Start Here!
Welcome to City and Islands by A.A. Meisel
City and Islands (coming soon!) is a story of our own far future. It begins with Tig, least of the least, an orphan hunter-scavenger from the roofs of City, a world-spanning ocean of medieval stone. There he meets Sparrow, a fugitive from the high-walled Islands, where ancient corporations survive as feudal aristocracies — and where Lady Delfina, Sparrow’s young mistress and heir to the highest, is pawn in a battle royal. As their stories converge, they (and we) come to understand the true nature of this seemingly timeless world and its precarious dependence on mysterious technologies of a lost age…
Read it now!
Go straight to Chapter 1 or view the Table of Contents and navigate from there.
What to expect
City and Islands is one long story arc told across multiple seasons in weekly posts. Each season is like a major part of a novel. Each post is like a chapter of 8 or 12 pages. The whole of City and Islands — 7 or 8 seasons of 20 or 30 posts per season — is like a classic SFF trilogy, and in fact, that’s what it is.
So will it ever appear (you ask) in physical form? If enough people are interested, then yes, when each novel is done as a serial, I’ll finalize it and publish as a physical book.
Where to find what
You can read City and Islands under the Story tab. There’s a Table of Contents up front, and you can navigate to any season or chapter from there.
The World tab has additional materials — maps, charts, descriptions of world and characters, outtakes, alternate scenes, maybe some artwork. Some of the basics (like maps) will be visible to everyone. Others are only visible to paid subscribers, as explained below.
Subscriptions
You can subscribe to City and Islands for free. You’ll get a chapter per week in your email inbox. You’ll also get occasional emails with basic content from the World tab. Free subscription content is always available for catch-up under the Story and World tabs.
When you subscribe at $5 per month or $50 per year, you are able to access (almost) all World content and can read ahead 3 chapters under the Story tab.
Founding members get everything that regular paid members get plus special thanks :-) and occasionally some extra World stuff or Notes. If the audience is big enough, I might add more stuff for Founding Members — who knows, maybe a live reading!
A word from the author
I started this book a long time ago, wrote a few chapters, got stuck, and put it in the drawer. A few years ago I found it again, read it, liked it, and saw how to get unstuck. But more than that, the characters who’d gotten out of the drawer didn’t want to go back in again. “We want to live!” they said, as clear as bells. So I have written City and Islands trying to listen to things that want to live, and done my best to write them well and truly. But the final act of creation hasn’t happened yet. Real life begins when the reader reimagines the story and its characters in their own unique way. As the author who has done their part, I can only say, I am so excited to learn what happens!