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(Preview) by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart June 2022 |
The final volume in the New York Times–bestselling, award-winning steampunk trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson and legendary Rush drummer Neil Peart
In Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, readers met the optimistic young hero Owen Hardy, as well as the more reluctant adventurer Marinda Peake, in an amazing world of airships and alchemy, fantastic carnivals and lost cities. Now Owen Hardy, retired and content in his quiet, perfect life with the beautiful Francesca, is pulled into one last adventure with his eager grandson Alain. This final mission for the Watchmaker will take them up to the frozen lands of Ultima Thule and the ends of the Earth. Marinda Peake must undertake a mission of her own, not only to compile the true life story of the mysterious Watchmaker, but also to stop a deadly new group of anarchists.
The Clockwork trilogy is based on the story and lyrics from the last album of musical titans Rush, with Anderson and Peart expanding the world, stories, and characters. The two developed the final novel in the trilogy in the last years of Peart’s life, and more than a year after his passing, Anderson returned to that unfinished project, with the full support of Peart’s wife, bringing Owen and Marinda’s stories to a satisfying and stirring conclusion.
Contents
Dedication Epigraph
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapters 3 through 47
Afterword: The Measure of a Life About the Authors Copyright
—The Watchmaker
The Watchmaker was dying, and nobody knew.
In his office high above Chronos Square, the bookshelves groaned with
the weight of thick, nearly identical volumes, each one a collector’s edition,
but flawed. Only so much dead weight now.
Synchronized clocks covered his walls, ticking a resonant lullaby,
accompanied by the ratcheting click-clack of the big gears as the ponderous
pendulum of the Watchtower’s great clock swung back and forth.
“It is time for you to tell my story, Marinda Peake.” Though raspy, his
voice carried the weight of authority. “For two-and-a-half centuries of my
Stability, the hours have been ticking away.” Like a gear on an axle, the
Watchmaker swiveled to face her with a serious expression. “Tick-tock.”
Marinda studied the lines on his face, his sunken cheeks, the immense age
and wisdom that shone through a hint of blue coldfire in his eyes. She sensed
something different from the other times he had brought her into his office in
the past.
The Watchmaker stepped away from his crowded bookshelves and paced
back and forth, back and forth, like one of his Regulators patrolling the
streets of the city. “For so long I measured my life by the fear and respect I
inspired. After a few lifetimes of contemplation, I wonder if honesty might be
a better measurement.”
As his guest — and she would never dare to refuse the Watchmaker’s
summons — Marinda sat in an overstuffed, leather-upholstered chair that
reminded her of a throne for readers. The first time she had come to his office, many years ago, young Marinda had been determined to learn the true
history of her father, Arlen Peake. Now, decades later, the Watchmaker knew
more about her, and perhaps he also felt awkward to realize the dangerous
things Marinda knew about him.
While other citizens of Albion would have been awestruck in his
presence, Marinda was more sanguine. “After all this time, you want me to
write your biography?” Such a daunting task should never have been put off
for so long. She leaned forward in the chair, too old to waste time on
timidness and tact. “You could have given me your complete story decades
ago with a drop of blood in my volume of Clockwork Lives, but when I asked
for it, you sent me away across the sea.” She paused, then added in an acerbic
voice, “Maybe even the Watchmaker makes mistakes.”
He said, “All is for the best.”
Marinda had experienced many hard years, and time had taken its toll, but
she wouldn’t have changed a moment of her life. Without a hint of rancor,
she answered, “Yes, all is for the best.”
And it was. Though some adventures had been difficult or nerve-racking
at the time, they enriched her life. And she had found true love with Hender,
her husband, who gave Marinda her happiest and most exciting years.
She considered the task of being a biographer. “But Clockwork Lives is
full now. I’ve compiled other stories over the years, but I was never able to
recreate my father’s alchemical book. He took many of his secrets to his
grave — most of them, in fact.” She tapped her fingers on the arm of the
leather chair. “If I agree to chronicle your story, are you willing to tell the
truth?”
“Ah, the truth,” the Watchmaker mused. “The truth is indeed a vital part
of any story.”
After studying the volumes on his shelf, he plucked the last tome on the
left and carried it over to Marinda’s seat. “This would be a good place to start: The Watchmaker’s Official Autobiography, the final edition from six
months ago when I stopped revising them.”
She made no move to take it. “Rubbish. If that’s the story you want to
tell, then you don’t need my help. Why did you really bring me here?”
The wall of clocks emitted a sing-song cacophony of dings, bells, and
whistles that interrupted their conversation. A resounding chime rang out
from the top of the tower.
“It is 11:45 in the morning, Miss Marinda,” said the tinny voice of her
mechanical companion, who stood beside the chair. “Would you like me to
remind you at noon, so we can plan for lunch?”
Marinda smiled at the endearing contraption that had been her comrade
for so much of her life. Her father had invented three clockwork Regulators
back in Lugtown, but only Zivo remained. Barely four feet tall, Zivo had a
central casing for the coldfire motivator, steel limbs with pulleys and cables
instead of muscles, and an oblong copper sphere for his head on which eyes
had been painted. A screen mesh for a mouth emitted the artificial voice.
Though he had previously worn a red uniform, now Zivo was dressed in an
oft-patched Black Watch jacket and tricorne hat. A stubby toy sword hung at
his side, though he had never had an opportunity to use it. The blade looked
more like a letter opener than a deadly weapon. A tiny snort of steam came
from his exhaust port as he waited for her answer.
“That won’t be necessary, Zivo.” She glanced up at the ancient man who
stood nearby. “The Watchmaker will provide everything we need.”
With painstaking care, the Watchmaker bent down before the clockwork
Regulator. “A deceptively simple yet marvelous device. I am amazed it still
functions after all these decades. My own clockwork Dalmatian long ago
wore down to a few gears, pulleys, and bits of fur. Ah, poor Martin . . .”
“My father built the clockwork Regulators to last,” Marinda said, “but
Zivo is cobbled together with parts from the other two. Woody and Lee both ran down years ago. Even combined, only the tiniest spark of quintessence
remained, and it was barely enough to animate the one.”
The Watchmaker straightened. “On your last visit to my tower — how
many years ago was it? — I offered you the help of my best engineers to keep
your mechanisms going.”
“Oh, I did fine on my own. There’s a part of my father in me after all.”
She felt defensive, then lowered her voice. “And I’ve learned that there is a
price to pay for the Watchmaker’s free benevolence.”
He was not offended by her effrontery; rather he seemed to find it
refreshing. “Indeed.”
In her travels as she gathered stories, Marinda had crossed paths with the
Watchmaker multiple times. She was an old woman now, and he carried
more years than any other human being. He had always appeared ageless, but
this time, he was actually showing signs of his immense age. The
Watchmaker looked weary, partly cynical and partly used up.
When she’d come into Crown City, called out of retirement, she had
noticed unexpected flaws, the delays in steamliner traffic, the rundown
buildings, the concerned expressions on people who had previously shown
only confidence in the Stability.
She learned that the loving Watchmaker had not made a formal
appearance out in the city for at least a year, and the only official
pronouncement he’d given was to tell the people that “all is for the best.”
Even his Clockwork Angels, who would emerge from the top of the
Watchtower so the crowds could behold them, had been silent for weeks.
“Why do you want it written now?” she asked. “After all this time.”
“Because it is important for the people to be prepared. They must realize
that I am not permanent, nor am I infallible. Someday, they will have to live
for themselves.”
Though puzzled, Marinda respected him for admitting this. “The world seems to be a more uncertain place these days. I heard about the accident on
the coast — a cargo steamer from Atlantis driven up on the rocks. Its hull split
open, spilling volatile powders and chemicals into the sea, triggering
runaway reactions. I hear there were explosions, colored smoke filling the
sky. The ocean boiled red, and dozens died. A disaster.”
The Watchmaker remained unruffled. “An occasional disaster makes us
appreciate calm normality.”
“Was it the Wreckers?” Marinda asked. “Have they returned to prey upon
helpless cargo ships? Or was it the Anarchist?”
He snorted. “The Wreckers are long gone, as is the Anarchist. Don’t
ascribe to bad intent what can be explained by mere bad luck. All gears wear
out. All clocks wind down.”
The Watchmaker reshelved the thick volume of his official
autobiography. “These previous stories are sanitized and exaggerated, to
serve a purpose. But perhaps the greatest tale is, in fact, the real one, the
whole story. There may not be much time.”
“Not much time?” Shifting in the leather chair, she paid closer attention.
“What do you mean?”
“Have I done what I needed to do? Will the world go on without a
Watchmaker? Has the Stability made them forget how to run their own lives?
Tick-tock.”
A heavy, unnatural silence crashed down in the office — a stutter of
peculiar quiet behind the myriad ticking clocks on the wall. Marinda realized
that the loud syncopating click-clack of the tower’s main clock had gone silent.
A ripple of fear crossed the Watchmaker’s ancient face. “The clock,” he
said under his breath. “My clock!”
Moving with unexpected speed, he lurched to his back office doorway,
which opened to a steep set of steps leading upward.
Marinda pushed herself out of the leather chair, and she and Zivo hurried
after him. Climbing to one landing after another, she felt the protestations of
her muscles, but also the urgency. The mechanical man did his valiant best to
clatter after her, steam rising from his enclosed boiler.
She was out of breath by the time she reached the cavernous gear room at
the top of the tower, where the big steel wheels drove the clock hands. But
the gears had seized up.
From the apex of the tower, the pendulum hung down several stories to
swing in perfect rhythm, hour after hour, year after year, no doubt century
after century. And now it had gone still.
Already clockkeeper experts in red overalls rushed into the gear chamber
carrying toolboxes, monkey wrenches, heavy prybars, and delicate calipers.
They spoke in low voices that held a rising tide of panic. Wielding their
wrenches and levers, they pulled on the clockwork gears. One hammered on
the iron catch, trying to disengage it from the gear tooth. A young man with a
determined frown leaped onto the pendulum, using his full weight and
momentum to nudge it into motion.
When the red-suited workers saw that the Watchmaker had arrived,
another wash of alarm crossed their expressions. But he didn’t yell, did not
ask for explanations, simply said, “Fix it.”
Across the room, Marinda saw four closed alcoves that faced out onto
Chronos Square, two on each side of the great clock face. She knew they held
the towering white Angels, sealed away now. Her father had been locked in
this tower room, forced to work for the Watchmaker, trying to fix them. . . .
With a clatter of rhythmic footsteps, Zivo finally reached the gear
chamber and stood at attention. “May I help, Miss Marinda? I have an
understanding of gears.”
“This is beyond either of us, Zivo.”
From outside in the square below came a rising murmur of unease as the crowds realized that the clock had stopped.
A mustachioed clockkeeper shoved against the pendulum and the youth
who dangled from the stem, his arms and legs wrapped around it. Together,
they threw more weight into the effort, and finally the seized gears began to
groan and turn. The pendulum reached the end of its arc with the boy riding
it, then swung back. The iron catch released to let the gear turn, then clamped
down on the next tooth, advancing time by one more second.
Unable to hold on any longer, the young man sprang from the pendulum
stem and landed on the floorboards. The crew of clockkeepers were giddy
with relief, but terrified.
The Watchmaker remained stern, but he did not respond with anger.
“When the clock stopped, we lost several minutes. Time once lost can’t be
regained.”
The eager boy stood before him, his face flushed. “I’m nimble enough,
Mr. Watchmaker, sir. I’ll climb out onto the clock face. I can adjust the big
hand, pull it into place.”
A distant smile came to the Watchmaker’s papery lips, and the glow
brightened behind his eyes. “You have all the time in the world, young man.
Go correct the error and get us those few minutes back.”
The boy sprang to the access window just behind the enormous clock
face. Taking no rope and no tools, he scrambled out onto the big round face.
Keeping a precarious balance with the toes of his shoes on the prominent
numbers, he was able to reach the long hands that stood so close to noon.
Marinda observed the boy’s silhouette from behind the colored clock face
and marveled at his liveliness. From her perspective, it was a strange shadowpuppet
show, and she feared the young man would fall at any moment. He
reached the minute hand, wrapped his hands around it, and pushed with all
his might as he kept his balance. He tugged, strained, and finally the clock
hand moved. Time was reset.
The boy scrambled back down the now-moving hands and swung himself
into the gear chamber. “All is in order now, sir.” He seemed unaware of the
peril he had just faced, young enough to think he was immortal.
“Yes, thanks to you.” The Watchmaker gave him a paternal smile. “All is
for the best.”
The boy looked as if he had just received a chest full of the
Watchmaker’s gold.
The ancient man turned about to face Marinda. “We cannot so easily buy
back time, though. Follow me, Marinda Peake. I have more for you to do, an
interim task.”
After they returned to his office, the Watchmaker seemed to become a
different person, as if the gears of life inside him had reset themselves.
Shaken by the unexpected breakdown of the legendary clock, Marinda
asked, “What is it you need from me, sir?”
“I learned much from my destiny calculators, and we are running out of
time. Tick-tock. This is the real reason I called you here.”
He took a seat behind his large desk. “The greatest treasure, the greatest
weapon, and the greatest hope may come from the most unlikely of places.”
He folded his hands together. “Before you begin my biography, I need you to
go to the carnie camp. I have sent numerous messages but received no
response at all, and if I dispatched an army of my Regulators, that would
entirely defeat the purpose. But you have a different rapport, Marinda Peake.
You can speak to him, convince him to come.”
Marinda was puzzled. “Who?”
The Watchmaker had a strangely urgent look in his eyes. “Find Owen
Hardy — and bring him here.”
“I’m not napping — I’m dreaming,” Owen said, cracking open one eye. “And
dreaming is hard work with important consequences.”
He saw the woman of his dreams in the afternoon sunshine, so he decided
he might as well be awake. He lay on the soft grass, with his head propped
against the trunk of an apple tree, and nibbled a blade of grass. Francesca
stood over him, resilient like a willow tree. Her long raven hair, bound by a
red scarf, was more steel gray than black now, but she still looked as
beautiful to him as when he’d first met her nearly fifty years ago.
“Maybe you should start dreaming about getting those pumpkins to the
cottage. We have preparations to make.” She could not hide her smile. “The
carnival is due to come home today.”
“As I well know.” He pulled the grass blade out of his mouth and sprang
to his feet to remind himself — and more importantly to remind Francesca — that he was much too limber to be old. He swept her up in a kiss, which she
reciprocated, while expertly maneuvering him toward the pumpkins she had
cut from the dying vines.
The corn had been harvested, and the shocks stood dry and brown like
half-folded tents. The apple orchard was picked clean, bushel after bushel,
and the apples sat in the cool, dark cider house for pressing. Running the
cider press was hard work, but Owen found it gratifying, a heady activity that
produced as much nostalgia as it did juice.
Back when he was a young man in the quiet village of Barrel Arbor,
Owen Hardy had worked as assistant apple orchard manager . . . before he’d hopped on a steamliner long after midnight, fallen in with the mysterious
Anarchist, met the Watchmaker, joined the Magnusson Carnival
Extravaganza, and found the lovely Francesca. Owen lived and relived those
adventures every day.
Francesca wore a white ruffled blouse cinched tight around her slender
waist and bright red skirts just like she had worn in the carnival. As she
strolled toward their cottage, he remembered how she had flashed those dark
eyes at him, flirting with a rose between her teeth as she gracefully walked a
tightrope above the carnival crowd. . . .
With a pleased sigh, Owen settled his battered old porkpie hat on his
head, bent down to pick up one of the orange pumpkins, tucked it under his
arm, swept up a second one as if he were a juggler, and followed her. He
could tell from her easy pace that Francesca was having one of her good
days.
“We’ll scoop out the seeds and roast them,” she said. “Then I’ll make
pies with the rest — a lot of pies.” Her expression filled with longing. “Soon
enough we’ll have more help than we can use, and all the family we’ve
missed for the entire season.”
Owen glanced around the large estate and paused to drink in the rolling
wooded hills, the leaves turning yellow and scarlet after the first frost. He had
purchased the land as his sanctuary, as well as a winter camp for the carnival,
using the treasure he had recovered after escaping from the Wreckers. He
didn’t hoard the money, didn’t bask in sums stored in some treasury
warehouse; rather, he had made a new home for himself, a place that would
be waiting for him at the end of each season of traveling around Albion. It
was his place — everything had its place, and every place had its thing, as the
Watchmaker decreed.
He had named the estate Xanadu, after a classic poem written by a man
named Coleridge, certainly not a man from Albion, possibly not even from this version of the world at all. Commodore Pangloss had sung the praises of
the work during their airship journeys together, and Owen had obtained an
illustrated volume of the epic poem on one of his later visits to Underworld
Books. That old poet had imagined Xanadu as a paradise, and to Owen, this
place was exactly that.
Retired now from the rigorous carnival life, he and Francesca spent many
quiet months together tending the garden and orchards while most of the
others were gone. Francesca would dabble with her roses, producing
beautiful flowers and somehow never scratching herself on the thorns. Owen
basked in his wife’s quiet company, making each moment last just a little bit
longer. But he also dreamed wistfully of going out with the carnival as he had
done for decades, seeing the countryside, watching the people delight in a
performance well done.
And with those thoughts, his memories spiraled out to the marvels he had
experienced while crossing the ocean aboard a steamer, or steering the great
airship across the skies with Commodore Pangloss, or trudging on foot across
the Redrock Desert in search of the Seven Cities of Gold. . . .
“That grin on your face melts my heart, Owen Hardy,” Francesca said,
then chided, “but those pumpkins aren’t going to move themselves.”
“Of course they aren’t, my love. But if I stall long enough, I’ll have an
army of helpers soon.” He delivered the two pumpkins to the cottage
doorstep and went around the side of the house to retrieve a small cart. “I can
read the Watchmaker’s calendar, too. I’m sure they’re on schedule.”
He pushed the cart back to the garden, gathered and delivered a load of
pumpkins, then he heard the steam-engine wagons coming around the bend.
Shading his eyes to watch, he called for Francesca. “They’re here at last!”
With a toot of horns, a jangle of metal, and a clapping and pounding, the
caravan thundered onward. Wagons filled with carnies — the performers,
roustabouts, ticket-takers, cooks — were followed by vehicles piled high with folded tents, disassembled rides, game booths, colorful pavilions. All came
rolling in to Xanadu.
Owen slipped an arm around Francesca’s waist and pulled her close. The
cavalcade of her returning family made her face look like a rose in fresh
bloom. She yanked the red scarf from her hair and started waving it long
before anyone could see her.
The carnival vehicles rattled in on the estate road, puffing jets of steam
and stirring up road dust. The acrobats and trapeze artists did handstands in
the wagon beds just to show off, while the three carnival clowns leaped from
the chugging wagons, ran in circles, and jumped back on before they were
left in the dust. Brutus, the strongman, stood tall on a buckboard, swelling his
chest and flexing his enormous arms to impress Owen and Francesca.
The most wondrous part for them, though, was to know that their children
and grandchildren were back. Their daughter Corina had taken over the
fictitious role of César Magnusson, the carnival’s leader. In the front vehicle
rode their grandchildren, including Keziah, a prodigy on the tightrope, as
balanced and talented as Francesca had been in her youth. And Alain, the
special boy who was so much like Owen himself had once been.
“All is truly for the best. This is my favorite time of year,” Francesca
said. “Even though summer is long past and the nights are growing colder, I
can appreciate being together again. A well-deserved rest and reward for all
of us.”
But Owen felt no need for rest, since he had been resting the entire
summer. “It’ll be good to have so many people here — I’ll have a fresh
audience for my stories.”
Francesca nudged him in the ribs. “I’ve heard all your stories already.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I could always make up a few more.”
She leaned over to peck him on the cheek. “No need. Now that Alain is
home, he’ll be full of tales to tell us about his first season touring Albion.”
Owen took Francesca’s hand and they walked down the lane to greet the
returning carnival. “I’ll add the boy’s objective impressions to my book, if I
ever finish it.”
Francesca let out a teasing scoff. “Objective! After you’ve filled his head
with wild imaginings all his life?”
“Stories to fire the imagination,” Owen said.
“And I don’t believe you’ll finish your book anytime soon. You’ve been
dabbling on it for forty years.”
“Just imagine how excellent it will be when I finally finish.” He cocked
back the porkpie hat on his head.
Together they went to meet the clamor and joy of the returning carnival.
The Measure of a Life
While working on Clockwork Destiny, a year after the passing of Neil Peart, I
dug through my notes and correspondence and found a letter Neil had sent
me, dated June 5, 2010. He had just completed “The Garden” and said, “I’m
sure it’s the most beautiful song we’ve ever written.”
He was right.
“The Garden” is the final track on Clockwork Angels, the last studio
album Rush ever recorded. It was a perfect goodbye, and you can’t ask for
more than that.
When I finally got myself ready to write this novel, “The Garden” formed
the thematic underpinning for this last great story of Owen Hardy and
Marinda Peake. It was balanced by another of my favorite Rush songs,
“Headlong Flight” — “All the journeys of that great adventure . . . it didn’t
always feel that way. I wish that I could live it all again.”
Or, as Neil Peart himself said, “Adventures suck when you’re having
them.”
As I looked back on Owen Hardy’s life, it also brought to mind the thirty
years of friendship I had with Neil, that remarkable process when your idol
becomes your mentor, then becomes your friend.
My first novel, Resurrection, Inc. (Signet Books, 1988), was inspired by the Rush album Grace Under Pressure. Neil Peart’s lyrics shaped the story I was developing, and every song on that album made its way into a chapter. I acknowledged Neil’s lyrics in the front of the book, and after the novel was published, I autographed copies and mailed off a package to Mercury Records, where I was sure it would just get lost in the noise.
About a year later, Neil wrote me a lengthy letter describing how much he liked Resurrection, Inc. That started a decades-long correspondence and friendship. He sent me copies of every Rush album as it was released, and I sent him copies of each book I published. (He certainly got the better end of that deal, but he made up for it by inviting me backstage at every Rush tour since 1991.)
He was amazingly talented, not only as a drummer, but also with his lyrics, his ideas, his philosophy. In 1993, we wrote the story “Drumbeats” together, but our greatest collaborative effort began in 2009, when Neil was developing the lyrics for Clockwork Angels. He was fascinated with the steampunk genre. Since I had written several steampunk novels, Neil sent me emails asking about the genre, the tropes, and rolling out his idea for a story about a Watchmaker, an Anarchist, and a young hero caught between the two, all set in a sprawling steampunk world with pirates, airships, alchemy, a fantastic carnival, and Clockwork Angels.
I brainstormed all this with him while trying to keep my geeky inner Rush fan from nerding out too much. On March 21, 2010, my wife, Rebecca, and I met Neil for lunch at a diner in Santa Monica. He was afire with enthusiasm for the Clockwork Angels project, telling us how the story was shaping up in the as-yet-to-be-written lyrics for the remaining tracks. He imagined Clockwork Angels as more than just a concept album, but also a Broadway show, a novel, even ice follies! I was starry-eyed and thrilled with the possibilities (ice follies?), but Rebecca was paying closer attention.
“Excuse me, Neil. A novel? Who’s going to write the novel?” Neil shrugged. “Why, Kevin is, of course.” He and I started working out the full details of the story. On a day off during the Time Machine tour, August 17, 2010, I introduced Neil to one of my favorite sports. We climbed a 14,000-ft mountain peak, Mt. Evans, near Denver. On that long and grueling hike (while Neil had a bad ear infection), we laid out the rest of the novel.
Clockwork Angels turned out as perfect as any of my novels ever had. I was so proud of it. ECW Press published a beautiful hardcover volume, which hit the New York Times bestseller list on its first week out. I was able to text Neil just before he went up on stage for a show in New Hampshire, telling him that not only was he a great drummer, he was also a New York Times bestselling author.
A few years after Clockwork Angels, we wanted to do something more with the characters and the world we had created. The result was Clockwork Lives, a novel woven together from individual short stories about our favorite places and characters, like a steampunk Canterbury Tales.
The stories seemed to come together magically. I’ve written a lot of books, but I’ve never had an experience like writing Clockwork Lives. Everything about that book turned out exactly the way we envisioned it. After I sent Neil the final draft, he read the entire thing in a day and pronounced, “Your finest work, I am sure.” I couldn’t have done it without the inspiration and the incredibly high bar set by “the Professor.”
One of the stories in Clockwork Lives is “The Percussor’s Tale,” about a music professor in declining health who creates a steam-driven mechanical drummer with perfect rhythm. At the end of the story, the Percussor performs an incredibly complex symphony for the Watchmaker. This grand symphony was a tour of the wonders of the world, including “the legendary lands of the far north, Ultima Thule — a mirage of tremendous glaciers under dark skies that danced with shifting veils of colored light.”
After writing that passage, Neil remarked that it would be fun to visit the far-flung icy landscape under the auroras in a story someday . . . and we realized that the Northern Lights must be the source of the quintessence. I suggested that we could take old Owen Hardy out for one last adventure, this time with his bright-eyed young grandson Alain. It quickly became apparent that they must be on a mission for the Watchmaker, who was running down after centuries of his Stability, and he needed Owen and the boy to find him a new source of quintessence.
And if we were going to set the adventure up in the great white north, then another famous Rush reference had to make an appearance: “By-Tor and the Snow Dog.”
Instantly, the backbone of Clockwork Destiny was formed. For a couple of years, we dabbled with the idea off and on, and I kept notes of our conversations and other plot possibilities. I would talk with Neil about the story whenever we got together, but I had other book projects and deadlines. Neil embarked on the all-consuming R40 Tour, Rush’s last tour, which required extensive practice and rehearsals, and then months on the road before their final show in Inglewood, California, on August 1, 2015. Previously, Neil and I had taken a three-year break between the publication of Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, and we had no contract for Clockwork Destiny, no deadline. We decided to let it develop organically, since these novels were extremely special to both of us. There was no hurry. We had all the time in the world.
Until we didn’t.
Not long after he retired, Neil was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of terminal brain cancer. From that point, whenever we did meet or talk, we would dabble a little with Clockwork Destiny, but there were other things to occupy our conversations.
The import of this novel, with its underlying theme of death and legacy and paying it forward, did not escape us, and writing it took on an entirely different perspective for me. An impossible task. We both knew that it wouldn’t be finished until after he was gone.
Time is the true Anarchist.
In 1997, Rebecca and I received a crushing phone call from Neil’s riding companion Brutus, letting us know that Selena, Neil’s only daughter, had been killed in a car accident. Not long afterward, his wife died of cancer, which Neil attributed to “a broken heart.” I expressed my heartfelt sympathy, but it seemed useless. I ran around in circles flailing, searching for something, somehow, that might help him. I couldn’t fathom even a fraction of how he must feel.
Neil Peart famously withdrew from the world after his tragedies, which he chronicled in his amazing, heart-wrenching book Ghost Rider. He did manage to pull his life together, find new happiness and a new family.
Unfortunately, many years later, I did understand part of what he had gone through. In March 2019, my only stepson, Jonathan, died unexpectedly of pulmonary edema that led to a heart attack, leaving his three young boys — our grandsons — fatherless. One of the last letters I received from Neil was him sharing his grief and sympathy over Jonathan.
Four months later, my father died after a long battle with bile duct cancer.
Then we lost Neil on January 7, 2020.
After that, I had a rough time, spinning on emotional black ice — and that was when the whole world went into a tailspin due to Covid-19. Over the span of a year and a half, the only time I got on an airplane was to attend Neil’s private memorial service.
After a while, in spring 2020, some of my friends noticed a change in me and expressed their concern, worried about me. One evening, while I was staying alone in a mountain cabin for a writing retreat, I played the song “Madrigal” from the old Rush album A Farewell to Kings, and the lyrics hit me like a physical blow.
I broke down, and over the course of that evening, I wrote this response online. As a writer, I find my own therapy in words:
A week ago I made a hard post to say I was OK. Some close friends were worried that I might be slipping into depression, but that isn’t the case, honest. I’m not “fine.” I’m heartbroken and sad, and I’m going to be sad. But I’ll get through it. The support of friends and fans has been an anchor.
If the dream is won, though everything is lost . . .
I am in the process of turning grief into memories. But that process has also made me realize some real changes, some subtle, some difficult, some genuine revelations.
Do we have to say goodbye to the past? Yes, I guess we do.
Why does it happen? Because it happens.
When I was a kid, we had a big garden, maybe like Owen Hardy’s garden in Clockwork Angels. We grew beets, and my mom would can a year’s worth of beet pickles. In a big pot of water, we boiled and scalded the beets so we could easily slip off the rough, hard skin and reveal the tender, crimson interior underneath. Like a red heart.
I feel like I’ve been boiled and scalded, but I’ve also peeled away some of my hard exterior, exposing vulnerabilities, but I don’t care. I am no longer reluctant to say “I love you” to people who really mean something to me. I used to hold it in, waiting for the right moment, thinking maybe I should wait, or embarrassed to admit my feelings. That’s stupid. I need to say it. They need to hear it.
I did say it to Neil. I did say it to my dad. I did, by amazing good fortune, say “I love you” to my stepson when we said goodbye in the park, even though I never imagined that would be the last time I’d ever see him.
I’ve learned to look at life in the available light.
Clockwork Destiny hung out there, not just for the several years that Neil and I had talked about it and put it on the back burner, but all the time afterward when the notes sat tucked away in a folder.
After about six months, I spoke with Neil’s wife, Carrie, and told her where the story was, how far we had gotten on it, and frankly wondered whether I should go back and work on the novel, when I could, when it was time . . . or if it should just stay buried. Carrie gave me her wholehearted support to finish Clockwork Destiny. It was the best thing we could do for Neil.
A year after his death, I pulled out all of the notes, the quotes and phrases we had written down, poignant lines that in another universe might have become song lyrics. I pulled together all the possible adventures we had imagined for Owen Hardy and his grandson, also tied them together with an equally important storyline featuring Marinda Peake, the strong-willed heroine of Clockwork Lives.
David Caron, the publisher of ECW Press (which has done such a remarkable job on the first two Clockwork novels), was extremely enthusiastic and supportive, applying no pressure whatsoever, giving me no deadline — which of course had the opposite effect.
Because it had been more than five years since Clockwork Lives was published, and almost ten years since we’d written Clockwork Angels, I needed to dive back into that complex, wonderful steampunk universe. So many details had faded into memory, but everything had to be bright and fresh in order for me to write there again.
With no small amount of trepidation, I listened to the unabridged audiobook — eight and a half hours narrated by Neil himself, with his rich, warm voice reading me the story of Owen Hardy, the Watchmaker, the Anarchist, the Wreckers, the Seven Cities of Gold, and Francesca. . . .
That experience at last felt cathartic rather than devastating, and I remembered our joy in this fictional world and these characters again. Next, I listened to the audiobook of Clockwork Lives, the disparate tales performed by different readers (including yours truly). My mind was back in Albion, and I was ready to go. And once I finally resolved to get started, I couldn’t wait to write. On my way at last!
After I had fleshed out my outline, I was pleased with how the pieces of the story all fell into place. Rebecca knew what I needed, and she let me go off by myself for a week in the Utah Canyonlands near Moab, the spectacular Island in the Sky, the Needles District, Arches National Park. This was also one of Neil’s favorite places.
I went there to hike and think. And write.
The story, the characters, the scenes had been building up inside me for so long. Once I started Clockwork Destiny, it was like turning on a spigot, and the novel poured out of me. I wrote the entire first draft, 90,000 words, in only twenty-one days and finished my first complete edit of the manuscript exactly one month from the day I had written the first sentence.
It is for you, dear reader, to decide the measure of the novel and the measure of Owen’s life — and ours.
It is what it is, and forever. Hope is what remains to be seen.
—Kevin J. Anderson
Utah and Colorado
Spring 2021
Kevin J. Anderson has published more than 170 books, 58 of which have
been national or international bestsellers. He has written numerous novels in
the Dune, Star Wars, and X-Files universes, as well as Clockwork Angels,
Clockwork Lives, and Drumbeats with Neil Peart. His original works include
the Saga of Seven Suns series, the Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy, the Wake
the Dragon trilogy, and his humorous horror series featuring Dan Shamble,
Zombie PI. Anderson and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, are the publishers of
WordFire Press. His most recent novels are Stake, Kill Zone, and Spine of the
Dragon. Anderson lives in Colorado.
Neil Peart was the drummer and lyricist of the legendary rock band Rush and
the author of Ghost Rider, The Masked Rider, Traveling Music, Roadshow,
Far and Away, Far and Near, Far and Wide, and, with Kevin J. Anderson,
the Clockwork trilogy and Drumbeats.
Published by ECW Press
665 Gerrard Street East
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4M 1Y2
416-694-3348 / [email protected]
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Clockwork Destiny at Amazon.Com