Spire City

Targeted by a mad scientist's deadly serum, these outcasts band together to uncover the truth and to fight back.




Season One: Infected, complete bundle: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
Season Two: Pursued, complete bundle: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
Season Three: Unwoven: complete bundle: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
Spire City: Occupied: is a standalone sequel novel that that ran on Kindle Vella and Ko-fi and is now available in print and ebook versions from Amazon.








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.



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 is currently only available in serialized format, with a new episode arriving every weekday through mid-November, 2021.

FAQ:


I don't get it, what's this all about? A novel? Short stories? Something else?


Yeah, this can be confusing, because we're not all that familiar with serial fiction these days. A number of other writers are also experimenting with the idea, now that ereaders and our familiarity with the digital world make it again feasible, but each of us approaches it differently, which adds to the confusion.

So for Spire City, the best thing to have in mind is a television drama, one with a new episode each week over the course of a season. You might be desperate to catch each episode as it comes out. You might wait until the season is over and binge-watch on Netflix or get the complete season DVD. Either way, each episode stands alone and yet builds toward the full season arc.

Spire City is not a TV show in written form, but it shares some of that structure. So read each episode as if it were a periodic release. Or treat the episodes as chapters and read the whole thing at your own pace. Either way, each season is about the length of a book and shares a lot with how we think of books, while each episode is about the length of a short story...so it's both, and neither.

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.