Main Premise and Author’s Note

Take a man who is heavily dependent on science and technology. He is a man who has seen success through this. This man has been brought up in a culture where reliance on science is dominant, in a world torn apart, from his viewpoint, by warring religions. This man is not agnostic, he is a devout atheist. His society is atheistic, his friends and all he knows share this similar belief. He has absolutely no reason to believe different.
This man is Nash – he is an advanced cyborg.
He is then transported to a new realm. One where magic exists, one where gods exist.
The initial gist of the novel was to be an exploration as the man learns to accept his new surroundings, challenging his beliefs every step of the way. At first, he would think he is delusional, eventually deciding to just roll with it, to actively participating in his new world. It was meant to be a comparison of belief vs. nonbelief.
One thing I needed was somehow a way to keep him on even footing in a magical world, hence him being an advanced cyborg. Many of his abilities are there simply as a way to keep him even with magical creatures and mages casting potent spells. And then of course, playing on those interactions.
One of the key things I noticed was that when miracles are common and reproducible, society would have to change. Belief is a whole new thing. It would be like us saying we don’t believe in a round earth. There are those who insist on a flat earth, however, they are exceedingly rare types, and their logic is often self-centered on what they can personally perceive.
As this was set in a game world I have been working on for over 15 years (the first dungeon probably dated back to around 1984 or 1985), the story devolved into other aspects and away from the character study I initially intended. A benefit of having a man out of time story is I also get to completely introduce the world through his perspective.
Most of this novel was written in the early 2000’s. Then it got shelved. Mostly because I got busy doing other things. When I wrote it, I was not playing in RPG’s. I just kept working on the world, for that is what interested me. I would spend a few weeks or months working out a map or idea, then let it drop again. All thinking I might pick up an RPG some future date.
Then for years, I quit role-playing almost completely. I went from nearly weekly in late high school and college to almost nothing. From 1994 to 2017 I didn’t play except for an occasional game every few years. I still collected game books, still read up on it, still had hopes of maybe someday playing again, it just never happened. Life was too busy to find a gaming group.
Then in 2017, I finally asked a few friends if they wanted to start a game up again, this would be via webcam. At work, I did a lot of video conferencing and I thought I could make it work. And before our first game, one of the players suggested we try Roll20. So we did, and after working out the kinks, we got the game going about once or twice a month. From there, I started putting and organizing a lot of available notes on Slack. Then the same friend mentioned World Anvil. So here I am.
Back to the book. Well, the game was set in the same world, but an unexplored part of that world. However, one of my goals from the beginning was to eventually get this novel on World Anvil. It will be slow, might take months and months, but it is a goal. While the book is finished, what was left undone was any type of edit. That is what is being done now, a deeper edit, but also retooling various parts.
Sometimes we find our ideas are ripped straight from other sources, and yet don’t remember. I have a scene that involved a gladiatorial opponent who is blue skinned, has red hair and is an archer. He has hollowed out bone arrows he can control the directionality from by his whistles. It’s a cool scene how it plays out. Then Guardians of the Galaxy movies came out. There was Yondu. I had to go back and look at my ancient comic books and sure enough, sometime in the late 70’s early 80’s I had a comic book featuring Yondu. I knew the inspiration of the blue-skinned race I had from a children's cartoon (most of this race is actually green skinned), I had somewhere transposed Yondu onto that.
So, that is one of the major scenes I need to retool. For years I have been trying to figure out how to remake that fight and probably just need to sit down and start writing it.
As I work through the chapters and do a rough edit, hopefully, they read better. If you don’t like the editing, I can assure you, it is many times better than before.
Along the way, I am trying to create a greater character bible and timeline, so that I can mesh all the stories together better. Do I hope to see this published, no. I write because I enjoy it. Do I plan on writing a second book – maybe, in another 20 or 30 years. Whatever happens, this will all be out there for someone to see.