The Invisible Society Chronicles: Choosers of the Slain

I finished the second part of Invisible Society Book 1 yesterday. This is the second story involving sorcerer/tough guy Jack Fugazi.

I'm not going to give away a lot of information about it here but I do want to discuss the process that goes into it. The concept behind this series is the existence of a society of sorcerer's that live unseen among us. The idea itself is nothing brand new I'm sure. Harry Potter is the most famous example but I like to tell my stories with a darker edge. and for me it was that I loved fantasy as a younger man but know dick all about castles or horses and didn't care to become an expert. So for me it was just about taking what I liked about that genre and moving it to a setting I could relate to when writing.

Another part of the equation occurred to me while considering the concept of evil sorcerer dark lord types and the paths they took to get there. Now Sauron was more than a sorcerer he was sort of a sub-demon under what was essentialy Tolkien's devil Morgoth. Terry Brooks's Warlock Lord was corrupted by a magical tome known as the Ildatch so was essentially a pawn to a dark power. and what of Voldemort, speaking of Harry Potter? Tom Riddle was a boy born racist and with a dark streak a mile wide. I'm not trying to offend any fans of Robert Jordan but I tried to get into the Cycle of Time series and could not break 30 pages. Now, while all of these books are classic in their own rights it didn't provide much for me by way of understanding the motivation of the regular guy who tries to go all Aaron Burr on the rest of us.

But what I have come to understand after watching enough politics on TV is that some folks are not flexible on their worldview. It's not ever really been a surprise that some folks have some very specific ideas of what right and wrong really is...for the rest of us. This was way more useful in the creation of someone who is power hungry. I can see You're not doing it right! as a fairly direct path towards seeing what you can do to making those other folks to whom rules apply comply. Now naturally, not everyone with similar ideas about the methodology of making others behave has the same idea of how they should behave or who should be in charge of making them behave.

Now I was sort of caught up with an intellectual conundrum embracing this premise it seems like The Invisible Society would, among other things, be a Voldemort factory. There would probably be some small but undeniable presence of wannabe dark lords each with plans and ambitions. You'd need a no pest strip for these dudes. Of course, some of these people would not be alpha types so that would account for fewer actually vying for power but that would just leave brotherhoods and cabals now vying for control.

That was just about when it snapped into focus. Of course The Invisible Society would naturally attempt to create authority in their ranks to get this under control but as with organized crime there would be a lot of things happening in secret and below radar. But these wannabe dark lords made open moves for power they would not only have to deal with essentially law enforcement but other ambitious sorcerers as well. It seemed to me that there would be occasional flareups but that the factions would actually lead to a balance of power among the outlaws. Lots of these sorcerer dictators would probably have little Apocalypse Now type societies set up away from the prying eyes of the law and other sorcerers.

That is all just concept work on how this world works. Where I want to pick up here in The Invisible Society is where the sort of average joes of this world trip over not just the existence of this society but one of its hungriest, ambitious residents. This is where The Pain Eaters picks up. Invisible College graduate and newly educated sorcerer Jack Fugazi has returned to pick up his normal life keeping the Society's secrets meantime. A terrified raver girl comes staggering into his establishment after a day of being terrorized leads noble tough guy Jack into direct confrontation with the forces of a mysterious bad ass he only identified as The German. The point of the first volume of The Invisible Society is to create a power vacuum and meet the central players of the continuum.

I have a commitment to keep with Matt Campbell to finish the first arc of his Mythica series. So I will likely be writing about that process as I go through it. It will be challenging as my most sustained scripting effort at one time and involve a lot of interaction with Matt as creator and sort of God of this universe. Matt has created some characters that let me stretch my skills a bit but are ripe canvasses for truly epic emotional journeys. But once I'm done with that run or at least locked in on those 88 pages I will return to part 3 of  The Invisible Society: Mrs. Downbelow.

Pick up part 1 of The Invisible Society:Pain Eaters at this link on Amazon and I'll post here and on my Author Page on Facebook. For a list of my collected work on Amazon go to My Collected Works Page here.

Thanks for reading. Be sure to check in for more Mythica, Creephouse and Invisible Society posts, and feel free to comment or ask questions.