My First Audiobook!

I’m thrilled! My novel The Tally Master is now available as an audiobook! And its sequel Sovereign Night will follow soon.

This has been a dream of mine for over 10 years. Since 2012 I’ve repeatedly looked for options to get my work into audio, and repeatedly the logistics have defeated me.

Let me tell you how the barriers came down.

Apple is pioneering the use of AI narration for its catalog of ebooks, and this August they opened up the program to indie authors like me.

I was skeptical at first. It seemed too good to be true. But when I looked into the program, it was legit. And I really liked the voice sample for the female narrator. She sounded human, and she sounded good. I entered The Tally Master as a candidate for audio, and in early September it went live!

When I listened to the first few pages, they sounded even better than I’d dreamed possible. I’m an expressive reader myself when I read aloud, but Madison the AI does a better job than I could. I’m so, so happy with the result, and I’m eager to make more of my work available through this channel.

When you must dwell in the citadel of your enemies, do you join them? Depart toward exile and death? Or raze their dark tower to the ground?

Gael tries to ignore the significance of his actions. Managing supplies for a warlord’s arsenal, the cursed mage purposefully evades the fact that he’s enabling the destruction of his former people. But when he discovers the precious metal needed to craft the weapons is being stolen from under his nose, he resolves to find the culprit at any cost.

Relentless and driven, Gael follows the trail of clues to expose not just a thief but a chain of heinous treacheries. When he unearths the roles his friends have played, he’s no longer certain whose side he should be on. Especially when his master orders him to destroy a magical artifact that could save them all.

With his protégé imprisoned and facing a death sentence, and his mentor sacrificed to the warlord’s policy, Gael must decide where to place his loyalty. Will he discern and choose what is right, or will he forfeit his last chance at redemption?

The Tally Master is the gripping first novel in the Gael & Keir fantasy mystery series. If you like characters who seem to step right off the page, twisty plots, and vivid world-building, then you’ll love this engrossing tale.

Listen to The Tally Master to choose senseless hope or sober treason today!
Apple

 

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The Tally Master’s Missing Scene

Uh, oh. I made a mistake.

I’ve been sharing my novel The Tally Master as a serial here on my blog, and…I left out a scene! Yikes! How did that happen?

Well, I know how it happened.

Most of the story is told in chapters composed of three or four scenes each. But there are two special scenes that form their own chapters and that have titles instead of “Chapter 1” or “Chapter 2” and so on.

The first of these special scenes occurs between chapters 8 and 9. It tells a North-lands fairy tale that shows the significance of Gael’s name.

So you could read straight from chapter 8 through chapter 9, skipping this fairy tale interlude, and never know that you’d missed anything. That’s just what my serial readers have done! I apologize, guys! I’ve fixed my mistake. The Legend of the Mark of Gaelan is now present in the sequence. New serial readers will encounter it in the proper place.

I’ll share it below in this post as well, so everyone who missed can catch it now. But, gosh, I’m sorry! Forgive me?

What happened is that I put the story up on my blog a chapter at a time. So when it was time to put the next chapter up, I looked to see which one I’d done last. Chapter 8. Okay, 9 comes after 8. So, Chapter 9.

Wrong.

I should have looked at the Table of Contents. That would have shown me that one of the special scenes came next. Lesson learned. Once I get Chapter 19 posted, I will not then post Chapter 20. I’ll post the next special scene!

So why is the significance of Gael’s name important? Because he’s named after a legendary hero who most people in my North-lands revile. Gaelan was the North-lands equivalent of our Earth’s Cain. To learn why, read on… 😀

Legend of the Mark of Gaelan

Long ago, in the dawn of time, there lived two brothers in the land of Erynis. They studied magery, and each vied with the other to be the most skillful, the most powerful, and the most creative magus in the north. Despite their rivalry, they loved one another as brothers do: strong affection mingled with equally strong jealousy.

Each boasted that his magery was better. And each laughed, because who was to judge between them?

The friends of Cayim, the elder brother, would surely say he excelled every other magus in the land, while the students taught by Gaelan, the younger brother, would choose their teacher as the best. And all the people of Erynis were either friends of Cayim or students of Gaelan.

Now it chanced that the twin gods of Erynis heard the boasts of the two brothers. Thelor, the god of cleverness and intellect, felt sure that his powers of reason could discern which brother was the more masterful magus. And Elunig, the goddess of wisdom, loved her twin and wished him to experience the enjoyment that exercising discernment would give him.

So, when next the holy hermit of Erynis sat in meditation, Elunig granted him a vision. In his vision, Gaelan and Cayim traveled to the hermit’s shrine and from there were transported to the heavenly home of the twin gods, where they would be judged. The superior brother would be offered the choice between two wondrous gifts.

When Cayim heard of the hermit’s vision, he longed for Thelor’s gift: the enchanting of a well such that the one who drank of its waters would always know whether a given fact be false or true.

And when Gaelan learned of the hermit’s vision, he yearned for Elunig’s gift: the enchanting of a spring such that the one who drank from it would always know whether a proposed action was wise or foolish.

On the eve of midsummer, the two brothers met and agreed to the trial of mastery. They journeyed to the hermit’s shrine and were brought to the twin gods’ home as the hermit’s vision had promised.

They received their welcome in a garden of surpassing beauty. Red poppies crowded the borders. White roses, heavy with scent, climbed the trellises. And a fountain splashed.

Elunig spoke the first words, her voice gentle. “You are safe here, but do not stray into the wilderness beyond the hedge, for it is perilous there.”

Thelor spoke next, his tone stern. “Nor should you leave the chambers to which we bid you in our house, for dangers lurk in unexpected corners.”

Gaelan, overwhelmed by the majesty of the twin gods, bowed reverentially. But Cayim delayed, curious to discover if he could understand more of the divine by scrutinizing these magnificent examples of it. While he stared, and while Elunig gazed affectionately upon Gaelan, Thelor laid a finger aside his nose and winked.

Then a servant brought them goblets of fruit nectar to quaff, and when they had quenched their thirst, led them indoors.

Gaelan bathed his face and hands in the basin provided and lay down upon the silken couch to sleep. But Cayim waited until his brother’s eyes closed and retraced his steps to the garden. There he found Thelor, seated on the steps below the fountain.

“Why did you wink?” Cayim asked.

“I wished to tell you that my sister longs for a babe, despite our great mother declaring that enough divine children have entered the world.”

“Why did you wish to tell me this?” asked Cayim.

“That I shall not tell you,” answered Thelor. And he dismissed the curious brother.

The next day, after they had broken their fast on cream and honey and peaches, the brothers were ushered into a great hall with white marble floors and pillars.

Gaelan performed his magery first. He summoned flame, which transformed to sunlight and then into ice. He built a palace of the ice, which melted to become a mountain lake in which brilliant fishes swam. One fish grew into a dragon, bursting from the surface of the water and soaring to the clouds. The dragon’s scales became rose petals, and the beast came apart in a shower of blossoms, falling through a rainbow.

Elunig clapped in delight when Gaelan finished.

“Beautiful! Beautiful!” she exclaimed.

Cayim’s performance was less elaborate, by far.

He spread a magical carpet of rich blue and green threads on the marble floor. He summoned a rush basket, intricately plaited, to rest upon the carpet. He caused the soft trills of a flute to sound. And then he laid an infant to rest within his nest.

Elunig rushed forward, catching the child in her arms and pressing it to her breast. “Oh!” she cried.

“She is a human child, not a divine one,” said Cayim, “and so I judge that the great mother cannot object. Neither can any human mother, for this child has neither mother nor father nor any kin to care for her. She is yours, if you will have her.”

“Oh!” cried Elunig again.

Thelor smiled. “You envisioned this trial of skill as a gift to me, sister. But now I make it over to you.”

Elunig kissed the babe’s downy head. “Cayim has won my heart, if he has not won your reason, my twin,” she said.

“Then Cayim shall be the master magus,” declared Thelor. And then, forgetting discretion, he winked in full view of both brothers.

Upon seeing Thelor’s wink, Gaelan guessed all that had hitherto been hidden to him. Jealous rage flooded through him, and he lashed out. Had he been arguing with his brother, he might have lashed out with words. Had he been wrestling with Cayim, he would surely have struck with his fists. But because he’d been performing magery, he assailed his brother with the energea of his magery. And because he was full of wrath, his magery lacked his usual control.

His energea cracked out as black lines of force limned with gold. Not blue or silver or green, all safe. But most perilous black and gold.

Cayim fell to the floor, dead.

Within Gaelan, his heart broke—for he loved his brother yet—and his nodes—the source of his energea—tore. So strong was the disruption that Gaelan’s inner damage manifested immediately in his outer form. His ears grew enlarged and cupped. His nose lengthened, curving up. His skin sagged, and his back hunched. His thumbs became crooked and long. The truldemagar claimed him violently.

The twin gods returned Gaelan to Erynis and then did penance for centuries. They had destroyed two worthy men.

Ever after, all who dwelt within Erynis called the truldemagar the mark of Gaelan. In other lands, some who heard the legend of Gaelan adopted that name as well.

And though the righteous hate Gaelan for his fratricide, the merciful grieve for Gaelan’s loss and revile Cayim for his trickery.

*     *     *

Want to read the serial? See:
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Want to know more about Gael’s world? See:
The Dark Tower
Mapping Ancient Rome onto Belzetarn
What Does the Tally Master Tally?
Map of the North-lands in the Bronze Age
Bronze Age Swords
Brother Kings

 

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Sovereign Change

The sequel to The Tally Master has a new title!

I’m so excited about it, but I deserve none of the credit. Who does?

My first reader.

Actually she deserves credit for a lot more than the title. She read through my first draft, which turned out to be in much rougher shape than I’d realized, and not only flagged all of its problems, but made some excellent suggestions for how to fix them.

Then—with a generosity beyond any call of honor or duty—she read the whole thing again in its revised version.

I just received the commented manuscript back from her. This second draft is in much better shape than was the first. Thank goodness! She found it gripping and fun to read, but she also discovered a number of additional small issues that will be the better for fixing. I hope to dive into the revision work soon.

But what about that title?

It was while my first reader was racing through the exciting climax scene—just as tension-filled, she reports, even though she’d read it before—that inspiration visited her.

Sovereign Night.

The instant I saw it, there in the first comment on the manuscript, I loved it. It’s THE ONE. 😀

The Sovereign’s Labyrinth has now officially become Sovereign Night.

 
 
 

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Quarters in the Glorious Citadel

As I write this blog post, my heroes—Gael and Keir—have succeeded in gaining access to the “forbidden city” wherein lies the lodestone they seek.

(I’m 24,875 words into the novel, The Sovereign’s Labyrinth, book 2 in the Gael & Keir Adventures. I hope to be further along when this post goes live!)

Their quarters are pleasant, much like those in the photo above, although furnished with low cabinets holding bedding quilts, kneeling cushions, and other necessities. Also, their rooms are around a corner from each other rather than side by side.

The sliding screens of Keir’s room front a narrow gravel courtyard with a row of stone lanterns in it.

Gael’s view features a moss garden.

Here’s a floor plan showing the rooms and how they connect to one another and the wooden walkways outside.

Gael and Keir encounter violence and mystery in the Glorious Citadel before they even settle into their quarters!

For more about The Sovereign’s Labyrinth, see:
A Townhouse in Hantida
A Library in the Glorious Citadel
That Sudden Leap

 

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Writing vs. Publishing

I need to be two people!

One me would write my new novel, a sequel to The Tally Master.

The other me would ready the latest book in The Lodestone Tales for publication in March 2019.

Actually I need a third me, who would write blog posts, create cool visuals to appear in BookBub’s newsletter, compose emails to send to those of you subscribed to my newsletter, and do all the other things involved in communicating with the wonderful people who read and enjoy my books.

Since I have only the one me, I’m attempting to strike a balance each day between these three different hats that I wear.

In the past, I’ve not tried to wear all three hats on any one day. I’d spend 3 to 8 months wearing the writer hat and writing a story. Then I’d move into revising. After that came the publishing mode: proofreading, formatting the manuscript as an ebook, creating the cover, uploading the files, etc. And then I’d blog about the book and try to get the word out.

The thing about doing it that way is that it leads to long gaps between the writing of my stories. The gaps are long enough that I start to pine for the writing.

So, over the years, I’ve worked to reduce the gap between writing stints.

Combining the publishing and communicating modes happened pretty readily and easily. They go together, in my brain at least.

I also learned that I need not wait until my first and second readers were done with my previous book in order for me to start on the next book.

But right now I am attempting to write The Sovereign’s Labyrinth in the mornings, while I work on publishing tasks for Lodestone Tales 5 and marketing Fate’s Door in the afternoons.

It’s a wobbly balance, but I’m doing it!

Some days I don’t get the writing in. Other days I don’t manage any publishing tasks. But it feels great to be writing, and I feel confidant that I will get everything done for publishing on time.

So how are things progressing under each of my hats?

I’m so glad you asked! 😉

Lodestone Tales 5

I still have not settled on a title for this book!

But that is not stopping me. I’m progressing steadily in the very last stage of getting the manuscript ready both to format as an ebook and to create the paperback edition.

This last stage involves listening to my computer read the story aloud.

The computer does a pretty good job of reading, so it’s kinda fun listening. But it’s an essential step, because I find the last teeny-tiny glitches that need to be fixed. In this particular manuscript, there were several instances of ‘though’ that needed to be ‘through,’ and two places where ‘through’ needed to be ‘thorough,’ plus two spots missing a ‘the.’ But they are all fixed now.

I’m two-thirds of the way through this audio proofing, and it is going well.

I’ve also been making a list of phrases from the manuscript that might make good titles. Want to see what I’ve got so far? You know I want to share! 😉

Reaching Refuge False Refuge Strangling Thorns
Rife with Hiding Places Held Breath Choose to Open
Choose to Unchain Not Just Fear Fighting Retreat
No More Doubt Other Doors Worse than Dying
Death by Beneficence Say Nothing of Me Word of Silence
Word of Solitude Before They Kill Me Pinching the Pendant
Sundered Radices Sundering Hope Unblessed Solitude
Fortunate Trespass Benevolent Trespass Honorable Trespass
Trespasser’s Surprise Long Secrecy Bequeath Doom
Approach with Courage Alluring Shadows Push Back the Darkness
Hallowed Beast Hallowed Secret Promises Kept
Promises Unwise Venture Beyond Let the Curtain Fall
Let the Curtain Rise Benevolent Illumination Intriguing Legend
Healing Knowledge Prelude to Friendship Magical Gift
Magical Talisman Occupy the Shadows Occupy the Edges
Enigmatic Magic Enigmatic Hunt Without Even a Knock
A Trespass Most Generous

Are any of these serious contenders? Well, no. But I have another third of the book to read. Maybe the perfect phrase is waiting there for me to find it.

The Sovereign’s Labyrinth

I’m super excited about my new work in progress, the sequel to The Tally Master!

I’m thrilled to be hanging out with Gael and Keir again. And I think the adventure facing them is way cool! I’ve got only the first scene written so far, but my plans for what comes next have me jumping metaphorically up and down in excitement.

Gael and Keir have arrived in Hantida, a city-state far to the west and south of Belzetarn. They’ve just witnessed a very peculiar failed arrest, and it is clear that ALL IS NOT WELL here. 😀

Oh! I can’t wait!

I need to do a quickly sketched floor plan of the house where they are headed to treat a badly burned girl, and then I can get on with writing the next scene. (After I finish this blog post, of course. See what I mean about those three hats!)

Fate’s Door Is On Sale

These days, getting the word out about one’s books is key. If you don’t do it, no one knows they exist. Which means no one buys them and reads them.

::J.M. shudders::

The idea of no one reading my books horrifies me!

I had great success last spring when I put Troll-magic on sale and created an image announcing the sale to appear in BookBub’s newsletter. Lots more readers than usual picked up a copy, and that heightened visibility continued for a full 2 months after the BookBub mention.

Naturally I’m trying to replicate that experience with my other books! But it’s tricky, and there is much to learn.

I didn’t get the same results when I tried this for Blood Silver, which did about half as well as Troll-magic. But I’m continuing to experiment, and now Fate’s Door is receiving its turn in the sunshine. I’ll be able to assess the results sometime next week.

In the meantime, the ebook edition of Fate’s Door is available at a discount on Amazon, so do pick up your copy!

*   *   *

That’s what I’ve been up to lately.

I have a bunch of blog posts I want to write about the world of Lodestone Tales 5. Plus I still want to share some of the Whole30 menus that I devised. Watch this space! 😉

(Maybe I need to be four people!)

 

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“Twists and Turns”

If 1000 readers read a book, how many will write a review on Amazon or Kobo or GoodReads?

I’ve heard answers to that question that range all over the map. One person will say one hundred, while another claims just one. I suspect we’re all guessing, but here’s a thing that seems to be true: most writers wish that more readers would leave reviews!

The current solution is to sign your book with a reviewing service. I tried Hidden Gems with my novella Blood Silver and was pleased with the results. Their readers are an intelligent, insightful bunch and they really do write reviews.

That was one of my worries…

Of the 30 readers who signed up to read Blood Silver, how many would actually review it?

I needn’t have worried. The tally currently stands at 24, exactly the 80% that Hidden Gems states is their average review rate.

Of course, the other worry is one that is always out of the writer’s control when the reviews are honest. What will these strangers think of my book? Will they like it? What if they hate it? What if they all leave 1-star reviews?

I did get a few 3-star reviews for Blood Silver, and not every review was glowing. But most of the Hidden Gems reviewers seemed to enjoy it.

I was emboldened to sign up The Tally Master for the service. Not as many HG readers selected it to read—just 15—but 11 of them have now written reviews.

“What a creative and unique setting! Tally Master is richly developed with great story arcs…” —Sassette

“A fun unique read…a standout read.” —James Haydon

“As a detective story I think the author did a great job there are so many twists and turns, a zig here and a zag there… The characters were quite complex… The scenery was very descriptive and you feel the dank, dark, oppression of the halls the trolls called home.” —Tricia Schiro

“…wonderfully entertaining. With great character development, and a wonderful and detailed world.” —Z. White

“…the descriptions were vivid like you were there. The characters were really developed and it just brought it all together. A great story!” —Marilyn Smith

“A FINE READ INDEED. CAN’T WAIT FOR BOOK TWO.” —James J Duffy

I’m beaming! 😀

There are more reviews on Tally’s page on Amazon than I’ve quoted above, but I suspect that my appetite for reading reviews is larger than yours. LOL!

 

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Lodestones

So, what is a lodestone?

In the real world, it’s a magnet. But in my North-lands, it’s a magical artifact that intensifies the magical powers of a mage.

Different cultures in different time periods and different locations of my North-lands possess different names for mages.

In the Steam Age, the people of Silmaren call them keyholders, the denizens of Fiorish use the term seer, while the citizens of Auberon say patternmaster or enigmologist. There are more variations, but I’m not going to list them all here. 😉

The five lodestones rattling around the “modern”-day North-lands came out of ancient Navarys. So for the duration of this post, I’ll use the term favored by the ancient Navareans: fabrimancer.

The Navareans called their magic energea and their magical focus stones were energea-stones, not lodestones. The lodestones were created at the end of Navarean history, not its beginning, and I’ll get there soon. Promise. But first I must talk about energea-stones.

Energea-stones were crafted from the remains of a meteor fragment lodged in the mountainside of the isle of Navarys. To the ordinary eye, they look like small black pebbles—about the size your thumb-tip—with a shiny finish. (A few were made at larger sizes, but the vast majority were small.)

Energea-stones have been around for almost as long as the Navareans themselves (from pre-history and the age of reed huts). The Navareans learned about fabrimancy (magery) from the energea-stones, rather than fashioning the stones after they developed fabrimancy.

To a fabrimancer’s eye (if he or she is a visual practitioner, not an aural one or a kinesthetic one), the stones hold spiraling patterns of silvery light. This light is the visual manifestation of energea, of magic.

But more important than what energea-stones look like is what they do and how they do it.

In Navarys, an energea-stone would be shaped by a specialist to do a specific task, such as spinning a spinning wheel or a grain mill, tossing a shuttle across a weaver’s loom, or winding the rope of well bucket around a spool. Or the stone might be formed to simply magnify a fabrimancer’s power.

Different stones performed different tasks, but the Navareans especially liked to use them for semi-automating the tasks of craftsmanship. And they wished the stones could be fashioned to permit full automation. It was a sort of holy grail with them.

Energea-stones required the presence of a fabrimancer channeling his or her energea through the stone, almost as though the fabrimancer were a sort of living battery funneling electricity through an engine.

The lodestones were the breakthrough Navareans had been hoping for.

A lodestone looks a lot like an ordinary energea-stone—a small black pebble—except its surface finish is a velvet matte, not shiny. Like energea-stones they can be fashioned in different sizes for different purposes.

But a lodestone draws energea from its surroundings at large, not just from the fabrimancer wielding it. And thus a lodestone permits true automation. It must be forged so as to direct the energea flowing through it to perform the task desired. But once the fabrimancer sets it going, the lodestone does its work until the fabrimancer halts it. The fabrimancer can actually walk away from the work in progress.

Unfortunately, the lodestones embody one serious danger not possessed by ordinary energea-stones.

When an energea-stone is used by a fabrimancer to magnify and concentrate his magical powers, the stone also acts as a sort of overflow valve. If the fabrimancer loses control and summons too much energea—a potentially destructive amount—the excess is channeled away through the stone without doing damage to the fabrimancer.

Lodestones don’t possess this safety feature. Instead, they always carry exactly half of the energea summoned by the fabrimancer. Which means that if the fabrimancer summons a damaging amount, it does damage. Specifically, it tears the energetic structures that underlie the fabrimancer’s physical being.

That damage manifests as the troll-disease that appears in so many of my North-lands stories.

Only six lodestones were originally created. One of them—the largest—sank to the bottom of the great ocean. The other five are loose in the world, creating trouble when they are found.

Skies of Navarys tells the story of the creation of the lodestones, through the eyes of a pair of teenagers.

The Tally Master follows one of the lodestones into the hands of a troll warlord, where an honorable accountant and his assistant determine the outcome of the encounter.

Resonant Bronze shows how a lodestone might turn the tables on the troll horde.

Rainbow’s Lodestone and Star-drake recount the fate of a lodestone used to commit an evil deed.

And To Thread the Labyrinth, due out in March 2019, sees a lodestone returned to a place of proper oversight, although the larger story focuses on a troll-witch hiding her troll-disease.

For more about ancient Navarys, see:
A Tour of Navarys
From Navarys to Imsterfeldt

For more about the magic of the North-lands, see:
Magic in the North-lands
Magic in Silmaren
Radices and Arcs

 

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Brother Kings

Fairy tales have always been amongst my favorite stories to read and to think about and to dream up sequels or alternate endings for. Immersed in them from an early age as I was, to me they seem an essential part of my foundations. So much so that I sometimes don’t recognize when I am drawing on the heritage of these archetypal narratives.

For example, take the following scene, an early flashback from The Tally Master. I’m pretty sure the reconciliation scene from “The Widow’s Son” in East of the Sun and West of the Moon must have come to mind when I wrote it, but I’d forgotten that connection completely until a few days ago when I stumbled upon an illustration by Kay Nielsen.

Blood dripping down one temple, Erastys wilted against the tree, his brother’s sword at his throat.

“Do you yield?” growled Heiroc, his sword arm tense.

Erastys paled, but shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

Heiroc’s sword arm tightened, and they hung there an instant: the dark brother pinned to the tree, garbed in silver and red, wet with blood; the light brother clothed in bronze and aqua, drenched in river water.

Gael’s vision pulsed in and out as he lay stunned, watching.

Heiroc’s voice an edged hiss, the king commanded, “You shall yield!”

Erastys grew more pale yet, but his eyes narrowed.

“You must yield!” Was Heiroc begging?

Gael suspected his hearing was as injured as his sight and the rest of him. What had happened, there at the end, when something ripped inside him? He feared the answer.

Heiroc cast his sword to the ground, where it clattered against the tree’s roots. “I cannot kill you.”

Swift triumph gleamed in Erastys’ eyes, and Gael would have cried out, had he been able. My king! My king! No!

As Heiroc turned away, Erastys shed his drooping stance—suddenly powerful—and seized his brother by the neck, thrusting him against the bloody bark where, a moment ago, Erastys had languished.

Erastys lifted his sword.

“Do you yield? Brother?” he exulted.

“No,” breathed Heiroc.

“You shall,” gloated Erastys.

“Never.”

“But, yes, my brother. Oh, yes!” Erastys’ teeth gleamed.

“You trade upon my mercy,” snarled Heiroc.

Erastys’ nostrils flared. “I had not surrendered.”

“No. You had not. Nonetheless.” Heiroc’s spurt of temper calmed.

“I shall not be so weak as you. I can kill,” Erastys said.

“I do not doubt it. Brother. Nonetheless. You trade upon my strength, not my weakness.” Heiroc’s tone was stern, and yet something lay under that sternness. What was it, thusly concealed?

“Does that mean you trade upon my weakness, since I trade upon your strength?” mocked Erastys.

Heiroc laughed. Gaelan’s tears!

Erastys tensed his sword arm; and then cast his sword after his brother’s—to the ground—and fell upon Heiroc’s neck in a weeping embrace. Heiroc’s arms went hesitantly around his brother’s shoulders and then snugged him in tight.

It had been love, Gael realized, love beneath Heiroc’s sternness. Even after a year of war, a year of bloodshed, a year of battle after battle. Dastard’s hells!

I must admit that this scene between the brother kings Heiroc and Erastys is one that pleases me greatly.

But now compare it to the excerpt below from “The Widow’s Son.” The provenance seems pretty clear to me. What do you think? Is there a connection?

…but when he went down to the stable where his horse was on the day the wedding was to be, there it stood so dull and heavy, and hung its ears down, and wouldn’t eat its corn. So when the young King—for he was now a king, and had got half the kingdom—spoke to him, and asked what ailed him, the Horse said:

“Now I have helped you on, and now I won’t live any longer. So just take the sword , and cut my head off.”

“No, I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said the young King; “but you shall have all you want, and rest all your life.”

“Well,” said the Horse, “if you won’t do as I tell you, see if I don’t take your life somehow.”

“So the King had to do what he asked; but when he swung the sword and was to cut his head off, he was so sorry he turned away his face, for he would not see the stroke fall. But as soon as ever he had cut off the head, there stood the loveliest Prince on the spot where the horse had stood.

“Why, where in all the world did you come from?” asked the King.

“It was I who was the horse,” said the Prince; “for I was the king of that land whose king you slew yesterday. He it was who threw this Troll’s shape over me, and sold me to the Troll. But now he is slain I get my own again, and you and I will be neighbor kings, but war we will never make on one another.”

And they didn’t either; for they were friends as long as they lived, and each paid the other very many visits.

Of course, the young King and his Horse were never enemies as were Heiroc and Erastys. Nor does the earlier portion of the tale “The Widow’s Son” resemble the story told in The Tally Master. But my scene seems to hold echoes from the end of the fairy tale, don’t you think?

For more about the world of The Tally Master, see:
Gael’s Tally Chamber in Belzetarn
Mapping Ancient Rome onto Belzetarn
What Does the Tally Master Tally?
Map of the North-lands in the Bronze Age
The Fortress of Belzetarn
The Dark Tower
Belzetarn’s Smithies and Cellars
Belzetarn’s Formidable Entrance Gate
Belzetarn’s Treasures
Belzetarn’s Great Halls
Bronze Age Swords

 

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How Many Writers Make a Conference?

A few days before I was due to meet my writer friend Laura Montgomery in Culpeper (for a lunch of Chinese stir fry), she announced that she was christening our meal the Midway Writer’s Conference.

We both chuckled. Can a gathering of two really be considered a conference? Despite our laughter, we gave the question serious thought.

We’re old college friends who lost touch over the years and then reconnected in the comments of the wonderful blog run by Passive Guy, aka David Vandagriff.

We were astonished and delighted to learn that our lives had acquired some curious parallels. She’s the mother of twins; I’m the mother of twins. She’d launched herself into indie publishing writing science fiction. I’d done the same writing fantasy.

How cool was that!

After a bunch of cordial emails and some beta reading for one another, we decided to meet up for a cup of tea. After the briefest of pleasantries—“You look just as I remember you!—we talked writer shop for 2 hours straight. At the next meeting we talked for 4 hours, this time mixing publishing shop in with the writer shop talk.

Our latest meeting was 6 hours, with a focus on the marketing angle of indie publishing.

Yes, these really were conferences. Although this time we actually did manage to talk about our kids. Who knows? Maybe next time we’ll even chat about our spouses. 😉

One of the topics we discussed in Culpeper was the nature of genre and whether or not I wrote epic fantasy. Laura blogged about the question (and our conference), so I’m going to quote her. She said:

We tried to figure out if…The Tally Master was epic fantasy or not. 

I was arguing it was. The troll wars rage across the Northlands. Weapons are forged. Our cursed main characters live in a troll tower of monumental proportions. It all seems pretty epic to me.

Jessica demurred.

The hero is a bronze-age accountant. She was telling a small tale. It was a mystery about missing tin, a matter of seemingly little moment.

But, said I, it has large consequences, it’s part of a grand, epic sweep. A light bulb went off in my own mind…

And now I think I’d better send you off to Laura’s blog to read the rest. It’s really not fair for me to steal her audience.

So click HERE and go read. She’s witty in an understated way that I love, so it’s worth the click. I’ll wait while you visit her. Promise. 😉

Did you go?

I’m going to pretend you said, “Yes.” You did, right!

(The Sky Suspended features the patent fight she mentioned. Mercenary Calling presents the mutiny charge in a suspenseful story that also kept me in a ripple of internal chuckles the whole way through. I do love Laura’s dry humor.)

What did you think about her light bulb?

I thought she was clever—and correct—in her assertion that we both like focusing up-close-and-personal on a hero caught in the sweep of epic events.

But does that truly make my books epic fantasy? I know I’ve asked this question before, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to decide the answer for certain.

I’d love to know what you think. 😀

 

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Bronze Age Swords

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a guest post about bronze swords:
• how the metals were extracted from the earth
• how the weapons were smithed
• and why they were more effective than the early efforts from the Iron Age.

The blog on which my post appeared is an active one, hosted by a talented and prolific sister author. She generates fresh material for her site every day, and my post has long been buried under 365 days of impressive creativity!

Given my latest streak of posts about steel swords, now seems a grand time to revive my research on bronze swords and present it on my own blog. 😀

*      *      *

Tracking down knowledge is my drug of choice. Each new fact is just so interesting! Even better is the moment when an entire constellation of facts coalesces, and I see how it all fits together and what it all means. That’s a total thrill!

But my insatiable curiosity (and I seem to be able to be curious about everything and anything) was not why I researched bronze metallurgy in ancient times. I was writing a novel set in the Bronze Age of my North-lands, and my protagonist was essentially the treasurer for a warlord. The wealth of the citadel lay in its metals and – especially – its weapons. So I needed to know all about how the metals were extracted from the earth, how they were purified and poured into ingots, and what forging techniques were used. My protag knew all that stuff, so I needed to know about it also.

For those of you who share my curious bent, here’s what I discovered.

Gritty Details

Too many of the sources I found were overly theoretical. The author might explain why ancient cultures developed metallurgy as they did or how they traded for their tin. But I needed nitty gritty details.

How were their smelting furnaces set up? How long did it take for the metal to become molten? How exactly did the ancients fashion bronze scale mail? How did they make their bronze swords?

Historical re-enactors and experimental archeologists proved to be my most fruitful sources. I found actual patterns for re-creating bronze helmets and bronze armor, along with photos of the finished results. I found videos showing Bronze Age combat techniques.

Smiths Were Mages

The website of Neil Burridge, a smith who creates Bronze Age artifacts using authentic materials and methods, had the details I was truly seeking. Videos of him in action allowed me to see a real smith moving within the forging environment, garbed in the protective gear of heavy apron and gauntlets, using the tongs and crucibles, exercising prudence with the liquid fire that is molten metal.

He also explained vividly the awe with which the ancient smiths were probably regarded. Metallurgy was not a theoretical science for them. It was a practical discipline, absolutely necessary for their tools and weapons, but with techniques developed over hundreds of years and handed down from one smith to another.

They didn’t know why these techniques worked. And they weren’t infallible. Sometimes a pour would turn out a perfect result. Other times it would fail, and the smith wouldn’t know for sure what had caused the failure. Certainly ordinary people, with no access to a smith’s secrets, would have regarded the whole business as magical.

Why Would a Skilled Smith Waste His Time?

Although the people in my novel were using Bronze Age technologies, I envisioned them as possessing military organization more like the armies of ancient Rome. Thus my smiths would not spend days setting up for the pouring of one sword that might – or might not – deliver success. They would pour many blades in one day, and then hand the blades off to others for the steps that transformed the plain metal blank into a weapon.

Anvilfire.com, a website “dedicated to advancing modern blacksmithing while retaining traditional standards of craftsmanship,” supplied me with information about this finishing process. The bladesmith created the blade. A separate shop did the grinding and polishing. Yet a third made the hilt and secured the blade to it. And a fourth made the scabbard.

Making a sword was resource intensive, both because of the valuable metals required and because of the labor from many skilled individuals that went into it.

Firesetting at the Copper Mine

So what about those materials? Bronze is made by mixing a small part of tin with a larger portion of copper. The ancients didn’t have modern strip mines or deep underground mines. Nor did they have sophisticated machinery run by diesel engines. How did they get copper and tin out of the ground?

Copper mines bore some resemblance to my expectations. The copper deposits needed to be relatively near the surface, but the ancients actually did tunnel down to a vein of ore. There, at the working face, they built a fire to heat the ore-containing rock. Once the rock reached a high enough temperature, they doused it with cold water. This process increased the brittleness of the rock and induced a preliminary degree of cracking. Blows from a hammer or pick could then break it into rubble, which could be heated in a smelting furnace to extract the copper.

Streamworks

Tin was another matter, one entirely new to me.

Tin was found in alluvial deposits in stream beds, usually as a very pure tin gravel well stirred with gravels of quartz, mica, and feldspar (gangue). So the trick was to separate out the tin gravel from the others.

The method of the ancients, as far back as 2,000 BC, was this:
• Dig a trench at the lowest end of the deposit.
• Dig a channel from the nearest water source to pour water over that part of the deposit
• Allow the stream of water to wash the lighter gangue into the trench
• Pick up the heavier tin gravel that remained
• When the lower portion of the deposit had yielded all its tin, dig another trench a bit higher and redirect the water channel, to allow the next section of the deposit to be harvested

The tin gravel thus obtained would be roughly smelted on site, simply roasting the gravel in a fire. The pebbles resulting from this rough smelt would then be transported to a dedicated furnace for a second smelting that yielded the purer tin needed by bladesmiths.

What About the Ingots?

Modern ingots are rectangular blocks, but those of the ancients took several different forms. The earliest were so-called “biscuit” ingots, round on the bottom like a muffin, gently concave on the top. They took the shape of the earthen pit into which the molten metal dripped from the smelting furnace.

But metal is heavy, and the biscuit shape awkward to carry. Around our own Mediterranean, an “oxhide” form was developed. It weighed about 80 pounds and possessed four “legs,” one at each corner, that allowed it to be tied between pack animals or gripped and carried by men.

I became fascinated with an ingot form used much later by the Chinese in the Malay Penninsula. These were hat shaped, much smaller (weighing only a pound), and actually used as currency.

A Peculiarity of Forging in Bronze

Bronze has one very peculiar property in the smithy.

Most metals, such as iron or even copper, when heated and cooled slowly to room temperature, become more ductile and more workable. They are less prone to internal stresses.

Bronze does not behave like this. When slow cooled, it becomes brittle and difficult to work. Thus it must be heated to cherry-red and then quenched in water. This quick cooling makes it so soft that it can then be hammered. The hammering condenses the metal, giving it more rigidity.

A bladesmith will hammer near the edge of a blade to harden it and help it keep its sharpness, while allowing the center rib to retain more of its resilience.

Were These Swords Any Good?

If you compare a bronze sword to a steel sword, the steel is always going to win. But when the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, bronze metallurgy was at its peak. Several thousand years had gone into the development of the most superb techniques. Iron metallurgy was in its infancy, and getting the iron swords to be rigid enough was a problem. The iron swords just weren’t as good as the bronze ones, which were light, strong, just rigid enough, and held an edge well.

But there’s no need to take my word on this. A YouTuber with a passion for swords, Skallagrim from Canada, discourses quite knowledgeably about the pros and cons of bronze. More amusingly, he tests one of Neil Burridge’s bronze swords “to destruction” in the video below.

(There’s a brief reprise snippet of Mr. Burridge before Skallagrim gets going with his destruction. Go to the 3:30 mark, if you want to skip that snippet.)

Even after all my research, I cannot call myself more than a mere smatterer. I learned enough to write The Tally Master, and not much more. But I hope you found these tidbits entertaining, and I’ll be happy to answer questions in the comments below. Or to speculate with you, when I don’t know the answer. 😉

For more about The Tally Master, see:
Gael’s Tally Chamber in Belzetarn
Mapping Ancient Rome onto Belzetarn
What Does the Tally Master Tally?
Map of the North-lands in the Bronze Age
The Fortress of Belzetarn
The Dark Tower
Belzetarn’s Smithies and Cellars
Belzetarn’s Formidable Entrance Gate
Belzetarn’s Treasures
Belzetarn’s Great Halls
Brother Kings

 

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