Monthly Archives: October 2012

Eaglethorpe Buxton Bits

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“All the country knows the name of Eaglethorpe Buxton and it knows that he is not one to harm children or ladies, nor old people or the infirm.  Rather he is a friend to those who are in need of a friend and a protector to those who are in need of a protector and a guardian to those who are in need of a guardian.”

“So long as it is not a pie that needs guarding,” said he.

Unlike my other stories, I don’t plot Eaglethorpe Buxton.  I just let it go.  Some may think that’s obvious.  So, I never expected as I was first writing the story that pie would play such a huge part, but after the first story, there just had to be pie in all the others.

The Young Sorceress Characters: Pantagria

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The last character I want to talk about from The Young Sorceress is Pantagria– the angelic demon who is the embodiment of addiction.  I love writing Pantagria in The Voyage of the Minotaur, but had written Brechalon, The Dark and Forbidding Land, The Drache Girl, and The Two Dragons without being able to include her.  The Young Sorceress was my last chance.

I love the dialog between Yuah and Pantagria in this story.  They have a complex relationship, one having loved Terrence and the other having been loved by him, and lovers with each other.  Of course my favorite line between them is when I get to steal my favorite line from Hamlet.

“Don’t speak of him!”  Yuah’s hand became a claw with which she threatened to lash out.  “Don’t you dare say his name!”

 “I loved Terrence,” Pantagria hissed, her eyes taking an evil gleam.  “Forty thousand dressing maids with all their quantity of love could not equal my sum!”

I hope you enjoyed my few thoughts about these characters.  To all of you who have taken your valuable time to read this book, you have my thanks.

Eaglethorpe Buxton Bits

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I had been traveling for through the snowy forests of Brest, which of course one might associate with a nicely roasted breast of chicken, but that is not necessarily the case.  To be sure I have had one or two nicely roasted chickens during my travels in this dark, cold country, as I traveled from one little hamlet to the next.  I would say though that I’ve eaten far more mutton and beef stew than roasted
chicken breast.  I suppose this has to do with the fact that eggs are dear, though I’ve seldom found an inn that didn’t offer a fried egg of morning.  In fact,
in distant Aerithraine, where I was once privileged to spend a fortnight with the Queen, I have had some of the finest breast of chicken dinners than any man
has ever enjoyed.  But notwithstanding this, there was a pie.

“In fact, in distant Aerithraine, where I was once privileged to spend a fortnight with the Queen…”  I threw in this line as a tribute to Baron Munchausen, who was one of the inspirations for Eaglethorpe– probably the primary inspiration.  A great story-teller who is also a liar, the Baron frequently compares women to “Catherine the Great, empress of all the Russias, whose hand in marriage I once had the honor to decline.”

The Queen of Aerithraine had already been created in our old D&D game.  I knew her whole history, but I never expected her to become a pivotal character in Eaglethorpe’s story.  But she does.

Eaglethorpe Buxton Bits

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I should stop and introduce myself.  I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, famed world traveler
and story-teller.  Of course you have heard of me, for my tales of the great heroes and their adventures have been repeated far and wide across the land. 
Yes, I am sad to say that many of my stories have been told without the benefit of my name being attached to them.  This is unfortunate as my appellation, which is to say the name of
Buxton and of Eaglethorpe would add a certain something to the verisimilitude of a story, which is to say the truthfulness or the believability of the
story.  But such is the jealousy of other
story-tellers that they cannot bear to have my name overshadow theirs.  In truth I am probably better known in any case as an adventurer in my own right than as a teller of the adventures of others.  But in any case, there was a pie.

I started writing Eaglethorpe Buxton in early 2009 just as a bit of fun.  I wanted a story with an unreliable narrator, set in a fantasy world, but I wasn’t to worried that the world be believable or even make sense.  I used the world that my kids and I had created to play D&D in, but played pretty fast and loose with the geography.

The Young Sorceress Characters: Mr. Parnorsham

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Mr. Parnorsham appears through most of the series of Senta and the Steel Dragon, and he is one of my favorite “spear-carriers.”  His name plays off of Mr. Hammersham, the barrister in Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Yuah Dechantagne peered out through the large window at the front of Mr. Parnorsham’s Pfennig Store.  Her eyes narrowed as she watched Senta talking to her brother-in-law across the street.  That witch was evil.  She had seen it with her own eyes.  Yuah’s husband Terrence had been addicted most of his adult life to White Opthalium.  The drug was not readily available in Birmisia, and for a time Yuah thought that he had managed to defeat his addiction.  Then she had followed him and had seen Senta and Zurfina supplying poor Terrence.  What kind of person would sell such a horrible substance to another?  Now Terrence was dead, but Yuah’s hatred for Zurfina and her ward was alive and well.  And what the hell was she wearing?  That dress looked as though it was made from the same thing as steam carriage tires.

“Can I help you with something, Mrs. Dechantagne?”

Yuah started, but it was only Mr. Parnorsham.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if there was anything else you needed.  I have the toiletries and notions from your list all gathered.  What else can I get for you?”

“If there’s anything else, I’ll send a lizzie for it.”  Yuah’s tone sounded harsh in her own ears, and the look on Mr. Parnorsham’s face confirmed it.

She glanced quickly out the window again and saw that Senta had left.

“Good day.”

The Young Sorceress Characters: Kieran Baxter

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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.

Answering a Review

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I’ve been making a concerted effort not to read bad reviews, and I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it.  I am just happy to know that good reviews greatly outweigh the bad ones.  But recently I read one of the very few negative reviews of Princess of Amathar and wanted to mention a few things brought up.

I won’t repeat the review or argue about the reviewer’s opinion of my writing.  He or she is entitled to his or her opinion.  I just want to talk about a couple of specifics.  Here is the passage in particular–

A little bit of Burroughs’ Princess of Mars, a kock-off of Larry Niven’s Ringworld, a few other sources are cannibalized for this book… our hero is transported to an alien world “for some reason”… he remains nonplussed at this teleportation and the nonsensical and random events that come afterward.

I have always said that this book was intended as a tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs.  The fact that it is dedicated to him might hint at this.  I have read Ringworld and enjoyed it.  And two things in this book are ideas that I probably borrowed from Niven– the idea of a world built long ago by an unknown race and that it was populated by that race for some unknown purpose.  I would bet Larry Niven didn’t invent these concepts, but he really does a great job with them.  I didn’t invent the idea of a hollow world (a Dyson Sphere), and I didn’t get it from Ringworld.  I read about it as a kid and had already begun the story before I read Ringworld.  The two planet types really only superficially resemble one another.  The reason for the hollow world was another tribute to Burroughs– to his Pellucidar stories.  The idea of the hero not knowing or worrying about how he got to his new world comes right from Burroughs (though they changed that in the John Carter movie).  So does the idea of completely different alien races living seemingly next door to one another.  So does the fact that even though they have energy weapons, the characters fight with swords.  If those things seem nonsensical or random, you my friend are not a true Burroughs fan.

My goal was not to write Burroughs fan fiction although I did that in my younger days.  My goal was to write a book that was something like Burroughs would write today– a new book that would remind me of the things I loved reading as a kid.  I just reread Princess of Amathar the other day, and I am just full enough of myself to admit that I enjoyed reading it.

The Young Sorceress Characters: Bessemer

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Bessemer is the steel dragon in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  Despite the title of the series, Bessemer is a far less central character than some of the others.  Part of that is because of necessity.  As a dragon, he is just too big (figuratively) to be a central part of the story.  It’s not much of a story arc to start awesome and then become awesomer.  Part of it is that it never really was his story– it’s Senta’s.

That being said, I always enjoy writing Bessemer and enjoyed having him grow up.  In The Voyage of the Minotaur, he is a cat-sized lizard who occasionally pops out with a word.  By The Young Sorceress, he is nearly the size of a locomotive and is on his way to being one of the most powerful and intelligent creatures on the planet.  I love the relationship between Senta, Bessemer, and the sorceress Zurfina.  One can never be sure which of them will be submissive to the other and which will suddenly become dominant.  Bessemer and Senta are a bit like siblings and a bit like best friends, while their relationship with Zurfina is more child/parent, despite Zurfina being very unparent-like.

 

The Young Sorceress Characters: Gaylene Finkler

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Gaylene Finkler is one of the characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  She is the sister of Graham Dokkins, Senta’s boyfriend.

Gaylene was not in my original draft.  I needed a waitress in The Drache Girl, and I just decided to make her Graham’s sister.  I went back and added a line about her in the first book, The Voyage of the Minotaur.  From there, she just kind of grew. In The Young Sorceress, she is married and already a young mother.  She adds a little fun to the story and she’s one of the few characters at this point in the story who isn’t afraid of Senta.

Gaylene is named for my aunt.

The Young Sorceress Characters: Hertzal Hertling

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Hertzal Hertling is one of the characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He and his two sisters arrived in Birmisia from Freedonia in book 1, victims of the anti-Zaeri racism in their homeland.

Hertzal and his twin sister Hero are two of Senta’s best friends, despite the fact that Hertzal has not spoken since he arrived in the new land.  I don’t know why I chose mutism for Hertzal (except that all the characters in the story are broken in some way), but it just grew to be a real part of the story.

In The Young Sorceress, Hertzal gets a bit of alone time with Senta, leading me to discover just how hard it is to write a conversation between two people when one can’t speak.  That being said, Hero and Hertzal, and their older sister Honor, are some of my personal favorites.