Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Price of Magic – Iolana Staff

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Senta and the Steel Dragon Bessemer are the title characters for the series and Senta has been the title character for three of the individual books.  In each book however, there are others who play a major part.  This is never more true than in The Price of Magic, where the single greatest mover of the plot is Iolana Livonia Dechantagne Staff.  We first meet Iolana as a toddler in Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land.  She’s present in Book 3: The Drache Girl, where she manages to survive the attack on her home that kills many others.  She has a much larger part in Book 4: The Young Sorceress, where she is starting to come into her own a bit, and we find out that she has a connection with the steel dragon.  In Book 5: The Two Dragons, he saves her (and several other family members) from being eaten by a flock of deinonychus.  Then her Accord Day party is the scene for a great deal of the colony’s society coming together.  Finally, in Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, she gets involved with the magical computer known as the Result Mechanism.  In many ways, The Price of Magic is the climax of her story.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic: Walter Charmley & Collier Wissinger

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Walter Charmley (along with his brother) first appeared as children in the colony of Port Dechantagne in Book 3: The Drache Girl.  We see quite a bit more of him in Book 5: The Two Dragons, when he and his brother are racing their iguanodon down the city streets with Graham Dokkins.  In Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, Walter is dating Sherree Glieberman, but dumps her abruptly after the death of his brother and marries Wenda Lanier.

Collier Wissinger makes his first appearance in The Price of Magic, though his parents Zossef and Magda Wissinger are well-known from books 2, 3, and 4.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic – Chapter 9 Excerpt

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The Price of Magic - New“Wake up, you silly dragon. We’re here.”

“Whoop-tee-doop,” said Zoey, without opening her eyes.

“It’s quite an impressive fortress. It looks very different than when I was here last.”

“Yes, it’s crawling with lizzies now,” said the dragon, peering up with one eye. “And there’s a veritable stream of them coming up that road.”

“That’s the road of supplicants,” said Senta. “They’re coming to worship Bessemer.”

“No wonder he’s so full of himself.”

Senta waved her hands and the magical disk vanished, but like the proverbial cat, Zoey landed on her feet, seemingly with no effort. Senta continued on and the dragon followed. As they neared the road, Senta could see that Zoey had been correct. There were literally thousands of lizzies on it, making their way to the fortress and to the god who lived within. They weren’t all walking though. A mile from the great gate, there was an arch over the road. Upon reaching it, the pilgrims dropped down onto their bellies to crawl the rest of the way, dragging their tales behind them. As Senta approached, the line of lizzies came to a stop as they all watched her. She stepped up onto the road and strode through the archway, then stepped over the crawling lizzies. As she passed each one, he too stopped and stared up at her.

She was still walking up the road, her path weaving around prostrated reptilians when she spied a lizzie rushing down the path toward her. He was an ornately painted male, wearing a bright red cloth cape. He was hissing as he hurried. Senta reached up and plucked one of the glamours from around her head, activating the spell stored within. Once it was in effect, she could understand the lizzie’s words.

“You should not be on this road, human! What do you think you are doing?”

Suddenly the red-caped lizzie spotted the small dragon behind her. He was so startled that he tripped on one of the prostrate lizzies, falling in a heap at the sorceress’s feet.

“Now, what are you going on about?” asked Senta, looking down.

“You’re her?” said the lizzie, looking up from the dirt. “Yes of course you are. The Great God said you were coming, but I didn’t recognize your paint and feathers. I thought you were a male human.”

Senta looked down at herself. She was dressed in what she often still thought of as her Zurfina garb—black leather pants and high black boots, and a black leather bustier in place of a shirt. Of course the entire ensemble carried magic spells to make it her most comfortable set of clothing. She reached up and cupped her breasts.

“Yes, mammary glands, I see them now,” said the lizzie, rising to his feet, “but you have neither a very large bottom, nor a long tuft of hair.”

Senta ran a hand over her head. She was still wearing her blond hair in a man’s short style, parted on the side and razor-cut around the ears and neck. Of course, since she wasn’t wearing a dress, she didn’t have on the bustle that recent dress styles were requiring to be larger than ever.

The lizzie brushed himself off and then bowed.

“I am Khastla, the god’s most trusted. You should follow me. We will take the road of guests.

The red-caped male led the human and the dragon up a path paved with shiny river stones. It wound up the hill, sometimes approaching the main road and sometimes veering farther away. Finally it led to a small but beautiful gate in the cyclopean fortress wall. It was not as large as the main gate, but was lined with two beautifully carved statues of Bessemer.

The fortress had been completely rebuilt from the ruin it had been when Senta had been there before. Inside the walls were numerous tall buildings, constructed with smooth façades, but featuring many window boxes filled with flowers. Between the buildings were flowerbeds, walkways of colorful pebbles shaded with fruit trees covered in blossoms, and fountains which sprayed out water that was collected into little gutters that wound in and out to feed the plants. Hundreds of lizzies were working, cleaning, polishing, and gardening.

“This is all quite lovely,” said Senta.

Zoey gave a dismissive snort, sending a little smoke ring out of her right nostril.

A New Year

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Well, the winter break is over and I’ve been back at school for a school week.  It’s been a pretty good past few weeks.  More importantly for me, it’s been a good year for me, both with regards to my writing, and my day job as a teacher.

I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I keep a schedule of my writing and each year I up my goal by a bit.  I’ve done that again this year, as planned.  Last year, I managed to keep up pretty easily.  I’ve spent much more time selling myself than I did the previous year, and consequently ( I suspect) I’ve sold about 50% more books in 2015, than I did in 2014.  I published two books in 2015– Astrid Maxxim and her Hypersonic Spaceplane back in January, and The Price of Magic in December.  I also finished Astrid Maxxim and the Electric Racecar Challenge, which goes on sale January 29th and is my 25th book.

Over winter break, I worked furiously on my new robot novel.  Right now, it’s Cool Patience.  It was A Great Deal of Patience.  Who knows what the final title will be?  I finished two chapters though, so according to the outline, I’m about 1/10 of the way done.

Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous 2016!

The Price of Magic: Zoantheria

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

 

An increasingly important character to the series is Zoantheria, the Coral Dragon.  This tiny dragon appears as an egg given to Senta for safe-keeping in Book 4: The Young Sorceress.  The egg hatches in Book 5: The Two Dragons (making three dragons that actually appear in the book).  In Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, Zoantheria is about the size of a house cat, and begins to speak, telling Senta her name.  In The Price of Magic, the dragon has grown larger than a dog and has her own adventures to take part in.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic: Senta and Senta

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Of course the main character in any Senta and the Steel Dragon Book is Senta.  Senta Bly began as a small child in Book 0: Brechalon and has grown to a woman and a powerful sorceress by time The Price of Magic takes place.  Senta is twenty-three and has very little to fear from the world it seems.  Things that others find dangerous are mere annoyances to her.  She lets her relationships falter and pays little attention to those who care for her.

In this book Senta’s daughter is three years old.  We first saw her as an infant in The Sorceress and her Lovers.  The relationship of her mother’s lovers is really all about who Sen’s father really is.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic: Kafira, Garstone, and Zurfina

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Three characters who do not appear in the book are mentioned many times– Kafira, Garstone, and Zurfina.

As readers of the series know, Kafira Kristos occupies the same spot in the lives of the people of Birmisia and Brechalon as Jesus Christ does in our world.  Kafira is the daughter of God and the Holy Savior.  She is also the foundation of a great deal of unsavory language– Kafira’s tit!

Kazia Garstone is a writer of great renown, frequently mentioned throughout the series.  Her books are well-known, but she is not popular with the aristocratic Brechs because of her socialistic leanings.  Nevertheless, she is one of Iolana Staff’s favorites.

Zurfina, the greatest sorceress perhaps of all time, the mother of Senta, disappeared at the end of The Two Dragons and is presumed dead.  About the only person that believes she might not be is Senta.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic: Chapter 8 Excerpt

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The Price of Magic - NewWhen he stepped off the trolley to walk the last mile to the house he was feeling in an odd mood. He had never quite felt this way before. It was as if he could see his own mortality. He had been in danger a few times in his life, particularly when he was   running errands for Master Bassington… his father. He had felt sad when he had found out that his father had died, killed by a dragon here in Birmisia. But it wasn’t quite the same. There was something about the death of a little baby, a miniature little person with all the promise in the world, the way that an acorn held the promise of a mighty tree, which changed one’s perspective about things. Peter wasn’t a child anymore. It was time to make his mark in the world.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a velociraptor, keeping pace with him, but skirting along the edge of the trees. There were probably more in there somewhere. With a single word, he sent a bolt of magic energy blasting toward it. He didn’t know if he hit it, but he saw neither it nor any others of its kind the rest of the way home.

There was no lizzie waiting to open the door for him, but once he went inside, he found his little niece sitting with Baxter in the parlor. The man was reading her a story.

“Hi, Uncle,” said Sen, looking up.

“Hi, Sweetheart.”

“Good evening,” said Baxter. “There’s tea on the tray. I just made it. Biscuits too.”

“Thanks. Where’s Cheery?”

“I sent the lizzies home for the night. I gave them tomorrow off, except for the nurse, who’ll be in just for the morning.”

Peter nodded and stepped back into the foyer to hang up his coat before returning and pouring himself a cup of tea. He sat down by the fire and listened to the story Baxter was reading.

“Come with me,” said the opossum. “I will teach you how to get away from the hounds.”

At that moment a hunter arrived with four dogs. The opossum climbed nimbly up the tree and sat down on a branch, where the foliage quite concealed her.

“Open your sack, Mr. Fox, open your sack!” cried the opossum. “Pull out one of your many tricks!”

But the dogs had already taken hold of the fox and they tore him to pieces.

“Ah, Mr. Fox,” cried the opossum. “You with all your magic are now food for the dogs. Your pelt will clothe the hunter’s wife. If only you had been able to climb the tree like me, you would not have lost your life.”

 

“The End,” read Baxter.

“That’s a sad story,” said Sen.

“Not for the opossum,” said Baxter, touching her on the nose. “Just remember, it doesn’t do you any good to have a bag full of magic if you can’t climb a tree.”

“That doesn’t really sound like much of a lesson,” said Peter.

“Remember that next time a utahraptor is after you,” Baxter replied, standing up, picking up the little girl, and heading for the stairs. “Time to get your night dress on, little princess.”

The Price of Magic – Tokkenoht

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

Another lizzie character in The Price of Magic is Tokkenoht.  We met her, a female lizzie shaman, something of a rarity, in Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers.  At that point, she was already one of Hsranduss’s six wives, and by the end of the book, we see the king relying on her more and more.

In this book, Tokkenoht goes from being a relatively important character to being a major character– one from whose eyes we see much of the action in the book.  A quick note about her name.  I found when I was fleshing out characters to go into book six, that I had way too many lizzie names that started with S sounds.  I had established that they had names that began with a T sound, so I wanted something that sounded both vaguely Egyptian and vaguely Aztec.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at iBooks.

The Price of Magic – Hsrandtuss

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The Price of Magic - NewWe continue to look at the long list of characters who appear in The Price of Magic. Most have appeared in previous books in the series. I’m not going to tell you what happens to them in The Price of Magic, but if you haven’t read the earlier Senta books, Spoiler Alert.

 

We’ve mentioned many of the human characters in previous weeks, but there are quite a few lizzie characters as well.  One of them played a quite prominent role in yesterday’s excerpt.  The lizzies  are the native lizardman race of Birmisia, and they have had mixed relations with the humans, to put it mildly.  Hsrandtuss is a major character and an important one.  He is king of the llizzie city of Yessonarah.  In Book 4: The Young Sorceress, Hsradtuss first appears when Senta and Bessemer visit his village of Hiisierra.  Hsrandtuss realizes that hitching his future to the new dragon god, might prove a big advantage.  In Book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, he shows up to do just that, and is encouraged to found the city of Yessonarah.

New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.

The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and dinosaurs, angels and lizardmen, machine guns and wizards, sorceresses, bustles and corsets, steam-powered computers, hot air balloons, and dragons.

Find The Price of Magic wherever fine ebooks are sold, including HERE at Smashwords.