Spire City
The original trilogy
Targeted by a mad scientist's deadly serum, these outcasts band together to uncover the truth and to fight back.
Season Two: Pursued, complete bundle: Amazon, Universal Buy Links, direct from itch.io
Season Three: Unwoven: complete bundle: Amazon, Universal Buy Links, direct from itch.io [soon]
Now with a new episode 0!
Before the infections...
Before finding a place with a new family in the Weave...
Chels is a twelve-year-old orphan living on the streets of the fabled Spire City. Beetle-drawn carriages pass her by, and chained singers on the roofs sing above her head, but Chels has no time for such wonders or cruelties. She must survive, begging coin by coin.
As her hopes are dashed one by one, she keeps running into a boy her own age. He calls her Tatter Girl, and he's probably some kind of criminal, but he seems to have found a place where he belongs. Could she still hope for the same?
Read the new opening to the trilogy! Amazon, Universal Buy Links, direct from itch.io
A standalone sequel
Other works
At this time there are also two Spire City-based, Amazon-exclusive stories, The Patterns of Cloth and Dreams (a novella) and The Spire Singers (a novelette). And other Spire City stories have appeared and are forthcoming in various ezines and anthologies as well. I hope to one day release those in a collection, but for now I'll leave it to you to track them down.
What's that? You wish you could role play in the fabled city of beetle carriages and chained singers? Well, you're in luck! Spire Songs & Steam Gears is a free one-shot TTRPG where you play as infected people in Spire City, trying to make meaning of your life before the infection runs its course, and you complete, become a thoughtless animal. Based on the Lasers & Feelings platform, it's easy to jump into and a great way to experience some of what Chels and the rest of the people in the Weave have to endure.
Spire City is home to mighty machines of steam power and clockwork, and giant beetles pull picturesque carriages over cobbled streets, but there is a darker secret behind these wonders. A deadly infection, created by a mad scientist, is spreading through the city, targeting the poor and powerless, turning them slowly into animals. A group of those infected by the serum join together to survive, to trick the wealthy out of their money, and to fight back.
The Spire City Series began as a serial fiction, steampunk-fantasy project, with new episodes released every week during each season's run. The individual episodes were available from Amazon and B&N, and went out to subscribers every Monday.
Season One: Infected, Season Two: Pursued, and Season Three: Unwoven are now each available as novel-length bundles, from most major sellers.
Spire City: Occupied is a standalone sequel that was serialized daily and is now available as a complete novel.
FAQ:
Seasons, episodes, serials...I don't get it, what's this all about? A novel? Short stories? Something else?
The Spire City stories were originally serialized, and I wrote them specifically to take advantage of that format. Each episode stands on its own, the way a short story does. Somewhat, at least. If you dig around in old posts on my blog, you can even find tongue-in-cheek ads that might have appeared in the pulpy newspapers that would have run the serial. But at the same time, I also wanted each season to be the length (and general arc and feel) of a novel. So, yes, it's all those things. Read it over a period of time, like it's running in a Dickensian newspaper. Or binge-read an entire season. as you wish.
How do the novella, novelette, and sequel fit in?
The novelette "The Spire Singers" shows a very different side of the city, through the eyes of a neurotic bureaucrat who's thrown into a Kafka-esque nightmare of how the city treats its chained singers.
The novella The Patterns of Cloth and Dreams is a prequel story, telling the story of Chels's seamstress mother Nalariana and the singer Derran, a story that proves far more adventurous and far-ranging than Chels ever guessed.
Spire City: Occupied takes place about 25 years after the story of Chels, when the city is occupied by a foreign army in the midst of a war. It is a standalone novel, telling the stories of five characters in rapid-fire succession as they must face the consequences of the death of Spire City's greatest inventor.
Is this the end? Will there be more Spire City seasons?
Season Three wraps up the story of the orphan girl Chels and the mad scientist Orgood and the rest caught up that tangle. There are other stories set in Spire City, with the latest novel taking place roughly a generation after the events of Season Three.
Thanks for your interest, and feel free to contact me with any questions.
