I must admit I’ve been slacking on this blog. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been entirely idle. I’m still working on the clean-up of the Dream Whisperer’s sequel, and I must say I’m quite happy about how it turned out. There are plenty of new characters, and some of them are definitely keepers. There’s also a bit of additional background on familiar characters. That’s the great thing about a series. I get the opportunity to revisit characters and add depth.

I have already revealed earlier on that an essential part of the second story takes place in Berlin. I love Berlin, but — except some neighbourhoods that belonged to East Berlin — a lot of the city as it existed in the 1920s has been wiped out by the Second World War and by the building fury during the Wirtschaftswunder, the German economic miracle, after the war. I had a lot of fun reading up on the post-war Capital of Sin. There’s an abundance of sources — fortunately, I have a good command of German — making it relatively easy to conjure a historically accurate picture of Berlin. I also opened a new can of gods and creatures. The Lovecraftian influences are still there, but I limited them to elements that aren’t as central to the story as they were in Dream Whisperer. I did not want the sequel to be a repeat of the first novel, so it isn’t about another showdown between Fleming and Nyarlathotep. Just saying.

While work on the sequel is drawing to a close, I’m preparing the third book in the series. As I wanted to give some background on the elves leaving Earth, the novel will offer a peek at the diaries of Lady Eiluned, Fleming’s paternal grandmother. But the story will also see Fleming visiting the Middle East — although, at that time, ‘the Middle East’ was not even a thing: The notion did not yet exist.

I am fascinated by the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The Middle-Eastern countries’ borders found their origin in a tug-of-war between Western nations, mainly Great Britain and France, with the Americans as a not entirely selfless arbiter. All of the atrocities in the Middle East after the Second World War up to now find their origins in documents drafted during the First World War — the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Treaty — or in the years right after — the Treaty of Versailles, the San Remo Conference, the Cairo Conference, the Treaty of Lausanne, the Paulet-Newcombe Agreement, to name but a few of them. Both Iraq and Palestine were put under British administration. The French obtained a mandate in Lebanon and Syria.

Looming large over all these discussions were the abundant and yet untapped oil reserves in the region, although neither Britain nor France would openly admit that was the case. On the contrary: British politicians made several high-minded public declarations about oil having no bearing on their perceived mission in the Middle East. It was all about introducing democracy to ‘half-civilised peoples’ that were not yet ready for self-government. Even then, it was apparent to all concerned that the approach followed by Western negotiators would lead to insoluble problems. And still, they went ahead because of oil…

You can imagine that I’ve been reading up on the region and its rich history. The documentation phase is — more or less — finished, and I’ve started writing. I’m approximately forty pages into the story.

Sometimes, I’m being asked whether I have completely mapped out the series. I have not. I know it will end. I even know how and when it will end — at least, I think so now. However, I don’t know how many instalments I’ll need to get there. At this point, I’m not even going to hazard a guess. One of the pleasures of writing is that I get to surprise myself. It happened in the first two novels, and I’m reasonably confident it will also occur in the third. I don’t know what the fourth instalment will bring except that it won’t be the last one.

There you are. Now you know almost as much as I do about the Fleming Chronicles. Keep watching this space.