User:Author Mark David

Mark David is the author of The Elements, a mystery-thriller series still being developed set in the twentieth century in the years 1917-1989.

Mark David set out to write 'The Lord Of The Rings in the real world'. Instead of a world inhabited by Hobbits, The Elements portrays a male-dominated world of spies and a female protagonist considered to be the antithesis of James Bond. Set against a deep time-frame involving the discovery of a hidden past based on archaeological investigations into the Fayoum depression in Egypt, The Elements is noteworthy for the scale of concept and complexity being epic in scale untypical of genre.

About The Elements

The Elements is a historical mystery and conspiracy thriller series set in Scandinavia, Europe and the Middle East near the end of the Cold War. Mark David chose an approach to storymaking that builds layers of complexity and intrigue, each book adding explanations for the previous so the reader of the series embarks on an intricate path of discovery. This path is not only fictive, but historical, the story weaving together as many elements from the real as the fictive one.

This is described by Mark David as a response to ‘wyrd’, the Nordic conception of the web of fate, the web being spun by actions and perceptions, fate changing as people act according to the understanding of how the past, present and future are/can be intertwined. 'Being a web spun by ourselves conditioned by the webs spun by others we are also caught in the predicament created by our own actions.'

Development

Mark David began writing ideas for the series in 2006. He started writing in 2007 and expanded the concept and the series in the years 2007-2014. By the end of 2014 the series had expanded to encompass the prologue He Who Favors Fire and seven books in The Elements series. By 2014 he had developed the series into 8 books crossing the boundaries between the genres historical, mystery-thriller, spy, conspiracy and horror.

The Elements Premise

The Elements is an exploration of time, belief and fate. This is based on archaeological discovery and esoteric doctrine is the common thread linking different people at different times together, linked by chance, circumstance, ideas and actions. The central underlying premise that 'reality' is not absolute. Reality as ‘actions-in-time’ is multi-threaded and determined by those who have gone before us, our actions partly determining our present as we ourselves define the conditions for the future.

The Elements Themes

Each book has a distinct thematic identity mirroring the notion of the classical elements air-earth-fire-water, expanded to encompass earth, darkness, water, mist, mist, air, ice and fire. The series is notable for the depth of research through history, with two parallel timelines progressing from 1917 to the end of the second world war alternating against the fiction-contemporary timeline 1986-1989 at the eve of the end of the cold war.

The Elements Plot

Most books are constructed in plot around the idea of presenting the reader something to understand, so they gain emotional involvement by understanding and identification. The Elements challenges this, by adding layer upon layer of complexity, so no reader will be able to identify the essence of what the elements is about, until all the pieces in the mozaic can be put together. The main plot concerns the protagonists in the 'present' timeframe of 1986-1988 as they struggle to unlock the secrets of the past, in order to explain actions in the present.

 Mark David's Sources of Inspiration 

Mark David is inspired by many different authors as varied as James Clavel, Ian Flemming, James A. Michener and Stieg Larsson, working with mythology and esoteric doctrines to develop different ideaologies for the historical characters.

Links

Mark David's homepage