Explaining Myself

All zero of my lovely commenters have been asking me to explain what my current novel is about. Seeing as everyone I've told about my book has also asked me this, I'll try and go about explaining the premise in an approachable and understandable way.

Wow, that made it sound like a very complex story...

The most rudimentary way of describing it, and the way I always initially describe it to anyone who asks, is 'it's about a dude on an airship'. I'm not lying to you if I say that.

To elaborate further I feel I must set the scene of the world as a whole. There has been an apocalypse. Exactly how this apocalypse occurred is largely unknown, given that everyone at the time was running and screaming rather than calmly writing down what was going on around them. It has been about 500 years since this apocalypse and society has largely recovered and is now going through an industrial revolution (for the most part). I won't describe each region, only those which are relevant to the story, but do keep in mind that the whole world is not like Europe. Yes, the story is set in Europe.

Possibly the most significant change is that the northernmost parts of the world, from around the tip of Denmark upwards, is permanent ice. There is also a massive and largely impassible mountain range separating Europe from Asia. These mountains run from approximately the Baltic coast down to the top of the Arabian sub-continent. Though travel across these mountains is possible it is not very common and there is essentially no communication between Europe and Asia.

The story itself follows Malcolm Chevin, a young and somewhat prodigal engineer living in the city of New Lucerne in the re-founded Swiss nation. Malcolm volunteers himself for the maiden voyage of the world's first long-haul airship, a journey that will take him over the rest of Francian-controlled Europe, across The Dividers and back again. The journey, of course, does not turn out to be that simple.

I feel I should end the description there and hope it is enough to titillate those reading this post. Tomorrow (or potentially today, if I'm feeling generous) I will be posting an excerpt from the book.

When does mystery in a story (book, film or elsewhere) stop being important? Comment below with your views.