A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE STORY…
By Lorraine Anderson
This was not the story I had intended to write.
Most of the other authors are going to tell you how they noticed that the first book didn’t cover this God or that God or didn’t go to this country or that and they thought, well, they should explore that story.
Not me. I wanted to start out with a joke.
“One Small Step” is the story of the friendship of a young girl, Mary, a devoted follower of the Goddess Dôn, and her neighbor, a resurrected king of Brittany named Conan, a Christian, and how they influence each other over the course of a decade, with lasting results.
“One Small Step” started out being a light-hearted story – a story of funny names and mistaken identity. But as the story progressed, the characters took over. The more I struggled to keep it light, the darker it became. So I finally surrendered to the dark side, and my light-hearted attempt became a story of lost and found faith.
Conan was an actual king, credited with founding Brittany. Very few accounts of him are known, at least according to that unimpeachable source Wikipedia. Most of what I have Conan tell Mary was gleaned from these stories I found online, with a few spins of my own. I wasn’t terribly concerned about keeping the history accurate; history is perception, no matter how accurate a source tries to be.
I did wonder how the children born during and after the coming would perceive the Gods. After all, they had never known a world without the Gods walking the Earth. What influence would the Gods have on these children? How would the adults handle these children brought up in new faiths? And how would the Christian church handle these “Gods”?
I also wondered about all of these people moving back to their ancestral lands. What does this do to the world’s economy? Would England or Germany (just to use two examples) end up like Japan, using every available space? Would the culture change to reflect that? I ended up only hinting at this.
I do want to thank the guys at Crazy 8 for letting me play in their sandbox, and I especially want to acknowledge Bob Greenberger for his invaluable gentle suggestions and help. Many, many thanks!
ReDeus: Beyond Borders will be available in print and digital formats in late May.