Welcome to the Living Serialisation.
This post is your starting point.
Below you will find some context to get you started:
The Synopsis: The back cover summary that sets the stage.
The Territory: A visual map of the “Three Domains” explored in this journey.
The Navigation: A complete Table of Contents showing the 67 nodes of the journey.
Your Journey Continues:
If you’re subscribed (free), check your inbox every Wednesday for the next stage of the Progress. As each chapter is released, it will also appear as a post in this section.
The Synopsis
The Journey
In a foreign land, the Traveler awakes from dreadful injury and embarks on a quest he doesn’t understand. Magical guides instruct and deceive him as he seeks to answer the greatest question: “Who am I?” His journey to Mountain City enthralls the ten thousand. Can he possibly be what they believe he is?
The Crucible
Based in current-day Pittsburgh, Phil Grimm is a spy, an energy consortium’s secret weapon to crack environmental activist networks. As the nation polarizes and extremism festers, he works undercover, but an older secret defines and divides him.
Lila could be the genuine article or just another protester Phil uses to help his clients stay a step ahead. She creates alternate realities for a living and wants humanity to play, but her impish nature conceals rare wisdom. Can she look beyond Phil’s deceit? What can her game teach us?
Alternative Worlds
We peer into alternative worlds, inspired by great sages – ancient and modern, scientific and spiritual, from Lao Tzu to Einstein. How do these realms relate to Phil’s life, to the Traveler’s, to the dystopian future we glimpse?
The Fall
The bottom falls from Phil’s world. When he loses himself, is there any way back – for him or for them? The Traveler and Lila may hold the keys.
As corporations wage biological warfare, civilization teeters. New leaders step forward to learn, but how do these pioneers serve a crumbling society? When cataclysm rocks the Earth, fragile islands of sanity form. Can anyone arrest the fall or prepare for what follows it?
A New Story
In a story about stories, Phil Grimm’s Progress shows us how to see the plots we inhabit and to explore others. Ultimately, it invites and inspires us to create our own.
The Navigation (Books and Chapters)
Book One - Falls
3 The Man with a Hole in the Middle
6 Message Received
7 Names
8 Philip Grimm
9 Glasses
10 Lao2’s World
11 The Stranger’s Friend
12 Lila Silversmith
13 3ckhart’s World
14 The Man Revisited
15 Dreams of Incompleteness
16 Headwind
17 1ila & Maya’s World
18 The Journal & The Bowl
19 Gathering Storm
20 The Falls
21 5chrödinger’s & 3instein’s Worlds
22 The Falls
Book Two - Mountain
23 Fateful Reunion
24 Natura Egonomica
25 Relation
26 Balance
27 6autama’s World
28 The Maelstrom
29 The Fall
30 War Dance
31 Grandfather Mountain
32 The Laughing Padre
33 Ad7ashanti’s World
34 Ascent
35 Suspended Animation
36 Blind Contract
37 Raman4’s World
38 Mountain City
39 The Jester and the Sovereign
40 8arbour’s World
41 Rebirths
Book Three - Island
42 Confluence
43 The First Dart
44 slumberfo9ey’s world
45 Bête Noir
46 Momentum 233
47 Rain Check
48 The Thing
49 Beacons
50 Ur5ula’s World
51 History, Again
52 Beacons for Human Being
53 Lila’s Island
54 Lao22
55 To Serve
56 DaisyCutter
57 Steel
58 Strike
59 Stone
60 String
61 Story
62 The Dehumanization
63 Suri V. Orter
64 Undivided
65 The River
66 Phil’s Gift
67 Y0ur world
The Territory (Chapters and Locations)
