Monthly Archives: January 2012

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Other Misc. Characters

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Senta and the Steel Dragon is a very large story, and consequently there are hundreds of different characters.  Here are a few more from The Voyage of the Minotaur.

Macy Godwin is the housekeeper for the Dechantagne family at their home in Shopton.  By the time the series takes place, she is quite old and a bit dottering.  Her appearance in Book 0 is simply the subject of a few comments by other staff.  But here in book 1, she appears in the flesh.  Like Mrs. Colbshallow and Yuah, she becomes more a part of the family once they have moved to the new colony.

Jolon Bendrin gets barely a mention in book 1.  That is one of the reasons that I fleshed him and his crimes out a bit in book 0.  He isn’t seen for a while, but he will eventually return.

Father Kerrdon is the High Priest of Brechalon and serves at the Great Church of the Holy Savior.  He helps Iolanthe recruit the priest and accolytes needed for the colony.

The Voyage of the Minotaur, and the rest of Senta and the Steel Dragon, are available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: The Short Men

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The Short Men are a race of humanoids that live alongside the humans in the world of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  Because they are worshipers of Kafira, they are actually tolerated more than those humans who are still of the Zaeri race.  They date back to before I came up with the story and was thinking of this world as a setting for a Dungeons and Dragons game.  If it was a D&D game, of course it would have dwarves and elves (which I never got around to).  I didn’t want my dwarves to simply be magical little men, so I pictured Neanderthals surviving to modern times and living alongside fully modern humans.  The only short man named in the story is a banker, Bergren Denholm.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Cafe Carlo

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The Voyage of the Minotaur is a fantasy novel set in a Victorian/Steampunk world.

Spoiler Alert

Cafe Carlo is a restaurant in the Great Plaza of Brech City.  As a 6-8 year old, Senta works there cleaning the wrought iron fence and sweeping the walk.  Carlo, the fat proprietor seems to be a stuffy, stingy fellow from her point of view, but others remark that he is kind and loves children.  The line cook at Cafe Carl is Gyula Kearn, who lost one arm in a factory.  He makes a return in the fifth book of the series.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Metacharacters

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As with the previous book there are several characters who do not appear in the story of The Voyage fo the Minotaur, but are only referenced. Here are three big ones:

Magnus the Great: Magnus was king of the Zur two thousand years before the events in the story. He was a conqueror who carried on his father’s conquest of the continent of Sumir, more or less unifying the culture of mankind. He occupies a place in history much like our own Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. At the end of his reign, his empire fell apart, partially due to the antics of his daughter Zurfina, though no one has described the exact details. Zurfina the sorceress is the namesake of Magnus’s daughter.

Kafira Kristos: Probably the most important minor character in the book is Kafira Kristos. She occupies the place in the world of Senta and the Steel Dragon that Jesus Christ does in ours. Her life and martydom just after the time of Magnus the Great creates the divide between the two religions in the story–Kafirites and Zaeri.

The idea for Kafira came from a theological paper I once read. It wondered, assuming that life existed on countless planets of the universe, would Jesus have lived and died on each one of them, or would they have had their own savior. I decided that for the story, this world similar but not quite our own, would have its own, and further decided that she would be female.

Kafira is also the basis for a great deal of blasphemous cussing in the story. Kafira! Kafira Kriston! Kafira’s Cross! Kafira’s Tits! Kafira in a Hand Basket! and worst of all, Kafira’s Bloody Twat!

Colonel Mormont: Colonel Mormont was an explorer who traveled Birmisia about twenty years before our story.  The colonists carry copies of his journal, which helps them identify the flora and fauna of their new colony.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: People at Enclep

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Spoiler Alert

Enclep is a large island and the major stop on the way to establish the colony.  The HMS Minotaur makes the stop to resupply and adventures ensue.  Here are some of the characters from that part of the story.

Oyunbileg is a drug dealer the Terrence visits in the market at Enclep.  Evidently they have met and done business before.  I picked the name up somewhere– it’s Mongolian, I believe.  However, in our real world, I think it’s a girl’s name.

Mr. Critt is a Brech resident in Enclep.  He makes a brief appearance, but he is mainly there so that Augie can borrow his car.

Dr. Kelloran is the doctor on the way to the new colony in Birmisia.  She makes her first appearance in this chapter as she is kidnapped by masked terrorists.  She makes several other appearances in this book and the following ones.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Radley Staff

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Radley Staff is a fictional character in the Senta and the Steel Dragon books.

Spoiler Alert

Lieutenant Radley Staff makes his first appearance in The Voyage of the Minotaur and plays a very important part in the series.  He is absent in Book 0 and Book 2.  I think he comes across as perhaps less important overall than I had originally intended him.  His return in Book 3 was meant to be a real pivotal point in the story, and while I think it is still dramatic, perhaps not as much as I intended.  In some ways, he kind of takes the place of Terrence Dechantagne for the remainder of the series.

Radley Staff is just a name that I made up on the spot.  He is one of the few characters that I refer to constantly by their last names, even as narrator of the story.  It just seems more appropriate for him.  In Book 1, we find him one of the junior officers aboard the battleship HMS Minotaur, and he acts nominally in charge of the colonists.  He therefore has quite a bit of contact with Iolanthe.  This of course develops into a love affair.

If I was going to write their love scenes again, I would do it from Iolanthe’s point of view.  As it was, I was trying to view it a little distantly, and so we only see it from Senta’s point of view.

Update: Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome

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I just finished chapter 8 of Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome, and that means I’m almost halfway done.  I’m only working on it intermittently, as I also write The Young Sorceress.  It’s amazing how much easier Astrid is to write for me right now.  As I’ve said before, I have ideas for about 20 Astrid Maxxim books and plan to write at least two or three a year for a while.

On a related note, I’m almost keeping up with my New Years Resolution to write 3 pages a day.  I’m only about 26 pages behind.  Oh well, maybe I can catch up this summer.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Pantagria

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Spoiler Alert

One of the characters I find most interesting in The Voyage of the Minotaur doesn’t even exist.  Pantagria is a figment of Terrence’s imagination– an angelic woman living in a magical world which he visits when under the influence of the drug white opthalium.  She is stunningly beautiful– perfect– with long golden hair, white feathered wings, and she usually flies around naked.

The idea for this character and the setting came from some short stories I wrote when I was in high school, about real people going to an imaginary place covered with purple flowers with human eyes.  That this was the result of a drug was a new element for this story. 

The imaginary setting is more than it appears though, because not only does Terrence visit Pantagria while he is there, but others who use the drug apparently see her too.  I think this works because this is not just a drug, but a magical drug. 

There are two problems with Pantagria.  One is that she begins to change and Terrence’s dream becomes a nightmare.  The other is inherant in any drug– using it takes away all those things that make a human want to achieve.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Senta’s Family

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Spoiler Alert

We see the same members of Senta’s family in this book that we saw in Brechalon, but their situation changes when Granny dies and Bertice gets married, taking some of the other children with her– but not Senta, who gets left with a neighbor lady.

The idea for this came from stories from my own family.  My great grandfather was the youngest of a very large family, and was still quite young when his parents died.  There were several older siblings, who took in the younger ones, except for my great grandfather, who ended up being raised by neighbors.  This had to have had quite an effect on a person’s psyche.  In the book, Senta shrugs it off fairly easily– probably not realistic, I guess.

As I mentioned before, several of the kids show up later in the series, but not until they and Senta are pretty grown up.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Zurfina the Magnificent

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Zurfina the Magnificent is a character in The Voyage of the Minotaur and the other books of Senta and the Steel Dragon.

Spoiler Alert

When we last saw Zurfina in Book 0: Brechalon, she was prisoner 89 in the Kingdom of Brechalon’s magical prison of Schwarztogrube.  Now we find her living in the city of Brech, although it is pretty clear early on that she is in hiding, at least to a degree.  Needing a high power magic wielder, the Dechantagne’s hire her to go with them to Birmisia.  About this same time, she comes into contact with Senta and takes her in as an apprentice.

Zurfina is really not a major character.  She is a very important minor character.  She acts as a deus ex machina in several situations.  She is however in the front of the action in this book more than any of the others, primarily because she and Senta spend so much time together aboard the HMS Minotaur. 

Zurfina is fun to write because she is completely self-absorbed.  While Iolanthe thinks of nothing but the good of her family, Zurfina thinks of nothing but herself.  Even when Terrence chastises her for allowing Senta to almost get eaten by velociraptors, she simply replies.  “Children are going to be eaten.”  Still, her relationship with Senta grows as the story progresses and we see a few hints of affection.