Shine Cycle Précis: Space and Time (Part One)

Space and Time is the planned eighth book in the “main line” of the Shine Cycle, following The Barbaric Dragon in chronology. Today’s post is the first part of a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: The Barbaric Dragon

The Barbaric Dragon is the planned seventh book in the “main line” of the Shine Cycle, following The Imperial War in chronology. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: The Imperial War

The Imperial War is the planned sixth book in the “main line” of the Shine Cycle, following Sunshine Civil War in chronology. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: Sunshine Civil War

Sunshine Civil War is the planned fifth book in the “main line” of the Shine Cycle, following The Dragon Returns and the “Alternate Universes” subseries in chronology. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: “Alternate Universes” sub-series

After the events of The Dragon Returns, the planned fourth book of the Shine Cycle which I described in a précis last month, the main series pauses for a moment as Jon Royal (whose birth is mentioned in the epilogue of The Dragon Wars, who plays a minor role in The Dragon Returns, and who will be central in the next main-sequence novel, Sunshine Civil War) journeys through various countries and across various universes as a “knight errant,” seeking adventure until he is at last called home by the crisis that sparks the Sunshine Civil War. The content of the adventures he finds are not of particular importance to the main story, so I intend to turn to them later than much of the rest of the main series. But I do intend to tell those “side-stories” in a sub-series that I call “the Alternate Universes series,” because many of his adventures take place in “alternate Earths,” where history went down a different path from ours.

Because of the lower priority I’ve given this, and because I only began thinking about it in any detail last year, I know very little about what I’m going to do with this. I described some plans for the series last September, including the “alternate histories” I’d thought of, but I don’t have much more to say now than I did then (and so I point you to that post for the list rather than reproducing it here. If you have questions, comments, or ideas, please feel free to comment eithr there or here, whichever seems appropriate. And while my list of “alternate histories” and other places to explore may seem somewhat extensive, I’m still eagerly open to suggestions for others). I intend to take Our Hero gradually through each situation, each time challenging his capabilities, until he eventually settles in Camelot. When I’ve come back to them and considered them in much greater detail, I’ll post a précis of each planned story in that series here. But that’ll be awhile; I have a lot of other outlining to do before then. But I’ll get to it eventually.

Eventually, after several years in Camelot, he receives an urgent inter-universal message from his father summoning him home. But that’s another story …

Shine Cycle Précis: The Dragon Returns

The Dragon Returns is the planned fourth book in the Shine Cycle, following Anarchy. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: Anarchy

Anarchy (again, tentative title) is the planned third book (by internal chronology) in the Shine Cycle, following The Dragon Wars. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: The Dragon Wars

The Dragon Wars (tentative title) is the planned second book (by internal chronology) in the Shine Cycle, following Vayna. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Shine Cycle Précis: Vayna

Vayna is the planned first book (by internal chronology) in the Shine Cycle. Today’s post is a brief introduction to it.

Story Précis: Introduction

This morning I’d like to introduce a new intermittent series of posts that will occasionally appear in this space: précis of the stories I plan to write in the Shine Cycle. I gave a little bit of a plot summary of most in my brief outline of the plot of the series, but not enough to really give you much of an idea what the stories are about. So I intend to rectify that in this series.

Each post will cover one story—usually a planned novel. I’ll briefly describe the plot, but I don’t intend for that to be the main focus. I’ll also talk about the main characters and the themes (if I’m consciously attempting to include any specifically) I intend to develop. And I’ll talk a little bit about the context of the story—what’s going on in the story-world at the time that doesn’t directly come into the story, what effects the events of the story might have, etc.

Is there anything I should include in a précis that I’ve missed? And what story would you like me to cover first?