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Among Bright Stars… (Neo-human #2)
Humanity’s future, isn’t human…
Nadia Korelia, Falcanian queen, has spent the last three years assembling together her sibling Morningstars. Artificial people, who are in every way stronger, smarter and more beautiful. Among these Morningstars are Temujin Sardur, a Mongolian buccaneer, who raided pleasure boats in the Andaman Sea, Guillaume LaSalle, a Gascony spaceship Commander, who participated in bringing alien life to Earth, and Darius Noorani, the 12th Imam foretold by Islamic religion. Can Nadia unite her fellow Morningstars, even as the Falcanians use war, to broker for peace?
It’s finally here, Neo-human book 2!
A few thoughts. The book here is very different from the draft I began with, though the plot is largely the same, how it gets to where its going is somewhat different. Many of the changes came about because these first three Neo-human books were written as a single unit, not unlike LoTR, and the second book behaved too much like “the middle” of the novel than a story on its own. To be sure, the larger story arc needed to be, and is served here, though I made a point to connect the grander arc to the micro focus on Mornngstars and what they are. In fact doing so added another layer of meaning which I didn’t intend to touch on until further down the road in the series.
If “Starblade” was the story of Frederika learning about who, and what she is, then “Among Bright Stars…” is Nadia‘s story exploring she and Frederika‘s common Morningstar origins.
I’m going to forewarn you, there’s a little something for everyone to HATE in this book. It could be the whole Muslim messiah presented as both a Robot and a fierce Westernizer/reformer. After Benghazi, I made a special effort to tick up that plot a bit… Or, it could end up being Princess Sitara‘s life choice – Which will only seem radical depending upon your point of view on the matter – Though its sure to annoy some contingent who think science fiction‘s job is to support one particular party line. On that same note, I’m sure the whole Annunaki riff will grate a few people the wrong way as well. But, I don’t try to please everyone, or anyone but myself first and foremost when I write.
*A sharp eye will note, the Table of Contents (TOC) is different in the Amazon version compared to the Smashwords (aka all other retailers) TOC. That couldn’t be avoided. Kindle was being a pain and wouldn’t read the Table of Contents as it was formatted for Smashwords (which was odd as it had every other time) so I needed to build it a different way. Which is why the epigraph is displayed as it is on the Amazon book.
Human Wave Science Fiction… ?
You know how I am always talking about making sure the science fiction world I’m building serves to lift humanity up, and not make being a human (or a branch of it…) a sin?
Well if I’m reading this correctly, it seems such an urge has also found its way into other science fiction writers. We now have the term Human Wave Science Fiction
2 – Your writing shouldn’t leave anyone feeling like they should scrub with pumice or commit suicide by swallowing stoats for the crime of being human, or like humans are a blight upon the Earth, or that the future is dark, dreary, evil and fraught with nastiness, because that’s all humans can do, and woe is us.
I must admit, I like this phrase “Human Wave Science Fiction” and I think I can see how my own work fits into this sort of thing.
For more on this subject, see: The New Human Wave in Science Fiction Literature.
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Update: Free Ebooks/Smashwords Summer Sale
English: A Picture of a eBook Español: Foto de eBook Беларуская: Фотаздымак электроннай кнігі Русский: Фотография электронной книги (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Update: All my books, but one, now have a FREE coupon code, for the Smashwords Summer Sale. Go take a look, find something for your ereader!
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Falcanian
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John Carter & David Lynch’s DUNE
Dejah Thoris, and Lynn Collins are the top search terms to this blog. Go figure?
What I am about to say, is meant as a compliment, Andrew Stanton‘s John Carter, is this generations David Lynch‘s DUNE. An imperfect adaption of a classic science fiction book finally realized for the cinema.
Like David Lynch’s DUNE, John Carter in its process began with another intended opening scene, as opposed to what we ended seeing on the big screen. Check this out, its good!
Now, in DUNE‘s case, the alternate opening was a long storyboard sequence which had been meant to help none Frank Herbert readers get to know the DUNE ‘Verse, that opening was replaced by the Princess Irulan filmbook narration, that many of us are familiar with. In the case of John Carter, the above opening with Princess Dejah Thoris simply got cut down, reshot, and I think reordered in the final film. It looks to me, this call was made so as to jump right into an action sequence…
I would have kept this as the opening, it provides a more solid sense of Barsoom. I think. I’d love for it to be completed, or perhaps sliced down a bit and restored to a new cut of the film. Will that take place? Not bloody likely, because Disney screwed up. I happen to think that John Carter has an honored place among such films as David Lynch’s DUNE, and Mike Hodge’s Flash Gordon – that is, not nearly as bad as their reputations claim, nor as deserving of the scorn some heap upon them.
John Carter is highly re-watchable! Certainly more so for me, than any of the Star Wars movies (old, or new…) or AVATAR – which has many, many story problems, yet it made tones of money, and will get sequels.
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Not Christian, Or Pagan…
London Film Museum (Photo credit: otubo)
Writing The First Technomancer has, at moments forced me to evaluate assumptions about the character of Merlin. There are things we take for granted about him. We assume he’s of the British Isles, usually an old man, with a long white beard. Many of us likely think of Nicol Williamson, as he depicted Merlin in John Boorman‘s Excalibur. I know I do. In that movie he’s sort of an otherworldly creature, a man, who is not a man. Very often, someplace in the back of our minds we also tend to think of Merlin in terms of Druids. I do know he is largely depicted as a pagan, and a Druid in The Mists of Avalon. A book which splits up male and female spirituality from a very Wiccan, and more broadly Neo-Pagan perspective.
One of the things I’ve set out to do, is make my Merlin beyond any sectarian notion. He is neither (Neo-) Pagan, nor is he a Christian figure. Not that I think many Christians seek to claim Merlin as a representative of their faith. Modern Pagans on the other hand…
A taste from The First Technomancer:
Merlin laughed, and the bishop glowered.
Matters of religion seldom entered Merlin’s equations, not that he thought of himself as a materialist, the inverse in fact, given the scheme of his life. Sure, he made a study of the Druids, whose ways and teachings were now on the wane, relics. But he also counted the Christian messiah as among his blood relations, an uncle. Neither pagan, or Christian, he stood beyond both. Tormenting this bishop, was but a bit of innocent amusement, he harbored no ill will towered Christians… and in truth thought they were a necessity.
As you can see, I actually make my Merlin a nephew of Jesus! Yeah, that’s probably not going to go over well with some of the more militant, strident Neo-Pagans.
Me, I come at all this as a Deist, of a sort. What sort exactly? Well, you can get a good sense of my metaphysics from my novels. Its a bit unconventional.
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King Arthur’s Three Sisters
Morgan le Fay (Marvel Comics) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
King Arthur Pendragon has three half-sisters, though only one among them seems ever to be given any notice. I mean of course Morgan le Fay. The other two are Elaine, and Morgause. These three woman are the daughters of Gorlios of Tintagel, Duke of Cornwall and his wife Igraine.
Virtually the only time, in modern fiction I have run across these other siblings is in The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley. Now I have a love/hate thing for that book. Its well written and all the woman are strong, MZB goes about providing reason to Arthurian legend, yet at the same time – it is a highly agenda driven… politically motivated book, which I’m sure many of its Wiccan readers end up take to be (corrected?) history, rather than fiction.
At any rate, in my own foray into Arthurian legend, with The First Technomancer, I’ve had to decide the makeup of Arthur’s family. For some odd reason modern takes seem to make Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister by way of his father Uther and another woman, or wife. They did this in Camelot, and the TV show Merlin. I however feel inclined to cling to myth and keep Morgana, as well as her two sisters Igraine’s daughters by Cornwall.
Storytelling wise, I think it opens up more doors… or will for sequels to The First Technomancer. One of which is going to be all about Merlin and Morgana. Arthur‘s elder sister will be the tragic answer to what happens when Merlin sets out to make another like himself.
And Mordred, he will be something dark…
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