The journey ends. Let’s unpack.

The Title Reveal

The original title for this scene was “A Gramp In The Style,” but I thought it gave away the identity of the unknown breakfast-maker down in the kitchen ¹. Will’s grandfather was the Narrator from my very first imaginings of this story, so it was a personal reward to be there when Will made the connection.

I changed the title to “The Legend Lives On” because it captured the feel of a torch being passed. Will’s family enjoys a wonderful legacy and bears a great responsibility. His journey has prepared him to shoulder that burden — with his grandfather’s help, of course!

When I head back to The Realm the Narrator’s role will shift to Will, which should prove interesting ². I’m not sure our protagonist will ever return to The Realm himself, however, it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. As I’ve said before, the next story will follow Grimby and Fineflin as they investigate threats to the public.

The Point

I’ve watched as bad laws like the DMCA and trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership have sought to give copyright holders more and more control over what people do with the media they purchase. In the digital realm, copyright holders ³ would like everything we purchase to simply be a lifetime license. As it stands right now, much of the digital media we purchase, such as movies and eBooks, are not ours. This might seem like a small trade-off for the sake of convenience, but it erases the possibility of legacy being passed on from one generation to the next. I still have a mass market paperback of The Hobbit, which I purchased in sixth grade. From its pages in introduced my children to Tolkien, and I hope someday it will serve the same role for my grandchildren. That’s a legacy I can pass on. But there is no way for me to transfer a license from my account to the account of a descendant as an inheritance for the next generation. As far as Amazon, Google, Apple, and Barnes & Noble are concerned the licenses I purchase from them are void once I depart this mortal coil.

This lack of legacy, along with the endless amount of remakes being touted as “imagination” in our present culture ⁴, has led me to wonder if imagination has been held hostage. Much like The Realm was under siege.

And that’s the point of the whole book. Imagination needs to be free to wonder and wander, and be available to pass on as a legacy to the next generation. I have no problem with copyright. In fact, when I release In The Land Of The Penny Gnomes as a eBook it will be copyrighted. But I’ll also be taking the shackles off and will release it without DRM ⁵. I want people to share the book, and lend it to friends, and pass it on to their kids. And, I’d love if people who like the book would purchase a copy for themselves. Free speech does not mean “free beer ⁶.” My hope is my public willingness to dream and imagine will encourage others to do the same.

I’m going to be taking a break from Fiction Tuesday as I do some edits to my first two novels while I prepare them for release and map out the follow up stories. Through this process, however, I may write some short-stories featuring some of the denizens of The Realm. After all, we never did see what happened to Oscar.