I haven’t entirely committed to the idea that the world presented in the Firebend Chronicles is Earth. If it is, then it’s at least an alternate version of it. Definitely, I’ve written it with lots of familiar ideas and concepts. The people are human. But the time period is a near-future, post-apocalyptic, industrial age, regressed in the sphere of technological advancement to around the turn of the 20th century on Earth.

So, what happened?

Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms are all real phenomena experienced by our planet on a regular basis. I worked for solar physicists for years and got to see some of this research first-hand. It’s cool stuff. But it’s also intimidating and very humbling.

There’s still a lot unknown in the field of space weather. The effects of solar energetic particles on an Earth-like planet, presented in this series, are possible. Similar events have happened (and almost happened) on Earth–the Carrington Event of 1859, the regional power grid outage in Quebec in 1989, the larger-than-Carrington near-disaster that almost happened in July 2012 (for more on that, see this article from NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/).

I use this actual science in the Firebend Chronicles as a mechanism for my fictional apocalypse. I have taken some creative liberty with it. I’ve created a perfect storm, worst-case scenario. While it is scientifically plausible, it should not be taken as fact. My apocalypse has about as much chance of actually happening as any other doomsday event threatening our planet. It makes for a seemingly-innocuous, silently disastrous catastrophe, though, and I like that.

Here are some of the locations mentioned in the series.

Firebend: A sleepy little town deep in the Fringe, Firebend isn’t even large enough to warrant having its own rail station. The climate is dry and dusty, rocky and harsh, and the inhabitants are tough and resilient. Its vital importance lies in the valuable, power-generating mineral that is mined there and used to make pulse-stream guns. It is also a haven for inventors, dreamers, and those looking to start a new life.

​Nythn Thalor: One of the closest dome cities to Firebend. Like most every dome, Nythn Thalor is packed tightly with people, buildings, and soul-crushing, oppressive restriction. It’s stagnant and smoky, with no weather and only a hazy, blurred glimpse of the sky at the best of times. Most everyone is just trying to get by, make a living at whatever they can, and get the most out of the life they’ve been dealt. There’s no room under a dome for hopes, dreams, and innovation.