Downs Lord Triptych

One:
Our world, the Isle of Capri, somewhen in the 1700s. A Jacobite in exile is astounded to encounter a beggar speaking flawless English. Questioned, the broken old man says:

'"I have fallen far ..... I am the first of a long line of kings ...."

"The last in the line, surely ?" his benefactor corrected.

For an instant there was backbone in the beggar, but it was fleeting, like a stillbirth's soul. Whilst it still lived he spoke.

"What I have said, I have said" he told them firmly.'

Two:
An indeterminate year. The 'God-King of Wessex' slumps wearily on his crystal throne, half listening to the supplications of his subjects, conveyed along voice-tubes through the vastness of his castle-palace. Ninety-nine wide-spaced silken veils separate him from the closest worshippers, a throng drawn from myriad races and species. Distracted from the ceaseless praise, the absolute monarch gazes through a slit window at the settled kingdom his ancestor carved out long before. The first God-King's diary has been found. Those subversive words cause him to travel back down the years ....

Three:
England in the 1640s. A schoolboy's attention wanders from the Latin grammar before him, to observe the sweep of the South Downs visible through the window. His master notices it for the umpteenth time:

'"The trouble with you, boy" he says resignedly, "is that you live in a world of your own."

The youth forces his eyes back to the text, but thinks to himself: 'If only ....'

Later in life his wish is granted ....

SETTING
Initially - and very briefly - 'our' world, circa 1660, that is to say, England of the 'Restoration' period, and then mostly - save for short raids back 'home' - a parallel Earth, readily accessible to the main character. In this 'other place', the world is geographically and geologically etc. the same as ours, but all else is different. For example, the Downs, the river Thames, the Pennines and so on, are all present and correct - but the story played out upon them has been markedly changed. Consequently, there exist convergences between this other Earth and our own; a settlement naturally arises in the spot were London should be, 'Dover' is still a port but under another name, people raise cattle (sort of) in the fertile south-west, 'Romney Marsh' is still boggy - and so on. However, the differences far outweigh the similarities.

Mankind has evolved there, but so have other species, intelligent and otherwise, with whom it must compete. For instance, in the area in which the hero first emerges, ['Hang on; I know this place - this is Selsey !' ] the life-form holding the whip-hand is the Null, a twice man-sized, dark purple skinned and hive-dwelling humanoid. Humanity lives cowed in burrows, a species hunted for meat. Re-establishing human control over 'New-Surrey', 'New-Sussex' and 'New-Kent', is therefore an initial priority ....

GENERAL THEME
A person of no great account in 'our' world, aspiring to empire and indulging his wildest dreams in a 'blank-slate' Earth. The deterioration of his character under the effect of unbridled temptations and 'stern necessity'. His partial redemption after suffering and terrible reversals.

From time to time he is obliged to return to his previous life - to acquire weapons and reinforcements, and his contrasting lowly status there presents scope for my favourite sort of dry humour. The text might briefly be in diary form.

[ and possibly a female main character - a native of this new world - who is told in youth by her doting father, 'you'll always be my princess' - and who strongly wishes to be the real thing.]

The principal character's 'blue-stocking' wife who also 'blossoms' unpredictably once through the portal into the new world and her husband's proto-empire.

And : his 'Giles' type Cromwellian Grandma. A cast of the wilder Rakes, fops, Ranters and religious maniacs of Restoration times recreated anew in an even less corseted world. A megalomaniac rival God-King with access to deadlier technology than the hero's. 'Monsters' galore.

MATTERS COVERED

Downs-Lord Dawn - The establishment of Empire, war against the Null.

Downs-Lord Day - Empire's zenith and the rise of a new enemy

Downs-Lord Doomsday - Defeat, redemption and a new dawn for humanity.

The struggle to liberate humanity from the heel of the vicious predator Null species. The recruitment in 'our' world of soldiers, craftsmen, concubines and poets to stock the hero's beachhead. Dramatic successes consequent on introducing firearms into the new world. Battles against exotic empires.

LIKELY LENGTH
Circa 100,000 words per book. Plus MAPS! of the new land, initially sketchy but increasingly detailed as the hero explores or is contacted.

THE SEQUELS
The main character has ambitions of Imperial proportion and this new world is his to explore. When he fails or grow bored in one place, it is open to him to move on, to 'France' or 'the Americas' or wherever. In turn, those who follow after him in the dynasty he establishes, will also have their own projects to pursue, whilst still maintaining ties ( albeit weakening ones ) with the 'Old World'.

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THE TWO CONFESSIONS

SYNOPSIS

Set in the world of A Dangerous Energy and To Build Jerusalem, this book concerns events in the life of a young would-be industrialist, chafing against the reactionary constraints of his civilisation. Thwarted in attempts at steam-powered mass armaments production under the eyes of The Church and Crown and the Labour-Guilds in London, he is dispossessed and exiled to the wilder climes of his native West Country. Close to the unquiet border with semi-independent Cornwall (or 'Kernow') and the pirate infested Bristol Channel, he hopes to find the laxity and lack of supervision required to achieve wealth and power.

There he stumbles upon a deep secret from the past and, with a powerful military patron, is commissioned (as an expendable person of ill-repute) to solve a centuries old mystery. What the Church would have all believe to be a worked-out mine proves to be something of far greater - and sinister - import. Events shift underground.

Initially all goes well but the 'hero' has not bargained for the 'mine' having other, equally implacable, users. He finds himself striving against forces as influential and ruthless as his own backer, and waging a war against half-glimpsed enemies, above and below ground. In desperation, reinforcements are deployed as events move to a dramatic conclusion between the most powerful forces of the age.

The Two Confessions continues (and concludes) the exploration of the detailed alternative history described in in A Dangerous Energy and To Build Jerusalem, and is a further insight into that very different England, this time away from the Church and political circles previously described.

The principal character - in our world a relatively unexceptional entrepreneur - is there a dangerous radical, travelling light in terms of the prevailing ethos. The book draws in strands but lightly touched upon before, such as the free 'Celtic' areas of Wales and Kernow, and the less settled life therein. The increasingly driven hero also encounters his world's more marginal types, such as pirates operating out of Lundy, the 'Grey Neighbours' or Elve-folk and, most importantly, a manic conspiracy in deadly opposition to Christendom.

The title is a reference to two crucial instances of the sacrament of confession and the struggle for supremacy between two irreconcilable ideologies (i.e. 'confessions'). It also bears a eye-catching similarity to the .... intriguing 'True Confessions'.

In recounting the 'hero's battle against calculated conservatism above ground and unearthly forces below, this story both dovetails into a previously existing storyline and comprises a stand-alone novel of ideas and action.

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AMY FAITH & THE STRONGHOLD

A three sentence synopsis:

A downtrodden young girl discovers a vast, dimension-travelling fortress engaged in an age-old conflict. Joining it, she discovers new talents within herself and joins in its travels and adventures. The nature of the Universe is thereby changed.

AMY-FAITH & THE STRONGHOLD

BETTER PARTICULARS:

A book and series with three main protagonists:

1 - The young heroine

2 - The ancient, dimension-travelling, fortress she stumbles upon.

3 - A ferocious and appalling race of enemies, the Null. The eternal enemies of IMAGINATION.

SYNOPSIS

From humble and unhappy circumstances, a young girl quits home and all things familiar, to the join the mighty 'Stronghold' she discovers temporarily - but invisibly - dominating her home town. Soon, according to the unpredictable tides which bear it, both she and the Stronghold are whisked elsewhere to another front in a timeless war.

This Stronghold, together with its sister fortifications, is a nomad of the timewaves and alternative histories and other planes of being. The only consistency in its adventures is the perpetual struggle against the force and life-form known as the NULL. It is into that ferocious conflict that she is now co-opted, with no way back.

In some times and places, the Null materialise as a tangible enemy, capable of being fought with the Stronghold's great array of imagination-artillery, manned by expert hereditary gunners. In others, the Null manifest as a spirit operating through mercenaries and mandates, requiring more subtle countering. Likewise, they too can match the Stronghold's obscurity and feed upon their prey unseen. Diplomacy and politics, together with the assassin's art, are therefore often the weapons of choice.

Thus sometimes the Stronghold arrives as a mighty citadel both visible and vulnerable. Elsewhen, ( as when the heroine first encounters it ) it masquerades as something else, defying the transient rules of physics to occupy humbler structures.

Over time, and through worlds wildly varying, the young heroine comes to learn more of the Stronghold's mission and finds her own destiny in its baroque society. And, though few allowances are made for her or any other of the recruits from each fleeting home, the press-ganged girl flourishes. As the years progress she finds purpose and progress in taking her new home's crusade to her heart.

SETTING :

Briefly, 'our' world and then on into an exploration of the vast Stronghold and the infinitely varied realms it drifts between.

The Stronghold is a Byzantine structure of linked bastions and gun emplacements, set into a castle influenced by all the cultures and architectural styles it passes through. Unconfined by mundane restrictions of time and space, the structure is in turn a town, terra incognita and a beleaguered citadel, sometimes cloaked, sometimes not.

Similarly, the inhabitants and garrison are not the strictly hierarchical society one might expect, but a more complex melange of arrangements, cemented by the necessities of war. Feudal ties co-exist alongside anarchic freedom and fraternity forged by adversity. Accordingly, the heroine's status is a curious mix of the fluid and yet fixed.

GENERAL THEMES :

One person's enchanted discovery of an entirely unsuspected place and crusade.

A bitter and age-old war against a powerful enemy threatening each spark of imagination with Nullity and thus eternal, unchanging, night.

The development of a likeable and plucky main character that readers can identify with. Her progress from put-upon naiveté to adulthood and exalted rank.

CHARACTERS :

Principally, a young girl from 'our' world, not the stereotypical 'feisty female' of stock fantasy, but a rounded character with her own fears and cultural baggage, forced to mature at accelerated rate by events. A person increasingly aware of being picked out by destiny, if only she can steel her nature to the task.

The Stronghold's garrison, a potpourri population of natives or newer recruits. Aristocratic artillerymen, fanatic philosophers, masons and fearless steeplejacks, castes of hereditary snipers, smiths and servants, plus a bizarrely 'equal opportunities' officer corps. Ministers of all the multifarious faiths picked up along the way.

The Null - in all its gloriously evil varied shapes and forms.

Wicked lawyers.

'Monsters' galore.

MATTERS COVERED :

Mysteries uncovered by the heroine. Hidden histories and familiar events and places transformed by the Stronghold's intervention.

Struggles to liberate humanity from the heel of the Null and sundry quislings.

The recruitment, en route, of fresh blood, of soldiers, craftsmen, concubines and poets, and other random 'blow-ins'. The enlistment of well-known names who vanished from 'our' history.

Grand battles and subtle intrigues. The visiting of worlds and epochs of bewildering variety. High adventure and grave perils. Exotic enemies

LENGTH :

The present book is equally capable of publication as a single entity, slightly longer than the first 'Harry Potter' novel, or separately within its internal divisions into:

Book 1: AMY-FAITH

Book 2: THE STRONGHOLD

Book 3: AMY-FAITH & THE STRONGHOLD

Plus MAPS and DRAWINGS of the new lands, drafted in the heroine's journal or drawn up by the Stronghold's cartographers.

SEQUELS :

A series tracing the heroine's progress from oppressed servitude to glory and high-office in the Stronghold

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