This website has a purpose

Everything has a purpose. It can just take a while to work out what it is.

In the case of this website it has taken a lot longer to get up and running than I initially expected. I started writing the first book in Ice Age in Scarlet a couple of years ago and during that time it has accumulated enormous amounts of head-canon that could only be included in the books as serious exposition dumps.

Want to know what happened to the last real President of the US? Well do I have a short story there, it’s important to why the US is like it is in the series but it’s also irrelevant to the current set of stories.

Want to know what happened when one of the Masters of the Vampire family decided that balloons were the future of travel? You bet there’s a story to that but my knowledge of gondolas isn’t good enough to tell it yet.

Now as a historian I’m a huge fan of exposition, in fact you could argue that pretty much all narrative history is just one huge exposition dump filtered through author bias, but it does make for some seriously ‘lumpy’ books. Therefore this website’s purpose has changed from a simple landing point for people who want to know a little more about my writing and a way to get newsletter sign ups to a blog which will include the sort of background information that provides depth to the world of Ice Age in Scarlet whilst not impinging on the stories.

So once I’ve got the hang of word press I’m going to be adding a series of encyclopedia style background content. This may well include some maps (I had an enjoyable and therapeutic two hours one Sunday colouring-in new coastlines which led to some grumbles from my children – what is daddy doing with our colouring pens – tell him not to use up all the blue).

For now it’ll probably just be short blogs on subjects I want to note down for future reference and to set the ‘rules’ of the Universe.

As an aside, there will be certain areas of the world where I will not be setting Ice Age in Scarlet content. They may be referenced in passing in the books or as an encyclopedia entry giving general information, but I simply don’t have the background to write detailed content that would do justice to those living there.

Instead in so far as the setting ‘works’ I’ll be inviting authors with an understanding of the culture and politics of those places to write content showing how those bits of the world will have adapted to the new situation.

That’s longer term. Let’s see if this works first.