Xinjiang De Jin

About the Book

Although this is a historical novel composition and therefore staged with fictional characters and/or situations to augment the actual historical story, the basic concept for each segment story, each character and each situation—in the entire 5-volume epoch—is true. Designing an unreal yet realistic site, I sought a solid, mountain-firm site/location to demonstrate these multiple segmented points of view. At the same time, I sought a unique place with near-perfect attributes—a place to expedite the blending of time-sequenced stories from the Dawn, Morning, Mid-Day, Afternoon, Evening and possible night portions of Xinjiang De Jin. One of my favorite authors, James A. Michener, pioneered this segmented, single-site format. He used it in most of his sweeping 20th century sagas. I did not know it then but my search for such a unique landmark had already started—much earlier—at my childhood home in Idaho. There, as depicted from an incident depicted in Book III, i.e., a memory drawn from my grandfather, I discovered I had already chosen a well-established landmark. Coincidently, it emerged from a daily almost unnoticed routine; seeing the sun rise from behind the Teton (Breasts of the Earth) Mountains on the Wyoming skyline. Before realizing it, I had to become aware of how long before then that those mountains had captivated me. Any further question of ‘What to look for’ ended right there. Immediately thereafter, the only remaining inquiry became, ‘Where to look for’.

About the Author