Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/578450305-the-mechanical-crown-crowjun The village of Crowjun has been in the plan from the very start. It featured briefly in the first draft of the story over a decade ago and always served as a creepy entry point to the mountains. Originally Crowjun was a deserted village at the Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/575269262-the-mechanical-crown-the-reluctant-catalyst And HERE we see Stryke’s reaction to recent events. As I mentioned last time, this was originally going to be the previous chapter but I decided to insert ‘Ashes of peace’ so that this chapter felt a bit more raw. It helps us feel Stryke’s regret, Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/572088975-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-ashes-of-peace I did a bit of arc chapter swapping here, as my original plan had been to catch up with Stryke and Pienya. Returning to Kaido, the guest character from ‘A view from the stalls’, wasn’t even in the plan until I sat down to write. At Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/569397720-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-through-the Arc 5 begins! Slightly awkwardly, due to Wattpad having a week-long glitch which has locked me out of my own account. I discovered a day after the normal publishing slot that I could still access it via the mobile app, for reasons unknown, and managed to Read more…
I’m heavily influenced by J Michael Straczynski’s writing. His 90s show Babylon 5 was formative for me in more ways than one, as has been much of his subsequent comics writing.
‘Senescence’ is riffing on two specific JMS endings: the bittersweet feel of B5’s Sleeping In Light and the story of Jason Miller in Rising Stars. In the latter case he’s a figure who goes to extraordinary lengths to make amends and change the world with serious personal consequences, and that was a feeling I wanted to capture at the end of Cal’s character arc. (more…)
That opening chapter is ADoF at its most meta. I knew going in that this was the penultimate chapter of the book and could feel the pressure of all the previous chapters. Fumble the ending and you can mess up everything that came before.
This is Kay’s tipping point moment. It’s when the groundwork they’ve spent so long laying finally pays off. It’s a very deliberate choice that everything goes down in a peaceful manner. This is an intellectual and experiential revolution, with Kay outlining her view and story, then Cal providing the proof. The social momentum she’s built throughout Arc 4 carries the idea forwards with such force that there’s no stopping it. (more…)
And we’re back on Locque. One regret I have in ADoF is that the story whisked us away from Locque, thereby reducing the time we had to explore its culture, society and people. Arc 4 brought us back to the world, very deliberately, but it was in some ways too late – with Kay already deep in her mission, there’s no space in which to experience ‘normal Locque’.
This is something I think is really important in adventure fiction, and which often gets forgotten in on-going series. It’s critical to retain the links to the ‘real world’ (whatever that may be, in the context of the story), as it’s that which gives context to everything else going on. (more…)
Here we have a character who suffers a terrible handicap, leaving him with only a single superpower. I thought this would make for an interesting theme to explore: that of focusing on what you’ve lost, rather than on what you still have.
More time gets spent this chapter on the long-overdue confrontation between Kay and Cal. Ever since hints started to get dropped about Cal manipulating Kay and Marv the story has been building up to this moment. The obvious raute would have been a big fight, or at least a highly charged confrontation, with lots of suppressed thoughts bubbling to the surface. It’d start with Kay or Marv raising the subject and forcing Cal to tell the awkward truth. (more…)
There’s all sorts of slightly peculiar stuff going on in this chapter. It starts with what seems like a good ol’ ADoF action sequence – perhaps even the logical climax to the Cal and Holt fight that we were denied previously – and instead transitions into a bit of speculative sci-fi world building as we witness how Red handles crime, and then we get to witness the wonders of super advanced medical technology. (more…)
This entire chapter is one of exhilaration and reckless optimism, building on Kay and Cal’s incursion into the Aviary at the end of the previous. Here they make their boldest play yet, and get away with it. What they’re not ready for is a problem from their past, one which they’d unwisely forgotten about.
A reader commented on Holt after finishing the Arc 3 ebook: “As much as Holt’s mind may have been expanded by his recent travels, surely he’ll revert to type at the first opportunity.” Well, ‘Cancer’ is where Holt doesn’t fail to disappoint – he’s deliberately emblematic of a particular mindset and generation; one which refuses to reconsider, and which dismisses out of hand any evidence which counters their existing world view. (more…)