By Paul Kupperberg

I don’t know how it got done, but it did. Starting with just a couple of stories and a dream, some wise guy opined, “Y’know, if we could just get a few more stories written under an impossibly short deadline, we could have us a real book here.”

Talk about miracles!

Now, I have to point out I’m not a not a big believer in miracles. At all. In fact, I’m not a big believer in religion, organized, disorganized, or otherwise. I believe we should all believe what we want to believe and not try to force it on others. I won’t judge you for your beliefs and, I hope, you’ll do me the favor of vice versa. Even the Bible is with me on this: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (Romans 2:1), not to mention “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves” (Romans 14:22).

(Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? Even a heathen like me can sound like a Biblical scholar with a simple Google search!)

What I do believe in is the power of community and friendship. If there are any miracles in this day and age, they are the miracles we create for ourselves, especially when we band together and get it done…whether “it” is Habitat for Humanity rebuilding homes in the flood zones of New Orleans, mass demonstrations leading to the ouster of dictators and tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, or just a bunch of high school students putting together a festival to celebrate ecological awareness. You can give credit to whatever deity or being you want for any of these and a thousand other events that take place in the world every day, I suppose, but in the end, it’s really just people getting with other people to make it happen.

Please don’t think I’m putting the writing and production of ReDeus: Divine Tales over the course of about a month on the same level with any of the above. But in the spirit of community, I’m hard pressed to think of one that is more willing to give a helping hand to their fellows than the creative community. I won’t bore you with the countless tales of writers reaching out to other writers for assistance when their backs were, for whatever reason, against the deadline wall. I have written stories and essays for anthologies and chapters of novels without credit or pay to help a friend out of a jam. They, I know, would do the same for me.

ReDeus: Divine Tales is just another example of people getting with people. From a simple email inquiry–“Hey, you wanna…?”–eight intrepid scribes agreed to jump on board to play in this world we had dreamed up, each contributing their time, talent, and individual vision to the concept, each working overtime on a handshake and a promise to help make our dream a reality.

I can’t even begin to tell you how an artist makes his or her art, but in the case of ReDeus: Divine Tales, I can tell you that eleven writers (and two very talented artists) were able to make a book, creating something from nothing in far less time than any of us thought possible.

So, in a way, I guess maybe I do believe in miracles, because, really, it’s nothing less than one that ReDeus exists.

“In the beginning was the word” indeed!

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