A long, strange adventure preceded this tale’s reception, but in the end, I simply wrote what I heard. If there was magic, it was in hearing, then listening, and in trusting. […] Here all I ask is: Can you make room in your world for a new history born from true myth, where gods merciful and wicked, elves, men, and much else long ago mingled, fought, conversed and loved?
Introduction, p.1-2
I first encountered Daymon Smith around 2013. He had written a five-volume series titled A Cultural History of The Book of Mormon. I was deeply enmeshed in the Remnant movement, an offshoot of Mormons who decided that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wasn’t all that it purported to be, yet found they couldn’t divorce themselves from Mormon Theology. During that time, I began reading Daymon’s work. Those books caused me to face the realization that I had traded one Strongman for another: Thomas S. Monson (LDS President-Prophet) for Denver Snuffer (Remnant Spokesman-Prophet). It was in the wake of that realization that I detached myself from both entities.
Never would I have imagined that seven years later, I would be here, reading books containing lore of gods, elves, men, and more, yet claiming to be history. Strange, indeed.
And, here I am.
Reading.
Writing.
Observing.
I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
J. B. S. Haldane
I think the strangeness of the claim is what keeps bringing me back. As Daymon himself writes in the introduction, “Ahem. I get it: absurd.” It isn’t that I am craving strangeness or an escape from what we consider reality. Instead, I am beginning to recognize how strange our circumstance is already.
What is so absurd about anything in this story?
Well, nothing yet. This is only the beginning; the introduction.
Journey To Reimagination 