmon Omiir. Eirmon epitomizes the spirit of Barra-Dohn, for he loves nothing so much as he loves might and power. In fact, he has dedicated his life to securing and extending that power.

Eirmon has a secret, and Eirmon has a plan - but Eirmon is on a collision course with destiny, and so is Barra-Dohn.

Not that I don't like Aladdin - I love Aladdin actually - it was one of those rare movies where I actually laughed out loud at the theater. The first scene with the genie in the cave is pure comic genius. Robin Williams is brilliant there. It's just that this post may, for some of you, carry a feeling of bittersweetness that doesn't fit the upbeat, happy associations of Disney in general and that movie in particular. But alas, I continue to digress...

I was asked by someone the other day if my new series would be set in a world that was similar to that of The Binding of the Blade. It wasn't a new question, as that same question or ones like it have been fairly common from various friends and fans over the years when they find out I'm working on a new series. In fact, more than one person has been even more pointed than that, wanting to know if the new series was set in the same world.

The answer to both questions is, I must say, no. Not only is the world of The Darker Road and The Wandering not the same as the world of The Binding of the Blade, but it isn't even similar. Not really.

That is to say, it's time to bid farewell to Kirthanin. That's strange for me to write, and perhaps strange for you to read, but perhaps it is necessary. For me, it isn't really a sad thing to say. I spent the better part of seven or eight years 'in' Kirthanin - conceiving it, developing it, writing about it, etc. So, even before All My Holy Mountain was published, I had moved on to other ideas and stories. It was simply time.

And yet, for many who read the series, and for whom the books were a good experience, Kirthanin is a place that they enjoyed visiting and some of them have, I think, harbored hopes that they might get to go back. And, since I've not published something else in the intervening years, there's been no concrete, tangible evidence that they wouldn't.

Now, I'm not saying I might not someday revisit Kirthanin, I just don't have plans to at the moment. I loved Kirthanin and the people and adventures I found there - and I hope you did too - but its time for me, at least, to bid Kirthanin farewell. My story-telling heart just lies elsewhere.

Fortunately, you can always go back and visit, any time you like. That's one of the great things about books. Though the world around us changes, and though we change, they don't. They remain. So while we bid farewell to Kirthanin in The Wandering and enter into a very different kind of world, it doesn't have to be a permanent good-bye.

Anyway, enough of looking back. Next time let's look forward, as I'll begin to tell you a bit about the new world you'll encounter when you are at last able to pick up The Darker Road and hold it in your hand...

Of course, I don't know for sure yet that either of those will be the actual titles for the book or the series, but they've been called that in my head for so long now, I thought I'd go ahead and say so on my blog.

I don't have a definitive plan for how I'll do this, but I want to write a series of posts over the next several months, introducing you to the world of The Wandering. There's a fine line, I suppose, between previews and spoilers, but my intention is to begin whetting your appetite for the book by giving you a glimpse of some of the characters and settings, hinting at their history, and even sharing some of the fantastical elements and mechanics that you'll encounter in the series.

The Darker Road really is just the tip of the iceberg. The scope of The Wandering is enormous, and the things I preview here are just a peek at that first journey into this new and exciting world. I hope you'll come along, and I trust you'll enjoy getting lost in this world as much I have.

For me, one of the best gifts of the New Year is the gift of a new start. After wrapping up The Binding of the Blade in 2008 with All My Holy Mountain, I've worked on a variety of projects (chronicled elsewhere on this blog). Now, I have an opportunity to see one of those projects into print, as I've just signed a three book contract with AMG to publish a new fantasy series.

I am excited to be working with AMG, which has become in the last decade one of the few Christian publishers to really commit to supporting the fantasy genre. I first heard of AMG when I was at ICRS in Denver in 2005 to attend the Christy Award Banquet for Beyond the Summerland (which alas, I didn't win) and support the release of The Bringer of Storms. AMG was a few booths down, and Bryan Davis was there signing for one of his books in the Dragons in our Midst series.

In the intervening years, various publishers have dabbled with fantasy, but AMG has really expanded their commitment to the genre, adding several other fantasy writers, notably my good friend Wayne Thomas Batson. It was really through talking to Wayne about his experience with AMG that convinced me it was the right move for me to approach them about my new series.

So here I am, in a New Year, with a new contract, ready to invest in delivering a new series. I don't know if my working title for the series will be its actual title, but I call the series The Wandering. My contract is for three books, as I mentioned above, but I actually envision the story as two trilogies, or six books total. Whether or not The Wandering ends up being one series, comprised of two distinct but related three book arcs, or whether The Wandering ends up being just the first trilogy and the second trilogy gets another name, well, that's a question for another day.

I'm anticipating that the most common question I'll get is 'when will the first book be out?' So, I'll get in first and say I have no idea. The first book is written and I've just sent it to AMG, but these things take some time. I'd guess that it might be out either at Christmas time in 2012, or perhaps Spring of 2013, but that is just a guess.

The first book of the series is the book I've referred to elsewhere on this site as 'TDR.' And, as some of my readers had some fun trying to guess what TDR stood for, I'll just say now that you'll have to come back and read my next post in a week or two, because in that post, I'm going to tell you what TDR stood for...

I've actually been pretty busy on a variety of fronts, but I expect to return to at least semi-regular posting here, and hopefully some of those readers who have drifted away with my inactivity will return. If you have friends who have at various times enjoyed my books and occasionally visited my site but have stopped dropping by, encourage them to come on back.

Especially with the aforementioned announcement looming in the not-so-far-distant-future...

Speculative Faith

Check it out & check out the rest of the site if you've never been there. There's some interesting stuff.