last updated 15 April 2021
ABOUT THE EASY TOWN BOOK SERIES
The overall story is simple: A town experiment is planned in several stages, the town is built, the town gets into trouble, and some of the main characters mess things up.
But eventually, the town emerges as an intriguing model on all counts: society, economy, environment and governance. And the main characters, well, they go through a lot.
Over the seven years of the story, many questions are asks, ideas are brought to life, a town is built, people move in, the experiment starts, enemies are faced, personal struggles are fought, parties are enjoyed, hangovers nursed, disputes won and lost, disappointments and loss endured, adventures mastered, physical fights fought and injuries suffered, love (well, it does its many things), and sometimes magic enters the story too. And in all this, the desire to explore, to understand, to question, to test is at the centre of the overall story.
Each book of the series, has something of its own character. To give you some examples: book 1 focuses on drafting the town experiment, on ideas coming together. Book 2, focuses on a journey around the world to forward a network for the town project. And it’s more about the different encounters along the way and the personal stories of the main characters. And while book 3 is all about planning the town again, and set in one place, London, the actual focus is on individual struggles some of the characters experience. And book 4 feels much more like a journey again as the town emerges before the readers eyes.
At its core the Easy Town experiment is about being curious, about trying out visions, about exploring and playing around with ideas, testing the limits of the possible, daring to try out the unconventional, questioning the inevitable, allowing for complexity.
book 1, beginning
The book series can be divided into three parts :
Part 1
Book 1-4 – drafting, shaping & building the town experiment. This part covers the start of the story until the beginning of year 3.
[Note: The project officially started on 1 April 2016. Therefore a year in the story always starts on April, 1]
Part 2
Book 5-10 – things get (really) messy and not just for the main characters. This part of the story covers most of year 3 and the first part of year 4.
Part 3
Books 11+12 – wrapping up, with two major adventures in the mix, and a decision which affects more than just the main characters. This part of the story covers the second part of year four, runs close to the end of year 5, skips over most of year six, and re-enters the story with its final chapters at the end of year six.
Published book and work in progress
Book 1: beginning, or drafting a town experiment, was first published in September 2018 and republished in November 2020.
Book 2/1: travelling, and we need to talk about sex, was published in November 2020.
Book 2/2: travelling, and we still need to talk about sex, will be published in May 2021
Book 3, shaping, or it could be so easy, is work in progress
work in progress
