Today, I want to introduce you to the place that started it all: Le Vercors.
I don’t usually bore you with talk about my novels, but it so happened that during a recent visit home to my in-laws, we visited the place that set in motion the wheels of creativity which, eventually birthed the Known World, the Continent and the Islands which make up the geopolitical players in my novels.
It was such a thrill to once again take that drive my husband had taken me on twenty four years ago, and feel all over again that sense of destiny about the place.
Here, this is the Plateau des Coulmes, which inspired the city of Rush:
In book one, most of the action happens in Rush. Rush is the capitol of The Cliffs (the denizens of which are called Falaise). It is perched on top of huge cliff. There is a scientific feat called the Ascender, built by a mysterious people called the Maygovi which connects Rush to the rest of the Falaise cities: Capricious Point and Bluffing.
Bluffing is inspired by the strange little French city of Pont en Royans:
The opening scene of the novel, however, happens in a strange, dangerous and mysterious place called the Gorges of Ombili, which were inspired by the Gorges of Bourne in the Vercors:
The people of Ombili live in caves. They are deeply disliked (and, by their reputation, rightly so) by the Falaise, who, in the midst of being occupied by a foreign power, undertake to eradicate them.
That first photo you saw up top? That is the Grottes de Choranche. Whose imagination would not be tickled by seeing those natural chandeliers made of six foot-long tiny little crystal straw limescale fistulous stalactites?
Welcome to the Known World!
Sing With Your Feet 