The Three Worlds
(From Orbit Books Interview 2001)
The setting of the quartet is the Three Worlds Aachan, Tallallame and Santhenar.
All the peoples of the Three Worlds keep the Histories. It is the greatest honour of all to be recorded in the written Histories, and every citizen, great or humble, yearns for this. The apex of the Histories is a series of 22 Great Tales, each made by a Master Chronicler of old.
The Three Worlds are separated by the void, a dark, Darwinian place where the nature of reality is changeable. The void is full of savage creatures, many of them intelligent, and all constantly changing themselves in the struggle for existence. In the void only the fittest survive and the ultimate urge of every creature there is to escape to a world of their own.