A Will to Power – Episode 19

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 13:00:00 GMT

"You paying for the story on top of the body?"

The Colonel wakes to Caroline’s dream of power over him and his men, the war chief and what lays ahead.

A Will to Power - Episode 18

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 02:00:00 GMT

"Keep Your Pain Inside, Like the Rest of Us."

Sherriff John Newman is now Caroline’s prisoner. The war chief is wary but agrees to Caroline’s plan because time is running out.

A Will to Power - Episode 17

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 18:30:00 GMT

"She's Dead...You Left Her for Dead."

Sheriff John Newman and Caroline are reunited in a way that they neither expected or know how to get out of.

A Will to Power - Episode 16

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 23:00:00 GMT

I Want to Hunt Men. The time to leave has come. Caroline will not hide and slip away quietly. She will not run. She will march south among a column of warriors.

A Will to Power - Episode 15

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

"The Girl Whose One Hand was Painted in Venom, the Other, a Rattle."

Caroline surpasses all men and beasts in the field.

A Will to Power - Episode 14

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

"Walking as a Woman, Becoming Once Again, an Animal." Caroline’s adopted father delivers her to the healer and provides a path for her to grow into whomever she chooses to become. He would track her down, not to save her but to watch her, like the spectator of a beautiful sport and smiled, knowing she was integrated with the world around her and had surpassed him in the way of hunting beasts.

A Will to Power - Episode 13

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

"Although It Was Not Perfect, It Was a Plan."

Caroline has learned enough about her captors and her environment to plan her escape back into the sea of grass and to the south. She needs provisions and a horse and time, none of which is easy.

A Will to Power - Episode 12

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:15:00 GMT

"And Then Twitched in Vain."

Caroline wakes up in a new world. She doesn’t know where she is and doesn’t understand the language. To some degree she is welcomed but she cannot leave so she turns her mind to observing everything and learning as much as possible.

Seamus’ Notes:
The setting of episodes 11-15 is based on Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle and Caroline’s experiences are drawn from writings about the experiences of native American captives in central Texas in the mid 1800’s. I tried to combine that geologic setting, which is hundreds of millions of years old, with enduring human behavior to create a reasonable projection of what Caroline’s experience would be like.

A Will to Power - Episode 11

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

Swallowed by a Sea of Grass.

A Will to Pleasure - Episode 10

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:00:00 GMT

We're playing for time.

A Will to Pleasure - Episode 9

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"You Can Focus on the Pain or You Can Have Fun with It." Sheriff John Newman murders a man, Caroline defends herself in a powerful way, and the Ice House is finished. The Colonel is having fun with all of it.

A Will to Pleasure - Episode 8

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT

"Some Illusion of You Being in Control." Jack's dead but the card game is still gonna happen and the Colonel is intent on having it at the Ice House.

A Will to Pleasure - Episode 7

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"Let's Hear that Story Again Jack." Jack Spade’s wild story didn’t impress the Colonel, it confused him. Why would a man create a story, a lie, bigger than what could be true and tell it to a man such as the Colonel?

A Will to Pleasure - Episode 6

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"A Reasonable Tax for a Desirable State of Mind." His philosophy was that of pleasure. He believed all humans instinctively sought pleasure, to satisfy their most primordial needs, and avoided pain so he held an ongoing parade and levied taxes on as far away as the Mexican lands to the south and Appalachian Empire to the east.

A Will to Meaning - Episode 5

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"You Can't Let Them Take Everything."

Sheriff John Newman has no good options but he’s still got to choose one.

A Will to Meaning - Episode 4

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"He's Got You Running Around."

The Hill Country has been in continual change from the dinosaurs and volcanic eruptions to the Garden of Eden that lasted for over ten thousand years before the fall. The sheriff had come to believe that this land, maybe more than others, was made for change, and that holding onto the past, good or bad, was a foolish notion.

A Will to Meaning - Episode 3

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"Still Answer When the Devil Calls My Name."

The Colonel left the Appalachian mountains to fight in the Sino-Asian War. He came to the Hill Country and created his domain, when he saw the end coming. Confronting the Colonel is Sheriff John Newman’s last option.

A Will to Meaning - Episode 2

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:00:00 GMT

"Don't Care Why He Wants to Kill Jack Spade."

The New West is just one of the five civilized nations of what was the United States. In the Hill Country of Texas, Sheriff John Newman needs to stop a murder before it happens and help the young girl Caroline start a new life.

A Will to Meaning - Episode 1

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:51:27 GMT

"I Can't Do It Anymore John..."

The New West pushes everyone to their own edges, borders, limits. The year is 2083. The global population has been decimated by the final flu. The United States – not united for a long time – is no more. 

Behind the Show:

What changes and what never does. We know the past, we experience the present, and we assume the future is a straight line of progress.

What if it isn’t?

Look at the recurring cycles of nature, enduring human nature, politics and society. We’re up, we’re down and our future might be more like our past than we expect. Although we’re obsessed with technology and materialism and see ourselves as better than those who came before us, perhaps no advancement can outpace the human nature from which it was born and we, as a whole, are Icarus. 

These are ideas I wanted to explore and then imagine a potential future in the New West series. This potential future is populated by survivors, people just like you and me, with our same traditions, same geography, and similar fears and desires. In creating this future world I relied on the present and the past in the forms of nature, human nature, history and first hand experience. 

Nature. The Texas Hill Country, an area of certain beauty which, I am certain, was a Garden of Eden to the earliest human settlers who came some 8,000 years ago. There is no substitute for immersing yourself in it, learning the birds and insects, plants and trees, types of rocks and how they formed and what they're good for, tracking deer and pigs, hunting with a bow, sitting in trees for hours until you can tell birds apart by the distinct sounds their wings make as they push through the air.

Human Nature. Freud told us that we are driven by and that our will to live is fueled by what he called the Pleasure Principle, known also as the "Will to Pleasure.” He said humans will do anything to avoid pain and find pleasure. Conversely, Nietzsche told us that obtaining power and dominating others is our driving life force. He called it a “Will to Power.” Frankl countered both in saying that it was a drive to find meaning in life that leads to the most enduring existence, “A Will to Meaning.”

History. The setting of the New West is a world without technology and little law, endless space and few people, most of whom are struggling to survive. That description could be applied to the Hill Country of Texas in the 1850’s so I dove into historical accounts of what life was like. Many historical news articles and books as varied as Three Years Among the Comanches: The Narrative of Nelson Lee, Texas Ranger, Captured: A True Story of Abduction on the Texas Frontier, and the epic Empire of the Summer Moon informed both broad strokes and details of the Hill Country while Colin Woodard's American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America was my jumping off point for forming the five nations that once comprised the United States. I say jumping off point because Woodard's investigation of what got us to where we are today – beliefs, norms, rivalries – is just the beginning of understanding our great country.

First Hand Experience. Nothing can replace being in the places you write about. Every setting in Hill Country is based on a real one, and I have been to every one of them – hiking, hunting, studying, learning and loading up the truck for road trips.

Thank you for reading this far. I wanted to explain the thinking and curiosity behind New West so it was clear that this fiction was not made up of whole cloth. The natural world of the New West is much like the old west. The people and the decisions they make are much like people we know. The societal pressures and culture are informed by our own – in its present form and the past from which it evolved.

In the end, if Sheriff John Newman, the Colonel and Caroline do live in a future without technology in the natural wilds of the Hill Country, this is exactly how it might go.

New West – Hill Country Trailer

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 05:00:00 GMT

The year is 2083. The global population has been decimated by the final flu. The United States – not united for a long time – is no more. New lines have been drawn. Five civilized nations stand – deeply divided by beliefs in freedom, liberty, God and self-reliance. 

The story begins in one nation, the New West, which is much like the Old West. The heart of the wild Comanche empire, turned thriving Texas Hill Country, turned desolate and violent and ruthless once more. A harsh landscape and a society without technology, laws or base human agreements to guide us.

Here in the New West, three lives intertwine in a quest for meaning, pleasure and power, and the youngest – an orphan girl – defies her circumstances and fearlessly cuts a path forward.