When I first made the transition from the off-world to Hellsborough, I almost died. Luckily, as you may have read, I survived, thanks to a character called Van Hallam. Van, as I have said many times and in many places, is something of an enigma. He is now impossibly old, yet still continues to exist here or hereabouts.

After that, Van became something of a father figure to me (not that I'm sure he appreciates that), and we got to know each other a little bit -- we established a bond of trust, and, to be honest, I'm not sure if it was him or me, but one of us suggested that we should get his experiences catalogued, so that a book could be created based upon his experiences. So that said, the Hellsborough Chronicles are Van's memories of his adventures in The Dark Peak, and my attempt at preserving these memories for future generations to enjoy.

Many years ago, as a youth, Van decided that life in Hellsborough wasn't quite right, and there must be more, so he decided that he would explore what was beyond the Wisewood. What he found was The Dark Peak: The Chronicles are his story, as told by Van, to me Pip Rippon, almost always in a bar on Hellsborough's Middlewood road, and usually under the influence of excessive alcohol and various other narcotic substances.

It is from these chats that I am able to reconstruct a body of information that allows us to understand as much as we do about the xin, the clowns, the nascenti, and the rest of the denizens of The Dark Peak.

When finished, it will be a trilogy; it's currently a work in progress. You can get a more up-to-date version of this document by downloading an eBook in ePub of Kindle format from the library, and please signup for more content and behind the scenes details.

The finished version of Dark Peak: Hellsborough Chronicles Book One, is now available in Kindle format from Amazon.