John Brasher Writer

I want to use this post to lay out the fundamental concepts of the universe I have defined for my stories. Forgive me if I meander a bit. Reality is twisty-turny it seems to me, but maybe that is because I can only perceive it with a mind which is twisty-turny.

Throughout my life, I have been fascinated by two subjects, the nature of the universe and human behavior.

I was just becoming a teenager when Carl Sagan’s Cosmos hit the scene. I was hooked. In fact, in my junior year, I was fortunate to be able to take a class that focused on the series. One of the things I personally took away from it was that there were powerful forces at work in the universe and one of the greatest was human imagination.

Mr. Sagan took us on a journey through our universe as we understood it and asked us to use our imaginations as the vessel that led us on that exploration. I always felt he was telling us that the ability of humans to imagine and then to perceive and attempt to understand was as powerful a force in the universe and just as integral as gravity, attractant forces, black holes, subatomic particles, evolution and all the other concepts that boggle my humble brain.

I believe it must be true that our imagination is the most important tool we were granted or fortunate to obtain.

We have obvious physical and mental gifts that have led to our success in this world. As a species we understand the value of trial and error, defining work as processes, observation, experimentation, working through a scientific method, and recording the results. These are all powerful tools that allowed our advancements in all areas. At the root of them, all is imagination. At the root of every story, including the great human story, lies imagination. Maybe the story of the universe itself began with imagination.

Humans did not suddenly find themselves on a horse, doing this or that and determining what would happen next. There was a leap in the mind that saw themselves on the backs of these animals working in partnership. There were minds at some point that looked at pieces of flint and took a leap beyond and saw more than a tool in the dirt that could be grabbed and used for defense. They saw it shaped and set upon wood.

Fortunately for us, they also looked at the horizons and the skies above and were filled with imaginative wonder and sought to understand and explore. They sought to express the ideas their imaginations gave them and began to share stories that only continued to grow grander and more fantastic as they expanded those horizons and learned more about what lay beyond. They also focused inwards to explore the fascinating mysteries that make up each of us. In doing these things we became a race that shaped its own evolution and began to master its world.

How wonderful are we? We blend analysis and desire, logic and emotion, necessity and want, limitation and hope into a flawed, often contradictory, understanding of all there is. I would not want it any other way. We are humans are we not? I would not want to be a robot, coldly logical and analytical, piecing the fundamentals of everything together without passion or contention. Nor would I want to be a simpler animal accepting of its niche and only curious about what steps into its perception as a threat or a possible meal. We may be destructive, contradictory beings but we are also restless, and we aspire to be better and better even as we trip along the way. I think we know intuitively that both the robot and the simpler animals will always be limited in their states until they somehow become more human.

Our imaginations lead to wonderful contradictions in our philosophies, culture, and understanding. One way I see this is by the complexity we add to two vast concepts that should be rather simple in their definition: universe and reality.

Each word taken by definition should always be singular. There is one universe; there is one reality. However, it is so easy for the human mind to make plurals of each. This is a fascinating concept to me because it speaks to the root of what we are. In college, I was introduced to the theories of the great humanist Carl Rogers. At the core of his ideas on therapy was that the psychologist must understand that each of us by design sees ourselves as the center of reality. Yet we have empathy and can intuit that others matter and can be as important or more important than ourselves. I think it is intuitive within us to realize that in truth there are over seven billion versions of reality in play today, even if we may not always like it much.

We begin to see evidence that this universe we observe may in some ways be finite. If so, we begin to theorize about what might be beyond. Another contradiction in our species is we cannot accept the notions of finite or infinite very well. We question both concepts. The universe is defined as everything, but so is reality. Our minds and our language adjust because both are flexible and as we advance, we begin to realize so are the concepts of reality and the universe. Why not make plurals of words that signify everything? It adds more delight to the mysteries we strive to understand.

Is there a point to all of this? Well, a couple actually. One is I have a compulsion to put words to page. It satisfies my ego. The other is that I am writing these novels that I hope to someday share with others. Their scope is vast and encompasses three universes, an as yet unknown centers of reality viewed from the characters I create, and they are all fueled by an imagination that frankly keeps me awake at night with its ponderings, complaints, and so-called eureka moments.

When each of us intakes a story be it through a novel, song, movie, a tale around a campfire, or any of the other wonderful ways we are entertained, we are hopefully given enough to make what we ingest interesting. It can be finite in its telling or it can leave us wanting more. It can be self-contained in that we understand everything about the tale, or it can have gaps in the information. A story does not have to make sense. If I know upfront it is meant to be nonsensical (say a Looney Tunes cartoon), I can accept it and enjoy it for what it is. If it is meant to make sense, in other words, fall within a framework of rules, I do not have to be told those rules implicitly. I can accept mystery and ignorance of the rules ((I do this daily as I journey through reality) as long as what is presented to me seems to fit in with the overall setting presented to me.

For the creator of the story, this adds an extra burden, however. If I tell a story in a particular time and place, I want to be careful of anachronisms, even though those can add spice for the audience who likes to dissect and discuss with others what they read (remembering high-school lectures on Shakespeare here).

For the creators of fantasy and science fiction, in particular, there is a freedom from this that also creates a greater burden. They get to create a universe (or part of it) in their own way and define its reality. Sky’s the limit. Watch it, though, because if what you create begins to contradict itself to the audience it will hold you to harsh account. Have all the spells, miracles, coincidences, and lucky twists of fate that you want but it better fit into the world you present to us in a way that gels with the story.

Understanding the nature of the universe(s) of my story’s reality(ies) is not completely necessary for any future readers, but for me as the creator it is.

So, the framework of my ‘great’ story is that there are three worlds in three distinct universes that are aligned in such a way that they create cause and effect on each other. Each world (one being ours) is defined by its own physics or set of rules.

How to have three universes. Fortunately, there are ideas in physics (maybe not solid ones) that gave me a foundation. These ideas support a reality that is basically a foam in which universes of spacetime form as bubbles. These theories are defined at the micro and macro levels of physics. Good enough. My universe is composed of an infinite cosmic foam in which universes bubble up. The skins of these bubbles may bump up against each other and create weaknesses at these filmy borders.

Why would the physics of each be different? The beach is a wonderful place to ponder foam. That foam is made up of matter both inorganic and more fascinating to me – organic.

So what if my cosmic foam is composed of bits that make a whole which is less akin to atoms but more akin to cells. Each of these ‘cells’ is a self-contained being that has awareness and is, in fact, omnipotent within its self-contained reality. It also has an imagination that can create an internal self-reality. As these beings continue in their self-contained existence their imagination compels them to design, to create. This compulsion reaches a critical mass that causes the cell to expand into a bubble that creates a reality from their imagining. A new universe bubbles into being from the designs of a Creator. Its imagination defines the framework of the universe It has created. I can cherry-pick from physics and philosophy to justify this model, so good enough.

These Creators design their masterpieces, but then what? I limit them to their bubble, to the reality that they have defined. If it remains static it becomes boring. There must be something more. Forces of chaos and order can be built into the universe to make it change over time, but still, for an omnipotent being, this must become predictable and boring. These Creators must want their creation to be entertaining, so an element of true unpredictability must be introduced.

Living things with free will produce a delightful unpredictability. Provide the possibilities for such to arise and the Creator now has a pastime. Let’s see what these independent players do.

It feels right to me that some of these Creators would feel certain obligations to the life they created. Especially the organisms that grew to self-awareness and intelligence. The ones with imagination and a thirst to explore, understand and master their surroundings. We create life as part of our own biological process, we also have emotions that compel us to act as parents for the life we bring into the universe, as well as shepherds and caretakers for life that we did not, but still, feel responsibilities towards.

In my imagined universes the self-aware life guided by its own imaginations is not imbued with just a simple mind and body, they are gifted with a greater essence that is designed to be infinite from its creation at least as it relates to time. I can find an easy correlation for this in the beliefs of my species to define that essence as a soul. The Creators of these bubble universes are omnipotent within them and they define a totality of existence for what lies within (a finite infinity if you will) that can be both physical and metaphysical. In other words, they can provide a destination for the soul essence once it separates from the corporeal through the process we call death.

Most of my Creators focus inwards on their creation and the adventurous journeys of the life they allowed to flourish, but they are not all there is. They are a part of a foamy cosmos and as I said their bubbles sometimes come into contact. The Creators may be satisfied with observing and manipulating the goings-on of their Design. This may be a limitation to their own existence (maybe not).

Those little lifeforms that they gifted free will and imagination to are a different thing entirely. They are not just designed to focus inwards. They are designed to look to the horizons, to the skies above. They are designed with a drive to seek and to know, to tinker, and to master no matter the risks. They are geared to imagine and to manipulate by trial and error.

The pesky lifeforms of three worlds in three different universes know not what they toy with, but they play anyway for one simple cause. They are designed to. The effects of this are what I hope comes across as drama in my novels.

It is not a spoiler to tell potential readers that one of those worlds, named Earth by its dominant species, is destroyed. It happens in chapter one of the first book. That destruction is caused by the reaction of the second of these three intersecting worlds in response to the machinations of the third.

Fortunately, the destruction of our world through a ‘tear’ in the film between universal bubbles pulls many of us into the universe of the world that destroyed ours. What are the impacts of this?

Well, that is the story I wish to tell for an audience that might be receptive to such an idea. I will share one impact now, though. Our souls are part of the universe we are produced in. The essence of that soul-stuff is far more alien to this new universe than the matter that hosts it. In other words, it no longer can reach the destination designed for it upon death.

The survivors of Earth now exist in a universe where imagination is no longer just a tool to push us towards understanding, it is a tool that can actually manipulate reality – and each of us is the center of reality. What powers can come from that? What miracles and what disasters can come from such a situation? Our imaginations are full of ideas fed to us by a variety of media that makes the fantastic literally mundane in our minds. Sorcery, monsters, superheroes, fantastic supernatural deeds, and villainies may not exist in our actual reality (or do they?), but they exist in that internal reality that we each view the universe from.

What is the true potential of imagination? I say it can reshape the universe from the perspective of an infinite number of realities. These are the stories I aim to tell. How average people lost in a foreign universe, with no destination for their souls, became something far more than average to hopefully master this new universe and create a destination.

However, we are a varied species. Some of us struggle to be selfless and put others first, others are vain and selfish. There is great potential for conflict as people of different natures try to define reality. Plus a tapestry for that reality already exists and our threads are forcibly woven into it. The Designer of this universe likes things the way they are. Finally, we all know that one of the truths of being human is that we are all often our own worst enemies.

This is the foundation of the universe from which my stories unfold. A tale of journeys that define the destination.

Thank you.

The Dissonance Paradox explores a world in another universe that has suffered from incursions by mankind throughout its history. At the beginning of the story the Earth is destroyed sending a significant portion of our population to this world.

When I began writing my stories as one large novel I included a chapter that showed how the death of humans changed this alien world we find ourselves on. It no longer has a good fit in the smaller novels I have broken my story into so I have placed it here.

In our universe our souls were destined to move on to an afterlife. In this universe that is denied them. The imagination of humans has the power to alter the fundamentals of this new reality. Their beliefs and myths have impacted this world for thousands of years. Our modern fantasies generated by movies, shows, books, and music do the same as our generation arrives.

My books joyously play off the tropes of modern fantasy and horror. There are undead, lycanthropes, fantasy races, aliens who walk among us, and people grappling with newfound ‘superpowers’. I hope I put my own interesting slant on each of these things. Our modern mythologies, fed to us through entertainment, become tangible things that I use to explore the ideas at the heart of my stories. ‘It doesn’t matter who you were on Earth, it matters who you are now’ and that ‘Those who are good will do Whatever It Takes to ensure the success of the community. Those who are evil will do Whatever It Takes to further their agendas.’

The wording is loftier than most of the chapters in my books. I wanted this to be mysterious and old school. I hope you will enjoy it. More importantly, I hope you will leave a comment with your thoughts good or bad. I want to write a story for others to enjoy and I need criticism to help me become a better writer. Thank you.

HAILEY’S TALE

Hailey Cowell had two distinct honors in human history that neither she nor humanity would ever be aware of. Out of the multitudes making the Transition, she was one of the first. She had no awareness of the world’s destruction around her. A brief cascade of force barely disturbed her drunken slumber. She slept as another universe pulled her in and left the stranger lying in bed beside her behind. She appeared on a steep slope. Falling and rolling, she hit her temple on a sharp spike of rock. Rebounding down and then falling through the air, her body smacked into another piercing stone, shattering ribs and piercing her heart. Hailey Cowell was the first refugee to die on this strange world.

Simple understanding and a natural acceptance of what had previously been unknown, filled her. She looked down at her bashed, ragdoll form whose eyes stared into a gulf beyond the infinite mortal man sought to quantify and understand. In a truly timeless moment, her days flashed by in a first- and third-person perspective. There was her childhood full of angry and groping hands, degrading words, and the fumes of alcohol. Teenage years flashed by.  She sought relief, release, and security from boys and men who took too much and returned little. Childhood fears became a fascination with death and the power of evil to transcend the barrier between existence and decay. A nonchalant attitude for education led to dead-end jobs. A hungry soul led to submission to a brutal man and the cloying arms of addiction. An unborn child drove her to seek help. A stillbirth pushed her to the final point of no return. Boozy breath and iron hands leeched life from her soul. She made herself numb as often as she could, so she did not have to care.

Her husband walked away with a younger woman who was pregnant with his child. The party girl faded, but the shell remained. Online conversations led to romantic thoughts that withered before the same old same old. She was always alone.

Through it all, the media was ever present. Movies, television, and an endless supply of anonymous strings of text kept her fascination with death and evil flourishing. Decay thrived even while life struggled on. A hobby became an obsession and, soon, a focus of her existence. The characters in the shows and movies were more real than her neighbors and much more important. Emotions and self-awareness became tangled in a surreal mix of a bitter reality and a romantic notion of horror.

As she looked down at her body wearing the t-shirt she had put on to separate skin from skin, her mind glossed over the rotted face leering at her with a pithy quote below and trademarked words above. A nameless sensation passed through her. Her soul realized something was terribly wrong. Its certainty was shattered as it felt for the path it knew must be there, only to find it gone. Confusion, hurt, and a vast dread overwhelmed her. Terrified, she felt herself slide back into a body her soul knew could not live.

Her soul expected a homing signal and found apathy. What next? Her soul filled the body and struggled to understand. What next? What’s happening to me? The thoughts faded into an uncaring physical universe but vibrated against a different reality woven within. That reality perceived, and it bent to a purpose guided by the energies of the aspect of this world that hated the life that spread across it. Her thoughts catalyzed into a reaction that tilted the scales away from eternal peace.

Her mind guided her to what must come next. Neither alive nor dead, her perspective found the answer. Forces unknown in the universe of her birth achieved symbiosis with her brain and her soul. Tainted imagination allowed death to bloom into an unnatural state. Slowly, she began to twitch. Random firings in her nerves caused muscles to spasm. Her eyes focused on a glowing moon. Her jaws worked, obsessively grinding. An overwhelming desire to tear, to chew, and to consume life controlled her completely. An addiction, beyond the ken of all others, overpowered her limited awareness. Only bloody bits of life, its energy absorbed by the chewing, clutching decay that was now all of Hailey, could assuage that addiction and bring reprieve from the endless, gnawing hunger. Hailey staggered upright.

She was no longer the woman. She was no longer anything, but a blundering appetite. She shambled on never aware that she had re-patterned the forces of this universe. The common souls of her race would follow her path once their hearts stopped. They would exit, face their span of time, and fall back into a perverted blending of life and death – and the hunger.

The slope she followed soon began to level. She ambled barefoot, unaware of the torture the flesh of her feet endured. While stars and the odd waxing moon wheeled overhead, her body moved on. Briefly she paused, eyed the ground, and with surprising speed grabbed a small form and stuffed it in her mouth. As she chewed, the pain faded, and bliss filled her. The slight spark of life merged with decay and enriched her. She staggered on seeking more.

As the hours passed, other forms began to lurch nearby. They moved closer to each other as an unseen lattice began to connect them. The lattice joined but did not provide a focus. The ever-growing knot of once-humans moved together but took each step alone. They were simple vehicles for essences propelled to find succor and add their former fellows to their ranks. They were stripped bare of the thoughts and deeds that would have brought them to a reality that transcended all they could have conceived in the universe that once was their home.

As the night advanced and their numbers grew, a cunning awareness awoke in the shell of Hailey Cowell. Something sinister triggered and she became a beacon for the dead. They assumed a lumbering formation. Forward they trudged, bringing madness to an overwhelmed world.

Today I wanted to discuss a concern I have with shifting from writing my story to publishing it. When I initially wrote this novel the individual stories of each character were presented in chapters that shifted from one character to the other at similar points of time. What happened on their first day? What happened within their first week? The reader learned about the world through shifting perspectives.

Each chapter was written from the point of view of its main character. The narration is written with their perspective in mind. Only their thoughts are presented to the reader. The world is seen only through their eyes.

My goal was to tell a story of survival in a fantasy world from the points of view of a diverse cast. My intended audience are people who like to dig into a vast world. Readers of science fiction and fantasy are often as interested in learning about the setting just as much as they are interested in learning about the characters. My hope was that each reader could find at least one character that they could identify with.

Splitting this into five separate short novels will make it easier for me to find an agent and, hopefully, a publisher. If I need to self-publish, it will be easier for an interested reader to invest their hard-earned money into a shorter novel to determine if my work is worth their future investment.

My fear with this choice is that a reader will choose one story and not find the character that speaks to them.

Another concern I have is that each character (or set of characters) have radically different situations to contend with. For some, their individual story is rooted more in horror. They are dealing with the undead primarily and with the simple urgencies of survival. However, another character is isolated and sees little of the threat of the undead. Instead he deals with finding a place amongst one of the many races that inhabit this world. Two others are bonded with animals and find themselves dealing with a group of humans that represent various tribes who are also bonded with the spirits of animals. They form a nation that deals with issues of diversity and conflicting interests that, while different, mirror the problems a nation like the USA. They are a ‘melting pot’.

This means that if a particular book is read, what the reader sees of the world is limited. As a large novel these different pieces formed into a coherent whole. With the first half of the single novel simply dealing with surviving from moment to moment there is no satisfying climax that can be told in two hundred pages. It requires a large novel to do that.

With separate novels I can present a climax of sorts to allow a satisfying conclusion and hopefully whet the appetite of the reader to see what happens next.

First, I need to worry about getting these stories published and finding readers. Hopefully, there will be enough interest so that in the future I can tell a larger story that shows all of these characters evolving in the same work. By the conclusion of the stories overall arc those characters that survive what I put them through will come together in a final resolution. Thank you.

I am currently making the decision to either attempt to publish one large novel or break it into five parallel shorter novels that have loose connections. I am leaning to producing the five stories. I would appreciate input.

If I complete the first story as a single novel I plan on going with one of these two titles:

Humanity Frayed

A Chaos of Butterflies

The first is simple and ties to how people view this world in dreams and visions.

The second gets to the chaos they encounter in this new world and the resultant impacts they cause. Of course, the reference is to Chaos Theory.

If I go with the five novels I am struggling with how to title them. One thought is to reference the main characters in the title with the overall title as a header. For example:

Humanity Frayed: The Book of Brigid

The other idea is to reference something significant to their story:

Humanity Frayed: Spectral Shift

I like the first because it has a classical connotation to me of characters of such significance their deeds are recorded for posterity. I also think it may emphasize that these first five stories are parallel story lines and not serial. I like the others because they are more poetic and reflect the diversity of the storyline. When reading the first few chapters of most of the books this seems simply like a zombie apocalypse on another world, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.

The individual titles would be between these choices I think:

The Book of Brigid or Spectral Shift

The Book of Jessica and Aemelia or The Fell Queen

The Book of Brandan and Corona or The Skein of Love

The Book of Gerry or The Byway Ascension

The Book of Arthur and Ilbir or The Bear and The Leopard

This is also the order I intend to complete the works.

My next post will contain short descriptions of each of these main characters.

Thank you.

Nearly twenty years ago I found myself in a rental car driving from the Orlando Airport to Clearwater for work. It was late at night and the moon was full. The view of the tropical forest under that moonlight was breathtaking. I stopped the car on the shoulder and got out to take it in. As I did, an image passed through my mind of a young woman standing on the beach of a tropical island staring into the surf as grotesque shapes lurched out of the water towards her. This is my first memory of what would eventually become the stories I am writing. They will make up the series of novels collectively called the Dissonance Paradox.

At the beginning of the year to satisfy a resolution, I began to write a novel. I was pulled from it for two months for work but then I resigned and began to dedicate all my time to writing the first book. By September I had a monster that well exceeded 400,000 words and was only two-thirds finished. Even if I edited 25% it would still be a monster.

After researching and talking to writers in a couple of Facebook groups, I realized it was highly unlikely any agent or publisher would invest the time on a massive novel written by an unknown. I also realized that interested readers would be wary of buying such a large book for the same reasons.

The first story is told from the perspectives of multiple characters across the world. Their stories loosely overlap with some small number coming together before the conclusion. Over following novels their stories will converge for a definitive climax.

I have not decided on the title of the novel yet. I am torn between two: Humanity Frayed  or  A Chaos of Butterflies. The idea of our souls or lifeforces being connected in a tapestry is a theme of the story. Butterflies are a thematic I also rely on.

I am now leaning into taking the larger novel and breaking it into five smaller novels each representing one or two of my major characters. The intent of each is that it could stand alone, but there would be references to characters and events in the other books. What I have now are five novels that are each a few chapters from completion. I will have the first two completed in a few weeks, do my own edits, and then hire editors to work them over. Next I will solicit beta readers from companies who do this kind of work. From there I will send to agents. If I have no success I will begin to do what is necessary for self-publishing.

Today I wanted to lay out the core concept behind the book.

It supposes that our universe is one of many. All universes are designed by a Creator who defines its rules and allows it to produce life if it desires. In our universe this Creator allows life to flourish and where intelligence arises it provides guidance to ensure that the beings understand that they have a soul that is guaranteed an afterlife of peace or torment depending on the individual’s choices.

There are certain structural weak points in our universe where it makes contact with other universes. The Earth is such a point. Our world is a contact point with two other universes. One of these universes is filled with worlds which are alive themselves. One world is aligned with Earth. Its lifeforce is divided into three aspects that fight for supremacy as life has spread across it. One is the aspect of singularity which abhors the life infesting it and wants to be alone. For the races of this world it is the aspect of death. One is the aspect of chaos and diversity. It tampers with the evolution of life for the sheer delight of seeing changes occur. The third is a force of life, protection and civilization. It is a mothering force that behaves as a shepherd. It is the ascendant force at the story’s beginning.

Throughout history this motherly force has had the ability to control natural and unnatural disasters by shunting the destructive energies out of their universe into ours. Many of the natural disasters in our world are actually triggered by this. When this occurs lifeforms, particularly humans, are sucked away from our world onto the other. The trip is one way.

When humans die on this world and their soul tries to depart they no longer have anywhere to go. Their destiny has been stolen, they are apart from their Creator. With no other choice they finds their way back into their body but they are no longer living. They become undead. Their minds controls this transformation based on the mythology, religious beliefs, or popular representations of their time. Most humans arise as simple things like ghouls or in our time, the zombies of our media culture. Others with great charisma and evil natures can arise as things much more powerful.

Human infestations throughout history have been small, numbering in the thousands at a time at most. The races of this world fear and hate humans for the threat they present and most hunt them down. Long ago some humans began to learn that they could shape the destiny of the dying through will and ritual and move the soul into an object. The soul would give the object power and it would be able to continue to provide service to the community. Some souls retained their intelligence and become items of great power, weapons, armor, and the like and can communicate telepathically with the person who carries them. These are the  Vajur.

Other races, upon learning this, began to capture the people who could cause these transfers. These specialists are called Dobains. These races began to raise two castes of humans. Some who would become Dobains and others who were essentially livestock whose souls would be transferred into things. These may be light sources or a thousand other simple things. The creation of Vajur is forbidden because they can only bind with other humans and they are too powerful. They ensure that their livestock is kept simple and dumb.

At the story’s opening this world named Daria is assaulted by an attack from a world in the third universe directly in its core. The power unleashed could potentially destroy the world. The aspect of life shunted that force to our universe destroying our world. One to two billion members of our race as well as other animals are sucked over to Daria. Realizing what it has done this aspect of life touches certain people (my main characters) and gives them the potential for great deeds. The other aspects do the same.

These first five books told in parallel show this world through the eyes of the main characters as they grapple with their fellows rising from the dead, conflict with the races of this world, learning how to use the powers they discover within themselves, and dealing with the Uhk-Yalfor, or moon souls, who are undead lords that live in remote parts of the world plotting for just such an occasion. Throughout this is a more distant threat. Something has moved into this world from within its core from the third universe. Humans are also not the only beings from our universe to move over. Aliens have been among us and have found their way to this universe over the millennia. Something hungry watches from Daria’s moon.

This is the stage for the Dissonance Paradox. The saga is character driven. The themes are:

It doesn’t matter what you were on Earth. It matters what you do here.

A community can be stronger because of its diversity.

Those who are good will do Whatever It Takes to ensure the success of the community. Those who are evil will do Whatever It Takes to further their agendas.

I would define these stories as survival horror fantasy/science fiction. They are for adults and deal with all of the issues people would confront when all laws and civilization is taken away in a moment. The characters have nothing but what was in their possession when they appear and most of this world is against them.

I hope this intrigues you because I have a lot of story I would like to share.

Thanks.