Kieran Baxter is a minor character appearing in The Voyage of the Minotaur.  I had always had this story in my mind about what happened to him later on, but originally I had planned on it happening off camera, as it were.  The characters in the story would only hear about it later, when he eventually reappeared (originally he wasn’t going to appear until after The Two Dragons).

As I plotted The Young Sorceress, I decided that I needed his story.  I had already written a shipwreck story, so I adapted that to his experiences.  I was never completely happy with the results and his part of the story is my least favorite part of Senta and the Steel Dragon, though I love his eventual return in the end of The Two Dragons.