Greetings, friends and fans!
I’d like to introduce you to the Quantum Series. It’s sci-fi with a dash of fantasy and a pinch of thriller thrown in, set on Deanna, a backwater Terran colony on the fringes of known space – which orbits a star named Ramalama, and has two mad little moons named Ding and Dong (this is a local joke). It just gets progressively more strange from there, but in a good way – and side-splittingly funny.
But there’s also a depth and meaning to it that many wouldn’t expect.
What’s it all about? A cast of recurring characters must overcome diabolical schemes, sinister villains, invading aliens – Human nature – and whatever daunting obstacles they encounter in their adventures together. Quantum fits firmly into the science fiction genre, falling somewhere in the scope of “space opera” and “adventure” sub-genres. It’s also been labeled “transgressive”. Like much of my writing, it’s characterized by my unique (and often strange) sense of humor – but also features elements like time travel and, from time to time, more unexpected items such as vampires.
I wrote this article to share with you a little more information: why I wrote it, how the series came about, and what each of its stories means to me on a personal level.
How did the Quantum series come into being?
The Earliest Beginnings
The very first bit of material I wrote that was later used in this series, was the scene in “Black Sunrise” where Mei was on the recreation deck of the ship carrying her to Deanna, carrying on a conversation with Fred. It was a handwritten sheaf of notepaper that ended up in a file in a drawer. It stayed there from 1998 until some years later when I eventually found a use for it. More than that though, that scene really shaped the heart of what would become the Quantum Series as the rest of that first book sprouted from it.
I’m not sure how I came upon the name for the planet Deanna anymore, but I do know that I used it for the first time in a short story called “The Devils In The Sky” from 1993. I guess that while thinking of a place for Mei to be going on her holiday, the name “Deanna” must’ve popped into my head again, and so it was. (In case anyone is interested in seeing more about Deanna itself, I wrote this informative little article some years ago: “Visit Deanna – Here Is The Address!“.) Fast forward quite a few years later…
A(nother) Series Is Born
Until 2016 I only had one series of novels: the Galaxii Series, which at that time consisted of about 5 titles. Since late 2014 I’d been signed by a small traditional press, and they were supposed to be re-releasing all my books, in sequence, under their sci-fi imprint. Unfortunately, during the more-or-less 2 years I was with them, they had only managed to re-release the first two, and the third was still in its second round of in-house editing when the publisher suddenly experienced a melt-down and fell into a near-fatal identity crisis. Were they a horror publisher, or weren’t they? And if so, where the hell did all these sci-fi and crime novels come from?!
At about May 2016, the publisher decided they were to be a “pure” horror publisher only, and to make a long story short, they canceled their contracts with about a dozen non-horror writers who had signed on with them in good faith – including moi. Not that I minded too much, because I’d grown to detest being treated like a mere low-level employee in the service of a small press with notions above its station, and was quite relieved to get back to indie publishing again. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, because shortly before the bombshell broke, I’d already grown impatient waiting for them to republish my already complete books and was thinking of ways to get around the obstruction.
The solution I came up with was to split the Galaxii series into two: the three titles already with the publisher contained the same groups of characters and would form the basis of the Galaxii series, while the later titles that contained a separate group of characters, shared the same setting, and were also set about a century further into the future than the previous ones, could make up another series of their own. The best part of this plan was that I wouldn’t be in violation of my contract because, as I’d signed the Galaxii series up to the publisher, there had been no mention of any other series. Thus it was that the Quantum Series was born – and it was already indie published by yours truly by the time the publisher’s meltdown happened! It was, in point of fact, for this very reason that I when I found myself cut loose and without a publisher again, that my recovery seemed to follow onto this apparent setback so instantly.
What’s In A Name?
Perhaps I should also add a note here about the name I settled on for this series, and why. Back in the 2000’s a friend and I had, in our conversations – especially about some of my stories, started to jokingly describe situations where characters lost the plot or went crazy etc. as “going quantum”. It was something of a closed joke – one which we also started to apply to each other in funny situations, but it carried over nicely into a series title when I needed it! Hence, the Quantum Series sounded quite appropriate, and so it was.
Flashback: The Stories
Before the series itself was born, the stories themselves that make up the Quantum Series had to be written – and by 2016, there were just four of them: “Black Sunrise“, “The Time Saving Agency“, “Dead Man’s Hammer” and “Loderunner“. Of these, the first three represented my first ever trilogy, although it soon became apparent to me that it wasn’t going to end with three books. Also, since they were still part of the Galaxii Series until 2016, they really didn’t fit very well with the other books (“Blachart” & “Demonspawn“), which were of a more serious, darker, action-oriented tone. Besides, they were generally set on starships in space, not really on one planet all the time. This remained in the back of my mind for the time being however – I would write them, I would finish them, and I’d worry about where they’d fit later.
The first of the “trilogy” was “Black Sunrise”, which set the tone and pace for the rest of its sequels, and later the Quantum series itself, but in speaking about the genesis of this series I really need to address the first three as one entity. The reason for this is because when I started working on “Black Sunrise” in 2005, I sort of went a bit “quantum” myself – I wrote obsessively and worked on this story for something like three months virtually non-stop! What made it seem so surreal was that when I’d got to the finishing stages, it seemed I had some bits of material that really didn’t feel part of the first book, and so I scooped that out and the excess became the foundation for the second tale, “The Time Saving Agency”. Oddly enough, as I was drawing to a close with the second book, the same thing happened – and I separated the material from it that then laid the foundations for “Dead Man’s Hammer”! I actually wrote all three books simultaneously, as I would split my time between them – and by the time it was all done – after just three months, I rubbed my eyes and the first drafts lay there in front of me! I’m sure they were still smoking hot! I had by some miracle, managed to complete THREE novels in as many months! I was frazzled! And immensely impressed too… but mainly frazzled!
Terry Pratchett, one of my icons, had said that “writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves”, and if anything, this was an example of that in action! In the course of working on these stories, I had so much fun! Ideas popped up constantly, and the writing and creativity just flowed! I had found my niche, and I’d found the setting I could indulge my creativity and warped sense of humor in! Of course I’d frequently received strange looks from my co-workers every time I suddenly burst out laughing for no apparent reason while sneaking in a spot of writing at work! In the end though, it was all worth it!
Black Sunrise
Gary Beck on the other hand is the hero type – he’s a rough diamond, but he’s also Mei’s knight in shining armor, and the quintessential ‘good guy’. He’s also kind, witty, intelligent, independent, easy going, open minded and incredibly patient. By the close of the first book, it’s clear that the two are becoming romantically involved. As I’ve said previously, I really don’t write romance, so never fear! “Black Sunrise” is not a romance – rather it’s about Mei: having made it through her troubling transition from male to female – and having lost her job as an agent of the Colonial Intelligence Agency as a result, she’s rewarded herself with a nice holiday – a cruise through the Outblack. The story begins just before her arrival at the planet Deanna, where she’d booked herself a brief stay at a local resort. Unfortunately, her arrival has been incredibly badly timed – a passing alien ship chooses that very night to invade the planet! I had a massive amount of fun writing this story – from before Mei’s arrival, the botched invasion, the comic destruction of the alien ship, Fred getting his medal, the manhunt for the fugitive alien survivor, right through to its satisfying ending where Mei and Gary recognize their feelings for each other. Virtually every scene had me in stitches!
It should go without saying (but it doesn’t, does it?) that one cannot be aware of one’s own divergent sexual orientation or gender identity without becoming aware of any potential resistance to any deviation from the perceived societal gender norm, no matter how passive that opposition might be. That is to say, as soon as I realized who and what I truly was – being transgender, I realized what sort of resistance I was going to meet should I make the move to “come out”. It’s for that reason that I basically remained undercover for as long as I did. Eventually however, I couldn’t do it anymore – I had to be free to be me, and so when I finally did come out in 2000, it was a calculated risk and I already had a fairly good idea of the opposition I would face. I was largely correct, although that doesn’t mean I didn’t experience any trauma in the process – there was plenty of that to go round.
When I was writing “Black Sunrise“, “The Time Saving Agency” and “Dead Man’s Hammer” and using transgender characters in lead or supporting roles, I wrote it for me more than anything else, but I also wrote it as an act of defiance in the face of that opposition and trauma I had experienced. When I wrote about trans characters getting death threats at work or intimidated through threats of violence, it was taken from my own experiences. At the time, writing was my form of activism – writing LGBT characters in positive leading roles.
The Time Saving Agency
I also used the opportunity to explore the dynamics of the relationship between Gary and Mei – a transwoman and a cisgender male during their first few months together, and I feel I did a good job of that. Mei’s friendship with Danielle, another much younger transwoman a fair way into her own journey also comes into play during this tale as well as her reunion with Fred, her Arborian companion from the loderunner that brought her to Deanna. Brad Xyl, the villain in this piece – and his unwitting accomplice, the eccentric quantum physicist Dr. Gleichstein were also quite endearing. I enjoyed writing them, and as much as I relished Xyl’s messy demise, I also enjoyed featuring the slightly mad doctor and his adorable little gray dog Vluffy in another little book project I called “Bang, Splat!” (a children’s story for adults) which I also turned into a 13 minute animated & narrated video in 2018. You can watch it for free on my YouTube channel.
Dead Man’s Hammer
The inspiration for the villain – a very intimidating, beautiful, vain and efficient assassin, the individual responsible for Mei and Peg’s pain, was drawn from someone I knew in real life, and also from the devastating sense of loss I had suffered personally. At the root of this burst of creativity that led to the writing of these three tales at one go, the catalyst if you will, was the mortal wound I carried around with me during those days. Turning to my writing in this instance was a coping mechanism, and it pulled me through one of the darker times of my life. There’s a saying warning people to not mess with an author – they will put you in a book and kill you off – and nothing could be truer!
“Dead Man’s Hammer” to me is a tale where miracles happen – things assumed to be permanent are not always necessarily so, death isn’t always necessarily permanent, and no matter how alone and hopeless you are, there might still be someone watching whom you can’t see who can go back and change things for you on your behalf. While that may sound awfully long-winded and complicated (not to mention wishful) the story itself is a story of friendship, loyalty, paying good things forward, determination, beating impossible odds and so on. Ironing out all the kinks and making it hugely funny in the process was also just one of the many perks of working on this story! Writing truly is the best, most wonderful jobs there are – if only it paid as well to match these other rewards!
Just about the only downside to completing the first three books in so short a time was that by the time I was done with them, I was so emotionally drained and creatively exhausted that I barely wrote another thing for nearly an entire year! I remember what the next thing I wrote was though, incidentally – it was “I, Mac”, a short story I worked on while convalescing after my own gender-affirming surgery in early 2006.
Loderunner
“Loderunner” had started out originally as a board game I’d designed for a friend who wanted something unique to give her son as a Xmas gift. That was around 2006 or so, and although I had the capacity to create the content, printing it and making it real and solid at the time was something of a challenge! Nevertheless, the game and its board were designed and I planned even at that early stage, to write a book using as much of that material as possible. That, and a few other earlier character notes and short scenes I hadn’t found a home for yet, became the foundation of the story in about 2007, when I started working on it.
Over the next few years however, I became comfortable with my new life and less and less affected by dysphoric feelings of not being who I really wanted to be. At the same time though, I also became distracted with other things: from 2008, after witnessing the seething hatred against LGBT people in my own area, I became an activist, and for the next four years I only wrote advocacy material and rose to lead not one, but two South African LGBT activist groups. During this time, my fiction work lay fallow. Finally the inevitable happened, and I realized in mid-2011 that I was reaching burnout. In November 2011 I retired from organized activism and only sometime later I returned to working on my books again. I finished a few books during that time, including “Loderunner” in 2012 or 2013, and I think it was the last book I wrote that my mother read before her death in October 2013.
crew family, and one of his passengers turns out to be the victim of a kidnapping, oh – and the Martian mafia is trying to kill them all to cover it up. Plus, somewhere along the way, Tim’s ship get’s stolen at a local spaceport while they’re out at the pub, and then they have to get it back.
There is still a “trans” angle to this story as Tim’s other half is just figuring out who she is while he is still trying to get to grips with the reality that he met her at a local drag club one night while he was hammered. On top of that, the young abductee being transported unwittingly aboard Tim’s ship, turns out to be trans also, leading to some entertaining situations where the crew pander to young Jaymie’s whims – all while avoiding getting blown up by any Florpavian Flamebirds that might be lurking on the cargo deck, or squashed by red-horned wildebeest tipping over on uneven ground at the spaceport.
I should mention here that writing for me isn’t just a “doing” experience. Yes I create a story in writing it – but it’s also a hugely instructive learning experience. By that I mean I’m not the same writer at the end of the process as I was when I first started working on the story. Every story I write is unique in some way, from how I understand or describe the characters or their backgrounds or situations, to how they interact, to how I describe everything in my writing style and so on. After the overall heaviness of “Dead Man’s Hammer“, I was happy to present “Loderunner” which had the same lighthearted content as the first two books, and one of the happier endings of the entire series.
The World Chaos That Sparked The Next Books
Between books 4 and 5 there was another 3 or 4 year gap while I dealt with my mother’s death and worked on other projects, but it was in December 2016 after that ignominious turnout of the American presidential election that I was inspired to embark on the next phase of the Quantum Series’ path. Looking back at the horrific events that transpired in the US and in the US’s foreign policy under the neo-Nazi idol Donald Trump, culminating in his failed January 6 coup attempt, I still feel justified. We can never have too many warnings about the dangers of right wing demagogues and lunatics rising to governmental power – even if they are incompetent populist buffoons like that particular orange oompa-loompa. It’s not always the well-placed demagogue threatening to rise to power that’s the major issue; it’s the underlying wave of support they stand to enjoy from ordinary people who share this world with the rest of us. This is something I realized as soon as I started this project.
I also wrote another item around this time, called “Waiter, There’s A Bigot In My Soup!“, which was a little book I illustrated myself. Unfortunately I had higher aspirations for that item than just releasing an illustrated book, and wanted to make it into another short film featuring a ho-down of the text sung by some nameless volunteer to accompany the animations. Sadly, I hadn’t the skill or contacts to record such a track myself – and nobody I knew or could find at the time was interested in doing it for free. Lastly, I’d hoped to get it out within the four years of Trump’s first term, or it might lose most of it’s punch and relevance to current affairs. Sadly (again) the video project remains without a soundtrack and it’s been on the back burner for some time. Likewise, in terms of “Prodigal Sun”, I realized also that Trump could likely be out of office already by the time I finished the total run of this anticipated story-arc, but even so I knew it these would remain relevant to one degree or another. Even in 2022, after the US had finally given Trump and the American Nazi Party and KKK the boot, Italy lost the plot and elected a neo-fascist party into power – the first such complete lapse in judgement since Mussolini!
Coming back to “Prodigal Sun” and “High Steaks“, during the dark times of Trump’s rise to power, while he entertained the crazies and schmoozed the haters and pandered to them by signing Executive Orders to undermine LGBT human rights and openly backed petty conservative dictators in other countries, the rising tide of mad, rabid hatred for “the Other” seemed to be here to stay. That made it hard to feel hopeful at the time. Other smaller bigots all around the world and even here in South Africa, emboldened by Trump’s blatancy, stood up on their haunches and began beating their little chests and inciting hate and violence against those they institutionally and traditionally despised.
It never ceases to amaze me that even today when we have the ease of access to information provided by the internet and Google etc. how ignorant many, many people still are. It truly is some kind of feat to achieve that level of blatant, willful stupidity when the knowledge is really so easy to access! It frustrates and terrifies me to no end, knowing how easily such monstrous individuals capable of such life-changing evil could be chosen by a majority of willfully ignorant, somnambulant sheep to lead them into darkness, disaster and utter destruction – and drag the rest of us into their crater behind them. I have no doubts whatsoever that a second term under Trump would’ve resulted in the complete collapse of democratic government in the US (which was already tenuous and semi-farcical to begin with and even more so in its aftermath). With the world’s major power lost to darkness, it wouldn’t have been too long before the rest of the world increasingly embraced the same darkness as well and applied the same rationales as employed by the Nazis and even ordinary Germans prevalent to excuse and justify the Holocaust. Nevertheless, besides warning the world through my writing of the dangers of fascists in power, I also wanted to encourage and give hope to other LGBT people in the face of this global tsunami of bigotry – in the USA and everywhere else.
Prodigal Sun
The premise of “Prodigal Sun” is that for a number of years, a nasty cancer had been growing unobserved at the heart of Deannan society. Slowly and gradually, a right-wing element has been arriving on the 3rd class Terran colony, shadowed in secrecy. Managed by well-placed high society members, and backed by powerful Terran politicians back on Earth, the moles and agents of the Deannan Service League have infiltrated key positions of Deanna’s industry, government, educational facilities, representative bodies and the like, in order to facilitate a seizure of power when the time came. Deanna, they feel, would be the perfect place for them to start their perfect society – free of undesirables. The list of these closely resembles the lists touted by most fascist demagogues in history, of course.
Their opportunity presents itself in the shape of a royal visit by Prince Justin, a lower-tier (but very popular) young member of the Imperial royal family. In the months leading up to the royal visit, the entire Deannan bureaucracy is distracted by arrangements to meet and greet the royal visitor, the welcoming parade, a marching band, security etc. It is the DSL’s moment to strike. After the coup, naturally the fascists crack down on the people of Deanna and begin isolating the population from the rest of the Terran Empire. Propaganda immediately booms from all media on the planet, and with everyone from non-Human aliens to LGBT people being scapegoated for all of Deanna’s ills (both real and manufactured) a lot of people suddenly go into hiding… and Deanna is a big, empty, thinly-populated world.
I admit that in writing this storyline, I felt the terror of the characters facing this tidal-wave of trepidation, and that drove me on still harder to complete it! “Prodigal Sun” was the first such story that I left open at the end, where it would continue directly into the next story, where certain questions would only be answered in “High Steaks”, but by the end of “Prodigal Sun”, there seemed already to be a glimmer of hope for the people of Deanna, even though they were staring the nightmare of a coming civil war dead in the eye.
Further Reading:
High Steaks
Underground Movement
While the new totalitarian rulers of Deanna make the absolute most of their time in charge, they’ve rounded up people they deem “undesirable” and carted them away to a concentration camp called Xanadu, and immediately begin to cement their hold on power.
In the meantime, their sponsors – powerful and wealthy people back on Earth, continue to pour resources into the project. More privately built warships are being sent to Deanna to defend the breakaway colony from the Terran Space Fleet – which is still in the dark about the revolution even taking place! One special ship is sent carrying equipment dedicated to forming a sort of quantum bubble around Deanna’s solar system to isolate it from outside access – which will put them out of reach of the Space Fleet and the Terran Empire forever.
Xanadu
An energy field set up by the fascists now isolated Deanna from the outside universe – and prevented Terran ships from reaching them to unseat the enemy. After having their hands tied by Terran policy for so many generations, the religious right wing had both hands free – and was working on its swing.
On the prairie, Xanadu was a hell-hole where prisoners were locked up and forgotten, without food, water or shelter – where they only way out was a rapid decline and death. And death suited the architects of Xanadu. But it didn’t suit Danielle Grauffis. Caught up in the fascist’s net by pure chance, she’d been sent there to die. She watched as people around her grew weaker from starvation and died from thirst and exposure. But she wasn’t ready to give up yet, she’d do anything to hold out until rescue came. Anything.
Meanwhile, a resistance movement had risen to unseat the fascists, and their challenge was to defeat them militarily – to free Deanna from their yoke, and most importantly, to free the prisoners incarcerated at Xanadu. Before it was too late.
The Last Hurrah
Whoever said ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ had obviously never encountered high-powered energy weapons.
The Deannan Uncivil war was in full swing and the fascists appeared to hold all the aces. All that stood in their way was the Loyalist Militia: a lot of angry locals who wanted their abducted friends and relatives back, didn’t like to be told how to live their lives, and most importantly – could handle a blaster a little.
Among them, were retired military veterans who’d seen action in nearly every Terran military conflict over the last half-century – men and women who’d already tried to forget most of the things the young, well-equipped and smartly drilled fascists had yet to learn for themselves. As well as being the Chair of the Skeggs Valley Dynamite Fishing Club, the elderly General Albert McIntyre-Smythe (recently un-retired) had been put in charge of the Militia on Deanna.
Fortunately, the Militia was not alone in the fight – together with the Vampire Underground – consisting of real, actual vampires – the Resistance, Deanna’s criminal underworld, and the unique loderunner Celeste and its eccentric crew, Deanna stood fairly united against the fascist menace.
Even so, Smythe harbored no doubts that civil war was an ugly business – it was in essence, a family feud with blasters – and there was no question that Deanna wasn’t going to be torn to shreds in the process. The only question left was: could it be put back together again?
There is so much of myself I’ve pored into these books that there’s more than enough entertainment, action, humor and emotion to make up for the serious undertones. It’s always satisfying to watch tyrants fall and villains getting their apt, karmic come-uppance. Karma is a bitch, and she’s very much at work in these books! As a matter of fact, there are sections of each of them that I myself found to be side-splittingly funny even while I was writing them!
There’s also a lot of “moments” in these books, things that are deep and meaningful to me. This is the essence of why I love writing so much, because each project – every individual story – is chock-full of the things that connect us to our humanity and to ourselves. As a friend of mine who was a keen people watcher and student of human nature used to tell me, people are funny animals. They are indeed.
The Future
What will the future hold for the Quantum Series? Will there be more books? I think so. I have started on book ten anyway, so let’s see where it leads!
Changes & Revisions
Given that I finished the first draft of “Black Sunrise” in 2005, and that was 17 years ago now, it stands to reason that there have been some changes since. As a creator I’ve often felt the need to look at certain things from time to time, and then consider ‘well, I could do that a little better this time’. This is particularly true in the case of cosmetic items like book covers – more so than in the case of the actual content. Over the years, as I grew as an indie author, I’ve designed most of my own covers and layouts – and as a result I’ve also often gone back later to improve on what I’d already done previously.
The books of the Quantum Series have undergone several cosmetic makeovers in the meantime, but I’m fairly sure that the current set of covers will probably be the final ones. I may be wrong about that (and it wouldn’t be the first time) but for once I’m finally happy with the ones they have now! Below are a few examples, showing their evolution, oldest to the left, newest to the right:
Reception & Reviews
The Quantum Series received a lot of reviews since it first started, and let me tell you that as a writer, there is nothing like praise from readers and reviewers to make your day! For a long time, “The Time Saving Agency” was my best selling book. Lee Hall, a UK writer and reviewer gave 4 and 5 star reviews for each of the books in the series thus far, some very scintillating reviews – and of the series as a whole he said:
“Overall I have very much enjoyed reading the books in this series. They are fun, quirky, imaginative and their biggest quality is that the style and the way they read is very much accessible to pretty much anyone. I highly recommend the Quantum series to everyone! 5 Stars – Fun and powerful. Have you read the Quantum Series? You should!“
Comments from readers (and even narrators!) have also given me a lot of encouragement over the years, here are a few for the sake of interest:
- “Definitely up there with Terry Pratchett!”
- “I’m a fan for life!“
- “Trying not to laugh when narrating the story is my main problem with the script (not a problem really).“
- “Christina Engela builds her sci-fi universe fast and well. She does not mess about with boring fluffy descriptions.“
- “‘Prodigal Sun’ was a brilliant read. The story is tasteful and humorous in a style that reminds me of Pratchett.“
- “The Quantum Series carries a consistent theme throughout all six of it’s stories; that being inclusion no matter how different one is or where they come from. Whether you are human, alien, plant or anything else in between. No matter your beliefs, non beliefs, orientation or anything else that may set you aside and make you different. Christina Engela’s stories in this series champion that and it’s an important modern cause to stand for in literature. She manages to do and say that without being preachy and while also and importantly telling fun, action packed, sometimes quirky but always enjoyable stories.“
- “I found myself laughing so hard at Landry’s and Smythe’s reactions to Marla, that the section needed to be recorded over again three times because I couldn’t keep a straight face.“
There are plenty more reviews for you to read on my website if you wish to do so.
In Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed my recollection of why I created the Quantum Series, how it came about, and my reminiscences of the stories and what each of them mean to me! I will definitely keep you updated as I progress towards completing future books in the series.
Further Reading:
“Quantum” is on sale at Smashwords in eBook format, and via Amazon in eBook, paperback and hardcover.
