“The Malicarn. The sixteenth winter in the reign of Queen Hannah. At night the master would invite the journeymen and apprentices to supper with his family, and that is where Buck first heard real tales of the old wars. How there used to be hundreds of wizards, how the old king Prion, himself once just a lowly sheepherder, became the one to unite them against the Dark Mages, how the many men of the Malicarn were called to fight.”
That’s a passage from Thomas Elrod’s debut novel The Franchise. This is a fantasy inside a science fiction story. It begins in a New York publishing house in 1962. A starving first time author Jean-Danton Souard convinces the editor to buy his fantasy, which becomes a bestseller. He writes several more sequels and steadfastly refuses to sell the film rights.
After his death, his son writes more sequels and is convinced to sell the rights. The film set is on an uninhabited island in Portugal. As the producer struggles to come up with new storylines for the series, he uses a government-banned neuroscanner to adjust the actors’ memories and thoughts. It temporarily erases thoughts of their former lives and gives them a fantasy world identity. Fans of the series are eager to have a part in the franchise.
The publicist for the novel asks “What if Game of Thrones was filmed by the producer of The Truman Show, and on some remote island, every battle and betrayal was actually happening?” This is such a thought provoking and imaginative concept for a story. I can see an actual film being made based on this book.
If you’re looking for a well written fantasy/science fiction story, then you must read The Franchise by Thomas Elrod.
