SERIES CONCEPT | ageofsecession

Series Concept – Genre & Sub-Genre

The books (and the series) cover a number of sub-genres within science fiction :-

1.Soft SF – covering issues and topics involving social and political changes and advances
2.Military SF – covering the impact of technology, politics and science, but in a strong military background with current/historical influence
3.Space Opera (Epic) – a wide and varied background, with actions and consequences on a vast scale

4.Hard SF - without belabouring the explanations, all the settings and scenes and plots have a plausible basis (even where it disagrees with modern science)

Series Concept

The Age of Secession is the name for the overall series, a strong background setting which offers flexibility for multiple characters, sub-genres of science fiction, and different styles of writing and overall structure within each book.

The first three trilogies in the series are written and linked together in terms of their characters and overall plots, but the richness of the Age of Secession world allows for an unending series of separate stories to be constructed out of the background. The series progresses with a number of standalone books, with some new trilogies planned within the overall concept.

The one golden rule is that each individual book should have a clear beginning, middle, and end to the primary story. It allows a potential reader to dip into one, without reading the rest.

The background is very heavily influenced by modern world politics, particularly :

Western and Eastern antagonism, with its roots in the Cold War and apparent emergence
the early 21st century Islamofundamentalist terrorism ....
.... and the Western reaction to it in invading large parts of the Middle East and Asian continents
the recent Arab Spring which is still ongoing today (note : disturbingly, elements of the recent occurrences in Syria are directly reflected and predicted by the parallels in the books)
Emerging extremist views in western democracies, and the growing conflict between the ideologies of protectionism and free-trade
The tendency of democracies to develop into the haves and the have-nots, with elites developing in the ruling parties (think of the current Eton-background to UK politics, or the influence of the Kennedys on American politics) – the series assumes we have gone back to autocratic single-person rule, or “rule of the privileged”

In socio-economic terms, the series looks at :

Technology and how it affects the development of the human race
Money and monetary structure (linked inevitably to the political models of capitalism versus communism)
The propensity of the human race to fear and persecute people based on their type or race
The upcoming moral and ethical decisions we have to make based on advancements delivered through biotechnology and cybernetic implants
The future social classes and they will be informed by the dominant technologies and political structures of the times

And from the characterisation point of view looks at :

How people are shaped by their environment
How people respond to wide-ranging change
Relationships between friends and lovers, and groups of people working together to prosper

Audience For the Series & Books

The books are written deliberately in such a way that they can be enjoyed as a simple hack-and-slash story, an adventure which does not require any deep thought or insight to enjoy.

However, they contain a deep and serious undertone for the more thoughtful reader, highlighting and picking up on all the various aspects listed under “Series Concept” above, to allow the thinking reader to appreciate the depth of the stories.

This approach increases the “re-readability” of the books and hopefully their appeal to a wide science-fiction audience, from those who want a bit of light entertainment to those who want to read a book that makes them seriously think about some of the things we have experienced in the last couple of decades, and potentially face in the future.