The prairie

Some landscapes do not feel empty.

They feel observant.

The plains of South Dakota shaped more of The Executor Series than I realized while writing it. Distance behaves differently there. Silence behaves differently. Weather arrives visibly long before it arrives physically. You learn to recognize patterns because the landscape gives you nowhere else to hide your attention.

That stayed with me.

The prairie remembers differently. Near Rapid City, SD

Many of the emotional foundations beneath The Executor’s Discovery emerged from that atmosphere — inheritance, memory, isolation, continuity, and the uneasy realization that some structures remain active long after the people who built them disappear.

The farther you can see, the harder it becomes to ignore what is approaching.

—Thomas