Song of the Sea Spirit by KC May, Book #1 of The Mindstream Chronicles
Introduction
Jora and Boden live in the fishing village of Kaild. They have grown up together like brother and sister. They both face momentous changes in their lives. Boden must take a wife before he joins the Legion and fights to protect the Tree of the Fallen God. Jora is expected to become a wife and produce sons to send to the Legion, but she has the talent of Mindstreaming. Her talent lets her follow the timeline of anyone see meets and then observe the past as they saw it, so no one in her village wants to marry her and risk her seeing everything about their lives. Boden must decide who to marry and Jora must decide what she wants to do with her life.
Summary
Boden decides to marry someone other than Jora and Jora remains a maiden. Boden gives Jora a flute as a present before he leaves for the Legion. She does not know how to play, so she decides to practice by the sea where no one can hear her play. She tries to play her favorite song called song of the sea spirit, but is visited by a friendly dolphin who whistles the song back to her. These are the best moments in the novel. They are Jora’s discovery of the dolphin’s language and her communications with the dolphin called Sundancer. Boden’s travels to the Legion and his experiences there comprise the other half of the novel’s story. The weaker half. He joins the Legion, bonds with his comrades, and discovers a secret that jeopardizes his safety.
Someone is stealing the godfruit that is dropped by the Tree of the Fallen God. If the men of the Legion eat one godfruit in the morning and die that day, then they will live again. This can only happen once per person. Who is stealing the godfruit and why they steal it are the questions Boden must answer. Meanwhile, Jora has been discovered by other Mindstreamers. Mindstreamers are recruited and trained by the Order of Justice Officials. The order supports the Legion and novices are trained in Serocia’s capitol of Jolver. Jora is drafted into the order, she is taken to Jolver, her training begins, and she bonds with the other novices. She views Boden through the Mindstream and discovers the mystery of the godfruit. This forbidden knowledge leads to many complications and ultimately the novel’s climax.
Recommendation
My struggles with this book are one of matching expectations. I thought that this book was going to be a sweet playful jaunt about dolphins and flutes. That changed about halfway through the novel starting with the fate of Gilon. This book had a much darker message about the nature of death and what Jora would do when her power became unlimited. Did she becomes that which she fought so hard against? The answer may be in book #2: The Call of the Colossus. This wasn’t the story that I expected, but the story that the author told still intrigues me enough to read the next novel in the series.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of Song of the Sea Spirit by KC May
My review of The Kinshield Legacy by KC May. In this fantasy, Gavin Kinshield is a warrant knight. He must solve a riddle of runes to save the kingdom.
The Black Prism is Book #1 of The Lightbringer series
Introduction
Gavin Guile is the Prism, the spiritual, military, and political leader of the Seven Satrapies. He rules from the Chromeria using the magical system called chromaturgy. Kip is a teenager from the small town of Rekton. Corvan Danavis is Kip’s mentor and has a secret past. Liv Davavis, Corvan’s daughter, is a member of the Chromeria under Gavin. Karris White Oak, Gavin’s former fiancé, is a member of the Blackguards, an elite force of bodyguards who protect the rulers of the Chromeria. The prisoner is trapped by Gavin in a blue cell. Past secrets and current intrigues pull these characters together and apart. Gavin must keep his secrets hidden or risk losing his position as ruler.
Summary
There is a lot to like in this novel and a lot to unpack. Chromaturgy, the role of the Prism, and the False Prism’s war are the three biggest issues. Chromaturgy is the magical system of the Seven Satrapies. Magicians who use Chromaturgy are called drafters. Drafters are able to take part of the spectrum of light and make a substance called luxin. Luxin can be shaped into many things, with the color of the luxin determining the properties of the item. The colors that can be drafted are super-violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and sub-red. Monochrome drafters only draft in one color. Drafters who can draft two color are called Bichromes and multiple colors are called Polychromes. Only one person per generation can draft all the colors and that person is the Prism. The Prism’s main job is to keep the colors drafted by all drafters in balance. The problem was that a second Prism was also born, Gavin’s brother Dazen. Dazen went to war with his brother in the False Prism’s War. He lost. Sixteen years later, the choices that Gavin made back then start to come unraveled. A woman from Rekton sends a message to Gavin that he has a son called Kip. Trying to solve that mystery creates many more for Gavin.
Recommendation
The Black Prism is an amazing book. Gavin is all powerful, handsome, smarter than anyone else, and women love him. He should have no conflicts; he should solve all his problems easily; he should be boring, and I should hate him. The author defies my expectations and makes me want this man to succeed. In another story, he would be the villain. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series, The Blinding Knife.
What’s in a Name? Picking a Website Title. The title that I chose for my website has come a long way from conception to execution. In this post, I will examine the way that I arrived at my website title. Originally, in 2012, I was debating if I wanted to start a blog. I began to think about what topics I would cover in this proposed blog.
The topics that I most wanted to blog about were writing, reading, listening to music, and watching movies. I made a note of what I wanted to call the blog on 05-24-12. It read, “A weekly blog called Watch (movies), Listen (music), and Write (reading); a play on the phrase watch, listen and learn.” I will break down that initial blog idea and lead up to my final choice for a website name.
Watch, Listen, and Learn
Watch, Listen, and Write is most similar to Watch, Listen, and Learn. This youtube video teaches children their alphabet by using phonics. (Note: They do not use the Oxford Comma in the video.)
Stop, Look, and Listen
I was also inspired by the phrase Stop, Look, and Listen. I remember that as a kid, learning about road safety. We used it for crossing the road.
Stop, Drop, and Roll
Another phrase is Stop, Drop, and Roll. This phrase is used in fire safety drills. If you are on fire, stop, drop, and roll to put it out.
Duck and Cover
As crazy as it may seem now, back in the cold war, we used the drill Duck and Cover. In the case of a nuclear attack, we were supposed to hide under our desks at school. I remember the drill when I was a kid. Like we wouldn’t be killed by the radiation after the explosion. We did it anyway. There is a Civil Defense film from 1951 called Duck and Cover with Bret the Turtle which I have added below.
Stop, Wait, and Listen
Being from the Cleveland, Ohio area there is another short phrase that reminds me of my proposed blog title. That is the song by the band named Circus called Stop, Wait, and Listen. Check it out below.
So, there are five phrases that might have inspired me to make a blog title called Watch, Listen, and Write. I revisited the idea of creating a blog when I decided to start a website featuring a blog in August of 2016. There was the phrase Read, Watch, Listen Makes Write on 08-10-16, but that seemed too silly. I decided that this blog would feature only book reviews, my writing progress reports, and other writing-related posts.
Conclusion
What’s in a Name? Picking a Website Title. The final answer is Gary David Gillen: Writer of Adventures in SF and Fantasy. I think that sums up what I am trying to do here perfectly. The only change I will make is that I will change the word writer to the author after I have published one of my stories. That would be my motivation for the accomplishment of publishing a story.
This is a link to my review of The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which is a fun quickly-paced science fiction/fantasy adventure story. It has the lost world theme and an interesting method of alternative evolution included in this world. It is just the perfect story for that pre-teen boy to read.
My original plan was to write a story called Dogman, but I decided to postpone that story because revising Kay-Eye took more time than I expected.
Complete a rewrite of Kay-Eye, it took much longer than anticipated, two weeks. I wrote the first half of the story in 2012. It was set on Catalina Island in California. I wrote the second half of the story in 2015. It was set on Kelly’s Island in Ohio. I combined the story parts from 2012 and from 2015 and add four pages interweaved into the story. I chose to increase the story sections from six to eight by splitting two of the original story sections into four-story sections. Much easier said than done. After that, I revised and typed it to submit to my writing workshop.
Revised and typed White Bracer.
Revised and typed Mage Squad.
Polish and submit Kay-Eye to my writer’s workshop.
Events from November 2016
I attended the Indy Author Conference at the Parma-Snow Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library on 11-12. I wrote a separate post on the conference.
Updated website banner on garydavidgillen.com, I used the program GIMP to add the website title on top of a picture.
Wrote posts on five book reviews to get the book review posts up to current reading.
Postponed setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts until December 2016, due to completing other tasks.
Writing Goals for December 2016
Polish and submit the stories 4 Humours, Grognard, and Space Station Sunyata to three different short fiction magazines.
Polish and ready the stories White Bracer, Mage Squad, Time Traveller One, Prisoner of Tarnal, and Kay-Eye for submission to short fiction magazines.
Planned Events for December 2016
Create Facebook and Twitter pages.
Update Website to the Himmelan WordPress Theme.
I will attend the Winter Fiction Fest on February 18, 2017. They will hold the conference at Loganberry Books at 13015 Larchmere Blvd, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120. The conference is sponsored by Literary Cleveland. They will present four panels featuring Mary Doria Russell, Casey Daniels and Shelly Costa, DM Pulley, Geoffrey Landis, and Mary Turzillo.
I attended the Capclave Conference Recap 2016 on October 7, 8, and 9, 2016. I drove from Cleveland, Ohio to the conference that was located at the Hilton Washington DC North/Gaithersburg Hotel. The conference is run by the Washington Science Fiction Association of Washington. It is a literary science fiction and fantasy conference which focuses on short fiction. The events included panels, readings, interviews, writing workshops, and filk concerts. I was focused on attending many readings and attending most of the appearances by Tim Powers, one of the guests of honor. I attended 13 panels (including 6 with Tim Powers), two interviews of Tim Powers and 8 readings.
Friday: October 7, 2016, Capclave Conference Recap 2016
Following a long drive, with a detour, I arrived at my hotel (not the one that held the conference) at 3:15 PM. The first panel was at 4:00 PM, so I thought that I would make the panel in plenty of time. Alas, my hotel screwed up at my check-in and by the time I drove to the other hotel, registered at the conference, and figured out where the first panel was located, I arrived at 4:20 PM. On top of that, there were no more chairs so I sat on the floor in the back of the room. This was rather annoying because this was one of the four panels that I was most looking forward to attending.
On the other hand, I am very glad that I saw the forty minutes that I did because it was one of the best panels at the conference. The panel was about writing effective reviews and I am interested in that topic because I just started a website with a blog that includes book reviews.
Writing Effective Reviews Panel
Writing Effective Reviews was about how to write an effective book or movie review. The key to writing an effective review is to determine who the target audience is for the book and to write the review with that audience in mind. The review is for the readers. It is about the words on the page, do not make the review about the author.
Alternate History Panel
Alternate History: How to Make It Work examined how to make an alternate history plot work. Know your history and why things happen. Search history for pivot points and ask what would happen if the pivot point was changed. Give a moral, but do not preach. Historians are guided by their times, so when reading history for research understand how the interpretation of history changes based on the time the book was written.
Fictionalizing Real People Panel
In Fictionalizing Real People, the panel discussed how they used aspects of real people in their fiction. Be careful of potential defamation of character lawsuits.
Tim Powers Interview
The next program that I attended was the Fast Forward TV Interview of Guest of Honor, Tim Powers. Fast Forward is a monthly show available on the group’s Youtube channel where the host interviews a contemporary science fiction author or editor. The interviewer touched on Tim Powers’ method of storytelling and examined his background relating to his writing. For him, research drives the story. He reads history, looking for those ideas that are too cool not to use. When he finds enough of these ideas, then he has a book.
In writing his form of secret or hidden history, he creates a calendar of real events and acts as a cold case detective by taking the facts and determine what really happened. By really, he means finding the supernatural element that he wants to write about, which cannot be refuted by the historical timeline. He also talked about how his first two novels were published by Laser Books.
At Podcasts and Short Fiction, the panel looked at how podcasts are expanding the market for short fiction. The panel consisted of two people, Scott H. Andrews, the editor, publisher, and podcast editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Jim Freund, the podcast editor and host for Lightspeed Magazine. Since there were only two people on the panel, it seemed like an interview. Lightspeed does one story per week as a podcast and Beneath Ceaseless Skies does one podcast per issue. Since early on, podcasts were always free for listeners, so there has never been a monetary benefit to the podcast, but as a companion to the written word a podcast is useful. It takes about one hour to edit the podcast per one page of text, so it is a major commitment to podcast multiple page stories.
Saturday: October 8, 2016, Capclave Conference Recap 2016
Steven H. Wilson Reading
Steven H. Wilson read from his unfinished novel called Sacrifice Play. The novel is a space opera dealing with telepathy. It was based on the science fiction audio drama called The Arbiter Chronicles. He ran a kick-starter campaign to complete the novel in May 2016.
Anthony Dobranski read from the galley copy of his finished novel The Demon in Business Class. The novel is an international modern-day fantasy featuring office politics, demons, and psychics.
Alternate and Secret History was a panel featuring the guest of honor, Tim Powers, and the editor and publisher of Clarkesworld magazine, Neil Clarke. The panel explored the differences between the two types of stories. Alternate history occurs when the author takes a point in history and chooses a different path for the events. Time travel and allegory stories also fall in this type. On the other hand, the secret history author takes the facts of history and tries to find a story that exists in the spaces between the facts. Conspiracy theory stories also fall under this category. The final question of the panel was to ask if history is arbitrary or intentional. Depending on the author’s answer to that question could lead to the type of story the author would choose to tell.
Writing and Selling Your Story Panel
In the Writing and Selling Your Story panel, the panelists discussed what engages them as a reader, editor, or publisher. All three areas were represented on the panel. As an editor, the reader must be engaged to care about the main character. Something about the character, world, interaction at the start, or the voice must be present. They story cannot be only competent, it must be special. The author must deliver on the hook, but also must make the ending an inevitable surprise. As an author, make your individuality show through. Read in your genre extensively. Do not be discouraged by rejection, because every author’s journey is unique.
Time to the Power of Tim presentation
The next panel was a presentation called Time to the Power of Tim. It was presented by John Ashmead with commentary by Tim Powers. This setup caused confusion in the audience. I believe some expected this to be an interview of the guest of honor, Tim Powers. It was not. The presentation was a slide show given by the presenter, with comments added by Tim Powers. It was unorthodox, but I felt that it worked quite well as giving a different insight into the author. The presenter’s thesis was that Tim Powers follows a scientific method in determining the nature of his secret history novels. His time-traveling tales follow a rigorous timeline. The presenter showed examples of three timelines for three of his novels.
The Anubis Gates has a steampunk time machine. In this novel time is explored as a river and the issue of freewill versus determinism is explored.
Three Days to Never has a bicycle time machine. The story revolves around Einstein’s daughter and explores the fate of a butterfly. It also debates the LaPlace Transforms and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Medusa’s Web involves two dimensional entities called spiders in the novel. The protagonists use fractured time to travel back to 1920’s Hollywood to unravel the past.
The author A. C. Wise read from a short story called Harvest Song. Pseudopod Magazine will publish the story in their tenth anniversary anthology called For Mortal Things Unsung. Pseudopod Magazine publishes short horror fiction. The story involved a future soldier’s experiences on an unsuccessful mission.
In the Biggest Mistakes by Beginning Writers, the panel wants new writers to put your writing journey into perspective. Know your markets. Listen to your editor, do not argue with rejection. Rejections make you improve. Don’t give up, because determining to finish the story is the first step to success. Protect your writing time, so you can finish the story. Make it a habit to write every day. Conduct yourself as a professional online with your editor and on your social media accounts. Check the submission guidelines for every market that you place a submission. Do not respond to reviews of your work, it only leads to problems. Find a great story, find out whose story it is, and combine idea with character to create the best story that you can write. Make it uniquely you.
Tim Powers Interview
The Tim Powers Interview was moderated by Mike Zipser. Tim Powers was inspired to read and write science fiction by reading Red Planet by Robert Heinlein. He looks for the magic under our lives, the supernatural, for writing material. The seeds for his books are in reading non-fiction biography and history. Powers becomes a cold case detective in identifying the screwy bits in history to create his plots. He talked about writing his first two novels for Laser Books. He mentioned that his novel Declare was inspired by the work of John le Carre. Powers talked about the inspiration of early Hollywood in writing his latest novel, Medusa’s Web.
Ask The Authors Panel
The last panel of the day for Saturday was called Ask the Authors. The five authors on the panel were asked questions from the audience. Sprinkle description throughout the scene. Description should be more than detail; it must mean something. In choosing the point of view character, you must find the character who stands the most to lose, in other words, who has the greatest journey to take. To avoid distractions in writing, set small goals, write 1000 words a day, write the first draft uncritically, and work it out in edits. Determine your goal for writing. Choose to find the time to write, do not wait to be inspired, just write it. Keep improving by writing a lot and reading a lot. Small critique groups can be useful.
Sunday: October 9, 2016, Capclave Conference Recap 2016
Jon Skovron Reading
Jon Skovron read the second chapter of his novel Hope and Red. He describes the novel as a Kung Fu pirate gangster romance epic. The reading was about the origin story for Red. He meets Sadie the Goat and they embark on their pirate adventure.
Leah Cypess read Cupid’s Compass, a story published in the Sept/Oct issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was about, if you could erase your memories of lost love, would you do it and what complications could develop if you did.
James Maxey read the first chapter of his novel Greatshadow, book one of the Dragon Apocalypse. The chapter was called Bone Handle Knife. It was about two treasure hunters, Stagger and Infidel, who take a job to steal a dragon skull from a group of pygmies.
Alex Shvartsman read his story called Dante’s Unfinished Business, which was published in the September 2016 issue of Galaxy’s Edge Magazine. It is a humorous story about a pot-smoking slacker, who dies unexpectedly. He becomes a ghost and goes on a journey of self-discovery similar to the plot of Dante’s Inferno, but really funny.
In the panel Dealing with Discouragement, the authors discussed how they have dealt with rejections. Focus on output. Reevaluate where your stories are being submitted. Authors can be a terrible judge of their work. Advice can be found in Dorothea Brande’s book Becoming a Writer. Discipline is not inspiration. Seek your truth.
Great Authors You Are Not Reading Panel
The next panel talked about Great Authors You Are Not Reading. Some were the works of Edgar Pangborn, Pavane by Keith Roberts, A Scourge of Screamers by Daniel F. Galouye, the Sentinel Stars by Louis Charbonneau, World Out of Mind by J. T. McIntosh. The works of James Branch Cabell including Jurgen, The Cream of the Jest, Figures of Earth, and The Silver Stallion. The Return of Fursey by Mervyn Wall, The Ghost Ship by Richard Middleton, and Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. The works of Charles Williams including All Hallows’ Eve, The Greater Trumps, and War in Heaven.
James Morrow Reading
James Morrow read a galley copy of a novella to be printed in June 2017 called the Asylum of Dr. Caligari. The story was partly inspired by the early horror movie called the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The sections read were about the encounters that the protagonist, Francis, had with Picasso in Paris and with Dr. Caligari in the fictional country of Weiserstadt. Dr. Caligari hires him as the painting therapist for the asylum inmates.
The last panel for the conference was on Research, Research, Research. The panel showed that research is essential even when writing fantasy works. The authors all use research in different ways. Tim Powers says research leads him to his stories. Brenda Clough does her research after the first draft so she knows what she needs to learn more about. Leah Cypess says research is the work and the writing is the fun. She uses research during all aspects of the writing process.
Alan Smale has researched extensively in Roman history. When he brought the Romans to the Americas in his latest novels, he researched the Indian cultures just before the era of colonization. One point that all the authors agree on is that certain aspects of description must be researched extensively because the expert readers will certainly call you out on any mistakes. Those areas are guns, horses, and sailing. It is most important to be plausible rather than accurate in writing fiction.
Wrap-up
I had a great time at CapclaveConference Recap 2016. I learned many things and was glad that I decided to come on Friday and stay all weekend. It was an exhausting full three days. I plan to go to the next Capclave, which is scheduled for October 6 to October 8, 2017.
My regrets are that after seeing her at the Ask the Authors panel, I wish I had followed the other guest of honor, Sarah Beth Durst.
The best readings I attended were by Jon Skovron (Most theatrical reading, Red and Sadie the Goat were very real characters), Alex Shvartsman (funniest reading, Dante was hilarious), and James Morrow (Most intriguing reading, alternate history with an on the eve of World War One setting and early motion pictures added).
The best indication of what I felt moved me the most is that I purchased the novel that Jon Skovron read called Hope and Red. I also pre-ordered the sequel called Bane and Shadow.
Links
A similar Conference to the Capclave Conference Recap 2016 Washington was the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016. Winter Fiction Fest is sponsored by Literary Cleveland while the Cuyahoga County Public Library sponsors a similar event called the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016.
This is my recap for the Western Reserve Writers Conference 2016 on September 24, 2016. It was located at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at the new William N. Skirball writer’s center which is located at the branch. It was a one-day event with an introduction, a keynote speaker, three breakout sessions, and one Q & A panel.
