As a child, local sci-fi/fantasy author Jonathan Weiss liked to make things. He'd spend hours rifling through the family’s Lego collection looking for pieces to build a contraption he hadn’t yet fully visualised. And while there was a certain satisfaction in creating, Jonathan soon discovered that building in the real world came with restrictions.
“The funny thing about that is that I often never really finished building those things,” he said. “There were always limitations about a physical form like that. There were only so many pieces and so much I could do with them.”
It wasn’t until he started writing at age 15 that Jonathan finally found a medium without the restrictions that the physical world imposed. He said, “Despite the story I was writing being the usual flawed work that every writer starts with, I still loved the process of it. The scope, the stakes, everything was limitless, and it was in my control…”
And the scope that he works with now is huge. Jonathan’s action-packed novels are set within The Droughtlands, a setting that has been swirling around in his mind for about 10 years, and that he describes as “a world of endless deserts, buried and forgotten skyscrapers, and the incomprehensible magic hidden within them. On a surface level, just think about it like it's Mad Max with magic”.
He said, “It took me quite a long time to really nail down and define the characteristics of a world that was so intent on escaping definition.”
There are currently five books set in this vast world, with more planned. What’s particularly fun, and a nod once again to the shirking of limits that Jonathan relishes, is that the books can be read in any order. Want to read one book and then follow that with another from a different series set within The Droughtlands? No problem.
There’s even a handy reading guide on Jonathan’s Facebook page, where he sets out which books to read first if you wanted to read them in chronological, publishing or conception order. Kind of like a grown-up version of a choose-your-own-adventure but with hidden easter eggs woven throughout the story.
This jumping between books works because it’s also the way that Jonathan writes them.
“While I would've liked to have finished one series before starting another, that's not how my brain, or how my releasing process, works. Switching between series is how I get time to let ideas brew, come back to sequels nice and fresh, and further flesh out the world without painting myself into a corner.”
Self-publishing has allowed Jonathan control over what he writes and when he writes and releases it. It’s this control which has really enabled the expansion of this world without limits, allowing it to change and grow as Jonathan sees fit.
“The Droughtlands is a unique prospect that I realised was unlikely to be picked up by traditional publishers,” he said.
“Add in to that my writing method of bouncing between series, the worry that a traditional publisher could pull the plug on a series if they felt it wasn’t selling well enough and the inevitable battles that I’d need to fight with editors to keep my vision true to what I want it to be, and it made perfect sense to self-publish.”
It's also allowed him to lean into the science fiction and fantasy aspects of the post-apocalyptic settings, once again when and how he chooses.
"Science fiction asks what could be possible. Fantasy asks what’s impossible," he said. "Even then, I still view the two as one and the same. There’s an old adage about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, and I believe the inverse is also true, and that’s the approach I take to my books."
You can find all the latest on The Droughtlands at Facebook, Instagram and shop for Jonathan's books here. There’s currently 20% off when you purchase all five released novels.