Coming together

When I think of Realmspace the above images (they're actually incredibly cool aquariums) or things like it kind of pop into my head.

As I said yesterday it didn't just happen and make me write it. It developed over a number of years. The characters and races and ideas have come from all over and over a number of years. In fact one of the peripheral, but still very important characters came from that awful epic I wrote in my early teens. She's a lot different now, but her name and appearance have basically remained what they were back then.

The Realms or worlds of Realmspace are only loosely connected, they exist in bubbles that comprise their atmosphere and they're largely self contained. Although we don't realise it our own world is a Realm. It's not well regarded, partly because we don't understand that we're part of Realmspace and partly because we don't have a Benefactor or Benefactress and so to many ways of thinking are totally lawless.

There are all sorts of Realms, not all of them places you'd want to visit. My central character Dancer has found himself at various times on a Realm he refers to as Raptorworld due to it being full of ravenous velociraptors, a Realm that he doesn't even have name for, but seems to be a giant pinball machine, Brobdingnag (yes either Lemuel Gulliver or his chronicler Jonathan Swift was apparently a shifter).

The Realms are infinite really. Erin is the home to all sorts of characters and races from Irish mythology. Ickepunk is a Realm of ice and snow inhabited by two races that are devoted to the total annihilation of the other. Library is as the name suggests a vast world sized library.

Most of the action takes place on a Realm called Intellida. That's where Dancer, and a good many shifters base themselves. It is a comfortable Realm that is overseen by Dancer's friend and occasional boss the elven Benefactress Aleanaes Goldenhair. Intellida has technology powered by magic. Dancer lives in a section of the Realm called Shiftertown and he keeps a stylish townhouse called Purple Dove House (I told you the blog's title was important and relevant) and he has 3 staff; a flightless gargoyle butler by the name of Frank, an Erinish brownie maid called Molly and his rogueish driver the redcap Jock, who chaffeur's his employer about the place in his pride and joy a 1961 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.

That's a brief taste.