Senta and the Steel Dragon – Characters


My new series, Senta and the Steel Dragon tells the story of the creation of a colony. Because of this there are many characters in the story– somewhat over two hundred named characters. I can put them into three main categories: main characters, major supporting characters, and minor supporting characters. In each of the three books, I follow four main characters, though not necessarily the same four as in the previous book. These are the characters into whose thoughts and emotions we see.

Senta Bly: Senta is a major character in all books. She is a young orphan girl who becomes the apprentice to a powerful sorceress. (She is the title character for book 3 and the series)

Iolanthe Dechantagne: The head of a powerful and wealthy noble family who leads the expedition to found a new colony in a mysterious land, she is a main character in books 1 and 5.

Terrence Dechantagne: A main character in book 1, Terrence is Iolanthe’s older brother, who everyone looks to as a heroic leader, but who harbors deep doubts about himself and lives with a dangerous addiction.

Zeah Korlann: Originally the Dechantagne butler, Zeah is a major character in books 1 and 5. He realizes his potential along the way to be more than a servant.

Yuah Korlann: Zeah’s daughter is a main character in book 2, 3, and 4, but is a major supporting character in the other books. Hopelessly in love with Terrence, she struggles with her place in the world, and deals with ethnic prejudice.

Radley Staff: Radley is a main character in book 3 and in one chapter of book 5. He is a naval officer on the battleship which transports the colonists. Later, after he retires, he returns to the colony.

Saba Colbshallow: Saba is a minor supporting character in book 1, a young man who works as a gopher for the Dechantagnes. By book 2, he has grown up. He is a main character in books 2 and 3.

His Robot Girlfriend Characters: Names

Most of the character names in His Robot Girlfriend are pretty normal. I had an idea that old fashioned names might make a comeback some time in the future, at least for a generation or two, so the kids in class and Mike’s children’s names went in that direction– Lucas, Harriet, Mabel, etc. The one area in which I didn’t change the names to match this idea was the strippers in the story. They have the same names that they did in the earliest draft.

His Robot Girlfriend Characters: Patience

Patience is the robot in His Robot Girlfriend. She went through a number of names in earlier drafts and was physically quite different in the first draft. She was originally a tall bimbo-esqu platinum blonde (who could change her hair color on demand). As I was rewriting, I began to picture a willowy brunette– more of an Anne Hathaway or an Alyson Hannigan. I had originally thought I would write more of a story arc for Patience, but I decided to concentrate on Mike’s story.

His Robot Girlfriend Characters: Mike

I started talking about the characters in His Robot Girlfriend before, but I thought I might go a little more in-depth this time. Mike, the main character, is the most autobiographical character that I’ve ever written. In an early draft, his last name was Anderson, making it closer to mine. He is like me, a school teacher, a lover of science fiction, overweight, and a homebody. He’s a little older than me, but not as much as when I first started on the book. He has some experiences in life that are different than mine. I had to add a few personality quirks that made him a little less like me, because I didn’t want the character to be me. Reading it again though, I realize it doesn’t make much difference.

Princess of Amathar Names

Princess of Amathar has only one human character. All the rest are aliens of one type or another. One alien character is Malagor. He is a rather wolf-like fellow and the name just seemed to fit. For the Amatharians, I created long complex names that would look good, but would be difficult to pronounce aloud. I wanted them to sound vaguely french, because my main character had described their language as sounding that way. So my Amatharians became Norar Remontar, Vena Remontar, and the title character Noriandara Remontar. For the only human, my main character, I needed a name that implied heroic exploits and also to fit in with a plot twist, it needed to begin with the letter A. Alexander was a natural fit, though I don’t remember if I decided upon this before or after I wrote a major college paper on Alexander the Great. For a long time he didn’t have a last name, but I finally named him after a young lady I was working with (as I worked my way through college) whose last name was Ashton. So Alexander Ashton was born.

Amathar – Vena Remontar

Vena Remontar is Noriandara’s cousin. As a character, she had to be everything that Noriandara wasn’t. In a word– nice. I also had to make her stand out a bit from the other Amatharian knights. Therefore her shorter hair and lighter skin.

Amathar – Noriandara Remontar

Noriandara Remontar is the title character in Princess of Amathar. She is the sister of Norar Remontar, is strikingly beautiful, and Alexander Ashton falls in love with her at first sight, leading to the main plot of the story as he has to rescue her from the Zoasians. I wanted Noriandara to be typical of pulp adventure heroines– beautiful and in danger, but she had to be something more. She turns out to be something more when she and Alexander finally meet.

Amathar – Tular Maximinos


Tular Maximinos is a relatively minor character from Princess of Amathar. He is a friend of Norar Remontar and the betrothed of Vena Remontar. He also turns out to be something of a rival to Alexander.

They all laughed again. I instinctively liked both these men– Bentar Hissendar was a friendly and happy fellow, and Tular Maximinos had an engaging wit, and a way of delivering a funny line with a straight face. I wondered for a moment if he could do the reverse, and deliver a sad line while smiling.

“It was very lucky for you that you came out of that tunnel when you did,” said Tular Maximinos. “We were just getting ready to leave the area.”

“Yes,” confirmed Bentar Hissendar. “We have been making surveys for the Hissendar Trading Group. They have been looking for new sources of edible plants and mineral resources, but the area where we found you turned out to have little promise.”

Amathar – Bentar Hissendar


Bentar Hissendar is one of Norar Remontar’s friends and he becomes a friend of Alexander Ashton, the hero of our story as well. Bentar Hissendar is a happy-go-lucky jockular fellow and I didn’t get to use him as much in the story as I had originally intended, but hopefully I can rectify that in the sequel.

Senta and the Steel Dragon – Gyula Kearn


Gyula Kearn is in a single scene in The Voyage of the Minotaur. He is a line cook in Cafe Carlo in the great city of Brech. When he can get away with it, he likes to give food away to Senta and the other orphans who work in and around the cafe.

Gyula makes a second appearance in Book 5 of the series, when he arrives as an immigrant to Birmisia. Nine years have passed and he is hired on the be the head chef in one of the colony’s new restaurants. It is still a small part, but he may have a larger one in a later book.

I don’t remember where I got Gyula’s name. I do remember that just on the spur of the moment I decided that he had lost his arm in an industrial accident. I wanted to stress the number of accidents in an industrial revolution world, and a one-armed cook makes the character stand out a bit.