The Archipelago — 8 Preludes

Описание: The Archipelago and aetherius are now published—see links below.

With some 1,000,000 words of brainstorming and some 1,000 hours of combined effort, The Archipelago was the pinnacle of our creative world-building. It was August 2020, and I’d sent a text about an infinitely expanding world to Richard Min, my partner writer. The text back: "yes it has potential". We went from World to Skeleton to Scaffolding to Framework across too many documents to count and a few thousand pages of work.

What became The Archipelago first underwent multiple phases of development:
1. “The Tempest” was originally planned for five volumes
2. “(0, 0)” and the multiverse concept with “Everfrost”
3. The 4D fiasco that I still don’t quite understand
4. The time-reversal idea that remains unnamed
5. “Infinitesimal 1.0” synthesized all ideas
6. “The Archipelago” as it is today
7. The rebirth that never went anywhere

Creativity was both a blessing and a curse. We struggled to limit our imaginations as they wandered far and wide—a tribal elder walking off a cliff, a betrayal reversed across universes, a political scrimmage for what Aurora believed would bring happiness—and the story seemed more and more like The Archipelago itself:

Worlds of worlds, works of words.

Too many worlds, each with infinitely more worlds of ideas; too many words telling too few tales. With many revisions and more hours poured each night in daily discussions, we settled on a plot discussing two young characters as they navigate what could’ve been in their alternate lives once they ascend the archipelago. The world they knew was just one of infinity—a singular point in the Interworld grid, a singular Origin defined by the coordinates (0, 0).

From this came a plot spanning thousands of pages of sketches, ideas, and timelines—many concurrent, nonlinear, and even reversed—as we alternate two points of view.

It would take a million YouTube descriptions to fully capture the years of world-building; but just like how a picture is worth a thousand words, an aural taste of our world is Richard Min’s best attempt to offer a glimpse into the land we’d dreamed.

Although The Archipelago was never released in its original manuscript, it was eventually converted into poems and published in 2021 before being re-issued on August 14, 2023. Sister book aetherius was also published by Richard Min chronicling related events across a similarly transcendental world. If you are interested, I highly encourage you to find more information here:

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• aetherius (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/aetherius-Rich...
• aetherius (Barnes & Noble) — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/aeth...
• The Archipelago (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/Archipelago-Ow...
• The Archipelago (Barnes & Noble) — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...
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As the Interworld’s seas gently lap against each island's fantastical shores, we are proud to present Richard Min’s final 8 Preludes. Welcome to The Archipelago.

00:00 — Premiere

00:22 — The Crystalline — the circular heart of Millenia Karthas

02:07 — The Karthian Coffee Shop — where Aurora sits as she ponders her speech to join the Inner Circle

05:09 — The Kingdom of Locria — the puppet oligarchy that guided Callie’s assassination mission

07:12 — The Etruscan Ridge — a perilous trek in the Origin dividing the three nations

10:10 — The Caves of the Cardifall — the secret Fāeryns’ homeland, shielded in the center of the Cardian Federation

14:18 — The Barren Interworld — the ascended state high above the lightless seas, where the grid flashes and the islands ease

18:57 — The Might of Mount Origin — the spiraling core of every Origin archipelago

23:09 — The Archipelago — infinite copies of the same islands

26:49 — World-building Concept Art

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Attributions: all music is the original work of Richard Min.

Thumbnail: wallpapercave.com/ocean-night-sky-anime-wallpapers
• P1: pixabay.com/videos/ai-generated-city-stars-buildings-189776
• P2: pixabay.com/videos/ai-generated-coffee-tree-leaves-184449
• P3: pixabay.com/videos/cyberpunk-city-night-live-wallpaper-116679, pixabay.com/videos/blade-runner-cyberpunk-style-street-116678, & original footage over Shibuya
• P4: pixabay.com/videos/castle-fantasy-land-surreal-136568 & pixabay.com/videos/ai-generated-gate-wanderer-magic-179358
• P5: pixabay.com/videos/cave-flames-fantasy-rocks-pillars-171066 & pixabay.com/videos/ai-generated-waterfall-stars-sky-193059
• P6: pixabay.com/videos/fantasy-landscape-sky-water-1966 &
pixabay.com/videos/ship-boat-night-sky-stars-galaxy-54829
• P7: original animation on leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Targon?file=Targon_Once_In_A_Lifetime.jpg
• P8: pixabay.com/videos/seashore-waves-sea-nature-172862, pixabay.com/videos/ocean-seashore-dawn-nature-172865, &
pixabay.com/videos/boat-seashore-cliff-nature-172780
~~~