Paradisi Chronicles: Introduction

Daily Diary, Thursday, Sept 21, 2023 Day 1116:

UPDATE: I have posted all ten chapters of The Stars are Red Tonight, the novella in the Paradisi Chronicles universe that I co-wrote with my daughter (pen name Rey Wright). Today in preparation for republishing, I will take down these chapters. However, I will leave those chapters talking about the Chronicles and the characters up. My plan is to add to these general posts about the Paradisi universe, my Caelestis series (I am currently writing the fifth and final novel in that series), and eventually start putting up the draft I have started on the sequel to The Stars are Red Tonight.

In the summer of 2014, a fellow indie author brought up the idea that a group of us should get together to create a science fiction world in which we could all write, with the goal of publishing the first round of works all at once. We could then open up the world to any author who wanted to write in that world.  I loved the idea.

While I write historical mysteries, one of my favorite forms of recreational reading has always been science fiction, particularly the kind that focus on world-building. So, after a lively online discussion, I recklessly wrote, “sign me up!” What follows is a brief introduction of my role in helping create this world and the stories written about it, which we called the Paradisi Chronicles.

Three days after the first idea about creating this world, we had a group of over ten interested authors, and we started the collaborative process of deciding the parameters of that world, discussing such questions as: Would it be Earth in the future or another world or multiple worlds? Would there be aliens? Would people have paranormal powers? Did we want a “Men in Black” scenario? Should there be fantasy elements? Would the stories happen in a single time period or range over time?

We voted on the various options, and the most popular was the creation of worlds (not Earth) in a single planetary system outside our galaxy, with our stories ranging over time. We rejected the idea of fantasy (ie no magic), but did decide to give the natives psychic abilities that would have some sort of scientific basis. The language we gave the natives on the main planet (which we named New Eden) was to be based on Welsh. One of our participating authors writes books set in medieval Wales and suggested it was a language that was obscure enough to sound alien to the colonists coming to New Eden. Those of you who have read my books can understand why, in hindsight, I rather wished we’d not thought ourselves so clever in doing so, since I know readers struggle trying to sound out these words in their minds. They certainly do sound alien, however!

After some of the initial decisions were made, two of the authors, Amanda Allen (who has subsequently become a very successful cozy historical mystery author under the pen name Beth Byers) and Cheri Lasota (who is a successful artist and cover designer as well as having subsequently written a series of novellas in the Paradisi Chronicles universe) and I took what the other authors said they wanted and brainstormed online feverishly over a few days. I was then asked to write up the basic backstory for the Paradisi Chronicles in order to provide a Guide for all the writers.

In retrospect, I had no business spending time trying to build a whole new world in July of 2014, because that was the month I started writing Deadly Proof, the fourth book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. I am not one of those prolific writers who are able to write across multiple genres, producing multiple books, in multiple series, multiple times a year.

In fact, Maids of Misfortune, my first historical mystery, took 20 years between first draft and publication, the next two books each took just short of two years from beginning of research to publication, and I had already spent over a year doing the research for Deadly Proof. Additionally, I had no idea if this whole project was even going to fly, much less bring in revenue.

I told myself that I would just write a short story in this new world I had helped create, something I could do while Deadly Proof was being beta read. Since I had already written several short stories between my mystery novels, this seemed like a reasonable plan.

What happened, however, is that while I spent my days recreating a world that existed over 130 years in the past (1880 San Francisco) I was spending my evenings doing the research needed to create the new world, New Eden, set nearly 300 years in the future. 

I read scientific articles on things like wormholes, space stations, EmDrives, and whether or not species can cross breed, poured over the maps that Cheri Lasota was creating for this new world, and then I worked to construct brief biographies for the ten Founding Families who took the journey from old Earth to the new solar system.

In the process I participated in lively online discussions with other authors interested in writing in this world, to settle such questions as what language should the colonists from Earth speak once they were on New Eden? What kind of transportation system would they build and should they have money or just online credits? How would the psychic powers work? And could the new settlers from Earth and the Ddaerans (the name we gave the natives) be able to have sex and reproduce? Heady stuff!

As we had these discussions, I became particularly interested in the Yu Founding Family who would be specialize in energy production and distribution and trying to figure out how the psychic abilities we decided to give the native Ddaerans would work. Consequently, I started to write a back story for this family and consider how I could write a story that would introduce readers to the goals of the ten Founding Families as well as how their actual colonization of the new planet would unfold.

In the end, I fell in love with New Eden (or as the natives called this world Ddaera) and its inhabitants. And when I began to write, the short story I had planned soon became the full-length novel Between Mountain and Sea, the first in a series of books I wrote about this world, which I called the Caelestis Series because the Yu Founding Family called the nation they set up on the Majesta continent, Caelestis.

Over the next few years, I wrote a continuation of the story of Mei Lin Yu, the protagonist of Between Mountain and Sea, in Under Two Moons, and Through Ddaera’s Touch, and Tides of Acerba. I also wrote a short story set in the first generation of settlement called Aelwyd: Home that describes first contact between the Founders from Earth and native Ddaerans.

Altogether, seventeen authors have written stories set in the Paradisi Chronicles universe, ranging from short stories, to novellas, and full-length novels, with a couple of series. Twelve of us have short stories in an anthology, Chronicle Worlds: Paradisi.

One of those authors is my daughter, (pen name Rey Wright) who I co-authored a novella, The Stars are Red Tonight, with that told the origin story of a second Founding Family, the Kuttners.

My daughter and I have decided this would be a good time to temporarily take down this novella to update it, making sure that there are appropriate references to some recent events (Covid, AI anyone?).

Since I am in the middle of writing and finishing the fifth and final novel, In Ddaera’s Embrace in the Caelestis series. I also thought it would be fun to duplicate the process I followed for putting up the novella Dandy and the Dognappers before republishing it. So starting next week I will begin putting up the updated version of The Stars are Red Tonight in this newsletter a chapter at a time. I will also write additional posts about the Paradisi Chronicles, providing details on the ten Founding Families, the technology used to get these Founders to a new home, the origins of the native Ddaerans and their psychic abilities, and so forth, which those of you who have read my books should find interesting. I will also talk about the obstacles and benefits to this sort of collaborative work that authors should also find informative. And finally, I suspect that even those of you not interested in science fiction might be be curious to learn of the similarities between what I do to recreate the world of late19^th century San Francisco for my historical mystery series and what has gone into creating a fictional, near-future world in another galaxy.

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In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!