1989 sparked the end of the cold war with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.  It is in this time period that the Darken Realm ® came into being.  Schimschal, having spent years studying the effects of nuclear warfare, ranging from immediate radiolocial effects to extended global consequences such as a nuclear winter, focused his thoughts on the long road after a man made apocalypse.

 

The Darken Realm ® was such a world, existing more than forty generations after a nuclear war.

 

1990 ushered in the further dissolution of the Soviet empire, putting the threat of a full scale nuclear war at the back of everyone's mind, except Schimschal.  His further work began to develop the factions and peoples of the mythological world of the Darken Realm ®.  This time period sparked the formation of many memorable charaters.  Born from this era are potent personalities such as Globulus, Marion Toil, and Guillotine.  The city state of Rasheed as well as the Iron and Reaper Kai empires came into existance.

 

The early 90's filled the Darken Realm ® with a fuel of creative content all its own.  Many of the mutant species found in the current set of fictional novels were imagined in this time period.  Things such as the Malg, Mantis creatures, Jellyslugs, and a host of other abnormal life came into being based upon Schimschal's interest in biology during this time period.

 

Graduating from high school in 1994, Schimschal put the Darken Realm ® on hold for a great many years as he focused on an education.  In 1998, Schimschal graduated college with a degree in Biochemistry.

 

The dream of building an entire fictional universe was still alive.  Promptly after graduating in the winter of 1998, Schimschal set out to craft the first novel in the Darken Realm ® world.  Being trained as a scientist instead of a writer was a great difficulty for Schimschal.  The ideas in his mind were astounding and numerous, almost too numerous.

 

The spring of 1999 brought about the beginning of the Darken Realm ® world.  Not being trained as a writer, Schimschal dove head first into creating a novel.  It took an entire year of work to create an enormous novel, one that was extremely rough around the edges.  For the next two years, query letters were submitted to publishing houses and literary agents alike.  Not a single query letter gained a favorable response.

 

Focusing on building a career in a scientific world, the author of the Darken Realm

® series of novels found a niche in the pharmaceutical industry acting as a technical writer.  Focusing almost exclusively on writing for over an entire year, Schimschal gained the writing experience he needed to make his dream of bringing the Darken Realm ® to print a success.

 

Dusting off the original copy of the novel, the author scowled and found the writing to be crude.  With extensive technical writing experience under his belt, Schimschal set out to do something extremely difficult, completely disregard the entire story previously written and start the entire story over, from scratch.

 

The original story had a sound plot but had too much content for a single novel.  As a result, Schimschal broke the original story down in several, more easily digested portions.  Beginning in January 2002, Schimschal started to remake the entire story over without using even a single sentence from the original story.  The task was daunting, scrapping an entire novel of work and starting over.  By December 2002, The Devil's Utopia was completed.

 

The process of bringing the work to print began once more and the query letter erupted again.  The publishing world was still unprepared for such a piece of fiction so the author withdrew from the rat race of publishing to work on a plan of action.  Focusing on short stories, Schimschal further honed his skills by creating several short pieces of fiction.  The short story process was also frustrating so the author moved back to his original passion: the Darken Realm ®.  Giving The Devil's Utopia a fresh coat of paint with a full edit, the novel was truly ready for market.

 

In the beginning of 2005, Trident Publishing responded to a query letter about The Devil's Utopia.  The company accepted the piece of fiction and the publishing process began.  By June 2005, the first novels rolled off the press and were ready for market.

 

Trident Publishing closed in November 2005, leaving the book homeless.

 

January 2006, Fossil Ridge Books accepted The Devil's Utopia and the second novel in the Darken Realm ® series of books, The Ruins of America.  Finally, this strong series of books has a happy home.

 

The Devil's Utopia was released in April 2006, Ruins of America was released in August 2006, and Iron Messiah was released November 2007.