7 major themes I explore in the Renegades Epic
The Renegades Epic is theme-based fiction first, and genre fiction second. That might piss off a few readers, but it’s a niche that needed covered.
I’ll be upfront: You’re getting a dose of libertarian-heavy themes. If you’re the type of reader who believes in maximum liberty with a minimal state, this shared universe will be right up your alley.
And if you’re a statist who won’t see things any differently, then it’s best you leave. Every series I write critiques the State like none other, and it doesn’t stop. Even if the State was the truth and the way, my work would still criticize the State since it requires coercion to exist.
The first two items on this list of themes drive that point home. Let’s dive in.
1 – Life in a stateless society
Briefly touched on in a few series, but I hit hard on it in Wind Wielder. There, society is completely decentralized, where even the military is voluntary. In books like The Arcane Prophecy (not in the Renegades Epic, but it’s worth noting), I keep up this trend, and the same will occur in just about any book series I come up with.
2 – Life in a mass surveillance state
Lots of my works in the Renegades Epic are in mass surveillance states. Heck, the only one that isn’t is my old-world fantasy, Cymraeg Tales. But even in that series, the State is still a brutal entity. As for the characters living in my other series? Their watch phones track their every movement. The Rebellion Awakens is especially notorious.
3 – Culture war
The only war worth fighting as long as you don’t need to physically fight back against anyone. Right now, literature, TV, and film is in the middle of a culture war. So if you’re left wondering why I barely use tokenism or “representation,” it’s because I’m not someone who checks boxes. Even when some so-called “representation” slips by, those characters don’t act in a way the Left would deem appropriate.
4 – When war is justified
Contrary to popular belief, libertarians aren’t pacifists. We just don’t start shit with people by using aggression. A libertarian will fight when necessary, something the late libertarian economist Murray Rothbard justified with the Revolutionary War. He also saw movies like Red Dawn as anti-state.
5 – What is true patriotism
I’m shocked that this even needs to be debated. Patriotism has gone from calling out a strong, central government when it’s in the wrong to putting a hand over your heart and worshiping a cloth because you were told to and shamed (sometimes publicly) if you didn’t. True patriotism is the former, and my books rock that fact.
6 – Revisionist history
Oh yes, we’re getting into this. The history that you learned at your government school or the private school that followed a traditional model was one-sided. Revisionist history offers a simple alternative to what should be a multi-sided debate. And guess what? A lot of my works question their respective worlds’ mainstream historical narratives, and it’s front and center in Tarja Titan.
7 – Status of New Zealand
Yes, the status of good old New Zealand, because it seems like this one’s up for debate. In Tarja Titan, Braden Hawk and Kira Myoi explore this one, with Braden insisting New Zealand is its own continent because of the submerged Zealandia that sits under the Pacific Ocean.
Now, if you ask me, I’ll say that those of us in the English-speaking world should just call Oceania a continent and be done with it. A lot of us say it’s a region, but you can put Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea into that cluster.
But you know what our world doesn’t have? Nine continents, unlike the world of Catenary. Explore it in Book I of the Catenarian Chronicles, Cursed Mage. It’s dark paranormal fantasy, dystopian, and unapologetically theme-driven. Grab it today at The Rebel Lore Vault so Amazon doesn’t get a cut.
