Welcome! This year I’m creating a set of posts/blogs/whatever you want to call them about the “story-behind-the story” for my backlist. This month, the Martiniere Multiverse is one of my featured universes for discussion—that is, the duology specifically identified as “Martiniere Multiverse.” This label refers primarily to the two books: A Different Life: What If? and A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. Otherwise, they’re overall a part of what I’m calling the Martiniere Family Saga, which spreads across multiple universes. There are also a couple of short stories which loosely tie into the Multiverse that are included in this grouping.
Housekeeping note: all related posts will be linked at the bottom.
The seed of the Martiniere Multiverse…
“We wouldn’t have met if this hadn’t happened.”
“We would have,” Gabe said. “Only I would have met you as Gabriel Martiniere, potential Martiniere-in-waiting, looking for talented bot developers to bolster my qualifications to succeed Saul as the Martiniere. Not as Gabe Ramirez, broke saddle bronc rider.”
“You really think so?” Ruby looked up at him.
“One of your competition bots from high school caught Cousin Arthur’s attention when I was interning in his agricultural technology division during my time at the University of Paris. If it hadn’t been for Philip’s insistence that I start work in the Los Angeles labs, and—my testimony in US vs Martiniere Group—I would have approached you during your junior year at Oregon State. Talked to you about considering a future with the Group. If Saul had survived, Philip’s notions about women in positions of power wouldn’t have dominated the Group, and the Martiniere Grant that died with Saul would have been available to you. Hell, I would have been the person interviewing you for it. I have no doubts that you would have become quite the force in the labs, even without our relationship. But I like to think we would have gotten together.”
From The Enduring Legacy, published 2022
Before I wrote this part of The Enduring Legacy, I hadn’t really considered alternatives to any of the books or series I’d written before then. Gabe’s musings in this circumstance—a funeral where he and Ruby visit the graves of his family, killed in a plane crash when he was twelve—sparked off some ideas, especially since I was developing short projects to publish on Kindle Vella. I started wondering—just what would this alternative version of Gabe and Ruby have looked like?
A short dabble led to more as I developed this different world, with a different life. A world that didn’t go into mind control technology issues. A world where climate change was a greater concern, shaping even the availability of food items for the wealthy. A world where political change was happening more rapidly than in the four books of the main Martiniere Legacy.
What would that world look like, and how would Ruby and Gabe be different from who they were in the Martiniere Legacy?
This time around I also set out to write a story where the early stages of a romance are featured, front and center. Oh, I have relationships written up in other books, but even in the other Martiniere books (with the exception of Broken Angel), the early days of Gabe and Ruby’s life together isn’t depicted in any sort of detail. The Martiniere Legacy picks up thirty years after Ruby and Gabe got together, and twenty-one years after their divorce. We see them in the process of recreating their relationship in the Legacy. In The Cost of Power, we see them after they’ve been together for four years.
So. What would things look like if Ruby had met Gabe as Gabriel Martiniere, not Gabe Ramirez? Would there have been less trauma? More trauma? What about Gabe’s biological father and his toxic cousin—and the relationship he would have had with his younger sister if she had not died in that crash at age six? I look at those questions in A Different Life: What If?
Then I started wondering about peripheral couples, and a potential romance between Gabe and Ruby’s executive assistants presented itself. Plus that book—A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever.—also set up the potential for seeing just what happened to Ruby and Gabe after the dramatic ending of What If? Linda and Armand started talking to me, especially Linda with her…connections to a rising political star in a United States that is becoming more oppressive. Overall, Armand and Linda have a rosier prospective future in this universe. And creating Armand Martiniere allowed me to show what one of the lower-level heirs in that family would be like. Not with as much baggage as Gabe lugs around from his past, no matter what universe he’s in, but still raised with similar structures and expectations.
Linda and Armand from Now. Always. Forever. show up as minor characters in The Cost of Power. Their love is as intense as Ruby and Gabe’s—but perhaps less star-crossed than those two.
These books are probably two of the least science fictional works I’ve written, except that they’re set in a different near-future than would be directly extrapolated from our world, as well as the multiversal elements. Ruby’s development of agricultural biobots still play a role, however. As far as I know, current tech hasn’t gone that far—yet. Gabe’s use of solar-powered electric hybrid private jets is nowhere on the horizon—as far as I know. There’s also a subtheme of corporate dominance and power which, based on my assessment, points to a future where we’ll see more of that sort of thing happening (that said, corporate hijinks are something I find myself writing about when it comes to science fiction. For whatever reason, I’m more comfortable writing about that than I am political hijinks, despite similar experiences).
Stay tuned for more discussion of these elements.
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Buy link for A Different Life: What If?
Buy link for A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever.
And if you’ve already bought the books, feel free to buy me a coffee!
