Category Archives: Knights of Amathar

Characters: Alexander Ashton

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I thought I would spend some time talking about my characters over the coming weeks.  My first character was Alexander Ashton.  It’s been so long ago, I don’t remember where his first name actually came from, but I think it was probably from Alexander the Great.  His last name was from a young lady I used to work with, who was one of my first beta readers.

Alexander is a hero in the vein of John Carter and other Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes.  He is strong and rediculously formidable in battle, and also very intelligent, but make the occassional rediculous mistake or assumption that leads to him into danger.  He is very fun to write, and Princess of Amathar is from his first person viewpoint.  Although he frequently expresses doubt about himself, one gets the impression that he seldom really doubts.

When I eventually get the sequel done (the working title is Knights of Amathar) Alexander Ashton will once again tell the story.

Work in Progress: Knights of Amathar

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This project has been in the works literally for years now.  I plotted out the story just after I finished Princess of Amathar and I’ve started writing it a couple of times.  At some point I know I’m going to finish it.  If I keep up my goal of completing five books a year, then I’ll have to get it done next year or year after, even if I don’t manage to get to it this year.

The story, like Princess of Amathar, is a first person adventure from the point of view of stranded Earth-man Alexander Ashton.  There will be lots of sword-fighting, laser gun fighting, and strange alien monsters.  The evil Zoasians of course make a return as do all the surviving Amatharians from the first book.

Work in Progress – Knights of Amathar

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Quite a number of people have been after me to get a sequel completed to Princess of Amathar.  I have a good outline of Knights of Amathar as well as four completed chapters (out of about 30), but it just keeps popping itself onto the back burner.  I keep coming up with ideas for other stories, and worse, starting them.  Fear not though, Alexander Ashton and his friends will eventually return.  When they do, I will probably have to design a new cover for them.  I’m not liking this one very much anymore.

Brechalon: Second Draft Finished

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I finished the second draft of Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon. The only thing is to give it a final edit and publish it, but…
I don’t want to publish it until I know something about the disposition of Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur. I haven’t heard back from Baen Books. I’d like to know if I can get it published, or if I’m going to do it myself. The whole purpose of Book 0 is to build up interest for Book 1, 2, 3, etc.
So, I’ve decided to contact Baen and see if they have anything for me, then do one more edit of book 1 and send it to as many other potential publishers as possible. I’ll send it to some agents too, those I haven’t already approached.
I feel like I have to have some resolution, before I can move on, even though there are three projects that are begging for my attention. I woke up thinking about things to add to Nova Dancer. Women of Power is sitting there with three full chapters, as is Knights of Amathar. Any of these, I’ll self-publish.

Brechalon – Coming along nicely.

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I’m well into chapter five of Brechalon, which is plotted to be a ten chapter book, so it looks promising for a completion before the end of the years. Then I have my choice of what to work on next– Knights of Amathar (Sequel to Princess of Amathar), Nova Dancer (Space Novel), Women of Power (Superhero Novel), or The Dark and Forbidding Land (Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 2).

Amathar – The World of Ecos

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The story of “Princess of Amathar” and its sequel “Knights of Amathar” (now in progress) take place in the world of Ecos. Notice I said takes place “in”, not “on”, for Ecos is a Dyson Sphere. There is a lot of information on Dyson’s Spheres on the web and quite a bit relates to an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I however set Princess of Amathar in a Dyson Sphere long before that episode was shown, having read about it in a role-playing magazine (for the Traveller RPG).
Ecos is a giant hollow ball, about 180 milliion miles in diameter, with its sun in the center. The people walk around on the inside of this great sphere. Though the Ecosian sun is slightly smaller than ours, you can’t tell because it is slightly closer to the surface of Ecos than ours is to Earth. This vast shell provides a surface area that is billions (with a B) of times larger than the surface area of any normal planet.
Ecos was created ages ago by a race of beings known as the Elder Gods. They also populated Ecos with dozens, perhaps hundreds of alien races, who then developed their own civilizations and societies. No one knows what happened to the Elder Gods, but the many races of Ecos continue to thrive.

Amathar – Alexander Ashton

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I really wanted “Princess of Amathar” to have that same feel that I enjoyed while reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars books as a boy. Consequently, my hero Alexander Ashton owes a lot to John Carter. He is brave to the point of foolishness. He is smart enough to quickly learn a slew of new languages, but not usually bright enough to clue in on what’s going on right in front of him. He was named Alexander right from the start, to evoke Alexander the Great’s wreckless personal heroism, if not his drunken fits of rage, but he didn’t have a last name until I was well into the manuscript. A young lady I worked with at the time, had the last name Ashton, which just seemed to fit so well.

What I’m Writing Now

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I was hard at work on the sequel to Princess of Amathar, the working title of which is Knights of Amthar. Then I got sidetracked with Eaglethorp Buxton and the Elven Princess. This is going to be a quick little piece of about 25,000 words. All the while I have been editing The Voyage of the Minotaur, which led me to want to write more about those characters, so I dived into this new story, tentatively called The Dark and Forbidding Land. So I’m on chapter four of Knights of Amathar, chapter seven of Eaglethorp Buxton, and now chapter three of The Dark and Forbidding Land.

Something New

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Well, I was quite busy at work on Knights of Amathar, when I got sidetracked and began writing something completely different. I have had an idea for a fantasy novel for some time about a story-teller and a queen. But I’m not writing that either. I started on the sequel to that story! I got a piece of artwork to use on a cover and the story just gelled and I started writing up a storm. At this point I don’t know if I’m going to finish it before going back to Knights of Amathar, but I’ll let you know. The new story is Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess. I wonder if I’ll ever get around to writing Eaglthorpe Buxton and the Queen. In the coming weeks, I’ll give you an excerpt of the story.

Cruising Along in Chapter 2 Land

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I’m well into chapter two of Knights of Amathar. My original outline was for a story about 90,000 words long divided into thirty chapters. I decided this was too short and I wanted to stretch it out to just over 100,000 words. This gives me an opportunity to provide a little more information about Amatharian culture. I can have my protagonist Alexander Ashton visit some of the sites that I have not yet explored.