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 Netwalk Sequence is my featured series. It’s the first series I published and as I went through a recent update, I was surprised at how relevant it is, even though the books are over a decade old.
Housekeeping note: all related posts will be linked at the bottom on the Substack publication.
Generational family politics. Rebuilding government structures after several decades of political unrest. The impact of several disruptive, mysterious technologies on worldwide stability. The effect of a secretive family history on its descendants when all is revealed. Redemption for several difficult characters throughout the series arc.
All this and more makes up The Netwalk Sequence. I first started crafting the worldbuilding behind these stories in the ‘90s, as speculation about what future interactions on the internet would look like. I also wanted to think about bioremediation technology as well as politics. While I’ve lost a lot of the notes and early short stories I crafted as part of this series, I remember much of it.
The initial foundation has a couple of roots. Part came from a trunked thriller/horror novel I crafted back in the ‘80s. Not much of the novel remains in the Netwalk books, except for the character of Sarah Stephens and her history before we see her in Life in the Shadows.
The other part comes from a Fourth of July campout on the rim of Hells Canyon, just a short distance from the Hat Point lookout (i.e., the steepest part of the canyon). My husband and I were idly watching clouds blow out over the canyon and dissipate. We watched a big raptor—probably a golden eagle—soar over the canyon, and started speculating about what it might be like to have a raptor’s perspective on flight. Note: for you younger folks, this was long before GoPros were possible.
I started poking at the notion, off and on, as a side project while wrestling with the story that eventually became the Goddess’s Honor series (which has its own story). For whatever reason, the story twisted and became about wireless communication implants that would allow a form of telepresence in what I eventually ended up calling virtual (nothing at all like our current virtual reality. Alas, I can’t experience it because I am very prone to vertigo).
Add in the rather grim perspective I was starting to develop about where politics was headed, and the universe of the Netwalk Sequence started to take shape. A world where things had fallen apart for various reasons. But—also a world where four generations of powerful women were part of the crafters of new structures. Where, for the most part, even the most twisted of characters end up with the opportunity to redeem themselves while some of those considered to be “good” end up making mistakes or becoming twisted.
Did I succeed in writing the story I first envisioned? Yes—and no. A recent copy edit and update using a new formatting tool to get around the clumsy original depiction of subvocal communication showed me that while these books have their own flaws, they’re still pretty readable. Some of the themes present in the Sequence reappear in the Martiniere books, but…in a rather different form.
I also chose to write about the impact of this technology on powerful, wealthy leadership rather than the person in the street (which was one criticism the books received in their original form). For one thing, this world as envisioned limits access to this technology. For another, writing about how said technology impacts the everyday person is a completely different story. It also requires a deeper look at this particular world for the ordinary person and, frankly, that goes into a grimmer depth than I’m comfortable writing at this time in my life.
I would have preferred not to see elements of these books start appearing in our lives. Alas, we have the Parker Landreths out there, as well as the Sarah Stephenses.
That said, except for parts of the Martiniere books and the standalone Beating the Apocalypse, the Netwalk books are probably the darkest things I’ve written in long form. The ending is somewhat happy, even though there are still shadows on the horizon (which will always be the case). Again, I’m not particularly comfortable writing unhappy endings, though even the happy endings will have shadows lurking. It’s probably appropriate that this first book is called Life in the Shadows, with several short pieces also having “shadow” titles (“Winter Shadows,” “Shadow Harvest,” and “Christmas Shadows”).
Life in the Shadows is on sale during January 2025 for $2.99 at major ebook outlets (including Kindle), at this link:
https://books2read.com/lifeintheshadows
Stay tuned for more blogs about the Netwalk Sequence.
And hey, if you already have the book but want to toss a few coins in my direction, here’s the link to my Ko-fi.
