What is

“A Sword for the Immerland King”

about?

_________________________________

The most frequently asked question about this book is “What is it about?”

“A Sword for the Immerland King” is about a sword and it is about a king, but the story is about life;

This tale takes place on another planet, but it is not science fiction. The trees are green, the sky is blue, the air can be wet with the smell of a distant ocean and one burns his hand by touching things that are too hot. There are two moons, and a yellow sun, formidable mountains and rolling fields, ripe with barley and wheat awaiting the late summer harvest. Time can be bent, but only so far and the ordinary denizen of Tessalindria is as confined as we are by its inevitable flight.

The small planet of Tessalindria is a world that has shades of fantasy in it, but it is fundamentally no more fantastic than our own earth with its lively array of stunning beauty, deep legends, bizarre histories and amazing, rich cultures. Some of the rules by which life must be lived are different and civilization is driven by different historical and cultural influences. Though the story is told in English, the concepts of who one is and what one does are tightly wrapped up in the languages of Tessalindria, languages as richly embedded in their culture as English is in ours. Some animals can talk and others cannot. Some people can see things that others cannot. Some understand life and its infinite paths while others remain clueless and lost for the lack of vision and teaching.

So if it is not science fiction and it is not fantasy, what is it?

“A Sword for the Immerland King” is Visionary fiction, a fiction, stated as fact to allow the reader to explore the greater life issues in the safety of a good armchair, to wonder at their own shortcomings and marvel at the confidence of others who inspire them to vision and purpose in their own lives. It is allegory and truth rolled together in a plausibility that transcends time and space and gives us pause to ponder who we are and where we are going.

“A Sword for the Immerland King” is about life and untimely death, it is about the bewilderment of youth that looks at the adult world and is not sure it wants to grow up. It is about adults that have given up and adults that have not. It is about real men and women, their hopes, their fears, their fading dreams and their eternal quest to know what life is for. It is about those who know where they are going and those who fear where they are going. It is an exploration of the value of life as well as a simple story about tragedy and about triumph and the narrow reality that separates the two.

It is about good and evil, and forces that operate beyond our senses to lead us or to dominate us in purposes beyond our natural vision. It is about fear and its consequences, and about overcoming fear with vision. It is Visionary fiction.

For more on what Visionary Fiction is:

· Visionary Fiction explained

· Hampton Roads Publishing Company pioneered the genre of Visionary Fiction

· The Independent Publisher web page has a contest category in Visionary Fiction

· This Ikosmos web page gives another view of Visionary fiction books.