Stranger Lands - Sci-fi and Fantasy

Chapter 1 A wanderer stumbles, chastised under the blinding sun. Her limbs are heavy, full of sleep, her mind clouding as the simple release of dreams swim to her vision. Mirage-images flicker, all too promising. A crowd of people in the desert. The absurdity makes her laugh, like a harsh bark - a sound from deep inside that pulls her weary body and distressed mind into the waiting darkness of exhaustion. It is cold, down here. Away from sensation. Her dreams are not peaceful as they chase her back into the recesses of consciousness. All sharp angles and buzzing talk. Intelligent things. Above that, behind the gnawing metal prongs strangling her mind; something dark and twisting. There is pain, a familiar pain, the shock running through her. Around her, coalescing; a shifting vision - the salt desert under high sun and crumbling, vinestreaked ruins meshing inexorably until the strange dream-clarity takes over and she is plunged icily into the scene of flesh rending and reknitting, shak...

Where to start? That's the big question. Sharing something you've created, are creating, is terrifying. In writing, it's impossible not to bear your heart - every character you conjour comes from an undeniably twisted world, the world which exists chewed up and processed through your own perception. The beauty I find in science fiction and fantasy is the creation and imagining of new worlds from the pulpy remains of this one. With these new worlds, new ways of being are born, and from the new ways of being, we learn more, in turn, about the world-which-encompasses-us . Writing has been particularly difficult for me, I've found fragments of thousands of worlds which never saw much light, and across the years I've stopped and started the process of exploring them. What prompted this project is a labour of love by Freehold Games that has repeatedly brought me back to the space of imagination and play when I needed it most - Caves of Qud. Caves of Qud is a world of epic...