Notes on The Queendoms Series

First, thank you for staying with this series. I hope you enjoyed reading the adventures of Anming Lee, Kellen Cassidy, Tavon Alexander, and Ryn Chan, a.k.a. Prince Ryosuke of the Kashaya Sky.

I never set out to write seven books. I always intended it to be The Califia Trilogy followed by Second Bond as an ending piece. But by the time I was writing Second Bond, I realized that leaving the series without dealing with the darker aspects of how some men would react to a female-superior society would be, to use a phrase popular when I was a teenager, a “cop-out.” While these books fall into the m/m romance category - not a niche known for tons of realism - I still wanted to explore the topic, and so I finished the series with a second trilogy, The Queendoms Trilogy.

One of my intentions was to have this civilization four hundred years in California’s future be a multiracial, post-racial society. I’ll say more about that later in this post, but I bring it up now to explain how I came up with the idea for the main queendom in the series, the Queendom of Califia.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, so I learned California history, or at least a sanitized version of it, growing up. Those school history books in the 1960s and 1970s gave us happy Indians working at the missions, when the true history was that a number of Native Americans actually became forced labor for the padres. Some were even enslaved and forbidden to leave… but I digress.

One particular thing I heard when I was young was that the State of California was named after a black queen. It was one of those odd, off-handed facts that stuck with me for some reason. For years after I first heard it, I would remember it from time to time, not knowing why it had such resonance for me.

Alas, there was no actual black queen that ruled California. According to the “Calafia” Wikipedia article, the black queen named Calafia or Califia was entirely fictional. She was the main character in the Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s 16th-century novel, Las Sergas de Esplandian (The Adventures of Esplandian). In this novel, Califia is a black queen who rules over warrior women on “the island of California.”

The article notes that the name of Califia probably came from the Arabic “khalifa,” which Anglicized is the English word “caliph.” This is why I made Jacintha’s royal house the House of Khalifeh in the series.

But California was in fact named after this fictional queen, as the novel was very popular at that time, which of course was also when the Spanish Conquistadors were exploring the Americas. One of them, Herman Cortes, read the novel, and the name “California” was also used by another conquistador of the day, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

So this is where I got Jacintha from originally - Jacintha, Queen of Califia, House of Khalifeh. I then created the Avila family as a kind of second family of the queendom, with Eduardo Avila, the Queen’s Knight who later becomes Prince Eduardo, and Teresa Avila, the High Councilor of the queendom.

I’d like to talk a little about the main characters, and then the four queendoms.

The first of the four main characters that came to me were actually Tavon and Ryn, and they were going to be the main couple. I was intrigued by the master and apprentice trope - having read too much Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fan fiction, I’m afraid - and wanted to do something with it. But an anime series I was watching around 2013 interrupted that idea in a big way.

Kuroko’s Basketball (Kuroko no Basuke in Japanese) is one of my favorite anime series. It’s about the Seirin High School basketball team and what the characters learn about themselves and about life as they battle other high school teams to win the tournament trophy.

Seirin’s rival Touo High has the greatest teen power forward in all of Japan: Daiki Aomine, or in Japanese name order, Aomine Daiki. Aomine is a tall, tanned guy with a rough manner and rakishly handsome face.

Before I show you what he looks like, let’s remember that an author’s idea of casting sometimes greatly conflicts with what the reader envisages for that same character. Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind, wasn’t thinking of Clark Gable when she wrote Rhett Butler, but…Basil Rathbone. So with that in mind - here’s Aomine Daiki.

So my physical image of Anming was always based on Aomine. If you know the series, there’s an attractive blond player from another school named Kise Ryota. Did I base Kellen off of Kise?

The answer is yes and no. Kise’s looks weren’t really my model for Kellen, but on a whim, I did decide that my main couple would have names that began with A and K, just like Aomine and Kise. I was looking on one of those international baby name sites for Chinese boy names and found “Anming,” (pronounced AHN-ming) which, according to the site, meant “peaceful clarity.” That made me laugh and I knew I’d found my main character’s name. Anming doesn’t start off with a lot of peaceful clarity, but I think you can say that he has it by the end of the series.

Kellen presented a problem from the moment I conceived of him. When I imagined who Anming’s love interest would be, and decided that he would be the most handsome young man in the village - and a blond young man popped into my head, my first reaction was “WHAT HAVE I DONE.” Once in my head, however, Kellen stubbornly remained blond and nothing else. I did end up giving him hazel eyes at least, and not blue eyes.

If you’re a POC like me, you know the reason why I was unhappy. For a long time there’s been a stereotype of blond and blue-eyed as being the ultimate version of handsome/beautiful, and since the Caucasian standards have been the majority standards in this country forever, they’ve influenced me as well. (Whatever the majority’s standards are, basically affects everyone in that culture.) As a writer of color, though you’d think it would be easy for me to think outside that particular box, it actually takes conscious effort even for POCs not to fall into the default choices like everyone else. So I was initially a bit unhappy that the most handsome young man in the village was blond - and white - but the solution was obvious - to make Kellen into a compelling second lead character, someone whose thoughts and feelings and actions would be as interesting to the reader as Anming’s. I did my best through the seven books to have Kellen be Anming’s counterpart in every way - not only as his partner, but also as representing the loyalist view in Califia and as an equal character in his own right.

Like Kellen, I didn’t really have a physical model for Tavon. My idea of Tavon has always been that he has large wide-set eyes and a kind face, and taupe skin with silver undertones. Ryn, on the other hand - I did have an image that I based him on.

The character is Kuroh from K, also known as K Project, another favorite anime series of mine.

I really wanted to make Ryn sixteen years old, but got nervous about him being “underage” in his relationship with Tavon, so I made him eighteen instead. It still irks me that he and Kellen are the same age at the start of Rebellion. You probably noticed that Ryn seems much younger than the other three characters in the first trilogy. I made his behavior that of a younger person to make up for not having him actually be a younger age.

Like I said, Tavon and Ryn were originally the main couple of the series, but when Anming burst into my imagination almost fully formed in image and personality, I had no choice but to acknowledge him as the main character, and by association, Kellen as the second main character.

One more anime reference. Eduardo Avila was inspired by a character named Guilford in Code Geass. Guilford is the knight to Cornelia li Britannia, second princess of the ruling family in the series.

I was the translation rewriter/editor for several of the Code Geass light novels for Bandai Entertainment back in the day. Code Geass is still popular with a lot of anime fans, and I think the series has recently been revived with new seasons.

As to the other queendoms, I named the Queendom of the Kashaya Sky after the Kashaya (also spelled Kashia) Pomo Native American tribe of the region around Mendocino.

The Kashaya Sky played such a huge role in the first trilogy, but somehow I wasn’t able to give it the same treatment in the second trilogy. I think the introduction of Madrona and Rio starting in Second Bond more or less directed the story their way instead.

I dearly love the House of Shiranui, starting with Ryn, of course, and Ryu and Reika. Reika especially affected me. Her tragic backstory with Ryn’s kidnapping and the loss of Lirin was very hard to write. In Tales of the Queendoms, my post-series short story collection that will be released sometime next year, I’m finally giving Reika and the House of Shiranui a happy ending that will involve the relationship of some unexpected characters... so please look forward to it. ;-)

I wish I had a dramatic origin story for the Queendom of Madrona’s name, but I don’t. There’s a street named Madrona Avenue near my favorite Southern California shopping mall, the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, and I took the name from that. “Madrona” is a Spanish word, but you may have noticed that Madrona has rulers of English and French origin and not Spanish. This will also be explained in Tales of the Queendoms. There’s a reason why Madrona is always second fiddle to Califia... and it’s rooted in its past.

I have to say, as an aside, that I fell in love with Adam, and wound up spending much more time on him in the story than I’d originally intended. I had meant to make Lilith the main character in Madrona since she was the queen, but Adam took over in my imagination instead.

I’ve never studied the history of any real-life royal houses, but I imagine that smart and capable princesses were almost always passed over in favor of princes (whether smart or capable or not) to succeed the throne, simply due to the principle of male succession.

Lilith was never meant to become Queen of Madrona, but had to accept the crown after her mother died because the crown princess Martine had already passed. Lilith didn’t want the job and isn’t well-suited for it in terms of personality. Adam would have been the better choice to rule the queendom due to his greater aptitude and suitability as a leader, but because of female succession he’ll never get that chance... just like all those smart and capable princesses of old.

Finally, Rio. Rio is of course the Spanish word for “river,” which is perfect for a queendom located in a delta region. I kind of fought the name when it first came to me, because to me “Rio” brings up images of women in bikinis dancing on Brazilian beaches. But in the end I accepted it as the best and most appropriate name, especially since Queen Tiora is of Hispanic and indigenous background.

That brings up the Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx issue. I wanted to be respectful and use the proper term - even though the story is set four hundred years in the future and is entirely fictional - but I was basically defeated by this issue. To my ear, “Latina” or “Latinx” took me right out of this fictional future setting and threw me back into modern times, so I really couldn’t use it. I also did some research and discovered that Hispanic/Latinx people in the U.S. are sort of conflicted over it themselves, with older people generally preferring “Hispanic.” In the end, I went with Hispanic.

I also came up with the term “nativelander” for the Native American/First Nations/indigenous characters in the series. It felt to me like a respectful word, an opinion that I hope others will share as well.

I enjoyed writing Queen Tiora and her children, particularly Charlie and Susana. Charlie is probably my favorite Rio character. In a queendoms civilization, I knew I would need a warrior princess, and she was perfect for that.

I wrote a little about the post-racial nature of the setting in a post at my anime blog, but to say it again, the multicultural factor was essential to the series. I grew up with images of royal castles and rustic villages from watching British dramas on Masterpiece Theater and reading books like the Lord of the Rings series. Since then, I had always wanted to write something that had those kinds of settings but with people of all races, where anyone of any race could be a hero or a villain, the king or a knave.

But I always disliked the male dominance that was a part of such historical settings. Despite that, writing about a female-superior society didn’t occur to me for the longest time.

I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, but when I first thought of a post-apocalyptic, female-dominated civilization of queendoms, with the main character being a gay man who was bucking the system, I laughed out loud. Then I was like: “Oh.” (As a side note: if you’re a writer, beware that moment when some outlandish idea suddenly occurs to you that makes you laugh out loud. If something hits you that way, it’s probably an idea to be explored, which could lead to you writing a seven-book series that takes eight years of your life.)

More seriously, although I also had fun with the idea, I did want to explore the themes that were appropriate to such a setting, most notably in the final trilogy with Amar and Dylan, the creation of the sanctuary, and what happens to Serna and Mia. I knew by the time I was writing Second Bond that I had to deal with the dark side that was raised by the story universe before I could put down my pen and call the series done.

It’s easy to say today that feminism had its moment in the 1970s and 1980s, that it has lost significance in this era of women in the workforce everywhere and Vice-President Kamala Harris and all the other progress markers that seem to show that a movement based on equality for women is no longer necessary. I would hope that seeing women doing double-duty during the pandemic with their jobs and supervising their children’s schooling at home, the persistence of unequal pay for women doing the same work as men, and other examples from American life make it clear that feminism is still needed. And that’s not to mention women in other countries for whom the idea of equality is like a fantasy from a far-off land, not remotely reachable in their everyday reality.

Today, Hulu’s production of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is an acclaimed television series. The concept of a horrifying dystopia where women are enslaved to men and forced to give birth to satisfy society’s needs is a science-fiction setting that everyone can understand. But let me tell you what the reception was when Atwood’s novel was first published.

Back in 1985, the women’s movement was still going strong. Though the Equal Rights Amendment had failed to receive enough state ratifications to amend the U.S. Constitution, the topics of women’s reproductive rights, equal pay, child care, and other issues were still at the forefront of discussion in U.S. society.

You would think that The Handmaid’s Tale would have fit nicely into the larger discussion of a woman’s role in society, women’s place in the world, considering the political climate at the time. I read the book back then and found it deeply disturbing, seeing in it echoes of the attitudes of male-dominated societies all around the world.

However, I recall some establishment reviewers denouncing the story as ridiculous, and their reviews were scathing. The theme seemed to be that Atwood had lost her mind in writing this fable of women being used solely as wombs, their every movement being controlled by others, and having the nerve to call it “science fiction.” (Because, as we all know, science fiction can only be white men in spaceships conquering other planets. Lol. Actually, back then, that was almost literally the case, at least for mainstream sf books.)

Margaret Atwood had a great literary reputation even back then, and she withstood the critics’ reactions to continue on in her successful career, but the 1980s weren’t that long ago. Not to mention that in recent years it took 35 women accusers of Bill Cosby featured on the cover of New York Magazine before many people would even believe he’d done anything. There’s still a long way to go and work to be done before women are respected in an everyday sense, in the same manner that men take for granted that they as men should be.

I should say - in case I haven’t made this clear - that my idea of feminism is much like Anming’s conclusion about men’s rights in the final book: it should lead to a society of equals. In other words, feminism itself isn’t the end game. Feminism - to me - is about righting wrongs and working things out so that each gender is treated with respect. This means equal pay, affordable child care that enables both parents to work, etc. People will always have their individual opinions about men's and women’s roles, and that’s fine with me. As long as equality is in place as a baseline - through laws, customs, and practices - I’d be happy to have feminism disappear as no longer being necessary, because equal rights means just that. I don’t think a female-dominated society would suit me any better than a male-dominated society does.

Like Anming says in his speech in To the Farthest Shore, it’s about equal respect for both genders. I’ve always felt strongly about this. This is the lesson that the queendoms civilization comes to learn at the end of the series - that neither gender should dominate the other, but instead should respect the gifts that each brings to a civilized society, within the framework of a community of equals.

The Queendoms Series was my sincere effort to address some of these issues, while also having fun with the male-male romance part of it. Whether I succeeded is not for me to decide, but I did my best, and enjoyed the journey. I hope you did too. Thanks for reading my work.