I am in danger of not getting Fractured States: Blades of Grass Book 6 released on time. And that’s a good thing.
“You have a good ten-books series worth of potential, here,” he said. “Maybe more.” I had no idea. The “he” was a Facebook acquaintance who wrote sci-fi fiction back in 2019. I’d just finished the manuscript to my very first novel, Cascadia Fallen: Tahoma’s Hammer, a few months earlier. The problem was I’d already spent that time telling everyone it was going to be a trilogy. As they say, you don’t know what you don’t know. Until that point, I’d only considered writing the initial novel, and a few expanded ideas. My reading in the post-apoc/prepper genres had been spotty to that point. I’d read most of Forstchen and Rawles to that point, and some David Crawford. I had not yet discovered the vast worlds of Franklin Horton, Millie Copper, D.J. Cooper, or Ryan Schow—just a few of the many friends I now have who are accomplished series creators.
Once I’d finished that trilogy, I knew a few things. I wanted to use the source disaster of the regional story to trigger a world-wide event, and I knew crashing the internet and the world’s economy were quite plausible with the disappearance of Amazon and Microsoft. I wanted to play into the mostly mythical phrase that there would be an American with a gun behind every blade of grass. (The source has never been verified. According to a historian who worked for MacArthur after WWII, Admiral Yamamoto said that was the reason Japan never invaded beyond one small attempt in the Aleutian Islands and a few balloon bombs that reached the west coast.) Still, the phrase invokes pumping testosterone in patriotic men young and old. And the last thing I knew is that I didn’t want to write an EMP story. Pardon the pun, but those have been done to death. For like… seven years.
Spoiler alert if you've not read Cascadia Fallen: it ends with a flash forward of nearly thirteen years. Looking at a burnt-out Chinese tank near the ruins of Joint Base Lewis McChord near Mount Rainier, young Phil Walker asks his surrogate father if that was from the war with the cartel. No, Josh tells him. It was from the BIG war after that. I also allude to the “Western States of America” as a title, not just an adjective referring to certain states in western America. And with that, the future Blades series had some sort of canon to comply with.
Back to that click-bait-esque line about the danger of not getting BOG 6 done on time. The reason it is good is because what I’d plotted was failing. What I’ve replaced it with will live up to your expectations and more—as long as you don’t expect a happy ending.
There’s a reason it is called “Fractured States.” (And should I ever come back to the series to squeeze out just one more, it will be called “Of America.”) I try not to stray too far from reality in my stories. And if the current “Balkanization” of America isn’t evident and realistic, I don’t know what is. The next Civil War is already under way. Like the Cold War, it is mostly done via subversive means. So far. But gone are the days of pre-trench warfare, of two Armies marching in neat rows into a field, just out of cannon range and trying to wait each other out for some reinforcing advantage to arrive in a week or two.
The battle lines are easily painted as the boundaries between cities and heavily populated counties and the larger, more rural ones. In some places in the West, that might include several states. In the east? The lines will form up as islands of blue along the I-95 corridor from Atlanta to D.C. to Baltimore to Philly to New York. Chicago. Detroit. Los Angeles. Houston. Austin. Dallas. Kansas City. Those and more will become the hubs for five-to-ten county strongholds of the left-leaners while the “red counties” will become the sea of space in between.
And that is how Blades of Grass ends.
This last book opens much how Cascadia Fallen ended: with a flash forward prologue. But this one is contained in the book’s timeline. It covers the four weeks from the book’s opening (which is literally a day or two after BOG 5 ended) to the “All is Lost” plot beat about 75 or 80,000 words down.
A lot happens to America—and to Lou and all the rest—in that four weeks. All the clues are there in the previous books. Human nature. Evil politicians manipulating the narrative. Weak minded followers. A Constitution that is being misconstrued. The hungry and the desperate. They’re all key pieces to the story.
My wife often jokes I should write about us winning the lottery, since what I write seems to come true. I hope and pray that on this… she is dead wrong.
