The Stories of Inertia and Momentum
Okay here goes. You’re going to see a lot of advertising as we move forward around my upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Inertia and Momentum. Some of it may make sense, others won’t at first. But it all comes together, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: this novel is ties my Virtual Wars series even closer to Reality Gradient. Let me explain.
The novel traces two main storylines. The first is Larken’s, of course. She’s been through the ringer a couple of times, only she’s much better positioned this time than she was before. She’s got a thriving if not somewhat rudderless anti-extremist organization, and she’s a little immature still to be completely effective at running it. But she’s doing it, with the help of her android assistant Dandelion Lemaire. The two are inseparable, which becomes something of a plot point in this story arc. It’s not entirely clear if their relationship is reciprocated between the two of them, or if its unbalanced.
The other storyline is about Amanda Briggs. You might remember her from my short story Ms. Barnett’s Favorite I wrote back in 2021 for a Reedsy contest. Yes, her storyline has been bouncing around in my head for three long years. The law which dictates that models (clones) aren’t really citizens is about to be repealed…at least many people think so. That has one important implication for Amanda and her ilk: there has been a stay on Reclamations, the process by which clones are “recycled” and their constituent proteins used to make the next generation (gross). As a result, she is stuck at Emergent Biotechnology headquarters doing time-wasting jobs like clean a hallway that’s not used often enough to actually get dirty. Worse, the executives have their sights on her as the next information, their eyes and ears in the clones’ quarters.
These storylines connect through another character you haven’t yet met, named Angela Brody, the District Attorney of New York City. She’s trying to help resettle the clones, or at least have a plan for when the aforementioned law is overturned. She seeks out Larken’s advice, which unfortunately for Ms. Brody, amounts to “have rich friends.” (If you’ll recall from books 1 and 2, Larken has developed some pretty significant connections with the independently-wealthy Aiden, friend of Harper Rawls). See? It’s all coming together!
So even though Virtual Wars is an entirely different series, there are story elements that flesh out some of what happened in my already-published trilogy, Reality Gradient. The way I see them is as ice cream and cobbler. Either is delicious without the other, but they’re so, so much better when you pile vanilla ice cream onto your piping-hot peach cobbler.
Oh yeah! The tie-in. No, Harper isn’t it. I mean, she does offer a connection, but it’s not the one I was referring to before. The one I was referring to is Amanda’s daughter, and when I say her name, it’ll give away the game—but only if you’ve read my first series! Her name…drum roll please…is not Briggs, but Lothian. Her first name is Aida, and she’s there in all of her neuro-divergent glory! If you don’t know what that means, read (or re-read) Libera, Goddess of Worlds from Reality Gradient.
