The Loved and the Lost (51 page)

What I do want to enlarge upon here is that, with a steady state economy, people could dedicate their whole careers to building places like this. With no corporate, short-term profit motive, many men and women could find it interesting and challenging to recreate the skills of masons, carpenters, weavers, millers, butchers and the other hundreds of other trades in other times, keeping alive these skills of the various ages. And because they would have to interact with young people who came, not as visitors, but to “live” the lives of young people from the past, everyone working in History Camps would also require the skills to work effectively with their charges. It would be incumbent upon them to help instill in each young person the benefits of modernity by showing them what humans had to endure in the past.

Although it's not stated anywhere in
The Verona Trilogy
, my future books will reveal that there are more than fifty History Camps around the 24
^th
-century planet, reflecting many major cultures from every epoch in time.

One of my inspirations for writing this series was the old saying, “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it,” and time travel was a way that I could have my characters see and experience many historical events. However, when I came up with the idea that people would naturally send cameras back in time to watch past events as well, it was a short leap to having whole populations watch them. It would be like us watching video programs on a television or computer screen. Along with History Camps, Mists of Times programs became a way of reinforcing the future population's understanding of history and helping them avoid the mistakes of the past. Of course, I imagined a three-dimensional holographic projection and that's just a lot of fun. But wouldn't it be amazing if something like this could someday be real?

I'm told that English is the language of business, French of diplomacy and Italian of love. The point being, speaking and thinking a particular languages produces a bias in the way we understand the world.

I have some people from the future speaking in verse to show how, in a world where there is a steady-state way of life, although progress happens, it's not at the expense of everything that makes life worth living. People's greatest concerns then are about quality of life, philosophy, family, love, self-awareness and self-improvement. My intention in having someone from the far future speaking in verse is then to show that it's ideas and emotions, the more esoteric things that life, that are important to them.

As well, writing the Arimus character in verse was an enjoyable challenge. I'm thinking that in the next series an elder from the future will speak in blank verse instead of rhyme. I actually planned to have Arimus speak in blank verse, but for some reason he didn't want to. As much as I tried, his speech insisted on coming out as rhyming couplets for the most part. Hey, I'm only the writer and must do what the muse comands.

More post-dystopian futuristic stories from different eras are coming down the pipe in the future. In the meantime, now that you've read this BACK STORY, you may wish to reread
The Verona Trilogy
in full or part. You may see things differently, now that you understand a bit more of the world the characters inhabit.

Next in the series is a book that is tentatively entitled
The Olive
Tree
. It is an adventure that involves a boy, Tammond, from the 24
^th
century A.C.E. (After the Common Era) and a girl, Enheduanna, (Eanna) born almost 5,000 years earlier in the 24
^th
century B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) The girl's father is King Sargon the Great, the first man to rule what could be called an empire. And the mother of the girl? She is a time traveler from the 31
^st
-century A.C.E. Talk about dual citizenship for the girl. Tammond and Eanna also find they have more in common than ties to the future. And who knows. You may even see some of your favorite characters from previous stories making an appearance.

To keep up to date on what's happening with any future stories, updates to the BACK STORY, blogs from myself and comments from readers, you are invited to visit my website at
www.lorykaufman.com
. See you there.

Lory Kaufman lives and works in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His post-dystopian novels and their positive bent come from his interest in environmentalism, sustainability, population studies, history, and wanting to have a serious discussion about the future. Plus, he likes to have a good time.