Guest Author Susan Laine – Lofty Dreams of Earthbound Men

Hi. I’m Susan Laine, a Finnish author with Dreamspinner Press.

Coming from a scholarly background I love reading and doing research. When I started writing a few years back, I learned that because I wasn’t American, I had a lot of fact-checking to do even with contemporary stories. And that didn’t even begin to cover paranormal and fantasy tales.

My latest literary venture is steampunk. Though it was contemporary erotic romances which drew me to the M/M genre, my tastes have shifted toward more unconventional storytelling. Steampunk—as a mix of science fiction, fantasy and historicals—has always fascinated me, so I sought the challenge.

I dug in my desk drawers and found a world-building exercise from my teenage years. I have taken the notes out every now and then in the past twenty years, but for the first time I had actual stories in my head to go with the fully realized world space.

And thus the Isleshire Chronicles were born. The first installment, Lofty Dreams of Earthbound Men, is readily available from Dreamspinner Press.

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Blurb:

“On the night of the summer solstice, Obadai Bashim encounters Jules Sterling, a young engineering sage. Jules is on the run from a ripper, an assassin of the Theocracy who has already killed his master. Open atrocities by rippers are unusual in County Isleshire, where freedom and acceptance reign over prejudice.

However, political instability between the Five Kingdoms and the Divine Theocracy has set the theocrats on a mission to crown religious doctrine over science, and the Sage’s Guild is number one on their eradication list. If Obadai helps, he’ll have a price on his head too, but he can’t abandon Jules.

Escaping the ripper’s clutches is not enough. Jules has a mission of his own: to repair a faulty airship inn about to crash into the fortified township of Dunbruth. Luckily, Obadai has a few magickal secrets up his sleeve.”

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As you can see from the blurb above, over the years the tales about County Isleshire on the isolationist planet of Nebulosia expanded beyond the limitations of a single genre. What started out as a mix of steampunk, high fantasy, and erotica evolved into gaslight romance, low fantasy, and action/adventure too.

Below is the breathtakingly beautiful cover art by the talented Paul Richmond:

What is world-building? It’s basically the creation of an imaginary world, even if it’s simply adding fictional elements to an existing contemporary setting. A writer has an idea of what the story’s backdrop is, the age and culture of a place, and what kind of people and/or creatures live there.

In order to make the world realistic and believable you will need an overall image and then details to enrich the picture. That is where things like maps, cities, wildernesses, history, important individuals, governments, economy, religion, fashion, customs, and anything else you can think of come in. The more thought out these things are, the more depth the world has, the more believable it is to the reader—and the more fluent and effortless the writing is.

When writing Lofty Dreams I had the advantage of a world I had established years ago and knew well. All I needed were characters and a plot, and I was good to go. The great thing about well-researched world-building is that stories spring out of it on their own, popping up like mushrooms in the rain. The imaginary world provides the context for the story, and yet it can surpass it.

Oh, how I wish I had a map of Isleshire and Nebulosia, but alas I am not mapmaker…. Perhaps I can rustle up one with DSP, you never know.

I had the main genres to draw back on: Steampunk and fantasy. Both have a certain feel to them, certain overall characteristics readers easily identify, relate to, and know to expect. In steampunk, the main features are steam-powered machines and some kind of social issues or conflict, while the historical setting has more variety of choice. The Victorian age and Medieval times are the most known in addition to fantasy milieus, which is what I also went for. And fantasy allows for almost anything, excluding pure science fiction.

Let’s go to County Isleshire then, shall we. Think of a temperate-climate, forest-covered archipelago, plus medieval towns and castles, kind like in the picture below:

The setting is an alien planet, Nebulosia, where the peoples consist of humans, sylvan elves, dwarves/Dwarrow, and lizard folk called sqanata. Steam technology has been steadily used for two centuries, but now a religious power, the Divine Theocracy—also known as the Virtuist Church of the Spirit Gods—is one the rise. The Spirit Gods are the embodiments of basic virtues, like honor, wisdom, love, benevolence, etc., but is the Virtuist Church following its own tenets? Hmm. Steam machinery is declining in quality and quantity all over the Five Kingdoms, which is the feudal rule of kings, queens, and the aristocracy in Medieval type lands, but with a fashion style that is a mix of Medieval and Victorian. Naturally, cities have a greater number of steam-tech machines, while rural areas have less.

So, science is out and faith is in. A conflict or a juxtaposition between science and religion is eternal, a great source for stories across the board, a boiling point throughout history. Mix in a little elemental magicks, and we have three powers in pretty much direct competition.

Of Nebulosia, think medieval castles and steam airships, kind of like the picture below:

On the fringes of this secular feudalism vs. religious bureaucracy conflict is County Isleshire, located on the northwestern frontier of the northern Kingdom of Normar, between the Thulian Sea in the north and the Savage Sea in the west.

The County Isleshire archipelago is not considered a vital region in the clandestine power struggle taking place under the radar far away—at least not yet.

The capital of County Isleshire is the Township of Dunbruth, with Eldritch Castle overlooking the Old Town and the Thulian Sea from the summit of Surf Mountain, kind of like below:

At its core, the series focuses on unlikely heroes, such as Obadai, the heretic druid mage, or Jules, the engineering sage in need of a new home. Neither one has high social standing, great prestige, enormous wealth, or anything like that. They are ordinary folk. But… like anyone really, they are capable of great deeds that can affect the fate of kingdoms.

So, I’m sure readers can identify certain aspects of the world created here. Steam tech for steampunk, wood elves and mages in fantasy, and physical action and a threat of warfare of adventures. As I’ve stated before, Isleshire is a mix of Medieval and Victorian style periods, with added fantasy elements.

I wanted Isleshire to be a place of four seasons and wilderness nature, with a strong presence of civilization (the County and the Township), and yet the threat of the unknown (the Savage Sea, anything from Air pirates to Goblin hordes, not to mention Dwarrow armies) looms close by.

A large portion of the planet is, as of yet, unexplored. The Five Kingdoms are located on a large continent called Ninthaca, which is about the size of Asia and Africa put together. In the middle of it lies Heartmist Sea, and in the center of that rises Palusia, which is the largest island in the known world (think Madagascar) and the seat of the High King of Nebulosia (a rather pompous title since he doesn’t actually control the whole planet).

As I had such a clear mental image of Isleshire, I sought to create the other kingdoms with very different or opposing features.

The below image is the one that gave me the inspiration for Palusia, the jungle kingdom with swamps and woods, and steam-powered aerial cableways used as public transportation. So, look at the picture and in your imagination attach a cable to the airship you see there. Woods are very important to the Palusian culture and peoples because the trees are typically housed by dryads and because of the stark history when humanity were enslaved by the Sylvan Empire.

Above the mountainous jungles of Palusia glides Skyshore, the sovereign airlands of the Divine Theocracy. Formerly, they belonged to the Sylvan Empire, but the wood elves are long gone.

Basically, Skyshore is a group of floating pieces of land high up in the skies, brought and held together with chains and bridges. Anyone who has seen Avatar knows what flying islands look like.

But below is a picture anyway:

Oh, there are so many untold tales, so many deeper details to the fantastical steampunk world created here.

Unfortunately I have to stop somewhere, or risk revealing too much.

But a teaser excerpt….

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Excerpt:

Obadai pointed toward the keel of the ship. “There’s a docking port down there. Well, it’s a loading dock, really. It’s best for us since we need to get into the engine room. There are two other places to dock closer to the main deck, but we’ll want to avoid those since we don’t have a reservation or the proper attire. We’d stand out like a couple of sore thumbs.”

Indeed, as Obadai had known, there was a round opening at the keel of the airship, a metallic grate before it, blocking entry.

As they approached, a series of bells rang in different tones, most likely to signal an approaching vessel. With a metallic grinding sound and some additional jingling of the mechanism, the grate shifted aside, and a wooden pier with metal struts and railings extended from inside the airship.

A parking valet walked out onto the plank, which swayed with the rough winds at this altitude. Obadai saw Jules swallow nervously.

“Ever been up here?”

Jules shook his head. “No. My master always repaired the engines here himself.”

“You afraid of heights?”

“No, not of heights. Yes, of falling down from said heights to my death below.”

Obadai chuckled. “That’s just common sense. Other than the fey, we weren’t meant to fly, I think.” Perhaps it was just his love of the earth that made him say that.

The valet grabbed their mooring rope, pulled them close to the edge of the pier, and moved aside enough to let Obadai and Jules climb out of the basket and onto the gangway. Even if the gangway was made of metal, Obadai felt queasy standing on it with far too much air between him and solid ground. A part of him felt disconnected with the source of his magickal powers, but needs must. He would return soon and kiss the soil beneath him. A couple of times, just to be on the safe side.

“How long will you be staying, sir?” the valet asked courteously, his dark-gold tavern service uniform untarnished and spotless, most likely costing more than Obadai earned in a month. It looked quite appealing on a lean young man like this, but Obadai suppressed such thoughts as untimely.

“A few hours.” Obadai nodded toward Jules. “We’re doing a routine checkup on the engines. Don’t want anything hurtling down toward the Castle, now do we?”

The valet grinned, discreetly checking Obadai out. “No, sir. We’ll take excellent care of your transportation while you work.”

Bowing his head slightly, Obadai whirled around, took Jules’s hand—noting that Jules was glancing between Obadai and the valet, frowning—and led the way toward the bowels of the airship lodge.

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To learn more, read Lofty Dreams of Earthbound Men, the Isleshire Chronicles: Book One. Available now in e-book formats from Dreamspinner Press.

About The Author:

Susan Laine is a multi-published author of GLBT erotic romance, and she writes for several publishing houses. She’s a Finn, by nature a bit of a loner but keeping a positive attitude.

Susan resides in Finland where stormy summers and harsh winters are the norm. A fan of pop music and action flicks, Susan relaxes by washing the dishes, swimming, reading, and happily letting her house get buried in books. Her formal education revolves around anthropology, but writing is her passion.

As a dutiful writer, she keeps her website up-to-date on all her projects. You can find Susan’s stories through her website as well as the publisher websites: Dreamspinner Press, Siren Publishing, and Evernight Publishing. Her stories are also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers.

Social Media Links:

I can be found at my website and social media, for example Facebook and Twitter.