My Favorite Bits: From Astrid Maxxim

Posted on by
Reply

There are a lot of little bits that I had fun creating in Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike.

Rachel Carson High School: I wanted Astrid’s school to be named for a female scientist, but I wasn’t sure which one.  The first draft had Marie Curie High School, but that was a bit too on the nose.  There were several other possibilities, but I’m happy with the final version.  Rachel Carson is one of the great unsung heroes of the last millennium.

Bike Paths and Monorails: The kids in the story are too young to drive, but they get around on bike paths and in the Maxxim monorail.  This gave me the kind of 50s retro-futuristic feel that I wanted.  It’s just fun, too.

On the other hand, Maxxim City is supposed to be super-technologically advanced, so they can’t just use the same NEMA-1-15 and NEMA 5-15 electrical plugs you find in your walls at home (or the European equivalents).  I wanted them to have something like a thunderbolt plug, but one which would carry both high voltages as well as data, hence the Excalibur outlet.

When I originally wrote the story, the hoverbikes were all sleek and futuristic, but I loved the cover design done by Matthew Riggenbach at Shead Studios.  So, I rewrote it so that Astrid’s hoverbike was a retro-design in orange.  Now it matches the cover picture and it adds a little something to Astrid’s character.

The Young Sorceress Characters: The Kids

Posted on by
Reply

In the latter half of the series of Senta and the Steel Dragon, there are three children in the Dechantagne household.  Augie and Terra Dechantagne and Iolana Staff.

Iolana and Augie make their appearance in book 3 as toddler and baby, and they are a bit older here.  This books marks the first appearance for Terra.

All three have larger parts in book 5, though they are still small.  All three play a large part in what happens after the series ends, so if I get around to writing the next series (which I’m already plotting out) you will see them again.

The Two Dragons: Chapter 11 Excerpt

Posted on by
Reply

Iolanthe passed through the kitchen where two lizzies were cleaning up the breakfast dishes.  The house was quiet.  Stepping down the hallway, she peered into the library and saw Iolana again in her uncle’s chair, reading.

“Good morning Iolana.”

“Good morning Mother,” said Iolana, looking up.

“Are you still reading Garstone?”

“No.  This is Sable Agria.”

“Good god.  It’s not Virgins in Spring is it?”

“No.  It’s Three Marks for a Pfennig.”

“That’s hardly appropriate reading material for a little girl.”

Iolana hugged the book closer as though her mother might snatch it from her grasp.

“Still, at least it’s not that socialist.”

“I think Agria is a Tory,” said Iolana.

“Hmm.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had time to read any of our books.”

“I think books are wonderful.”  Iolana jumped up, setting her book on the lamp table, and pulling a large volume from the bookcase.  “Look what I found.  It’s a picture book of Brech City.”

“I had forgotten about that book.  I don’t think it’s very up to date.”

“It has photographs in it.”

“Photographs have been around for more than seventy or eighty years.”

“Oh, well, look at this.”  The girl opened the book to a page in the middle.  “Here’s Hexagon Park and on this side is the Great Plaza.”

Iolanthe sat down on the arm of the chair and looked down at the book.  “Here’s that café I used to like.”

“Really?  I think Brech must be wonderful.  Do you think I could visit it someday?”

“Of course.  In fact our house in the city is just down this street here.”  She pointed to a spot in the photograph just above and to the right of the café entrance.

“Is it a nice house?”

“Far too big, in my opinion.  But then you can judge for yourself when you go.”

“When can I?”

“Oh you will take Brech by storm some day.  But first you must learn how to be a hostess.  Are you ready?  Accord day is only four days away.”

“Yes.  No.  Maybe.  I don’t know what I’m going to say to all those people.”

“You only have twenty three guests.”

“Twenty three is a lot of people,” said Iolana.

“Perhaps you could quote Garstone to them.  Half of them are Zaeri.  They’re probably all socialists.”

“Auntie Yuah isn’t a socialist.”

“Where is Auntie Yuah?”

“She went out just after you left for the office.”

“And what about Augie and Terra?”

“Egeria came and took them with her.”

“You didn’t go with her again.  Don’t you like the Korlanns?”

“Of course I do.  Zeah is very nice and he says that I may call him Grandpa if I wish.  Egeria is very nice too.  But…”

“But what?”

“They don’t have any literature.  All they have are scriptures and mathematics texts.”

A bubbling laugh sprang from Iolanthe’s lips.  “You are a dear girl.”

Iolana’s eyes lit up.

Hearing a hiss from behind her, Iolanthe turned.

“Sada here,” said Narsa from the doorway.

“Come Iolana,” said Iolanthe.  “If you can put your books away for a while, Police Inspector Colbshallow will take us to lunch at the café.”

“Do you think he can afford to take us out on his salary?”

Iolanthe laughed again.  “Probably not.  So you can pay for lunch from your allowance.”

Iolana jumped up and followed her mother into the parlor.  Saba Colbshallow was waiting.  He had thrown on his police uniform jacket, probably to replace his bloodstained day coat.  This reminded Iolanthe that she had yet to change her dress.  She excused herself, leaving her daughter to entertain the young inspector—it would be good practice for Iolana, she thought—and with Narsa in tow, made her way up to her bedroom.  Once there, she had the reptilian help her into a blue dress that she had been saving for Radley’s return.  She thought it really didn’t matter.  Like most men, Radley didn’t much notice whether a dress was new or not.  He preferred to see it removed.

“I vring Ssiszornic and childs to house today,” said Narsa.

“What’s that?”

“Ssiszornic, elder, and childs to house today.”

“Oh, yes.  Very good.”

Arriving again at the bottom of the stairs, Iolanthe called for her daughter and the police inspector and then went out the front door to where Saba had parked his vehicle.  He helped Iolana into the back and Iolanthe into the passenger seat, then added some coal to the firebox and climbed into the driver’s side.

“Have you decided where you wish to dine?” asked Iolanthe.

“Aalwijn’s new cook is at Café Etta.  He’s good, but now it’s so busy there.  I was thinking we should go to the bakery.”

“You are such a silly boy,” said Iolanthe.  “If everyone is eating at Café Etta, then that’s where we must luncheon.  It’s not as if we will have to wait for a table.  And think of the cachet you’ll have dining with me.”

“I have all the cachet I need,” replied Saba.  “Cash on the other hand…”

“Oh, don’t worry.  Iolana is buying us lunch.”

Saba glanced over his shoulder at the girl.

“Café Etta it is then,” he said, making a left turn down the parkway.

“What did you do with him?” Iolanthe asked in a low voice.

Saba glanced back once again at the girl, then turned back around and said. “He won’t bother you.”

“Did you..?”

“Maybe it’s best I don’t say right now.”

“Mind you, I have no problem with that in theory.   However, I wouldn’t want to soil your conscience with deeds done on my behalf.”

“My conscience is fine.”

“What are you talking about?” wondered Iolana.

“Police business,” said her mother, without missing a beat.  “Saba wants to hire a wizard for the police department.”

“Kasia Garstone says wizards are tools of the oppressors.”

My Favorite Bits: More Robot Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

Here are a few more details about the world of His Robot Wife and His Robot Girlfriend.

One of the main background events in His Robot Wife is the presidential election.  I used random names for the presidential candidates, but one of the vice-presidential candidates was named for a teacher I work with.  That was four years ago, and despite huge turnovers in our school district, we still work together.

One of the details that I was really proud of was the payNETime acount.  I needed something that was a cross between Paypal and the broader banking world.  PayNETime is pronounced “pay any time” and it spells NET in the middle.  I was really proud of myself on this one.

Mike and Patience live at 11 North Willow.  During my high school years, I lived at 11 Cottonwood.

The two main robot manufacturers are Gizmo and Daffodil.  Gizmo is another word for mechanism, of course.  Daffodil is the flower and is meant to evoke the idea of Apple.  There are numerous little parallels between Gizmo/Daffodil and IBM/Apple.  Add to that Daffodil is in Cupertino.

The Young Sorceress Characters: Yuah

Posted on by
Reply

When you write a story, you have to have a story arc for your characters.  They have to have obstacles to overcome (or not) or you don’t really have a story.  To paraphrase Joss Whedon, starting out heroic, getting more heroic, end ending up even more heroic, is not a story arc.

One of the problems with writing is, you create characters you love and then you have to do things to them.  Yuah Korlann-Dechantagne is one of my favorite characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon, but she is one who has the toughest road to follow, and in this volume, she is at her most trying point.

The whole Terrence-Yuah story is about addiction, whether it is to drugs or some other behavior, and how it can destroy (multiple) lives.  Yuah’s obsession with Terrence and his multiple problems almost destroy her, and that’s really her part in this story.  Originally as plotted, there was more to her part of the story, but I found myself simply unable to write it, and ended up cutting quite a bit out, including the death of another character.

“Why are you here?” Pantagria repeated.

“I’m here because I’m ‘seeing’.”

“Then that brings us to an entirely different question.  Why are you seeing?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t want Pantagruel.”

Yuah shivered at the memory.

“Who would want that monster?”

“He is what many women want.  He is who they come to see when they use the ‘see spice’.”

“How could anyone want that monster?”

“He is what your mind makes him.  In fact, he is a perfect reflection of what your mind makes him.  You see a monster.  Another woman sees a prince—a perfect prince.  But you didn’t come seeking perfection, did you?  You don’t even want perfection.  If you wanted perfection, you would have never wanted our Terrence, would you?”

“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 am not a dressing maid.  I am Mrs. Terrence Lucius Virgil Dechantagne!  And you… You’re nothing!  Nothing!  You’re not even real!”  Yuah burst into a fit of tears.

Pantagria laughed in her face.

“You little fool.  He didn’t love you any more than he loved me.”

“You’re evil!” wailed Yuah.  “Why did you have to have him?  Why did you have to ruin him?  Why did you have to steal him away from me?”

“I didn’t go looking for him.  I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  He came to me.  He came to me just the way you have.”  Pantagria slowly circled the other woman.  “He came to me because he wanted something perfect.  It’s why all men come to me.  And it’s why women come to Pantagruel.  But not you.”  She stopped in front of Yuah.  “You don’t want either of us.  You don’t want something perfect.”

Yuah dropped her hands to her sides and sobbed uncontrollably.

“So, what do you want?”

“I don’t want… anything.”

“Then you have picked a particularly horrible way to commit suicide.”

The Two Dragons: Chapter 10 Excerpt

Posted on by
Reply

Once inside the arena they were escorted to their seats, just slightly off center, on one end of the oval.  The seats, like those in the underground amphitheater of the Dragon Fortress were stone benches, probably the best type of seat to accommodate the tailed posterior of a lizzie but not too comfortable for a human.  The festivities had already begun.  Parading around the center of the stone floor were several hundred young reptilians.  Though each was naked of clothing or body paint, they each carried a long feather which they held up above their heads.  Some feathers were red, some were green, and a few were yellow or blue.  As they marched around in different lines, they held up the feathers to create different abstract designs.  They were still marching when the Freedonians arrived through the same portal that the Brechs had.

There were about twenty five Freedonians filing in into the arena, twice the number of Brechs, but far fewer than the number who must have crewed the five great airships.  All those present wore the uniforms of the Flottenluftkorps.  Senta could recognize Oberst Rothritter, as well as Fricis Hoff and Heyne Tourbell.  There was a third wizard with them, but it wasn’t Stern.  He was nowhere to be seen.  The black uniformed men took their seats half a dozen rows below and a little further toward the end of the arena.  This put them in close proximity to King Khassna, whose royal box was at the end, and who arrived as the reptilian feather marchers were finishing.

Next on the agenda was a sort of mock hunt.  Several large cages on wagons were brought into the arena one after another, and the creatures within were released.  There were several achillobators, deinonychus, an unenlagia which was a sort of deinonychus with longer and more colorful feathers, a whole flock of velociraptors, some dromaeosaurs, and even one unhappy utahraptor.  Soon the entire arena seemed to be one great hissing squawking aviary.  Only then did a dozen painted and feathered lizzie hunters enter.  Working in teams of two, they used their small spears propelled by spear-throwing sticks and their flint-lined wooden swords to attack and kill the animals.  The hunters were quick and efficient in their task, though the velociraptors gave them a bit of difficulty with their speed and agility.  Only the utahraptor had the opportunity to retaliate, as it caught a pair of lizzie hunters intent on a deinonychus and jumped on them from behind, disemboweling one with its sickle-like foot claw, and tearing out the other’s throat with its razor sharp teeth.  In the end though, even this feathered monster was felled by the warriors, who then paraded triumphantly in front of the audience, while servants removed the bodies of the slain.

“That was quite exciting,” said Mr. Vever.  Senta was sandwiched between him and Mr. Brown.

She made a noncommittal noise.  She was actually feeling a little bored.  You could see lizzies hunting birds at home, if you just got out of the house once in a while.  The next part of the show was slightly more interesting if only in scale.  A huge tyrannosaurus, strapped down so that it looked like a great crocodile atop a very long wagon pulled by four dozen lizzies was brought into the arena.  Just as with the smaller creatures before, it was released and a dozen hunters attacked it.  The giant whipped around the arena, catching several of the lizzies off guard, snapping them up in its great jaws and swallowing them down.  The remaining hunters, buoyed by several replacements, peppered the beast with their spears until it looked like a great black pin cushion.  It didn’t give up though, and with a tremendous burst of speed leapt into the midst of the lizardmen, snapping and kicking.  Only when a third group of hunters were sent in, did it finally falter and fall to the arena floor.  Then the lizzies were upon it slashing with their wooden and stone swords until it bled to death.

Again there was a lull as the bodies were removed.  Senta looked at Mr. Brown and noticed that he had taken on a pasty hue.

“Not feeling well?”

“It’s so much blood,” he said.  “Those swords are bloody efficient.”

“Buck up.  I have a feeling they’re building toward something.”

Another long wagon, just like the one that had carried the tyrannosaurus was pulled into the arena by just as many lizzies.  Instead of a giant dinosaur though, this wagon carried some strange device.  The base was obviously some kind of mechanism, for Senta and the others could see gears made of huge copper plates.  Upon this mechanism was a giant egg shaped stone carved to resemble an almost caricatured image of Hissussisthiss.  When the device reached the center of the arena, those reptilians who had pulled it in withdrew, and from the other end of the stadium at which Khassna sat, the city witch doctor stepped forward.  He was much younger and more vital than the ancient and shrunken creature at Suusthek, but his body paint was very similar, as was his lizard-on-a-stick talisman.  He danced around for a bit, shook his talisman, and cast spells of blessing on the stone Hissussisthiss.

Welcome India

Posted on by
Reply

Amazon just announced sales of ebooks to India.  That’s wonderful news.    I’ve sold a few books there already– even paper books.  So, welcome any new readers from India.  Download one of my free ebooks.  You can find links on the “Books” page, and thanks for your support.

My Favorite Bits: Voting in the Future

Posted on by
Reply

So many things in His Robot Girlfriend were not that different than in our own times (because I don’t think the 2030s will really be all that different), that I struggled to add a few fantastic elements.  It is after all, a science fiction story.

One area that I changed up quite a bit from our present world was the presidential election that is occurring in the background of the story.  I made three parties the status quo in the stories, not because I’m an advocate of the Green Party (who is the third along with the Democrats and Republicans), though I do consider myself an environmentalist, but I just thought three parties would be more interesting.  I don’t think America will ever have more than two major parties (the 1912 election nowithstanding).  I also gave the US 57 states, including Cuba– also pretty unlikely.

Some reforms that I added that I do think might happen, and would be welcome, are Internet voting, and a single election time across the nation.  In the story, voting occurs between 7AM Eastern Time and 7PM Pacific Time.  Though states are currently firmly in control of election procedures, with the rate of technological change, I could see both of these things happening.

As always though, I chose these things not because I like the idea myself, but because I thought it was more interesting for the story.  If you haven’t read His Robot Girlfriend, check it out.  It’s free just about anywhere you can find ebooks, and has been downloaded to date 422,860 times.

My Favorite Bits: Mansfield Perk

Posted on by
Reply

In His Robot Girlfriend and the upcoming His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue, the local coffee establishment is based on the world of Jane Austen and is called Central Perk.  I admit that when I thought it up, I thought it was far more clever than it probably is.

A friend once asked me why Starbuck’s was named after a character from Moby Dick.  Did Starbuck drink a lot of coffee?  I used that conversation in His Robot Wife.  I also used an experience I myself had at Starbucks, when the barrista asked if she could “try something” and made me a bizarre frappuccino concoction.  In the story, she makes ice tea.  This came from a British cooking show I once watched where the chef made “American Ice Tea” which bore no resemblence to anything I’ve ever seen an American drink.  It was mostly orange juice with about 5 lbs. of mint stuck in it.

There are probably more of my own experiences in the Robot series than any of my other books.  This is because Mike, the main character is more like me than any other character.  There are characters I wish I was more like, but I’m not.

 

The Young Sorceress Characters: Townsfolk

Posted on by
Reply

When I started writing Senta and the Steel Dragon, one thing I started doing right away was reusing minor characters.  That is to say, that when I needed a character to stand in the background or interact with a major character, instead of making one up, I reused existing characters.  There were two purposes in this.  First, since the story takes place in a limited-sized colony, this would give an air of virisimilitude.  Second, it let me create characters that I enjoyed and build them into more than a cardboard cut-out.  Here are some of those characters who appear in The Young Sorceress.

Lawrence Bratihn has filled a number of little roles in the series.  Most importantly, he was the other soldier who was captured by the lizzies along with Terrence in book 1.  Here in book 4, he works in the port authority.

His wife, Mrs. Bratihn has seen much more use in the series, as she runs the dress shop that all the major female characters frequent.  Her assistant Mrs. Luebking likewise.  Incidently Mrs. Luebking’s husband is occassionally mentioned, but seldom seen.

Mrs. Wardlaw (who was Mrs. Lanier when she arrived along with Radley Staff in book 2) is the governor’s secretary.

Mrs. Colbshallow is very special to me, and she is the mother of a major character, but she plays a relatively minor role in this book as in the others in the series.  My favorite little trick is when someone wants to explain how wonderful some food tastes, they simply compare it to something that Mrs. Colbshallow made.  (In my original draft, she was just referred to as Cook.)

Gaylene Finkler is seldom seen.  She has just a tiny scene in book 2, one in book 5, and a bit more here in book 4.  In book 1, she’s only mentioned once.  Even so, she’s a real person to me, the sister of a major character, and she’s named after my aunt.

Edin Buttermore has a very tiny part in book 2, but much larger ones in Books 4 & 5.  I had to be careful what I did to him in this book, knowing that he had a fairly large part to play in the next one.

Benny Markham and Shemar Morris are two boys that are mentioned a few times and are arround in the background in other books of the series, but here in book 4, I was able to give them a small but meaty part, as they escort Senta through the dinosaur-infested highlands.  I had fun finally giving them (especially Benny) a bit of their own personality.  Of course we find out who they marry at the end of book 5 (for one of them it’s a major character).

Marzell Lance is Yuah Dechantagne’s driver in books 2&4, both of which were written after I’d plotted out his part in book 5.  But it all manages to fit together.