The book I held in my hand is the oldest record yet is the best preserved. The cover is a burnished silver metal, approximately eleven by seventeen inches. Despite its age it has lost none of its sheen. When I opened the case the pages were not made of paper, or parchment. They are made of a thin, semi-opaque film that resembles vellum. I could remove any page with a gentle tug. When reinserted they reattach to the spine. the odd thing is they can only put back in the proper place.
While I scanned the first pages of the strange journal the old gentleman explained what they had so far translated..
"As near as I can figure this history predates our own by eight thousand years. They call their world Aspera, a planet on the far of another galaxy. That record you’re holdin’ speaks of endless battles between the Killan Kingdom and the Quinta Empire. Not so different from our own medieval history."
“The war between the Killan Kingdom and the Quinta Empire started over a broken trust. A lie told by some politician. It caused the start the class wars and plunged the two nations into chaos for a thousand years. The lulls of peace were short-lived. Battles between the two nations were long, heated and bloody. After a century of carnage, only the two nations remained. Even hardened veterans sought their gods and plead with them for peace. In the start of the second millennium of war, a year long, bloody battle between the kingdom and the empire leaves the king's youngest son, Tyree the royal family’s only survivor. In that year a young untested boy of seventeen took the throne, guided my his uncle, the Baron Colin McCalin.”
“With no male heirs to assume the Quinta throne, eighteen, Mirasol Santiago, the Emperor’s only daughter, becomes Empress under the watchful eye of her guardian the Countess Sofia Rancaño.”
“For two years a battlefield truce maintained the status-quo and many hoped without hope it would become a permanent peace Then messengers from the Empire and the Kingdom brought word to each of the leaders guardians the other was are ready to talk. The accords were to be forged and signed in the fabled valley of the Silvia people.”
.
“Against her will, Marisol is taken on the journey to the Silvan valley to meet with King Tyree. By the time they come face to face, however, they both have dealt with treachery and attempted assassinations.”
“That as far as the records take us so far. The rest is still in need of translation.”
"How soon will you complete the work," I said.
"'Twill take several more years, He said. "What we have is enough ta get you ta start writing."
I sat down and started taking notes.
The first draft of the book was issued in a small run for reviewers. Te one common complaint I received was the novel was too long for Science fiction. After conferring with the owners of the journals was split the book into two parts and did and extensive. With the translations completed I can now proceed to finish the entire saga. I hope you'll pick up a copy and enjoy the story as much as I did writing it
The MacKenna Saga. The ins and Outs of Writing
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
The MacKenna Saga
Just finished the last read through of Dreams & Deceptions, the first book in The MacKenna Saga. NewLink Publishing should have it available by May 15th in most E Reader formats. By the end of May it should be available through them and myself in paperback. The second book Plots & Prophecies is going into final edit and proof read and the third book Rescues & Revenge and the fourth Vindication and Loss are finished and ready for the NewLink editorial staff editor. The plan is to release one book every 4-6 months, until the full series is released.
Monday, May 5, 2014
The records
In 1997 while my co-author Jo and I continued to evolve the Tyranny Series, I began to consider various ideas for a series of my own I wanted to develop. On the third day of a science fiction convention I attended, I found my attention riveted on an amusing conversation between a group of five self-proclaimed alien hunters. They were in the midst of a heated discussion about what if anything Area 51 holds, the supposed aliens at Wright-Patterson, the Dulce Papers and the granddaddy of all the alien conspiracies, Roswell, New Mexico.
I listened until someone behind me said, “They all sound a bit off-center, wouldn’t cha say?”
Right away the brogue caught my attention. I turned and stared an elderly man. The first thing I noticed about the old gentleman was his stature. Just a bit shorter and I would have thought I was being addressed by a leprechaun. His eyes were a mischievous, luminous green, his smile merry and infectious. His full head of dark red hair made me jealous and yearn for my youth.
I shrugged. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
“What are your thoughts about visitors from outer space?”
“I have a far different idea about life beyond this world.”
He winked, pointed and said, “I overheard you speakin’ ta that man earlier about human life on other worlds.”
I winced. “I thought I’d kept that quiet.”
He laughed, “Not so you’d notice, and me age hasn’t affected me hearing.”
We fell into a conversation that had me skipping the next two lectures I’d signed up for. I have to tell you, an Irish brogue has always fascinated me. Shakespeare may have written English masterfully, but it took the Irish to make it musical. After two hours listening to this man’s stories, he came around to his point.
“If you’ll be stoppin’ by the place me grandson and I are rentin’ ‘til the end of the week, I’ll be sharing with ya some records of people from outside this world. I promise you ‘tis a worthy trip for a tale worth retellin’.”
I laughed. “What’s the catch? How much will it cost me to see these records.”
The old man gave me a patient smile, no doubt developed by dealing with other belligerent skeptics such as myself. He pulled out a business card and wrote an address on the back. “"Tis the chance of a lifetime lad. I’ve approached three other authors and I’ve been laughed at in the same manner. You’ve ‘til Friday and then we’re gone.”
He rose and I watched him turn the corner and disappear.
Ax murders, con men, aliens in disguise? Something in the old man’s eyes and his story rang true. I ran to my room, emptied my wallet of everything except a few twenties and my drivers license, just in case. I grabbed my laptop, decided the elevator was too slow and raced downstairs I got directions at the front desk and was waiting when they arrived home.
A smile spread across the old gentleman’s face when he saw me. He invited me in and without any delay took me to a bedroom set up as an office. Across one wall, a bank of IBM computers squatted on metal baker’s racks. The machines whirled, lights blinked and the display screens were all busy. In the far corner sat a large, upright trunk, hinged down the center. After the grandson checked on the computers, he stepped over to the trunk and pulled the two halves apart. I stared, open-mouthed upon their treasures of old scrolls, journals and one very unusual book. (More on that in a future post.)
The scrolls and journals were old. How old will never be determined as I said, the owners will never allow tests run on them. According to these men these records have passed from father to son, mother to daughter, uncle to nephew, aunt to niece, and cousin to cousin for more than 1500 years. Each generation has added their experiences and memories to the family's collection. The records grew until the volumes and materials have become so numerous they were difficult to manage. Some so fragile they cannot be handled except with extreme care.
With the advent of computers these men began the arduous task of scanning all these records into digital files. The project took years and consumed a huge amounts of storage back then. Even with today’s hard drive standards the capacity needed is huge. Due to their fragile condition most of the original manuscripts and scrolls have been preserved and hidden away.
The earliest scrolls, such as the ones I now gazed upon, were written in an unknown language and remained a tantalizing mystery until 1996. In August of that year, the grandson discovered the key, his Rosetta stone as it were, to decipher the language. With the aid of these computers, the process of translating the scrolls was well underway. The work of converting the ancient runes and other symbols to English yielded some startling revelations. With the first few scrolls translated, grandfather and grandson realized that the ancient manuscripts were more than just family history.
While many argue, theorize and postulate about the possibility of life beyond our planet, the presence of these journals proves, at least to us who have seen and handled the original materials or viewed the translations, there is human life on other worlds. There is no doubt some of those people long ago traveled to Earth and left behind records and more. I was asked to put the story of their lives in their universe, their accidental journey to our planet, their entire story into words.
That I have chosen to start this account with Kalen MacKenna’s story, in a place that is considered the middle was a choice left up to me. 'Dreams & Deceptions ' is by no means the beginning of the MacKenna Saga, it is to me the place where the Saga begins.
I listened until someone behind me said, “They all sound a bit off-center, wouldn’t cha say?”
Right away the brogue caught my attention. I turned and stared an elderly man. The first thing I noticed about the old gentleman was his stature. Just a bit shorter and I would have thought I was being addressed by a leprechaun. His eyes were a mischievous, luminous green, his smile merry and infectious. His full head of dark red hair made me jealous and yearn for my youth.
I shrugged. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
“What are your thoughts about visitors from outer space?”
“I have a far different idea about life beyond this world.”
He winked, pointed and said, “I overheard you speakin’ ta that man earlier about human life on other worlds.”
I winced. “I thought I’d kept that quiet.”
He laughed, “Not so you’d notice, and me age hasn’t affected me hearing.”
We fell into a conversation that had me skipping the next two lectures I’d signed up for. I have to tell you, an Irish brogue has always fascinated me. Shakespeare may have written English masterfully, but it took the Irish to make it musical. After two hours listening to this man’s stories, he came around to his point.
“If you’ll be stoppin’ by the place me grandson and I are rentin’ ‘til the end of the week, I’ll be sharing with ya some records of people from outside this world. I promise you ‘tis a worthy trip for a tale worth retellin’.”
I laughed. “What’s the catch? How much will it cost me to see these records.”
The old man gave me a patient smile, no doubt developed by dealing with other belligerent skeptics such as myself. He pulled out a business card and wrote an address on the back. “"Tis the chance of a lifetime lad. I’ve approached three other authors and I’ve been laughed at in the same manner. You’ve ‘til Friday and then we’re gone.”
He rose and I watched him turn the corner and disappear.
Ax murders, con men, aliens in disguise? Something in the old man’s eyes and his story rang true. I ran to my room, emptied my wallet of everything except a few twenties and my drivers license, just in case. I grabbed my laptop, decided the elevator was too slow and raced downstairs I got directions at the front desk and was waiting when they arrived home.
A smile spread across the old gentleman’s face when he saw me. He invited me in and without any delay took me to a bedroom set up as an office. Across one wall, a bank of IBM computers squatted on metal baker’s racks. The machines whirled, lights blinked and the display screens were all busy. In the far corner sat a large, upright trunk, hinged down the center. After the grandson checked on the computers, he stepped over to the trunk and pulled the two halves apart. I stared, open-mouthed upon their treasures of old scrolls, journals and one very unusual book. (More on that in a future post.)
The scrolls and journals were old. How old will never be determined as I said, the owners will never allow tests run on them. According to these men these records have passed from father to son, mother to daughter, uncle to nephew, aunt to niece, and cousin to cousin for more than 1500 years. Each generation has added their experiences and memories to the family's collection. The records grew until the volumes and materials have become so numerous they were difficult to manage. Some so fragile they cannot be handled except with extreme care.
With the advent of computers these men began the arduous task of scanning all these records into digital files. The project took years and consumed a huge amounts of storage back then. Even with today’s hard drive standards the capacity needed is huge. Due to their fragile condition most of the original manuscripts and scrolls have been preserved and hidden away.
The earliest scrolls, such as the ones I now gazed upon, were written in an unknown language and remained a tantalizing mystery until 1996. In August of that year, the grandson discovered the key, his Rosetta stone as it were, to decipher the language. With the aid of these computers, the process of translating the scrolls was well underway. The work of converting the ancient runes and other symbols to English yielded some startling revelations. With the first few scrolls translated, grandfather and grandson realized that the ancient manuscripts were more than just family history.
While many argue, theorize and postulate about the possibility of life beyond our planet, the presence of these journals proves, at least to us who have seen and handled the original materials or viewed the translations, there is human life on other worlds. There is no doubt some of those people long ago traveled to Earth and left behind records and more. I was asked to put the story of their lives in their universe, their accidental journey to our planet, their entire story into words.
That I have chosen to start this account with Kalen MacKenna’s story, in a place that is considered the middle was a choice left up to me. 'Dreams & Deceptions ' is by no means the beginning of the MacKenna Saga, it is to me the place where the Saga begins.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Until, ‘til and till
Until, ‘til and till
Our discussion today is about the use of these words started in our writers group one evening when one of the members was reading a Nordic tale he written and his sentence read something like, “Wait till Papa comes home.” While this member insisted that his use of “Till” was proper, most of us disagreed. Since the long form of the sentence is, “Wait until Papa comes home.” Most of us felt the proper form should have been, “Wait ‘til Papa comes home.”, a truncation of until, with the missing un marked by an apostrophe.
Open-and-shut case. Except that it’s not and it’s been bothering me. I had some spare time, do I did a little research. I had seen people use till in that context? Why would they do that? I looked the word Till up and found a completely different meaning.
As a verb: tilled, till·ing, tills-- To prepare ones land for the raising of crops, as by plowing and harrowing; cultivate.
First off, let’s look at some proponents of each form: ‘Tils:
A Narrative History of Black Power in America: Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour
Aimee Mann’s 80s band, ‘Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann, an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist, best known for fronting the Boston New Wave band.
Brad Garrett’s follow-up to Everybody Loves Raymond ‘Til Death.
In these titles the un is left out and the apostrophe is inserted to indicate shorting of the word ‘Until’
Use of Till
Tills:
The British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part,(Surprise! it’s the Brits again.) paved the way for our American Sitcom All in the Family
American Movies (1940, 1944, 1946,) Till we Meet Again,(Talk about remaking a movie different stars, different plots."Hollywood will remake movies until they get it wrong.") From Dusk Till Dawn, (Some writers and film makers on this side of the pond never get the word.)
As I once told my writers group, Shakespeare may have used English masterfully, but it took the Irish to make it musical. So when penning Irish dialogue, words truncated are written this way
'Tis, It is.
'Twill, It will.
'Twould it would.
Til is hard to find attestations of — people seem to be pretty good at remembering to put apostrophes at the words when the first syllable is removed.) So why would anyone spell it till if it’s coming from until? Well, it turns out that till isn’t derived from until. Till and ’til are actually two different words with two different etymologies. Till is the earlier form, attested as early as 1330; Until is actually derived from till, not the other way around as in ’til (a back formation which showed up much later). Both are common, so it’s up to you which one you like. Till is commoner in Scotland, where it can be used like dative to in some situations, while ’til is commoner in the U.S. Take your pick, but for me 'Til is the proper substitute for the word until.
Our discussion today is about the use of these words started in our writers group one evening when one of the members was reading a Nordic tale he written and his sentence read something like, “Wait till Papa comes home.” While this member insisted that his use of “Till” was proper, most of us disagreed. Since the long form of the sentence is, “Wait until Papa comes home.” Most of us felt the proper form should have been, “Wait ‘til Papa comes home.”, a truncation of until, with the missing un marked by an apostrophe.
Open-and-shut case. Except that it’s not and it’s been bothering me. I had some spare time, do I did a little research. I had seen people use till in that context? Why would they do that? I looked the word Till up and found a completely different meaning.
As a verb: tilled, till·ing, tills-- To prepare ones land for the raising of crops, as by plowing and harrowing; cultivate.
First off, let’s look at some proponents of each form: ‘Tils:
A Narrative History of Black Power in America: Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour
Aimee Mann’s 80s band, ‘Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann, an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist, best known for fronting the Boston New Wave band.
Brad Garrett’s follow-up to Everybody Loves Raymond ‘Til Death.
In these titles the un is left out and the apostrophe is inserted to indicate shorting of the word ‘Until’
Use of Till
Tills:
The British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part,(Surprise! it’s the Brits again.) paved the way for our American Sitcom All in the Family
American Movies (1940, 1944, 1946,) Till we Meet Again,(Talk about remaking a movie different stars, different plots."Hollywood will remake movies until they get it wrong.") From Dusk Till Dawn, (Some writers and film makers on this side of the pond never get the word.)
As I once told my writers group, Shakespeare may have used English masterfully, but it took the Irish to make it musical. So when penning Irish dialogue, words truncated are written this way
'Tis, It is.
'Twill, It will.
'Twould it would.
Til is hard to find attestations of — people seem to be pretty good at remembering to put apostrophes at the words when the first syllable is removed.) So why would anyone spell it till if it’s coming from until? Well, it turns out that till isn’t derived from until. Till and ’til are actually two different words with two different etymologies. Till is the earlier form, attested as early as 1330; Until is actually derived from till, not the other way around as in ’til (a back formation which showed up much later). Both are common, so it’s up to you which one you like. Till is commoner in Scotland, where it can be used like dative to in some situations, while ’til is commoner in the U.S. Take your pick, but for me 'Til is the proper substitute for the word until.
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