Hopepunk: My Lantern in a Dark World

As many of you know, I began this journey without the benefit of any literary education or practice as an author. The taxonomy and evolution of literary genres weren’t topics of interest either. I just waded in and started writing. My love of Fantasy and my D&D experience made the high-level navigation clear. Beyond that, I clung to several ideas I wanted to explore and prove I could do it. More importantly, I needed to confirm if there were others like me out there who would be interested in reading it. The Unexpected Vanguard trilogy is the result, and I can finally put a proper label on it.

The genre always felt polarized to me. Readers either love it or they don’t. There was no in-between. When I thought about this, I wondered if that came down to the large-scale world-building—hundreds of pages of history, politics, complicated magic systems, and excessive scene-setting required for the underlying story to make sense. Did these elements serve as a gatekeeper to the casual reader? Could a story retain enough of the fantastical elements of the genre and remove the barrier of complex background setup before getting to what many non-fantasy folks see as the ‘good stuff’ - plot, characters, setting? If it could be done, would it open those gates and usher in a new audience that often shied away from the genre? I’ve tried to accomplish this by building on a fairly well-known system—the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons—while avoiding the detailed explanations. My thought was that hardcore fans generally know those rules and don’t require the explanation, while the uninitiated would appreciate getting to their ‘good stuff’ without the complex definitions.

The second tenet that I wanted to embrace was the return of the ensemble cast and found family. While these dimensions in fantasy haven’t disappeared by any means, the current trends, which I’m less fond of, have been driving toward single main character stories delivered in the first-person perspective, often with the structured stat blocks and power-ups more common in video games. I yearned for those classic fantasy tales of a group coming together, building a relationship, and tackling a shared problem. The stories of Tolkien and Jordan, Weiss and Hickman. Is it a taller order for a first-time author? Absolutely, but it was the story I wanted to write. Seven diverse main characters, multiple points of view, third person.

This was probably the most important idea I wanted to embrace. Lately, it seems not a single day goes by without the constant erosion of hope for most people, particularly in North America. Layoffs everywhere, rising prices, stagnating wages, the rich getting richer, the elite avoiding accountability, and the promise of a better life for the next generation getting farther out of view. The sense of powerlessness and frustration builds with every morning’s headline.

I didn’t know how to label the work at the time, but I wanted to offer a fantasy escape that could also help restore belief in our collective ability to make a difference. I needed to show that there is still hope for improvement by staying true to who we are as human beings and embracing each other when everything is trying to divide us. We may be unremarkable punks in the world’s current power schema, but refusing to accept seemingly grimdark surroundings and choosing to make the world a better place through kindness and small, courageous choices can have a potentially profound impact.

This is a message I believe many need to hear right now, myself included. When I came across the definition for this fantasy subgenre, I was ecstatic to finally find the definition I had been grasping for since the first words of The Glimmerstone Enigma hit the page.

This is Hopepunk.

Ironically and unintentionally, I try to show the power of humanity with a group of non-humans, but you’ll also notice my characters aren’t very powerful. That one is deliberate, and a big part of the point.

Together, we rise!

Until next time,

Bryn

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire trilogy free to read. If you’d like to support the project, you can [Pledge a Subscription] for the long haul, or send a one-time high-five via [Buy Me a Coffee]. No pressure either way, I’m just glad you’ve come along for the adventure!