Orobelle, Duchess of Diamonds, is the child holding the multiverse together. This cosmic duty, accorded to her by her mother, was meant to seal her claim to the Queen of Hearts' throne.
Instead, it has only drawn the attention of a foe from a different world, hell-bent on capturing and using Orobelle for their own ends.
Scattered across many universes are eight people who share the burden of safeguarding the foundations of the cosmos. But none of them know this or even realise that more than one world exists: most are simply living their lives, coming to terms with their strange powers and trying to live in spite of them.
When Orobelle's life comes under threat, she goes crossing the boundaries between the universes in search of them. All at once they find themselves pulled into a dooming plot that will soon drag every world into its event horizon.
The Spindles of Spacetime is a genre-bending novel series featuring an LGBT+ cast from all across space and time, from alternate histories to fantasy realms to worlds just like our own. It explores colonialism, power asymmetries, birthrights, intergenerational cruelty—and a simple question: Do you want the universe to exist? Do you want to exist?
Content warning: Themes of war, colonialism, military occupation, death, existentialism, emotional manipulation and parental abuse feature prominently in this story and are described in detail. Various other sensitive themes are present in individual chapters, which will be noted at the starts of the respective chapters. Click here for a full content warning list.
Story Map: While the official publication order is a suitable reading order, there are many interspersed story "routes"—you can read in story route order using the story map.
I’ve never been pleased with “Revolving Door”. It was a working title I came up with in 2012 based on a metaphor that I used to describe the structure of its multiverse back when the story didn’t exist yet. The title doesn’t refer to anything in the story, and it hasn’t done it any favours… Continue reading “Revolving Door” is now “The Spindles of Spacetime”!
Increasingly, I’ve been pondering the ways that my background as a speaker of “outer circle English” has shaped the way I write my characters. They say write what you know, because the authenticity of your voice will show. But at times, I feel like writing Revolving Door has been an exercise in the opposite: in… Continue reading Writing what I don’t know: Language and dialects in Revolving Door
I was just musing on the characters yesterday evening and scribbling them. A bit of commentary on these:
