Autorin Melissa Saulnier

One aspect that particularly intrigues me is how the organized hierarchy of angels developed gradually over centuries. The elaborate ranking of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels that we often associate with Judeo-Christian tradition isn't fully articulated in the Bible itself. Instead, it emerged through later theological works like the 5th-century writings of Pseudo-Dionysius.

What if our ancestors weren't merely telling stories when they spoke of cosmic cycles and ages of the world? What if they were encoding precise astronomical knowledge? This question transformed when I encountered "Hamlet's Mill," the groundbreaking 1969 work by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend. Their thesis—that myths worldwide encode astronomical knowledge, particularly precession—opened new dimensions for my storytelling.

The geological record tells us unequivocally that Earth has experienced numerous catastrophic events throughout its history. What's particularly intriguing for my fiction is the evidence of rapid climate shifts during human prehistory. The end of the last ice age wasn't a gentle warming but a series of dramatic oscillations, including the Younger Dryas period—a sudden return to near-glacial conditions lasting over a thousand years.