With 2021 behind us now, I can say it was a great year for Afterlands. The Beforetimes four-issue prequel stories ran from September-December, and culminated with the launch of Book One, Afterlands: After the Harrowing. While the publishing process could have gone a lot smoother, I’m grateful to everyone who read, enjoyed, and shared both the stories and the opening novella!
So what comes next?
Phase Two of Afterlands may be too ambitious for my own good, but I am currently planning and writing an interim set of stories called the Betweentimes. Like the Beforetimes, these stories will be made available for free on this website and will cover events that bridge the time between After the Harrowing and Book Two, tentatively titled After the Homecoming, which will launch first week of July.
While there isn’t a significant gap of time between the two books, there is plenty to be explored, particularly with regards to the progress of the four survivors and their tentative living arrangements at the Great House overlooking the bay and the town of Whiptail. For Hyrhyn, Laria, Juba, and Nix, there remains a great deal unresolved in their lives and they are only just beginning to realize it. Bad weather and surly neighbors threaten any hope of an easy existence, and a shipwreck brings an intriguing castaway into their midst.
Betweentimes stories may follow the format of the Beforetimes, though I am exploring the idea of including at least one “picture book” in addition to two (or possibly three) all-new stories.
Some questions that might be answered (or else teased a whole bunch more):
- Are Juba and Hyrhyn ever going to get around to consummating their union?
- Where exactly are Nix’s children and will he find them?
- What is Laria hiding in the Great House that she doesn’t want the others to see?
- Are we ever actually going to get to this alleged place called the Afterlands?
- Who is Moth and how certain are we that he might be the key to everything?
