A note from the author:
I’m writing, and Asymmetric Worlds is publishing, four novels set in late prehistory, which means agriculture and the settled living of humans in villages and towns were new to the world, writing hadn’t yet been invented, monotheism hadn’t yet won its long struggle with polytheism, and civilization and history hadn’t yet begun.
The titles, in order, are: Promised Valley Rebellion, Promised Valley War, Promised Valley Conspiracy, and Promised Valley Peace.
When the stories begin, prehistoric farmers inhabit a fertile river valley they believe their gods promised them in return for their good behavior and obedience. Their enemies, hunters roaming the mostly barren hills beyond the mountains enclosing the valley, believe their gods gave it to them.
Then one farmer who’s just come of age chooses not to kill, with his well-aimed arrow, a young hunter. The young farmer figures out how to cross over the border and “go with” his adversary instead.
Although both of their peoples welcome men who “go with” men, as well as women who wish to live with women, the youthful farmer and hunter are “eternal” enemies who know they’re committing treason every moment they’re together.
The fourPromisedValley novels ask whether civilization and history, with their countless heaven-sanctioned wars and genocides, could’ve begun differently.
The individuals who live, struggle, revel, die, and survive in the novels confront fundamental questions.
How factual are the stories their ancestors handed down to them?
Despite those stories, are they and their enemies equally human and deserving to be treated as such?
Are their prehistoric gods—who appear to be the same deities for the farmers as well as the hunters, even as they exhort both of their supposedly favored peoples to kill the other—truly benevolent gods?
Or do their gods, outside of those ancestral stories that might not be true, simply not exist?
I like to hear from readers of literary, LGBTQ, and historical fiction, as well as persons with an interest in prehistory, at ronfritsch@promisedvalley.com.
Thank you for visiting the Promised Valley website.
Ron Fritsch
