Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome back, Sixers. I’m going to post something today that is completely different from what I’ve done before, though still in the same universe. This is from the third book of the trilogy, working title War’s End — though I hope I can come up with a better title before publication. This is roughly halfway through the book, and a moment before this scene, Coralie is on a spaceship.

She had to protect the baby.  Coralie tried to make a rigid shield of her body and arms as she rolled through wet, foul-smelling greenery, punctuated by harder masses that might have been tree trunks or rocks — she was too confused to tell.  Around her, familiar voices cried out in shock, and somewhere a dog yelped.  What had happened?  This wasn’t the ship!  The uncontrolled tumble ended with a blow that drove the breath from her lungs, and for a moment she could see nothing but colored flashes as she struggled for air.

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Quotation Contexts, Anne McCaffrey

The first five quotes are from Dragonseye, by Anne McCaffrey. This is set roughly 200 years after the end of the first round of Threadfall on Pern.

“Good apples in every basket as well as bad.” Bridgely’s return to M’Shall’s “Not every holder in Bitra’s useless, you know.”

“Our glorious past is past.” This is actually two statements. Sallisha starts protesting the new, more practical curriculum, with “But our Glorious past –” and is topped by Sheledon’s “Is past.

“Failure had appalling consequences. Failure usually did.” The full quotation is “And yet, the scale of Threadfall was awesome and failure had appalling consequences.

“Failure usually did.”

“One had to know the bad to properly appreciate the good.” Iantine has been in Bitra Hold (and nearly died escaping) so Bendan Weyr seems like heaven.

“We’ve got what we’ve got and have to make do.” Clisser, the head of the College (precursor to the Harper Hall.) The whole quote is “ ‘Ours not to wonder what were fair in life,’ ” he quoted to himself, “which is a saying I should get printed out to remind me that we’ve got what we’ve got and have to make do.”

“We must be good at surviving to have lived so long on this planet.” Anne McCaffrey, Moreta. Moreta, as she comes to realize that the plague has probably infected her.

“She had to try.” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Amber, when she realizes that her leg is infected, but she must keep going.

And just as a nod to theme day on the blogathon, I’d choose a different title. Homecoming was the first book I published, but it’s not the only one now.

Six Sentence Sunday

This starts directly after the last sentence from last week, referring to the physician, Nik Tarlian. It then omits about a page that would be hard to follow as an excerpt and continues the scene from Tourist Trap. As a reminder, Zhaim is treating his injuries after beating Roi. He is also in rather a hurry to make a planned Council meeting.

The man was a competent physician, but he was also a sentimental fool. He was very likely to spread the word that one of Zhaim’s slaves had managed to defy him, or even pick up the fact that Roi had been involved, and later on, when the bodies were discovered, that might draw attention Zhaim could not afford.

He reached for the synthetic skin spray and applied it to both hands, then pulled on a pair of thin black leather gloves. He would wear his black leather tunic and breeches today, he thought. The crested shoulder would hide his own swollen joint, and the sleeve cut, intended to emphasize that the wearer need never exert himself physically, would explain any stiffness in his use of the arm. Fashion demanded that he wear gloves with the outfit.

That’s all from Tourist Trap, as the published book is available. Next week I’ll go back to bits from the trilogy in progress, or one of the shorter pieces I’m thinking of putting on Smashwords – if I can figure out how.

Meanwhile, have a look at the other fine writers participating in Six Sentence Sunday – just click on the logo.

Jarn’s Journal Year 2, Day 339

Year 2, Day 339

I am beginning to wonder if I may have promised more than I can deliver. At least it keeps me busy!

Yesterday morning was devoted to filling water containers, finding food (for three groups now) and checking on the woman whose name, I have finally discovered, is Meerkat. Then I teleported Patches and myself to the last camp of Lion’s group and had Patches try to track them to their next camp. Patches can move a good deal faster than they can, and they usually stop to hunt well before dark, so I caught them just as they are staring to look for a campsite. Yesterday I spotted a good site ahead of them and guided them to it. By that time, however, Patches was getting tired of tracking. Getting her to follow the hunters from Storm Cloud’s camp toward Meerkat’s took a good deal more mental control than I really like to use, and it was full dark before we found them and delivered their water.

I hoped to break up the tracking by having Patches track the hunters partway in the morning, as they leave as soon as there is any light at all. Then Patches could rest while I took food and water to Meerkat and filled the water containers for Lion’s group. Actually finding the group was as much a matter of guessing as following Patches, who by that time was sore-footed as well as rebellious. When it came to following the hunters from where they’d been around noon, she simply laid down and dared me to drive her on.

I thought that by then they might be getting close to Meerkat’s camp, as after all they had estimated two days to get there. So I teleported their supplies to the camp and then flew back along the route I though they would be using. Luckily there was a full moon tonight, so I was able to find them. Lucky also that they had estimated the time it would take them so well. And I have seen most of the trail they will be returning over, so if they tell me each day where they will camp the next night, I should be able to teleport to those sites, leaving only Lion’s group to depend on Patches’ skill as a reluctant tracker.

Act 2: Retirement?

Don’t retire from – retire to!

Sue Ann Bowling

I spent most of my life as a researcher in atmospheric sciences, teaching atmospheric science and physics for non-majors (mostly astronomy.) I did research, wrote scientific papers, and for a while even wrote a popular science newspaper column published throughout Alaska. And I read – and made up my own – science fiction.

I didn’t seriously think about changing careers, primarily because I had excellent health insurance and retirement benefits and I knew that as a Type 1 diabetic changing jobs would not be simple. Besides, my specialty of ice fog and urban weather in a cold climate was not very portable. But I loved to write for non-scientists, and I loved to make up stories. Eventually, during the last decade of my employment, I began going to local writers’ conferences, taking classes in fiction writing, and writing down some of the stories that filled my head simply to get them out of there!

Fourteen years ago, the university was pushing early retirement. I’d contracted a common diabetic complication, diabetic retinopathy, and I was having severe trouble driving. The bus line in my area had been eliminated, and taxi fare to and from work was prohibitive. I was mostly getting rides with others who worked at the university, but things were getting difficult enough that I decided to retire early and write.

The writing started out just because I enjoyed doing it. The first two books started as one, became three, and finally became Homecoming and Tourist Trap. The first drafts were definitely written while I was still working, but at this point I can’t even find some scenes I later eliminated in the drafts on my computer. I’m sure some were eighteen years ago, and probably twenty years and about five generations of computers was more accurate.

I continued to make up stories in my head, but couldn’t get everything to come together for another novel until I realized that my stories would go together just fine if I changed the sex of one character. Eventually that group of stories became a trilogy. Over the next few years I sent the first two books out to several publishers, collecting rejection slips while writing the first draft of the trilogy.

Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I’m not very good at sending things out, and the cancer and a session on self-publishing at Festival of the Book made me realize that if I ever wanted to share what I’d written I would have to self-publish. I published Homecoming through iUniverse, with the help of the editor who I’d worked with me on the Alaska Science Forum. It received 5-star reviews and took second place in science fiction in one of the contests I entered. The sequel, Tourist Trap, not only took first place in science fiction a year later in the same contest, it won best fiction book of the year.

I have to admit that I enjoy writing a good deal more than I enjoy marketing. And I’m not making any profit at all. But I still get a warm feeling from hearing from people who love my books, and I’m still hoping to publish the trilogy and possibly another novel, now in the planning stage. A second act? Not a very profitable one, but very fulfilling.

Oh, and all the indications are that we caught the cancer in time.

Quote Contexts

The first six quotes are from Year of the Unicorn, by Andre Norton. All of the quotations were tweeted from @sueannbowling in the last 7 days. As this book was written in 1^st person, all of the sentiments are Gillan’s.

“How does one know coming good from coming ill?” It’s a time of change, with the end of the war with Alizon.

“Dared I hope for a wind of change?” A break in the usual routine at Norstead Abbey has Gillan hoping for something new.

“She who expects neither good nor ill has an equal chance of either.” Gillan speaking to Lord Imry when he discovers that she is not Mariamme.

“Why do you deem that which is unknown must likewise be ill?” Gillan to the other brides, before they meet the Were Riders who are to be their husbands.

“To look diligently to shadows is to find them.” Gillan to the other brides, trying to break their fears.

“Perhaps it was better to face that end than go mad of terror.” Gillan’s nightmare, shortly after she has fully realized Herrell’s ability too shape-change.

“If I’d just taken a look behind me now and then…” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Timi, blaming himself for not seeing the storm that strikes the sailboat halfway across the lake.

Six Sentence Sunday

Last week on Six Sentence Sunday I posted the end of the scene where Zhaim catches and beats Roi unconscious. Here’s Zhaim, a short time later. Again, this is from Tourist Trap. Nik, by the way, is a physician, but also a good enough esper that he just might pick up Roi’s connection to Zhaim’s injuries.

Zhaim scowled as he dabbed antiseptic on his hands. Not only had he cut his knuckles on the brat’s teeth, the young devil had managed to bite him several times during the beating. He hissed as the antiseptic foamed in the crescentic wounds on the heel of his right hand. His shoulder ached, too, but at least he’d managed to keep the brat away from his face. As it was, he would have to keep his hand and shoulder hidden until they healed. Certainly he couldn’t ask Nik Tarlian to treat him.

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Jarn’s Journal Year 2, Day 337 continued

Year 2, Day 337 Continued

To my considerable surprise Songbird, with the authority of the Shaman’s necklace, was actually able to convince Lion that my “godly” powers did not extend to making it rain, though I could transport water-filled containers to a band on the move. They were far more apprehensive about Patches, whom they had not seen before. Songbird laughed and hugged the animal, which seemed to reassure them a little. At least they didn’t totally panic when I had the wild dog get their scent so I could have her track them.

The sun was already low when I teleported Songbird, Patches and myself, along with a ground melon and some groundnuts, to the place where I had left the woman. She, too, was shocked, but chatted freely with Songbird while she kept a wary eye on Patches and I added a few more thorn branches to her barrier. Songbird looked carefully around her before we left. “Could you raise us up, so I can see farther?” she asked. Puzzled, I complied, letting her look around a little before I teleported us all back to Storm Cloud’s camp.

We arrived at sunset, with a hunting bird soaring overhead. “I know where they are,” Songbird told the Shaman as she returned the necklace, “and Jarn will  bring them water as they move North. And I know where your sister’s kinswoman is, too.” She then proceeded to give a series of landmarks I had not even noticed, followed by precise directions for reaching the half-starved woman. How had she known that?

Two of the best hunters listened carefully and then nodded. “We will bring her here, but it will take two days running to reach her, and more to bring her back. Can she walk?” They looked in my direction, though not directly at me.

“She is walking around within the thorn barrier now,” I told them. “But she cannot run. You will set out in the morning? I will bring you water, fish and figs at your night camp.” I would take the same to the woman, I decided. She would need the strength if she was to cover the distance back to Storm Wind’s camp.

It was fully dark by then, and I was eager to get back to the safety of my shelter – but I had one more question to ask. “Songbird,” I said, “how did you know the way to where the woman was?”

She grinned. “Oh, I described where this camp is, she recognized it, and told me how to get to her camp from here. I’ll be able to do it someday, but I don’t know all of the landmarks yet.”

When I was back at my shelter and putting today’s doings into my journal I thought a bit about these people’s ability to move around their landscape, and their ability to follow an unknown trail from a single second-hand description. I could not do that. But to survive as hunters and gatherers, they had to.

Jarn’s Journal is the fictional Journal of a Human-like alien stranded in Africa roughly 125,000 years ago. His story is part of the remote background of the Jarnian Confederation, the setting or both my science fiction novels. The Journal to date is on my author website.

Confederation Legal Structure

As I said last week, the Jarnian Confederation acts only to prevent Human-occupied planets from preying on each other or on other sentient species, or to provide emergency aid. But it needs some structure to do this. The interaction of my characters with this structure provides much of the plot of my fiction.

Originally (and still to a large extent in Homecoming and Tourist Trap) the Confederation as a whole was ruled by the R’il’nai. As their numbers dwindled, the Councils were developed to provide the remaining R’il’nai with information and a part-Human sounding board. Membership was originally determined by tests to determine the fraction of traits R’il’nian-Human hybrids showed that were clearly of R’il’nian origin. Those with over seven-eighths R’il’nian traits were considered part of the Inner Council.

The Outer Council was composed of High R’il’noids, those with more than three-fourths R’il’nian traits, and was primarily an advisory, fact-finding and enforcement body subject to the Inner Council. Those with more than half R’il’nian traits were considered R’il’noid. R’il’noids were essential to the running of the Confederation and were subject to Confederation law but not to planetary law. This was primarily because of problems that had arisen in the past because of planetary laws (such as a ban on travel at the new moon, punishable by death) which prevented R’il’noids from carrying out their professional duties. At that time virtually all adult R’il’noids had the R’il’nian empathy at least to the extent that they could be trusted not to take advantage of their immunity to planetary law.

R’il’nian-human hybrids were rare, is spite of official encouragement for R’il’nian males to father offspring from Human or R’il’noid women. Such matings were often sterile. A R’il’nian scientist, Çeren, developed an in vitro fertilization method that greatly increased the production of crossbreds, and also developed a more objective method of ranking R’il’noids by the fraction of active R’il’nian-derived genes. The unintended consequences of both these developments (which were desperately needed at the time) set up the problems in my science fiction.

By the time of Homecoming the Inner Council was actually making most of the decisions to run the Confederation, though the only surviving R’il’nian, Lai, had absolute veto power at least in theory, though he rarely if ever used it. Barring that veto power, the Inner Council was ruled by a majority vote providing at least 5/6 of the Inner Council members were present and voting. Reconsideration of a vote already taken required a 2/3 plus majority. By the time of the trilogy veto power no longer exists, and this is how the Confederation is ruled and the Horizon War was started.

Six Sentence Sunday

I wasn’t planning to continue the scene from Tourist Trap, as I wasn’t sure how to break up the 9 sentences remaining. But it got so much attention last week I decided to cut the next 3 sentences and give the end of the scene. Next week I might give Zhaim’s POV, a little later. Meanwhile, I decided to include some eye candy of a somewhat different sort, thanks to Hubble.

Timi’s grip on Roi tightened as Zhaim stalked forward, his arm swinging back as he came. Roi tried to duck away from the blow, but Timi’s hold swung him into it instead. His head snapped to the side, and then before he could recover another blow slammed into his stomach, followed by a kick to his groin.

The world narrowed to a maelstrom of fists, knees and feet. He felt ribs give, and then a tearing pain as Timi’s body twisted his shoulder out of its socket in an effort to keep him on his feet. He hoped with all his heart, as the darkness closed in around him, that at least one of the dogs would get its message to Kyrie.

Did any of the dogs make it? Get the book!

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