Edmund Moulde

The Macabre Tale of Edmund Moulde

About

Edmund Moulde was born from a flash game. At least, that’s the first spark I remember. It was a silly little thing, where you played a young Addams-family-like scientist creating Frankenstein monsters to fight other scientists, and I only played it for a bit before shrugging and moving on with my browsing.

The idea of a Gothic child, who — Dr. Jekyll like — set about doing science in an old castle clicked in my brain. Unbidden, the idea of a horred old widow who adopted a child for the sole purpose of cheating her hated relatives out of their inheritance came soon after. Countless bits of inspiration followed, and before long I had collected enough to write a trilogy before I had even finished the first draft of book one.

It took years of editing for me to be happy with the first book. I learned this about myself: I am a polisher. I cannot let go of something unless it’s perfect, and nothing is ever perfect. I need to think, consider, maximize, and after more than 10 years, I finally consider the first book “done.”

I make no such admission about the second, third, or fourth.

Edmund and I are very much alike in many ways. I daresay Edmund is as much a fantastical autobiographical character as a work of fiction. I think the biggest difference between the two of us is the worlds in which we live, to say nothing of the quality of our support networks.

Chapters

Edmund never thought he would be adopted.

Prospective parents were always looking for children with fuller cheeks, ruddier skin, or maybe blinked a bit more often.

It wasn’t that he minded much — he wouldn’t know what to do with a family — It was just that he had never been beyond the gates of Mrs. Mapleberry’s Home for Wayward Lads and Ladies, and he was curious about the soot-choked city of Brackenburg that lay just half an hour away by coach.

It wasn’t until Matron Mander Moulde arrived at the orphanage one day and adopted Edmund to spite her blood-relatives out of their inheritance, that Edmund learned there was much more beyond that wooden fence then he could have ever imagined in his worst nightmares…

Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted

About

In many ways, this book was supposed to be the first book in Edmund’s story. I had imagined a very Rowlingesque (sans bigotry) opening of the odd little Moulde boy being tested after he used the chemicals from his sister’s makeup kit to revivify his dead pet rat. Then, off the odd little Moulde boy would go to learn about the mad sciences of penny-pulps and wrought-iron steampunk.

That changed pretty quickly as I developed the world around Edmund. Soon he was an orphan adopted by a spiteful dowager, and heir to one of the Nine Founding Families of the great industrial city of Brackenburg.

But Edmund was always going to go to school, and he was always going to learn something important about higher education — namely, its social function as distinct from its practical use.

Am I happy with the result? It’s a mixed bag. This is one of my under-drafted works, and is often the case, I feel like I tried to do too much. More than any other book, this one has changed both in form, skeleton, substance, and focus multiple times during its drafting. It is, all in all, I feel a somewhat inelegant result.

Nevertheless, there’s still quite a lot I enjoy, including Edmund’s poisoning, Professor Whiskfield’s opinions on Mad Science, and the Teapot Coterie’s ball. Perhaps I will come back someday to really polish the book into something I’m proud of. For the moment, I will swallow my pride and fear.

Chapters

“Nos Demonstrum Illis Omnes”

Carved into the gates that lead to the hollowed campus of Grimm’s School for the Intermittently Gifted, it is a motto as well as a promise; a promise that Edmund means to fulfill. After being accepted into the greatest school for academia in the world, he has the opportunity to learn all there is to know about exotic sciences and arcane literature. Then, he’ll show them all!

But first, he will have to deal with mad professors, selfish students, a shadowy raven stalking the graveyard, and a nobility too busy enjoying themselves to help. And when the actions of a mysterious murderer threaten the existence of Grimm’s, it will take all of Edmund’s guile and wits to save both the school, his family, his future, and his own neck.

The Battle of Harmingsdown

About

The third book of the Edmund Moulde quadrilogy was fun to write. I enjoyed coming up with all the little world-creative details, creating a world that was as much about fun little things as it was about people. All in all, while I can’t seem to ever allow myself a sense of satisfaction with my work, I can at least nowadays see some virtue in it.

I created the Wickes almost by accident, but once I had, they were always going to be one of Edmund’s greatest foes. Not because they were smarter — they were not — but because he was afraid of them.

I’m not sure why, but when I decided Edmund was going off to war, I knew from the start that he was responsible for the Christmastime truce. The story grew from there. While I sprinkled actual historical dates throughout the series, I had a lot of fun mucking about with world-war technologies and their inventions.

The Black Cat Confederacy used to be a full on team of malcontents, including the stockmaster, an explosives expert, and “the twins.” I removed them to simplify things, since their presence was more important for content outside the main story, but I like to think they’re still exist, making a mess of things in the military as a less idealistic version of Die Schwartze Hunden.

Of the many revisions I have made in this story, Schtillhart has always been trans, and yet I still remain uncertain of Edmund’s own sexuality. He is certainly some kind of Ace, though to what degree I have not bothered to explore. After all, it’s not really my business, is it?

Chapters

The World was at War. This was not Edmund’s fault.

It was, however, his responsibility; because when War comes to Brackenburg, it is the duty of all Nine Founding Families to do their part for the war effort. But the Moulde Family had no regiments to mobilize, no money to provide, not even a third-born son eager to prove themselves on the field of battle for glory and perhaps a medal. All the Moulde Family had was Edmund; and after a grueling five years at Grimm’s, he knew that becoming a General, leading a regiment, and above all Being Noticed was not the wisest course of action.

Far wiser would be purchasing a Lieutenant’s commission and joining the Army Bureaucratic Corps, so Edmund could spend all his time safe in Filing Room B beneath the Brackenburg City Hall, and make sure he was the first person to see any reports or pieces of information that could one day help a young and enterprising Moulde rebuild his ailing family.

But War is far more complicated than Edmund originally thought. And when a childhood nightmare returns to haunt him, he realizes there is something far worse going on in the world than politics; something that will draw him deeper into a world of spying, subterfuge, betrayal, and trenches. Something he can’t fix until he travels to the front lines at Harmingsdown, and sees the whites of his real enemy’s eyes…

The Last Days of Yesteryear

Matron Moulde is dead. Long live Patron Moulde.

There is so much to take care of; the letters, the arrangements, the finances, the solicitors, the estate, the wedding, the well-wishers, the harm-bringers, the Church, the Police…

“Who is this Orphan Prince?” whisper the landed-gentry. “Above all else, who is he?”

For years, Edmund had known the answer quite clearly; but now with Matron dead, he must come to terms with the fact that he might not know himself very well at all. Is he really a Moulde? He could fight a war to save a school, save a country over an early dinner, but in the wake of Matron’s passing, can he finally prove both to the world and himself that he truly is worthy of the title Patron? Of the family name?

Can he finally do what Matron adopted him to do and save the Moulde Family from poverty, disrespect, and destitution once and for all?

Or are these the last days of yesteryear?

Chapters