Background to The Ironwood Staff

Over at my Subscribestar page, I have a few posts devoted to the background / worldbuilding of The Ironwood Staff. The latest is devoted to the Pantheon of that world.

A World without books

I was reading this blog post, and it occurred to me that having all our reading material in 'soft-copy' is a terrible vulnerability. Electronic media can be bricked by EMP, widespread power failure, and - of course - malicious intent. In Fahrenheit 451, the rulers of that dystopia entrenched themselves by denying the populace access to the great books of the past; in 1984, Winston Smith worked for the Ministry of Truth, where archived copies of newspapers (how quaint!) were physically altered so that they always agreed with the current party line. Anything the Party didn't want known was tossed down the 'memory hole' - and forgotten.

How easy would it be for some regime in the hopefully-hypothetical future to completely remake the past in its own image, if all it had to do was alter Wikipedia, or any offiically sanctioned media? And Silicon Valley is already de-ranking searches for media it doesn't like.

In a situation like that, the key quote from the blog is this: "Books, the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge, handed down through the ages, remain the last bulwark against tyranny. Treasure your books and never turn them in; they’re our lifeline to a benevolent and decent future."

Landscapes of The Ironwood Staff

Hi, all

I thought it would be good to give a few examples of the landscapes that inspired The Ironwood Staff. These are real-world locations (and royalty-free photos!), but they form the background to the travels of Tomas.

The Highlands

Greystone

The Drylands

The Southland Kingdom

The Forest of Greenland

Shout out to Shutterstock.com!

Hello, World!

Hi, all

This is the first post of my new blog!

My first attempt at epic fantasy is here: The Ironwood Staff
And here is the map of the book: