Category Archives: Writing

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 28 Excerpt

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Princess of AmatharThere were six more of the monsters standing around me, and they lunged for me as a group. I swung my sword through the body of the closest, while pushing the next back with my left hand. I recoiled as I felt the thick coating of slime which covered the thing’s body. At that moment, three others rushed forward and I was knocked back against the tree. I began hacking with abandon, chopping here and there into the bodies of my attackers. This caused them to step back a few feet. At least those who were still able to step back did so. One was lying on the ground unmoving, and two others were flopping around as they tried to get back to their feet.
While they took a moment to decide who would be the first among them to die, I prepared myself for their next assault. When they lunged forward, I jump up, tucking and rolling forward, to land behind them. Then with a spinning cut, I decapitated two in one blow. When I say decapitated, I mean that I sliced off at least the top half of what I would call the head, for I repeat it was difficult to say just where the body ended and the head began. There was no neck. The single remaining unscathed amphibian turned toward the river, and it was with fierce satisfaction that I noted none of those who remained would ever swim again. I ran after the last remaining man-frog, the anger born of being taken from peaceful sleep into bloody battle hazing over my better judgment. I could have easily overtaken the flopping limping gate of the slimy entity, even with out my gravity enhanced speed.
Before I had gone more than two steps, I stopped in my tracks. Stuck into the ground was Noriandara Remontar’s sword. I pulled it out of the ground and looked at it. It was quiet. There was no sign of the soul within, and I felt my heart ache, even though I knew this really signified nothing. The soul would have been quiet even if I had been using it in battle. The soul only awaked when used by its chosen knight. I put the Princess’s sword in my sheath, and continued.
My scum-covered adversary was gone, but I knew approximately where it had entered the river. On the bank were a great many tracks. This was apparently both the point of egress and entrance. The water here was fast and deep. Before I could think too much about it, admittedly something that is usually not too much of a problem, I took a deep breath and dived in.
The water was not too cold, though the temperature was lower than the air had been. I swam deeper and deeper– the river was far less shallow than I had supposed. I reached a level at which my ears began to hurt. The water was muddy though well lit by the noon-day sun. It seemed to me that I was able to hold my breath longer than I had whenever swimming on my home planet. Perhaps this was due somehow to the gravitational conditions of Ecos, or perhaps it just seemed that way because of all the adrenaline pumping through my system. Still, I was just at the point when I thought that I would need to surface for a breath, when I noticed an opening in the rocky bed of the river.
I swam down into the large hole and discovered a tunnel, which went downward some twenty feet and then turned. I realized that I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to last much longer, so I returned to the surface and took several deep breaths. I then hyperventilated for ten or fifteen seconds to fill my blood with oxygen. Now I was as ready as I could be. I dived back to the bottom of the river only to find that I had been swept down stream. I tried to go against the current, but it would have been impossible even had I not been encumbered by equipment and clothing. In the end I was forced to swim to the shore and walk upstream to the place where I had jumped in and do it all again. This time I went right to the bottom and into the submarine passage. At the bottom of the shaft, I gave myself a strong push off the wall and into the tunnel, and then swam for all I was worth. I didn’t know how long that passage might be, for I suspected that the creatures that regularly used it, while air breathers, were able to remain submerged for a long time. It was certain that they were far better designed for life under the water than I was. It wasn’t long before I was wishing that I had taken off my boots.

Amathar – Recycle and Repair

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A reader pointed out a feature of Amatharian society that I had actually forgotten about– recycling. Everything in Amathar is recycled from the clothing they wear to the massive aerial warships. I honestly don’t think a society of billions of people is truly sustainable in the long run if they don’t figure out how to recycle or reuse their waste products.

In addition, the Amatharians repair everything. We forget that just a few years ago, almost every town in America had an appliance repair shop that fixed everything from electric fans to toasters. In 1955 you might pay $25.00 for a new toaster, but you could get yours repaired for 50 cents. Today you can buy a similar product (not exactly, because toasters were made much better in the 50s) for $20.00 but it would cost you $125.00 to get it repaired. The Amatharians don’t have that problem. They don’t have money. Young Amatharians learn how to repair things as training for later making things and inventing new things.

Work in Progress

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I am busy working on His Robot Wife: A Great Deal of Patience.  I just finished chapter seven, so it’s already longer than the first His Robot Wife, and I’m less than a third finished.  Plotted at 25 chapters, this will be a full-length novel.  Comparing the lengths of the other books:

His Robot Girlfriend – 40,000 words

His Robot Wife – 29,000 words

His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue – 49,000 words

His Robot Girlfriend: Charity – 29,000 words

His Robot Wife: A Great Deal of Patience – 100,000 words (expected)

More importantly, is it any good?  Well, you’ll have to be the judge of that when I get done. I personally think this will be the best robot book in the series.  While the previous books were really all stand-alone, I’m starting to think of this as a series, so some things will play right into the next robot novel.  I have a couple of working titles, but no outline yet.  I still have to see how I work out the ending of this book.

In the meantime, I’m  cranking away as hard as I can.  In a few weeks, I’ll have to pause to give the final edit of Kanana: The Jungle Girl, but then I’ll get right back to it.

Princess of Amathar – Writing

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Princess of AmatharOne of the ideas that I had about Amatharian culture was the imporance of writing and by extension of penmanship. I also liked the idea that their writing might have letters that looked like something other than abstract shapes. We usually forget that some of our own letters, in the distant past, came from pictographic writing.

The book was very much like the book of Amath’s teachings which Norar Remontar had previously shown me. It was a bound volume with a spine, and it had a cover made of leather. The pages were made of a material something like plastic. They were thin and they could bend like paper, but they had a strength far beyond any paper product. The entire book was written in Amatharian, which of course I was unable to read, but the lines and letters seemed to be laid out in a familiar fashion. As I had noticed, the characters resembling simple line drawings of stylized animals and other almost familiar images. After staring at it for a moment, I almost thought that I could see tiny predators ready to pounce upon their prey.

Amathar – Communication

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Princess of AmatharI had Amathar in my head for many years before I started writing it. In many ways, it is the perfect world that I pictured when I was a teenager. It still reflects quite a few of my own personal feelings about the technological world. I have always hated talking on the telephone. I don’t know why, I just do. My cell minutes are usually in the single digits for any given month. I suppose that it’s no surprise then that there are no phones in Amathar. The Amatharians don’t like to hear voices that don’t have a face with them. They don’t have radios or any long-distance communication. This has the added storytelling benefit of leaving our hero alone without any way to contact help. On the other hand, I like to write. The Amatharians all love to write. Hardly any Amatharian reaches adulthood without having written at least one book, and they communicate extensively by letter. The letters are sent through vacuum tubes to each house, like we have at the bank. I have always been fascinated by those tubes. When I was in the hospital, I saw that they used them to send records from one floor to the other.

Princess of Amathar – The Subway

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Princess of AmatharOne of my favorite features of Amathar is the subway.
Just as the station was atypical of what I would expect of public transportation, so too was the train car. It was furnished more like a living room, or a comfortable den, than a public transportation system. There was a piece of furniture very much like a sofa, a small table in front of it, and a several very comfortable chairs. The sofa and chairs were covered with material that was patterned after animal skins, though it appeared to be man-made. Most surprising of all, there was a large bookcase against the back wall, filled with books. I stepped over to the small library once the subway had started into motion, and pulled one of the books from its place.
The book was very much like the book of Amath’s teachings which Norar Remontar had previously shown me. It was a bound volume with a spine, and it had a cover made of leather. The pages were made of a material something like plastic. They were thin and they could bend like paper, but they had a strength far beyond any paper product. The entire book was written in Amatharian, which of course I was unable to read, but the lines and letters seemed to be laid out in a familiar fashion. As I had noticed, the characters resembling simple line drawings of stylized animals and other almost familiar images. After staring at it for a moment, I almost thought that I could see tiny predators ready to pounce upon their prey.
“Is this a private transport car?” I asked, replacing the book.
“This shuttle train belongs to the air clan,” Norar Remontar replied, “though they make it available to anyone who needs transportation.”
“I am surprised that it doesn’t become damaged, or that the books and other furnishing aren’t stolen,” I said, noticing several small art objects atop the table, and hanging on the walls.
“Why would some one take something that wasn’t his?” the Amatharian wondered. “Of course there is a great deal of wear because of the number of people who travel on the train. That is why we must all take extra care, to see that this property of others is not needlessly damaged.”
I looked, but couldn’t find any more wear and tear than one would find in the average living room.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 23 Excerpt

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Princess of Amathar“Alexander Ashton, are you conscious?” I opened my eyes to see the face of the Princess looking down at me. “I thought you might be in a coma.”

“What happened?”

“Look and see, kinsman.”

I tried to sit up, but found it difficult, since both my hands and feet were bound with heavy wire. I managed to look around me, and saw that we were on the floor of a large room. It looked familiar, but for a moment I didn’t know how. I realized that this was a Zoasian land vehicle of the same general type which I had so recently driven, just as one of the aforementioned snake-men entered the compartment and pointed a large ray gun at me.

“Go ahead and shoot me, you cold-blooded bastard!” I shouted at the reptile. He just hissed at me uncomprehendingly, and then sat down nearby to guard us.

“It seems your thanks for the rescue were premature,” I told my companion.

“I resigned myself to my own death when I was first captured by the Zoasians,” said Noriandara Remontar. “The situation is no worse now. If anything, we can be happy that we have caused them so much trouble.”

“I can’t believe that they found us in the middle of that sand storm,” I said, rubbing the painful knot just behind my temple.

“The Zoasians have an extra eyelid which they can close to protect from the elements, and still be able to see,” she explained. “My aunt has made an extensive study of their culture and their physiology, though I dare say, I will be able to write quite a book on the subject myself, if I ever get back to Amathar.”

Princess of Amthar – The City of Amathar

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Princess of AmatharThe city of Amathar is huge– roughly the size of the continental United States or say, Australia. It is round and has a great wall around it. I have always been fascinated by city planning, especially when done long in advance of need. You can see analogs of Alexander laying out Alexandria in several of my stories.

I looked through the forward view port and felt my stomach drop away. Since coming to Ecos, I had come to expect things on a grand scale– seemingly endless plains, forests so dark and thick they seemed to block the sun, vast seas and broad rivers, huge flying battleships– but nothing had prepared me for the city of Amathar. Ahead of us was a wall that stretched to the left and right as far as the eye could see. Seemingly held within this wall was a city, straining to be free of its confines. It was a city of tremendously high buildings, tall towers, and massive constructions of bizarre shape and ungodly dimension, painted with a rainbow of pastel colors from red to blue with bits of silver and gold. The city seemingly went on forever into the distance, rising up into the horizon until it became a part of the sky.

“Just how large is Amathar?” I asked.

“The city wall is a circle two thousand five hundred kentads in diameter.”

That information took several moments to compute, and at least that long to comprehend. According to my admittedly incomplete knowledge of Amatharian measurement, twenty five hundred kentads was the equivalent of two thousand miles. This seemed beyond belief, and I questioned it, but the three Amatharians confirmed my figures. Here was a single city that would, had it been located on my home planet, have almost completely covered North America.

Princess of Amathar – Tular Maximinos

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Princess of AmatharTular 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.”

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 22 Excerpt

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Princess of AmatharNoriandara Remontar, Princess of the Sun Clan, looked at me with what seemed to be a mixture of disgust and incomprehension. Even so, she was remarkably beautiful, with the same sharp features and dark blue skin that her cousin Vena Remontar possessed.

“Your friend the Zoasian will probably lay in wait to attack us somewhere along the trail,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I replied, “but I will not kill a defenseless enemy, and leaving him tied up out here would be just the same as running him through.”

“Well, let’s be on our way,” she said, then pointed in the general direction from which I had come. “My soul calls me from this direction. I have to retrieve my sword.”

“Of course,” I replied. “Is it at the site of the wreck?”

“Possibly. The Zoasians were not quite sure what to do with our swords. They recognized the connection between the Amatharian and the soul, but were unsure how to deal with it.”

“How many of you were taken captive?”

“Three knights, sixteen swordsmen, and eighty two warriors,” she replied. “I wonder how many of us survived.”

“I am afraid not many.”

As we started climbing the rock barrier, I told her of the assault, and the many horrors which I had witnessed in the mountain installation of Zonamis, of the pursuit of herself in the gigantic truck, and the victims at the site of the wreck. By the time we had reached the ground on the other side of the rocks, I had finished my tale.

“Well,” said Noriandara Remontar thoughtfully, “at least we can report them to their families.”

We walked through the desert, which was still relatively cool and pleasant. We didn’t follow the exact path that I had taken to find the Princess, following instead the mental message sent by her sword. Nevertheless, after walking for some while, we came to the small streamlet, where I had napped before. We stopped to take a drink, fill my canteen, and rest for a moment.

By this time, the throbbing in my arm was so painful that I thought perhaps I would be unable to bear it. I also suspected that I had an infection, because I felt as though I had a fever. Then I remembered that I had a small packet of medicine in a belt compartment. It was a package of two capsules. I was hopeful that they would bring me some relief, though I didn’t expect too much, as I suspected they were the Amatharian equivalent of aspirin. I popped the pills in my mouth, and swallowed them with a drought from the stream.

“Let’s be on our way,” said Noriandara Remontar. “We can rest after we find my sword.”

We climbed out of the stream bed and continued on our way. As I had suspected, the mental connection between knight and sword led the Princess to the wreck of the Zoasian transport. When the vehicle came within our line of sight, we could see several large figures moving around. They proved to be, when we were close enough to see them clearly, predatory animals, feasting on the remains of the dead.

There were four of the animals, picking clean the bones of Amatharian and Zoasian alike. They were about four feet tall, standing on two legs. Though they looked quite bird-like, and had beaked mouths, they were covered not in feathers, but with a wrinkled, leathery hide. They had forearms were only about a foot long, appearing quite useless, but had vestigial leather wings.

“We should be able to scare them off, don’t you think?” I asked, now starting to feel much better, but not feeling like a prolonged fight with probably vicious animals.

“First, take a picture,” the Princess advised. “I may well be the first Amatharian to see these beasts”

“We may be the first Amatharians to see these beasts,” I corrected.

“That remains to be seen.”

I pulled out my camera and snapped a quick image of the desert predators. Then I traded it for my pistol, which I had almost forgotten I still carried. Firing four quick shots, I killed three of the animals, and sent the fourth running for its life. Walking over to the wrecked Zoasian vehicle and sitting down in its shade, I closed my eyes and dozed off.

When I woke up, of course it was still noon as it always was in Ecos, but some clouds had obscured the sun, and the wind was beginning to whip up. Nearby was the body of a Zoasian, with half a dozen large spiders, just like I had seen at the stream bed, feasting upon it. I just sat for a moment watching them. Then Noriandara Remontar stepped up beside me.

“You have been asleep a long time,” she said. “I roasted a piece of one of the animals you shot, but it is not very good.”

“I see that you recovered your sword,” I said.