I mentioned the Paradisi Chronicles “co-operative” project in an earlier post.

I’ve worked before in loose-knit shared-world projects, such as the  “No Revolution Is Too Big” anthology, but Paradisi Chronicles is different. Let me explain how…

In July, 2014, best-selling author Hugh Howey’s blog (Your Fear is My Opportunity) challenged traditional publishers to innovate. One suggestion was to try out new ways of creating worlds that would be written about by multiple authors.

Sadly, traditional publishers are not equipped to create worlds and co-ordinate multiple authors writing in different styles with highly-detailed and cross-referenced history, characters and locations. Authors, apparently, are not always easy beasts to work with. (As W.C. Fields nearly said, “Never work with children, animals or authors”.)

But writers ARE equipped to dream the impossible.

In response to Hugh’s prompting, a group got together to create such a new universe, sharing ideas, shaping a backstory, maps, technology, cities, and new species. Writing in different styles and genres, and in different forms, they produced the first works set in this new universe. Next, these generous folk opened-up their world to other authors who could write their own stories to add to the Paradisi Chronicles canon.

Writers can submit works in their own favoured genres, be they hard sci-fi, planetary exploration, alien interaction, time-travel… as long as they keep to the pre-established backstory and respect other writers’ events and characters. It’s really not as easy as just making it up as needed, as you progress. But it immensely adds to the fun and the challenge of being creative.

So I threw my hat in the ring and offered to write a story. I found them to be a great bunch of people, very supportive and enthusiastic. Naturally, overlapping story lines or planned plot and character developments need to be discussed to avoid “breaking the canon” and I have found no-one to be possessive about their storylines or characters. I’m having great fun writing my story and working with the project’s “Founders”.

Fear not, dear reader, I shall be keeping you updated.

Meanwhile, why not take a look at some of the Paradisi Chronicles works already published?