Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #95, ShadowCity

World-building is the prime attraction of fantasy and fabulism. Skillful writers create worlds that are places of danger and adventure—places we want to live despite their threats—magical worlds full of adventure and possibility. Narnia, Middle Earth, Earthsea, Darkover, Avalon—the list is long. When a writer creates a world, he or she can also create the rules. Different races of beings, the existence of magic, religion, topography—everything is at the writer’s power. It is intoxicating. It was the lure that led me to create the world of ShadowCity.

ShadowCity was the third book I published—a novella, a fantasy story about a parallel world that exists in tandem with earth as a dark copy. The world, you come to understand, is a developing word—a site that is embryonic and waiting to take its place in the universe. It has a guardian, a young woman from earth named Jimena Chagall. The main character in the book, Scott Evard, was in love with her but her erratic lifestyle, drug use, and enigmatic disposition has split them up. He meets her by a river walking path near a bridge, a place where panhandlers hang out, begging money. She is thin and smells as if she has not bathed in several days. He gives her money and offers to take her to his apartment where she can rest and bathe. “You just want to see me naked,” she quips. “Like I haven’t seen you that way before,” he mutters. As he walks away, someone tries to murder her. Scott, a boxer in college, manages to save her and beat her assailant insensible. They call the police, who take her for questioning. Mark has a business meeting he has to attend and promises he will come to get her at the police station.

Jimena

When he does, she kills her assailant by removing the shadows from his room. The police think he has had a heart attack. Jimena fills him in on the aspect of her life he has never known about. She the guardian of a world but has neglected her duty. As a result of this, darkness has almost completely taken the forming world over. The evil has become so strong, the evil rulers of the world have sent a killer to Earth to murder Jimena. She realizes she has to go and try to correct things, though at this point it seems like a hopeless endeavor. She and Scott sleep together that night. She dresses and slips off, but Scott wakes up and follows her into a large shadow. He ends up in the parallel world.

The plot is intricate, but the world-building merits mention. The world, Jimena tells Scott, is a copy of Earth “all based on string theory” but too complicated to explain. It is a refuge for people who know darkness and loss:  those who have been harmed by the dark forces on Earth, and those who are themselves dominated by darkness. The latter have gotten the upper hand, and Jimena must right the situation.

But from the beginning, Scott notices her methods smack of darkness and cruelty. She buys a slave (Drya, a Maenad), tortures a woman, bullies and intimidates both enemies and friends. She captures a young woman warrior and promises Scott he will not let her people harm her for treason but ends up doing nothing to stop the girl from being hanged. When Scott chides her, she says he will not like everything she does but she must resort to such methods in order to set the situation right.

Drya

What Jimena does not understand is that in behaving as she does she is letting the darkness that threatens to engulf the world seep into her soul, weakening her. She is in danger of being overwhelmed by the very thing she is fighting.

What happens? You’ll have to get a copy and read it to find out. It is a fast-moving story of love, struggle, adventure, and magic. It explores, like Lord of the Rings and The Earthsea Trilogy, the nature of good and evil. You can order a copy here. It's a great read and an exploration of a fascinating world that exists as a shadow of our own world.

For other great titles, check out my Writer's Page.

Are vampire novels your thing? Read Sinfonia:  The First Notes on the Lute. A young woman's love of music is only matched by her love of human blood. See the video.

I would love to hear your comments.