John W. Howell asked:

“I would like to know the inspiration for the Bedlam series. I know your fantasy world was inspired by your gaming so what inspired bedlam?”

Crossing Bedlam is fairly new compared to all my other ideas.  It’s a totally different genre, atmosphere, and mentality too.  The funny thing is that it’s been slowly piecing itself together over the last few years.  It didn’t stem from gaming, movies, books, or television.  At least not exactly.

One of the biggest influences is my own growing cynicism.  I’m not always the biggest fan of humanity in general.  We do horrible things to each other for some of the most ridiculous reasons.  So I had that mentality along with seeing a lot of people questioning the United States getting involved in so much overseas.  This part of the post borders on political and I’m betting many have heard the arguments, so I hope I don’t have to go much further than this.  The idea that the United States was pushing its luck with the rest of the world is what birthed the Shattered States.  Well, one theory since I’ve left it open to the reader to decide on the real cause.  Originally, it was the rest of the world teaming up to isolate the USA, but now it’s hinted that it could be external, internal, aliens, fake, and a few other possibilities.

Continue reading here: Where Did the Shattered States Come From?