Connected Worlds is an intentional riff on Zelazny’s Amber, Michael Moorcock’s Tanelorn, Brian Daley’s Cinnabar, and others – a center of the metaverse setting. The first book is The Fountains of Aescalon (Amazon link Books2Read link), the second book is The Monad Trap (Amazon link Books2Read link), and the third, in progress now, is tentatively titled Bubbles Of Creation, which will likely be the final book featuring Alexan and Petra, although I have ideas for associated characters.
The viewpoint character is Alexan. Alexan is the ghost of a wizard from a long way off in the metaverse, but his people have mastered vast amounts of knowledge about wizardry and other knowledge, and Alexan’s original was one of the strongest and best trained wizards among them. Alexan is obsessed with learning and knowledge, a relic of his original’s need to survive in a hyper-competitive environment.
The second most important character is Petra, a demigoddess created by belief. Based loosely on Circe in the Odyssey, she’s tasked with the temptation and subsequent punishment of unfaithful men. She was originally supposed to have a couple minor scenes, but she stood up and told me she had a better idea, and she was right, becoming a main character in the series.
Aescalon is a small place at the very center of it all. It consists of a cavern on the order of 25 miles in diameter, with what appears to be a neutron star at the center of it. Near the surface of the cavern are 165 first order Connected Realms (165 is the number of combinations you get when you take 11 dimensions chosen 3 at a time). These are full on universes; the majority of the first story is spend in Migurd one of the first order Connected Realms which has a pseudo-nordic air crossed with something resembling arthurian legend, but it’s an entire world all by itself and we barely scratch the surface of Migurd in the first book.
There are roughly 20 million Second Order Connected Realms, and even larger numbers of Third and Fourth Order Connected Realms. They are progressively smaller, however.
There is a massive and unparalleled power source centered on Aescalon. Deities and other extraordinary entities are drawn to it – as are those who wish to become deities – and thereby hang the tales of the Connected Worlds.
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