This was started at a time when I was at a bit of a low, a few years after the death of my wife. That event had hit me much harder than I could possibly have imagined, until then I had no idea of the true meaning of the word 'grief'.
I am writing this introduction later, several years after she died, I still feel her loss.
Some of the inspiration for my tale I took from her. That's not to say she behaved anything like the vast majority of my characters, though a few of her finer characteristics do show in some of them, and a little of her background is depicted (albeit somewhat exaggerated!).
Within this introduction I use terms that could be confusing, so:
- Stage: Generally a part started and written as a whole, though many updates and continuations will have been made out of the main writing sequence. As I write this, updates continue to be made;
- Era: Different time periods of the story, possibly separated by several years, similar to Stage;
- Section: A part of the whole (it's too large to show all at once!);
- Chapter: Part within a section, indexed in the side bar under the selected section;
This whole saga is completely fictional, please read the Caveat.
Also, much of what is written consists of pure (impure?) fantasies, I will say that these are imagination, none of them were ever practised, at least by me! Any sense of morality in this work has gone completely out of the window, though good does generally triumph over evil (perhaps depending on your definition of 'good').
While some of the sequences are definitely on (well over?) the risqué side, I've tried not to use what might be referred to as crude language. Swear words and four letter words are used only where appropriate.
If you don't think you'll like it, or start to read it and don't like any of it, please don't read it.
The story was written in stages, the first written was the middle era of the whole, starting in B20C010 (The club), after that the prequel, B10C010 (School). Later still was a continuation, B30C010 (Guest house). Each stage is divided into file sections, simply to keep file sizes manageable. They are all referenced in the file chapters, this shows chapter headings within each file and contains links to the files. Talking of sizes, at the time of writing this introduction there are a total of over 500,000 words.
Because of the way this was written, there are some discontinuities, also some discrepancies. I am still trying to resolve these. If each stage is read independently, I hope these anomalies won't be too distracting.
The first and the middle eras can each be read on their own, the third does rely on at least the middle one for background. None of them have what I would call a proper rounded ending where they all live happily ever after.
Almost all characters are all referred to by their christian names ("given names" if you prefer, I am old fashioned). Not having surnames (all right, "family names") is laziness on my part, no need for me to find and assign them. This does make the way introductions of characters are made in one or two scenes a little awkward or unlikely.
If I have used the name of someone I know, there is absolutely no intention to compare my character with that person. The reality is I know no one like any of them.
All names are unique. The individuals are each summarised in the bibliography, again this was done for my own convenience, though referencing this may help to remind the reader of who is whom.
There are currently something like one hundred and fifty individuals named. Did I mention this was a saga? That wasn't my original intention. Many of the characters are relatively minor, only four of them appear in every section.
Different characters take on different importance in different sections, this is due to the way the story seemed to want to go. This has caused me to do a little back-tracking to shape earlier mentioning of a character to suit a later representation. This also gives rise to some awkwardnesses (for want of a better description), again, I am trying to resolve these.
Some of what I write is impossible, I suppose superhuman or supernatural, but it's how my thoughts took me. I have tried to at least keep these parts consistent, and limited to a very few characters. They are essential for the story. And, maybe, just about believeable.
To summarise these superpowers, and the numbers known to have them:
• Something akin to telepathy including while communicating with each other, feeling the physical pain of the other, also knowing of the death of their parents several thousand miles away (one pair of twins);
• Unnaturally high strength and athletic ability (one pair of twins);
• Ability to know illness and injury in other people by touching them (one pair of twins and one other character);
• Healing by laying on of hands (one pair of twins and one other character);
• Making another person unconscious by touching their forehead (one pair of twins and one other character);
• Making themselves unconscious at will (one pair of twins);
• Knowing the time of day (one pair of twins);
• Entering another person's mind (one character);
Five characters cover all of the above. There are two more characters with some of these powers referenced, but they are not directly involved.
Many of the sections contain images and diagrams. These I put in both to help me with my descriptions and to try to clarify things for the reader. See the Technical notes for further information on these.
As I write this introduction, there are some sections that are unfinished (words such as "Editing" may be found in most cases). Also there are some sections yet to be written.
If there is red text, this is to be replaced, green may be used as a replacement. If there are such replacements remaining, then I'm still considering them.
Hopefully such items will be dealt with in the near future.
There may also be some of my "thinking notes" remaining, I usually erase them only when I am completely sure they are finished with. They may be in one file for use within another, possibly duplicated.
In the original LibreOffice Writer files there are many comments that appear in the sidebar, these I put in to help me keep track of things, they are not intended to be read as part of the story and don't appear in the pdf files created for universal reading.
This was all originally created using LibreOffice, updated to its latest version (currently 25.2), then adapted for viewing from the web site.
Text files were written using LibreOffice Writer (odt files), all diagrams were drawn using LibreOffice Draw (odg files), some charts were created using LibreOffice Calc, as was the bibliography (ods files).
Most images are screen captures from the LibreOffice Draw file. Other images used were taken from the internet, many will be subject to copyright.