Perihelion

Perihelion is the ex-boyfriend of All American Girl.  Though we are not privy to why they split up, they did so about six months before the story started.  I have a feeling that the breakup was either Stella’s idea or her fault, and now she regrets it.  Within a few months of their split, Perihelion began dating Omega Girl.

Perihelion is extremely good looking and is the spokesmodel for a line of sharp Italian suits.  He has the super strength and invulnerability, but his great ability is flight.  He is the fasted flyer of all the supers.

Melanippe

There are several mythological characters named Melanippe, but Stella’s mother is the sister of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons.  She has an on-again/off-again relationship with Theseus (Yes, that Theseus) and has setteled into a life of hedonism on Mount Olympus, much to Stella’s shame.  “And my mother is an Amazon, which I used to think meant she was a warrior woman, but apparently just means she’s some kind of immortal hoe-bag.”  Of course this means that if you were to mix the continuity of my little story with that of DC Comics, then Stella and Wonder Woman would be cousins, which is cool, because WW has always been one of my personal faves.


Hipparion

In Women of Power, I wanted real mythological figures for Stella’s parents, but I didn’t want them to be major mythological figures that everyone knows.  Her father is the demigod Hipparion, who is mentioned once or twice in the mythology texts but has no surviving stories about him.  His name means “pony” in greek, so he must have had something to do with the being a lord of horses or something.
I had fun playing with the idea that nobody on Earth remembers him, even though he thinks he is a major figure in history.  Like most mythological fathers, Hipparion has only a passing interest in his offspring, and expects to be called on for magical armor or weapons, but not emotional support.

Linda Ford AKA Skygirl

Linda Ford, also known as Skygirl, is the second character (title character if you will) of Women of Power.  She is the daughter of Earth’s greatest hero, Skyman, who was killed defending the Earth from an alien invasion.  Her mother was the evil Madame Mesmer, who seduced Skyman, but Linda was raised by her step-mother Doris Drake-Ford.  She has all the powers of her father (though perhaps not as strong as him in any area).  She has super strength, invulnerability, supersonic flight, super breath, x-ray vision, heat vision, and several other kinds of super vision.  She is vulnerable to disease and poison and to Polarite, the fragmented remains of her father’s home planet.
Linda lives her life seemingly unaware that the world knows who she is.  She wears a brown wig and sensible clothes as a disguise, even though anyone can find her name at the top of the Skygirl Wikipedia page.  She tends to be naive and silly, much to the annoyance of All American Girl.
Linda was a very fun character to write.  She makes a great foil for Stella (AG).  She is of course a parody and tribute to super characters like Supergirl, though personality wise, she’s more Mary Marvel.  My favorite little detail was that when Skygirl and All American Girl play rock, paper, scissors, All American Girl always wins.  She knows that Skygirl will always pick rock, because anyone who has to worry about a rock that can kill them all the time will always pick rock.

Stella O’Clare AKA All American Girl

Stella O’Clare AKA All American Girl, is the main character of my book Women of Power.  Stella is the daughter of an immortal Amazon and a Greek demigod.  As a child, she was exiled from Mount Olympus for being unable to get along with the other children, landing on Earth in Chicago’s O’Clare Blvd.  She’s intelligent, sarcastic, and quick to anger.

All American Girl has super strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly.  She is immune to poison, disease, and any form of magic.  Like all superheroes, she want to help mankind, but being a hero is also a business.  She wants to be the star of her own superhero magazine and to reach the top ten of the New York Times Superhero list.

As the story begins, Stella is having a particularly rough time as she has recently broken up with her boyfriend, the super superhero Perihelion.  To make matters worse, while Stella has been moping around after the breakup, Perry has immediately taken up with Omega Girl.

I loved writing All American Girl.  She is both a parody and an homage to my favorite heroes from the comics.

Update: Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike

I just finished the revision of Astrid Maxxim and will start the editing process tomorrow.  This usually doesn’t take too long, especially with such a short book.  You should expect to see it out in less than two weeks.  I’ll keep you informed.  I’ve also got to start thinking about a summary or blurb as I like to call it.

Playing with my iPhone

I spent the day playing with my new iPhone 4S instead of working on my story.  I’ve pretty much got it all set up now, and I so I’m revising right now.

Israel

Israel is the last of the major characters in Blood Trade, and he’s my least favorite.  This is because he’s similar to other vampire characters.  I didn’t want to write a vampire like other vampire stories, but I had to have this one.  Israel is a 200+ year old vampire who is at the center of a network of vampires.  He thinks of himself as invincible and sort of a rock star, and he thinks of human beings as big thermos bottles. Israel has big plans that go beyond the stuff that vampires are usually into– but I can’t give away much more than that without ruining the plot.

I hope you enjoyed the look into the characters of Blood Trade over the past few days.  Next up, I’ll be looking at the characters of Women of Power.

Lance Rizzello

Lance Rizzello is a character in Blood Trade.  I loved writing Lance because in a book filled with evil vampires, he’s completely human and more evil than any of them.  Lance is a dirty cop, working part time as an enforcer for the mob, and working all the time for himself.  Everything is about power and obligation with Lance.  Who owes him a favor?  Who does he owe?  Everybody is afraid of him, from the baddest pimps and drug dealers to Xochitl, and with good reason.

I almost never change a character name after I start writing, but Lance went through a series of first and last names.  First I changed his name because it was the same as a character in a movie (that I hadn’t seen), and then I changed because it was too close to a character in a story a friend was writing.  Then I changed it because it wasn’t right.  In the end though, I don’t think Lance’s name is that important.  He’s a strong enough character no matter what his name is.

Sid Case

Sid Case is one of the characters in my book Blood Trade.  Sid is a tattoo artist and the owner of Robot Slut Tattoo.  He has a deal worked out with Xochitl that she will serve as his tattoo model and canvas, and in return he helps her dispose of the bodies of the vampires she terminates.  Sid is a large guy, overweight, with lots of tattoos.  He loves 70s music, including disco, and he (not-so-secretly) loves Xochitl.  They met back when she was a stripper and he frequented her club, staring at the skull tattooed on her lower stomach and stuffing more than a few singles into her g-string, but they didn’t become closer until she saved him from vampire attack.