For years I’ve written nonfiction about why numbers keep secrets. The Number Country asks a different question: what if you could walk there?
The idea
The Number Country is a portal fantasy where the number line is a real place. Its cities are locked, and each one has a number posted in its public parks for anyone to read. Nobody remembers why. The number is public, but what it hides is not, and people pass rumors about it in whispers.
The series follows a trail of secrets. Each one opens onto the next, and each answer turns into a harder question. The first lock is small, a three-digit mystery. The locks get harder from there, and the only way home is a number much larger than any of them.
What it’s really about
Under the adventure is a question I care about: why does keeping a secret matter at all? There’s a villain who wants to break the system so that nobody can keep a secret except him and the people he chooses. Along the way, the hero comes to understand how the system actually works and has to decide whose side to be on: the keepers, or the people the secrets protect.
If you’ve read The Wall at Two or The Real Gatekeeper, you’ll recognize the walls, towers, and tolls. Here they’re streets and bridges. You don’t need any math to follow the story. It’s written for adult readers who like a mystery with real structure underneath.
Ten books, one arc
The first arc runs ten books, from Forward Only through The Ceiling, The Mirror Abacus, The Sideways Country, The Ring of N, The Wander, The Dial, The Log Bridge and The Hoard, to The Tower Nobody Built. A second arc is already planned. Every cover is one of my own paintings.
Read it or watch it
Books One and Two are on Amazon now, and the rest are on the way. I’m also making free scrolling-text read-alongs on YouTube, so you can follow the text as it’s narrated.
Book One, Forward Only: Amazon · free read-along
Book Two, The Ceiling: Amazon · free read-along
All the books: the Books page
