Rachel Starr Thomson

The day has come! After 10 years, the Seventh World Trilogy is finished with the release of Coming Day!

The Story

After rescuing the Gypsies from destruction at the hands of the emperor, the warrior farmers of Pravik have returned home to dwell above ground. But peace is proving to be as dangerous as war, as their food stores run out and they find themselves unable to go beyond the city to grow crops. Neighbouring towns, afraid of the rumours they’ve heard about Pravik, are unwilling to trade with them.

When emissaries arrive from the emperor, inviting the Ploughman to form an alliance with him, he has no choice but to go. Along with Professor Huss, the Darkworld prince Harutek, and an unwilling Maggie, he rides for Athrom. But in doing so, he ignores the vision of the blind seer Virginia Ramsey, who has seen deadly consequences at the end of the Ploughman’s journey.

Desperate for help from another source, Virginia sets out on a journey of her own, accompanied by the Darkworld priestess Rehtse — a journey to find the King and bring him to Pravik’s aid.
Their parallel journeys will at last open the way to the worlds unseen, bringing in powers, terrors, beauties, and a final confrontation no one could imagine. Central to the fate of their world are the Gifted: the Singer, Seer, Healer, Listener, Warrior, and Voice.

Buy the Book—or Get a Special Deal on the Trilogy!

You can purchase a copy of Coming Day now at http://www.worldsunseen.com/home/buy-the-books/ – or pick up the whole series for $50, a savings of $10.

All three covers feature original paintings by Deborah Thomson.

Shopping at Amazon?

Coming Day is also available from Amazon (with all normal shipping discounts applicable). If you use this link, I’ll get a tiny affiliate payment as an extra bonus. So thanks!

Or Get An Autographed Copy

If you’d like a specially autographed copy, e-mail me at thomson.rachel@gmail.com. Special shipping charges may apply, so I will bill you directly.

Thanks for reading—and for coming on this journey with me!
Rachel

Cross-posted from Speculative Faith.

(Someone once told me that “history” is called “history” because it’s HIS story, meaning God’s. Dunno if that’s true. But if it is, then my own personal story can be called “mystory.” In this case, I’m writing about the story of my stories, so that’s … “mystories”? But I digress. Ridiculously.)

I am a writer; in fact, I am a novelist. I get to call myself that, even though I do not have a single book published by a trade publisher, because I have been writing novels since I was 13ish. I’ve self-published five in various forms, and people read them, review them, and otherwise interact with them, so I figure that I’m doing what novelists do, and that’s good enough to claim the title.

In fact, this past week I finally finished a trilogy I have been working on for nearly ten years. In 2001 or thereabouts, I wrote a book called Worlds Unseen, which told the story of a handful of people who were curious enough — and gripped by longing enough — to explore beyond the boundaries of the world-as-they-knew-it and discover the truth about their history and future. As in our world, the truth is obscured by the machinations of evil. If discovered, it will set people free — but only if they’re willing to side with the ancient King and cast off the “safe” life they’ve always known.

Worlds Unseen helped me break through a few personal blocks as a writer, and I followed it right away with a sequel, Burning Light. I knew the story was supposed to be a trilogy. But back then I didn’t do outlines, and the third story wasn’t readily to hand like the first two had been. I was out of steam and content to let it rest.

So I did. Someday I would write a book called The Advent and finish the trilogy. Maybe.

In the meantime, I wrote a bunch of other books and became published as a freelance writer for various online and print magazines. In 2006 I entered the exciting waters of POD-enabled self-publishing, and in 2007 I looked fondly at Worlds Unseen and Burning Light and thought, why not? I have moved on to pursuing publication for other books. I could get these out into the world and start building readership. To the printing press!

This will have applicability to you shortly; keep reading . . .

Well, I did publish Worlds Unseen and Burning Light, and they began to accrue fans. They opened doors for me to get into all sorts of discussions with people about books and writing and my faith. They collected some good reviews. Worlds Unseen in its Smashwords-ebook form has been downloaded over 13,000 times.

But there was trouble. You cannot publish the first two books in a trilogy without eventually, someday, somehow, finishing the series. Readers made that clear. The third book needed to come out. And it didn’t want to.

The Advent turned into my life’s worst case of writer’s block. Dogged and determined, I wrote it. Hated and scrapped it. Wrote a different story with the same title. Scrapped most of it. Changed its name to Coming Day and kept going. Seven or so almost-complete rewrites later, I finally, finally wrote the book that finished the trilogy appropriately and in a way I could be proud of. It was like pulling teeth the entire way.

But now it’s done. I’ll be making it available to the world just as soon as the cover art is finished. And I can move on to new adventures, new worlds, new stories, and of course, marketing.

I share this bit of mystory with you because it highlighted two lessons for me.

1. Even when you think you know the cost ahead of time, anything you do will require commitment. Writing stories, like pulling a tooth or doing ministry or navigating a tricky relationship, requires a commitment that transcends how we feel at the moment. The upside of this is that commitment eventually yields fruit, and the fruit likewise transcends how we may have felt during the process.

2. Publishing, in any form, creates relationship and responsibility to readers. Don’t take that lightly. Like any relationship, it will cost something. It will require work and follow-through. And it will also create its own rewards. We are all, writers and readers both, engaged in one great conversation that truly impacts lives. And that is the best reason to pursue publishing in the first place.

I’d love to hear more about yourstories. Anybody?

P.S. If you’d like to read more about my trilogy, the website is www.worldsunseen.com.

Kudos to Deborah Thomson for the beautiful artwork. The book itself is in production and should be ready to order early next week :).

At the end of a long, protracted wait, the release date for Coming Day has been officially moved to January 2011. I’m really disappointed about this — for one thing, I just really like to have projects wrapped up by the end of the year!

Publishing is famous for moving a glacial speeds. Independent publishing of the sort that I do moves much, much more quickly, but doing it well does require a certain amount of working with others and waiting on systems and printers, etc. Unfortunately, in this case the waiting has run smack into the Christmas season.

I hope those of you who are waiting with me will find the book worth the wait!

In happier news, it is snowing outside, with a particularly Christmasy sort of snow.  There is an enormous, beautiful Christmas tree in the room over, and everywhere I go, even in the most secular of places, I am liable to hear music playing and announcing that Christ is born. Merry Christmas season to you all!

From the first chapter, Worlds Unseen draws you in with the mystery and spine-tingling adventures the characters encounter. Throughout the book you meet new and interesting people who have their own special roles in the unfolding of the story; from Nicholas, who hears things he should not be able to hear, to a princess, who loves her people enough to die for them, to the surviving members of a council long disbanded. Rachel Starr Thomson does a spectacular job of weaving many different people and stories together to culminate in a dramatic ending that leaves you on the edge of your seat in expectation of the second book, Burning Light.

Still waiting on the cover for Coming Day. In the meantime, Noelle Wickham was kind enough to review Worlds Unseen for an online magazine called Generation Impact. You can read the full review here.

Well, another release date has gone by, and Coming Day is not QUITE out in the world. The book is finished and at the printer; at this point, we are just waiting on the finished cover art. I don’t have a date for this yet, but hopefully it will be SOON. I still anticipate shipping the books in time for Christmas.

If you just can’t wait, you can order the book already from the new Seventh World website: http://www.worldsunseen.com/the-books/coming-day/ .

Thanks for being with me on this journey and sharing my excitement for this release!

So I’m still working at revisions for Coming Day. Still endeavouring to have this book released next month, thus wrapping up a trilogy that began nearly ten years ago. I don’t feel old enough to have begun a series ten years ago . . .

Before I began all this revising, the basic plot arc of the book was finished. We got from Point A to Point B, with all the furor and tribulation and triumph that comes in the middle. But so much was going on that there were few quiet moments–few places just to breathe, get to know the characters, add depth to the story.

What’s interesting is how much that affects the resolution. We can go flinging headlong toward the climax, everything can come together, but without that underlying depth, no one is actually going to care.

I leave that to you to apply to your own work, and maybe even to your own life. It’s definitely challenging me.

The scheduled release date for Coming Day (sometime in mid-November — I have a date but for several reasons am not making it public yet) is fast approaching, which means that ’tis the season for revisions. Yes, more of them. This book has gone through more revisions than any other book I’ve ever written with the possible exception of something called The Babel Chip (which in my opinion still needs work. But I digress — this post is not about The Babel Chip.)

When I sat down with Josh Gilman, my good buddy and esteemed beta reader, one of the things he told me was that Coming Day needs more quiet parts. I knew that, I think, but confirmation was good. I actually taught on this in a three-session workshop I did in my hometown earlier this month. Rises and falls are an essential part of a good plot.

Why is that? Well, in any good story, there is conflict. There is tension. This is good; it keeps readers turning pages. But if you never let readers come down and rest a while, they will become exhausted. They’ll also be prevented from getting to know your characters in an intimate way; we don’t get to know people when all we ever see them doing is running or yelling or bashing heads with big swords.

Frodo needs to be chased by Black Riders and battle wraiths and orcs and barrow-wights; but he also needs to get to Rivendell and Lothlorien, eat, sleep, behold beauty. He needs it, and readers need it.

So this week, as I revise Coming Day, I am attempting to add more fall to the rhythm of rise and fall. And I’m looking forward to getting to know my own characters better as I do.

Attention, world: I have an announcement! My fantasy series, The Seventh World Trilogy — Worlds Unseen, Burning Light, and Coming Day — has a website of its own!

Featuring artwork by my sister Deborah Thomson (nicely worked into the site design by my sister Becky Thomson), character profiles and world-building info, reviews, and more, the site is live today. I’ve also included a section on Christian fantasy and other speculative fiction that features other authors. The URL is www.worldsunseen.com. Check it out!

I know that our CSFF tours are technically three days long, but lately I have a hard time saying all I want to say in three days. This interview was supposed to go up yesterday, but the post was getting long — so here we are. An interview of me by Joshua Gilman of JGills fame.

Joshua: So we have here the Author of the Seventh World Trilogy. Rachel Starr Thomson. Hello!

Rachel: Hello indeed.

Joshua: On a scale of one to super duper, how excited are you for this interview?

Rachel: I’d have to say super duperly. I’ve heard rumours of your mad interviewing skills.

Joshua: That was definitely the best possible answer! Now, people may not know this, but you are also a professional Editor. So we know you have excellent grammar. But as we all know, the best actors are the ones who can “act badly.” Please grammatically murder a sentence for us.

Rachel: Oh dear.

Joshua: That is only bad if you were trying to talk about “deer.”

Rachel: I never claimed to be an actor. Editors EDIT. Not ACT. Although sometimes they mumble dialogue they’re editing out loud.

Joshua: Well. Allow me to harrumph for a moment. Pauses….Harrumphs…clears throat. OK, different line of questioning.  The Seventh world Trilogy. Can you quickly sum it up for us?

Rachel: No. But I need to get better at that, so I’ll try. Six Gifted individuals fight to uncover the truth about their world before lies can destroy them all. (That’s really not very good.)

Joshua: You do realize that most people reading this already know what the Seventh World Trilogy is. Probably all the people who had no clue what it is stopped reading this interview right away. So you have nothing to worry about.

Rachel: Well, considering that I’ve spent the last two days introducing it to people, I suppose you’re right. But that doesn’t excuse me–I really DO have to get better at the elevator pitch. Once a guy at a show asked me what my books were about. It was terrible.

Joshua: Let’s pretend that I understand what an “elevator pitch” is, and keep going. Everyone who has read the first two books has their favorite characters, storylines, etc… But let’s talk about how YOU feel about them. This will be slightly offbeat. Hope you don’t mind. First question. If you were going to have a dinner party and invite 5 of your characters, who would they be?

Rachel: To a dinner party? Not Evelyn. And not any of the Earth Brethren. I suspect they’d make a mess.

Joshua: Just answer the question.

Rachel: I’d enjoy eating with the Pravikians: The Ploughman, Libuse, Huss, and maybe Jerome and Maggie. High class, intelligent, world-changing people.

Joshua: Mine would be Nicolas, Marja, Huss, Michael, and Miracle. You have many great characters. But I think I would get along with those ones best.

Rachel: Yeah, but I might worry about some of them at a dinner party. Chances of being invaded by an Order of the Spider hunting party or a big flock of birds would be too high.

Joshua: You have a wide variety of characters. Many many main characters. Is there any character that you really didn’t expect to play a prominent role who just kept on popping up in the story?

Rachel: Marja. And also Harutek.

Joshua: Hold the phone….Harutek hasn’t been very prominent in the first two books. Is this a small piece of insider info on the third book?!

Rachel: It might be :).

Joshua: Swell. Following the same line of questioning: Is there a character who turned out differently than how you planned? Someone who refused to follow the “destiny” you had charted out for them?

Rachel: Well, my characters are generally pretty compliant–they don’t take over much. But most of the main characters took on life in ways I didn’t necessarily expect. The more mature Maggie of the third book is somewhat of a surprise to me, and Virginia has a scene near the end of Coming Day that surprised me.

Joshua: And therein lies a topic of discussion all its own. You just referenced Coming Day. But you’ve been discussing it as The Advent for the past year. I assume this is an official Title Change?

Rachel: It is, though I can’t promise it won’t go through another title change before the book comes out. That is unlikely, though–Coming Day is it unless some flash of absolute brilliance hits before November.

Joshua: So one more question about characters. Is there any character that you despise? As in one who became vital to the plot, but every time they arrive on the scene you think to yourself, “You….How I despise you. I wish I’d killed you off sooner.” I mean this on the character level, not in terms of how you think you’ve written them.

Rachel: No, not really. Some of the bad guys are really nasty, but they’re just so necessary to shape everyone else that I can’t wish them out of the series earlier. Which might be a profound commentary on the realities of life.

Joshua: That leads excellently to my next question. Some of your story is obviously allegorical. How much has been intentional and how much is people just reading into it?

Rachel: Really, the only directly allegorical element in the trilogy is the King — and even he isn’t an exact representation of Christ. But I believe that any really good story will point to all kinds of truth, and I hope the trilogy does that–gives readers lots they can “read in.”

Joshua: So let’s talk Origins. When did you get the idea for this whole story, and did you think of it as a continuing saga from the beginning?

Rachel: The story actually started coming together when I was reading about the first stirrings of the Reformation — in particular about Jan Hus and Jerome in Eastern Europe. Since I have a speculative brain, I transferred elements of that story into a fantasy/sci-fi world and started playing around with them. The original idea was actually much more futuristic. Then, at some point the characters of Maggie, Nicolas, and Virginia took shape, along with Michael and Miracle. Well, by the time I’d written a story for the first three, I realized Michael and Miracle needed a second book,
and that still didn’t really finish things, so the third one was also necessary.

Joshua: As any writer does, you obviously go through several drafts and revisions. Has any storyline turned out EXACTLY how you wanted it from start to finish?

Rachel: I’ve actually been pretty flexible with this series, so the storylines have developed as they’ve gone–there wasn’t really a master plan for any one storyline. But I’m happy with how everything has come together. It wasn’t easy with so many characters and storylines at once!

Joshua: Be as vague as you want, but what is something in this third book that you are most excited for your readers to see?

Rachel: The role of the Darkworlders. I knew when I introduced Rehtse into the story in Burning Light that she’d have to play a bigger role at some point, and she definitely does!

Joshua: Having gotten an advance look at it, I must say I agree with you there. She was my favorite new prominent character. Speaking of which, the Darkworlders were something of a big surprise to me reading Burning Light. I did not expect them to appear. Did you have them in your mind in the beginning or did they surprise you too?

Rachel: They weren’t there from the start–not from the Worlds Unseen start. But once the people of Pravik got underground and started going deeper, I realized something needed to be down there. What was down there was the Darkworld–a society that brings a whole new level of fascination and poignancy to the story.

Joshua: So here is a big question that I’m sure ALL your readers want to know: The Seventh World is vast, and you have MANY characters. They obviously all have stories that you never touch in these books. Is there any hope that you might revisit this world in your next 50 years of authoring?

Rachel: Well … yes. There is always hope ;). I can’t really see ever writing a sequel to the trilogy, but there’s a lot of backstory that could be explored.

Joshua: As a fan of your work myself, I say…”Splendid.” Thanks for doing this!

Rachel: Thank YOU.

Joshua: And I can’t wait for the official release of Coming Day. Unless you change the name again. Then I will “can’t wait” for that!