The Winds of Change

The Winds of Change was planned to be the final book in the sci-fi series that began with The Lesser Evil, and continued with Peaceful Tomorrows, The Game, and All The King’s Men.

Several years of planning went into the story for The Winds of Change. But as of 2018, this book has been cancelled. The Messar Dreams series now officially concludes with the events portrayed in the All The King’s Men anthology.

 

Draft foreword for The Winds of Change

Like most readers, I can name dozens of books (at least) that shaped and influenced my worldview. But the one that had the greatest impact upon The Winds of Change was Isaac Asimov’s first Foundation novel. In this far-distant future universe, Earth and all of its culture has been long-forgotten, blown to dust by the winds of change.

I was a teenager when I first read this book, and it was my first convincing exposure to this notion of impermanence, and it unnerved me greatly. That Aristotle, Shakespeare, Dickens and King had all been forgotten didn’t bode well for my chances to make a lasting mark with my time on earth.

The body is mortal, this I knew… but I’d never considered that legacy was too.

Fiction is the expression of a fantasy that an object can be observed without altering its destiny. That the universe is knowable and finite, and that fate isn’t random. That change is controllable, and therefore legacy is preservable.

But just as with flesh, and dreams, it’s the nature of empires to decay, to transform, and be reborn in a different form. The winds of change blow for us all, and history is a flat circle. What you hold in your hands is the final volume in a series that represents a journey of twenty years and – I now realise – is about the struggle to make permanent change, a lasting legacy, while leaning into the winds of change…