Each of my books has a special place in my heart. A phase of my life, a facet of my mind, a fascination in literary form. Here are the personal niches of my books:
The Pinnacle Story: My first published book, Jack of East, is the summit of my writing abilities accumulated over the course of high school. It’s written like something targeted towards me: personal philosophy, strategy, brutality, and pessimistic realism that acknowledges the darkness in modern society in subtle ways. Jack lives the life I feel like I lived. But there’s a problem I have with Jack of East; it is, despite its content, a filtered and matured version of the honest depiction of my youth. This is the book that I would have wanted to read as a kid.
The Life I Grew Up In: Before Jack of East, there was Shadow from Thief Kids. This is the story that represents my distilled teenage years. The inner turmoil, the obsession with darkness, the unrequited love, each element spoke to me. I wrote eleven parts to Thief Kids before ever starting Jack of East. It is true to my teen self because I was a teen when I wrote it. The modern book covers the first four parts. The storyline is refined, but its core soul is intact. This is the book to read if you wanted to see the psyche of my youth.
The Realm of Nature: I have always loved nature. I am uniquely sympathetic to animals, especially rodents and rodent-adjacent (small, furry) animals. They’re truly angels. In the Hollow of the White Sycamore shows that passion. The novel honestly wrote itself very quickly. It’s surprising it came out of nowhere and appeared before other stories I’d already written in college, but it felt right. The furresh, the magical squirrels in the novel, appear in other lore of mine. This is the book to read for a nature themed experience.
A Capsule of Teaching: I taught seventh grade students English Language Arts for five years. While an obituary of that is for another time, Dollar Superpowers happened because of it. Particular students of mine and their struggles and jokes manifested in the book. It captures the essence of being a kid in a much more grounded way than the above novels, but it is more potent in its realism. This is the book to read for middle school readers.
A Philosophical Counter to Death Disguised as a Childish Book: The reading level of Floundering of the Floppyfish is only so that any of my students would have been able to read it. The themes of the book are explicitly philosophical. When I wrote the book, I had been heavily inspired by Daoism. Not entirely, though. The entire journey of the fish is a literal journey through Daoist themes of encountering obstacles and loss in life, and how to keep moving. This is the book to read for… actually I’m not sure. For instilling deep ideas into the youth? Something I could be forced to take hemlock for. If you get it.
A Tale as Old as Writing Itself: I wrote The Zad for a creative writing class in college at UNT, but it was an inevitable write. There’s a universe of lore of Stevism that The Zad belongs to. It’s just the first but won’t be the last. But this book is unique in its writing style. It’s not for the cautious. It challenges concepts of honor and worth. It’s a book for thinkers looking for something different, but Zad as a character can be difficult for the uninitiated to sympathize with.
A Stevish World Gone to Ruin: When I was young, I wanted to rule the world. That didn’t happen, but I wrote all about what a Stevish society would be like. Despite my planning, Starry Zarria depicts a world where the Stevish experiment has failed, revealing a corruption in those who are the most powerful. Odd analogy. But because of the inherent Stevish lore, this is a book that only I could make. It is more unique to me as an individual than any of my previous works. Furthermore, Starry Zarria is unique because of how it has changed me going forward. The protagonist Starria ends the story vowing to correct the Great God’s newfound nihilism. She, and now I, will champion the glory of creation and the shared humanity of will.
Ladesequme: The book is in its final editing phases. It is arguably my best, most thematically and structurally whole and complete book. Look forward to it. It is a celebration of history, a guide for rulers, and a case study of the value of existence.
No book of mine is made to solve boredom, or as a fanfiction, or for money. Each one is a brick in the tower I am, each representing me, each building me. This is what my books mean to me.
Stephen Knudsen 