Monthly Archives: February 2012

Weight Watchers

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After having a series of problems with clogged arteries over the past few years, I decided last year to really make an effort to lose weight.  I started Weight Watchers and it’s a great program.  I also signed up at a Fitness Center.  There really is only one way to lose weight– eat less and excercise more. 

I like Weight Watchers as a system and it really works, but I hate the meetings.  I can’t stand sitting around with a bunch of people who are trying to convince each other that the latest low fat yogurt tastes better than cheesecake.  It doesn’t.  So, I switched to Weight Watchers Online.  Same program, less money, no meetings.  I’ve lost nearly 25 pounds.  I’m still overweight, but I’m still working on it.

On the exercise front though, I ripped a hamstring last week so badly I couldn’t walk.  It’s almost better now, though I’ve been using a cane this past few days.

Ellwood Cyrene

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Ellwood Cyrene is Eaglethorpe Buxton’s best friend.  He is more or less right out of my old D&D campaign.  He is rather overaffectionate  toward Eaglethorpe, and the latter constantly has to remind himself of how manly they both are.

Spoiler Alert

In Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress, we find out Ellwood’s Secret (one of them).  He is really a she.  What that means for their friendship and what other secrets he/she may have, are forthcoming in a future volume.  Hint: Ellwood’s name gives a bit of it away.

Hysteria

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Hysteria is Eaglethorpe Buxton’s horse.  I don’t know how I came up with the name, I just remember giggling as I wrote it.  It probably goes back to the evocative names in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” an awesomely funny play in which the Romans all have names like Lascivious and Stupendous.  Of course, Hysteria is such a great name, because it tells us that she isn’t the steady warhorse a real hero should have.  Also hysteria is such a great word, full of meaning and rife with sexism.

Eaglethorpe Buxton

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I don’t know where the idea came from to write an Eaglethorpe Buxton story, but he does owe a lot to several other authors and stores.  His origin as a medieval story-teller comes right out of D&D and in fact the world in which he lives (including the Queen of Aerithraine) is from the D&D campaign I started as a young man and continued right up until my kids and I used to play.

Eaglethorpe’s line “The Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had the pleasure to spend a fortnight” is pretty much stolen inspired by Baron Munchausen, and his line about Catherine the Great.  He also has a bit of Lemony Snicket in him (great books, A Series of Unfortunate Events).  I have always loved unreliable narrators and I tried to make Eaglethorpe one.  Of course, he is a bit more than unreliable.  He’s a complete liar.

In order to make the plot work, Eaglethorpe had to be a bit heroic.  He knows how to handle himself with a sword.  He can kick the crap out of goblins.  But he’s not the hero he thinks he is.

A Change of Pace

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I’ve written about the characters from Blood Trade, Women of Power, His Robot Girlfriend, and Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike, and then I started in on Senta and the Steel Dragon.  If covered book 0 and book 1, and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.  It’s time for a little change of pace.  So starting tomorrow, I’ll talk about the characters from Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess.  Then I can go back to Senta with book 2.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: The Steel Dragon

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The last character in Senta and the Steel Dragon is the second title character for the series– the Steel Dragon himself.  In fact, when the series was originally planned as a single book, the title was going to be “The Steel Dragon.”

Spoiler Alert

The Steel Dragon goes through more change than any other character in the entire series.  In Book 0, he only appears as an egg afterall.  🙂  In The Voyage of the Minotaur he is little more than a pet for the sorceress Zurfina, though she saves the term “Pet” for Senta.  We don’t even learn the dragon’s name until the very last word of the book.

The Steel Dragon grows (a lot) and increases his intellect and various abilities a great deal from book to book.  In the final book of the series, Book 5: The Two Dragons, he is as large as a railroad car, though still tiny compared to the other dragon in the story– yes, he’s one of the two dragons mentioned in the title.

I hoped the 25 regular readers of this blog have enjoyed a look at the characters in this book.  In the next few days, I’ll start my way through Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: The Clergy

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When the Minotaur sails toward the new colony in a faraway land, there are several members of the Church of Kafira who are along to see to the worship needs of the colonists.

Spoiler Alert

Father Ian:  Father Ian is the priest on the expedition and he is really only there as cannon fodder– or in this case, dinosaur fodder.  From the very beginning, he was intended as a T-Rex milkbone.  I actually had a little fun writing him to be more or less incompetent and a bit goofy, knowing that I was going to kill him off later.

Sister Auni: Sister Auni is an acolyte (since in the Church of Kafira, priests and acolytes are both male and female, she takes the place of a nun).  She is competent and helpful and a source for healing magic.  I made her really skinny to make her a bit distinctive.  It’s all the more so because, unlike the laywomen, she doesn’t wear a bustle. 

Brother Galen: He is the other acolyte and barely makes an appearance in the story, though he is a bit more important (though not much more visible) in the later books.

The Voyage of the Minotaur is the first book in the Senta and the Steel Dragon series, and is available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

Update: Misc.

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Two things:  First, I sometimes get an idea or a scene in my mind and really hold onto it until I need to sit down and write it out.  This was the case with a half dozen little beginnings of stories that I might  will write assuming I live long enough eventually.  Second, I get my best ideas as I’m lying in bed, just about to drift off to sleep.  I used to forget them when I fell asleep, but something about being older has allowed me to hold onto them.

The other night I had one such idea and several days later I sat down and wrote the first two pages of what might be a Blood Trade sequel.  I don’t think I’ll write anything else on it for a while because I don’t really have a story; I just had a scene.  Also, Blood Trade is one of my least popular books.  I really feel like I need to focus on books that people want to read– top of the list being the next Robot Wife book.

It did feel really good to write this little bit though– surprising, since I writing the first book was such a wringing experience.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: The Wizards

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There are two wizards who appear in The Voyage of the Minotaur—Dudley Labrith and Suvir Kesi.  Wizards differ from sorcerers in the world of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  One may learn to be a wizard.  It involves mathematics.  One must be born a sorcerer.  It involves being able to communicate with the magical plane.  Dudley Labrith and Suvir Kesi are nominally friends and served in the military together.
Spoiler Alert

Dudley Labrith is a Brech wizard.  He would love to steal some of Zurfina’s magic, but otherwise is not that bad a chap.  I named Dudley in honor of J. K. Rowling.  Her Dudley is one of the few nonmagical characters in her Harry Potter books.  Dudley Labrith is an insect collector and loves killing them and pinning them to his mat, which foreshadows his own demise.

Suvir Kesi is a Mirsannan.  Mirsanna is the third major country on the continent of Sumir and somewhat takes the place of France in our world.  It is a bit more exotic, with the men wearing fezzes and coats made of ferret skins and the women running around in Arabian Knights-ish silky things.  I found the name Suvir on a baby name web site and immediately chose it for Kesi, because it sounds like “severe.”   He is a bad guy and the extent of his evil plans should be a surprise for the end of the book, so I won’t spoil them now even though I put up the spoiler warning.

The Voyage of the Minotaur: Old Ladies

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There are quite a few older characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon, but here are a couple that I would term “old ladies.”

Spoiler Alert

Mrs. Gantonin is the woman who lives in the same tenement as Senta and her relatives.  When Senta’s granny dies, she goes to live with Mrs. Gantonin, because no other relatives will take her.  As I mentioned before, this idea comes from a similar situation that my own great-grandfather found himself in.  He was raised by neighbors when his parent died, even though there were plenty of relatives who probably should have taken him in.

Mrs. Phillida Marjoram is a nosy neighbor type who makes the journey on the HMS Minotaur to the new colony.  She is present mostly as a foil to other characters at whom she can act displeased.