Welcome to the True Earth!
Growing up, my favorite books included maps, appendices, even pictures - everything Tolkeinesque. I delighted and grew frustrated with C. S. Lewis' Narnia series which teased other worlds like the one with the red sun, but then never told me anything more about them. While my favorite modern authors, most noticeably Teresa Edgerton and Paula Volsky, were capable of evoking strange, alien, and fully realized worlds. Edgerton could also bring in elements of in-world fairy tales and historic mythology, while Volsky was dazzling with her ability to deconstruct real world cultures and politics and convincingly place them in a unified fantasy world.
The first world that opened its door to me came somewhere in high school while I was inventing stories for my youngest brother at bedtime (the better to avoid reading something). These became tales from The Twelve Kingdoms. Almost simultaneously, I began writing what I thought was going to be a retelling of "The Pied Piper of Hamlin," and which - after exactly one paragraph - turned itself into the gateway to the political world of Arianja. By my senior year of high school, I had a terrific physics teacher who sparked the first thoughts about the nature of this world's sorcery, which has been fun to explore.
Somewhere in there, while sketching a simply ridiculous number of maps, city plans, and architectural schematics (I took notes! They were just in the margins...), I realized that I wanted all of these worlds to be connected. With Arianja, the idea of the TransWorld Gate had already been introduced. So it was a short jump to discover Ylondas Gatekeeper, who created the Coliseum of Gates. Voila! The worlds were one.
What follows here is its own Coliseum of Gates, full of information about the various worlds, their histories, cartographies, flora, fauna, physics - as well as free stories, full length novels, and teasers for novels to come.
If you like a particular story, or want to know something about the world, drop me a line!
If you want to support my writing and be updated every time something new is added to this page, you can join me on Patreon!
Now, enjoy exploring the True Earth!
The first world that opened its door to me came somewhere in high school while I was inventing stories for my youngest brother at bedtime (the better to avoid reading something). These became tales from The Twelve Kingdoms. Almost simultaneously, I began writing what I thought was going to be a retelling of "The Pied Piper of Hamlin," and which - after exactly one paragraph - turned itself into the gateway to the political world of Arianja. By my senior year of high school, I had a terrific physics teacher who sparked the first thoughts about the nature of this world's sorcery, which has been fun to explore.
Somewhere in there, while sketching a simply ridiculous number of maps, city plans, and architectural schematics (I took notes! They were just in the margins...), I realized that I wanted all of these worlds to be connected. With Arianja, the idea of the TransWorld Gate had already been introduced. So it was a short jump to discover Ylondas Gatekeeper, who created the Coliseum of Gates. Voila! The worlds were one.
What follows here is its own Coliseum of Gates, full of information about the various worlds, their histories, cartographies, flora, fauna, physics - as well as free stories, full length novels, and teasers for novels to come.
If you like a particular story, or want to know something about the world, drop me a line!
If you want to support my writing and be updated every time something new is added to this page, you can join me on Patreon!
Now, enjoy exploring the True Earth!
(c) Emily C. A. Snyder