Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #105. Ferity and Civilization. "The Feral Girl."

Ancient statue of Romulus and Remus nursing

Stories of feral human beings—human beings who grow up without the amenities of civilization or even of human care—are something we have always found fascinating. The Romans had, as a founding myth, the story of Romulus and Remus, two baby boys who were abandoned in the woods and raised by a she-wolf. They grew up fierce as wolves, and Romulus went on to found the city of Rome, which had as its symbol, a wolf. Millennia later, Tarzan, raised by apes, would become a well-known figure in fantasy culture. And on occasion, stories of children raised by animals crop up—some dubious but some apparently confirmed.

In "The Feral Girl," I exploited the old idea of children taken from civilization and becoming wild once more. The influences were many. I had written and published a story some called "Ferity," in a now-defunct magazine, Earthspeak. In that tale, a highly successful CEO spends time in a friend's cabin out in the wilderness and experiences a certain amount of ferity, which in this story is simply feeling close to nature and to natural rhythms and currents. She returns to her job more in touch with her primal instincts, more able to function effectively in the wilderness of the corporate world. This story shared some of that idea, but it dealt with a child, not an adult. I had listened to a book on tape called Outposts by British author Simon Winchester, famous for his books Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.

Outposts was about the remnants of the once vast British Empire. Remarkably, there still is a British Empire, but it mostly consists of small islands in remote places around the world. Winchester visits and writes on these sites. In one part of the book, he sails in a yacht to some remote islands in the Indian ocean; one, Diego Garcia, that was seized by the British. The British built a joint monitoring base there with the Americans and evicted the local population. Winchester sails there, his boat is impounded, and he has various run-ins with bureaucrats and military personnel before finally being towed out of the area and told not to return.

Island in the Chagos Archipelago

In "The Feral Girl," the main character, Geoffrey, is sailing with his girlfriend, Edith. They stop at one of the islands in the Chagos Archipelago, near Diego Garcia, knowing they are in a restricted area. Geoffrey paints and the two of them enjoy the unspoiled environment. Soon, however, they realize they are not alone. They find droppings that look human and eventually see a child, naked, furtive, and elusive, near them. Thinking she might have survived a ship wreck and is traumatized, but not wanting to call the British authorities because they are there illegally, they make a successful attempt to befriend the girl, who eventually allows them to feed and clothe her. She is particularly attracted to Edith, the basic need of a child (she looks about eight) being the love and care of a mother.

The girl, whose name is Sophia, eventually trust them and opens up to them. She begins to talk and tell her story. They learn her family was sailing about the area. Her father, she says, was "making a movie" the island. She survived (none of the others on the boat did) and, they later found out, had lived alone on the island for fourteen months. Edith, who in her teen years had gotten pregnant and given her child up for adoption, bonds with Sophia. As they expected, the British navy does show up, recognizes the girl and are astonished, and tow them to the main base on Diego Garcia.

US/British base at Diego Garcia

There they learn more.  The film father had been making a film was critical of the British government and their deportation of the native population from the islands. Their boat was caught in a storm and all of them perished save the girl, who had survived on the island. She has relatives, Geoffrey and Edith are told, who are flying out to take the girl with them.

Edith thinks of Sophia in terms of the child she bore and has never seen (she will not be allowed to contact the child for another eight years). She knows, of course, that seeing Sophia as a surrogate for the child she lost will not work. Still, her pain is apparent to Geoffrey. They meet the parents. The father is a Member of Parliament, so they know it would be pointless to make a claim of custody. The family, though, seem to be decent, compassionate people and Geoffrey realizes it would be wrong to show them rudeness or contest their claim on Edith. After a meeting, Sophia leaves. Geoffrey and Edith are escorted out of the territorial waters of the Chagos Archipelago and told not to return.

They sail off, hoping the best for Sophia. Edith aches for her loss of long ago. The sea around them quiet and stretching out in all directions.

The story was published in an online journal called The Feathered Flounder. I can now find no record of it. I wrote a blog on the story, "Ferity." Read it here, You might be able to order a copy of "Ferity" here. The link works but I'm not sure if the offer is still active.

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.

Some great summer reading would include The Sorceress of Time. A warrior princess is fighting a battle with treacherous invaders and with her own fear and uncertainty. She will find the key to the future--and to her doubts--when she visits the past.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy reading.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #98: Writing About Vampires: "Jancinda"

Bella Lagassi as Dracula

I started writing vampire stories about the time the Twilight series was winding down. I did not follow the series. I read one of the book and, for all the criticism of the writing I did not think it was all that bad for a Young Adult novel; I saw the last film and, once more, didn’t think it was stupid or kitschy. In fact, I thought that the twist at the end (that the battle between the two armies of vampires did not really happen but was only virtual reality) was clever. The main thing about Twilight, though, was that it gave vampires a bad name. I saw submission guidelines that said “No Vampire Stories”; some would allow the genre but said “no sparkly vampires.” I had some ideas so came up with my breed of vampire tales. The first one I wrote and published was called “Jancinda,” the name of the female protagonist in the tale. She would become an on-going character.

Vampire literature has changed and developed since it began in early 1800s. The vampires of the earliest stories, The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1819) and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) were quite different from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Later on, Anne Rice’s novels, such as Interview With a Vampire, changed the vampire “world.” Other writers, like Stephenie Meyer with Twilight, continued to develop and alter the nature of vampire literature. I added my contribution, small though it may be, with the series of stories about the vampire Jancinda Lamott.

Carmilla and Laura

Vampires started out as creatures of complete evil. Dracula was bad and nothing else; no redeeming qualities in him. Carmilla, the lesbian vampire in that novel that bears her name, only wants to satisfy her thirst for blood and her passion for a young human girl, Laura. But by the time of Anne Rice, 1976 and onward, vampires become more complex, conflicted, and multilayered. By the time of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and The Vampire Diaries they are complex characters.

Jancinda Lamott

My character Jancinda crosses over to the world of vampirism one winter night when she is bitten by one of the undead named Julian. Of those bitten, all but one in three thousand die. Some, though, become vampires through this contact, and Jancinda is one of the few that does. When a vampire bites a person who will transform, he or she has the duty to care for them and introduce them to the world of the undying. Julian, however, has no such scruples and leaves Jancinda lying in the snow to die when the sun comes up. A woman named Bonita Perez senses her and takes her into her apartment. The vampire Bonita begins to teach Jancinda how to live the new life she has entered.

Jancinda is able to adapt but struggles with what has happened to her. She has to kill (my vampires only need blood once a month). She sometimes anguishes over the ethics of this. Once she asks a friend, “How can God let something like this happen to us and then hold us responsible for it?” She sets up an online business that does resumes, grant writing, and editing, and does quite well. And she maintains a relationship with a human boyfriend named Wesley.

Bonita

The story “Jancinda” is about this. Wesley is suddenly dumped by Jancinda, wonders why, and persistently asks her why. She will not return his calls. She will not answer his letters. One night, drunk, he goes to her apartment and pounds on the door, demanding entry. To his surprise she lets him in. After some obfuscation, she tells him the truth:  that she has become a vampire.  He is afraid, thinking she is deluded and might kill him in her delusion that she is one of the undead. She proves it to him by showing how she has no reflection. Then he is afraid she will kill him because she is not deluded and wants to get his blood.

Jancinda promises Wesley she will not harm him. He sympathizes. He knows vampires drink blood, but he does not know that being a vampire enhances and sharpens your sexual desire. Jancinda’s vampire nature takes over, and they fall into their old lovemaking routine. He describes Jancinda as passion seizes her:  As I ran my hands over her breasts and stomach and down past the waistband of her shorts, I became aware of changes. Her skin pulsated with bursts of heat—so much heat I thought it might burn my fingers. Her skin paled. Her eyes filled with a fiery, hungry look. I felt her hands run over my back. Her nails had changed to sharp talons. Kissing her and putting my tongue in her mouth, I felt the smooth, sharp spears of fangs.

But their lovemaking does not change things a lot. Wesley sees her from time to time, though she still will not date him. When he runs into her and she is with her vampire friends, it makes him uneasy. They eye him like he’s a very attractive piece of meat they would love to wrap up, carry home, and dine upon.

Later, though, he gets a desperate phone call from Jancinda. She has been in an automobile accident that jammed the doors of her car shut. The police and a crowd of people are there, so can’t use her vampire super-strength to break the doors or transform to a bat and fly away. She asks him to come. He arrives just before dawn. The police say she can go. Hardly able to breathe because the sunrise is upon them, she wraps up in a sun-proof blanket, Wesley secures her in the trunk of his car and delivers her to a “safe house” where she will be shielded from light.

His act of valor makes Jancinda see why she loved him when she was mortal. They begin their relationship once more. Jancinda says she will accommodate him and tell the other vampires to leave him alone. Neither of them know where the relationship will go, but they intend to maintain it. More stories about the vampire Jancinda Lamott would follow.

“Jancinda" appeared in the anthology Bite from the Heart, available on Amazon. Get a copy here. 

If vampire stories are your thing, check out my novella, Sinfonia:  The First Notes on the Lute, A Vampire Chronicle, Part I, available here.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy reading.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History As a Writer #90: Vampires Again: “Flowers of Evil.”

Vampire stories can be addicting. If you start writing them, you end up doing some world building, because not all vampire worlds are alike--and this a lot of fun. I’ve read tales where the vampire only need a few drops of blood per month and never kill anyone in their nocturnal quest to stay alive. There is the most common scenario, derived from Dracula, mother of all vampire novels (though not the first). Whatever you thought of Twilight, the vampire world presented on those novels, the world of “sparkly” vampire who are not killed by sunlight, was unique; its uniqueness made the novels so popular because it was something new. So as a writer you get to formulate the details of your vampire universe—well, or world, since so far, the vampires in these stories have never left the earth. (Spoiler warning:  some have, and I’ll be writing about them in a while.)

My particular vampire world is pretty much the standard one. Vampires cannot go out in the sun or they die gruesome deaths. They must feed once a month. Like a lion, though, they do not kill their victims by biting them. They most often hit them, as a lion will hit its prey with its paws, and break the person’s neck—then feed. My vampires are rather human most of the time:  they eat and drink regular food and their bodies are like human bodies. But when they hunt, when they are afraid and sense danger, what they call their “vampire hormones” kick in. They develop fangs, talons at the end of their fingers, impenetrable skin, and superhuman senses. They can transform into a bat easily; also into a wolf, which is more difficult; and, for the very careful and gifted, into a mist (one vampire in another my stories can change into a cat; South American vampires know how to transform to snakes). They have social networks, even an online dating service (see my story

Jancinda

One of these is an ongoing character, Jancinda Lamott. She is an figure about whom I have published seven stories. In my vampire world, one can become one of the undead by initiation (rare—often frowned upon by other vampires) or, most commonly, by being bitten. One person out of about five thousand transform after being bitten. There are not many vampires the world I created. 

"Flowers of Evil” took a personality from the past and imagined he was a vampire. In this story, the historical figure was the French poet Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire lived from 1821-1867. His most famous volume of poetry Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil), a collection of sonnets, was considered decadent and evil by the French public. It dealt with sex and death, which many people at the time thought scandalous. Baudelaire lived a very Parisian life, kept mistresses, drank, and took opium. He also, by the way, translated the works of Edgar Allan Poe into French.

Baudelaire

When the story “Flowers of Evil” begins, Jancinda and her friend Trinity are running from vampire hunters. They manage to escape. The vampire community in West Michigan goes on alert, hoping to stop the vampire hunter (whose last name is Liam Joyce). He strikes once more, this time taking the life of a young woman who worked at a brothel run by a woman who is among the undead. Constantine, one of Jancinda’s lovers, knows forensics, investigates, and finds out someone fired an archaic sort of pistol at whoever killed the working girl.

Later, Jancinda learns it was none other than Baudelaire himself.

You are Charles Baudelaire, the author of Flowers of Evil?”

“I am.”

“I didn’t know”—she could not finish.

“Most people don’t. With me it was an odd story of crossing the River Styx into the world in which we now dwell.” He looked up. “The dawn is near. I need a place to stay.”

She takes Baudelaire home. Jancinda has long loved his poetry. She hears his backstory. And, of course, her desire kicks in. They end up making love. Baudelaire leaves and promises to come back. Jancinda works on projects at her computer, hears a knock at the door, and, thinking it is Baudelaire, opens it. Instead, it is the vampire hunter.

Jeanne Duval painted by Manet

He uses a magical spell to disable her and prepares to drive a stake into her heart. The reason, he says, is that she killed three of s his colleagues once--and a relative. She remembered the incident. Before he can carry out his design, Baudelaire shows up and kills him.

Baudelaire tells Jancinda he used her as “bait” to find Joyce. She is angry but he tells her she was never in any danger. A relative of Joyce had killed Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s long-time lover, also a vampire. The role of vampire hunter had passed down to new generations, and Joyce had tracked Baudelaire for years. Finally, the French poet had his revenge on the family that destroyed the one true love of his life. Jancinda cannot stay angry with him long. More love will come. And, Baudelaire says, they will continue to see each other from time to time—if she wishes it so.

"Flowers of Evil" appeared in the anthology Midnight Thirsts II. Available, lots of good stories.

For additional titles, check out my Writer'sPage.

I would love to hear 

your comments.  

How to Write a Story: #82. Popular Culture, the Mafia, and the Past: “Tony’s”

In writing, we draw on the past, but we draw on popular culture. When the Twilight series of books about “sparkly” vampires became popular, horror magazines became flooded with vampire story submissions, so much that many of them started stipulating in their guidelines that they would not accept vampire tales. The popularity of those books influenced what manner writers wanted to produce (me too—during this time I submitted and published quite a few vampire stories). Another bit of popular culture was the HBO series The Sopranos, a gangster show, but unlike most of the films or TV programs in that genre. One critic called it a “postmodern gangster story.” Tony Soprano, leader of crime gang in New Jersey, is not your typical mob boss. He goes to a psychiatrist for counseling. He has troubles with his kids. He has to deal not just with rival gangs and the cops, but with many of the issue that affect our society today. It was a fascinating TV drama and ran for six seasons. I had never written a story about organized crime; but I did have memories from my past.

I lived in a small Midwestern city. I don’t know how active organized crime was in the city, but one man we knew because we lived next door to his aged Mother, and because my mother worked with him as an election judge, seemed to at least be a front man for it. The reason I suspected this? He owned a small pool hall about four doors down from my house on a corner near a man street. It had two pool tables inside. That was all. It was called after his first name—to keep on the Soprano theme, let’s call him Tony—and so it was “Tony’s.”

It wasn’t a fancy building:  a concrete block Quonset hut with a small parking lot to one side. The parking lot was what made me begin think something more than games of eight-ball went on there. When me and my friends would walk home from school afternoons, certain days, in the parking lot by the side of Tony’s, sat a row of cars. And not just any cars—not Chevys, Fords, Packards, or (they still made them back then) Studebakers. Parked outside this shabby little buildings were Cadillacs, Mercedes, BMWs, Lincoln Continentals—well, you get the idea. They were not the kind of cars people who went to pool halls to play eight-ball or snooker drove.

When we were young, we didn’t take much notice. But when we got to the sixth and seventh grades, the appearance of these big, fancy cars by a nondescript pool hall a in our working-class neighborhood looked suspicious. We decided it must be a front for illegal gambling. The fancy cars had to be there for a reason. And Tony was Italian. So the evidence seemed overwhelming. Whether we were right or not I don’t know. But combine this incident with the popular of The Sopranos and with all the George Raft and Jimmy Cagney films plus The Godfather—I had the makings for a story.

So in writing stories, we can combine the fictional, the speculative, and life experience. We can draw on cultural tropes like the organized crime and the Mafia. Personal experience can be woven together with fiction, speculation, adolescent fantasy, and facts (there is organized crime; it is not a myth). This gave birth and shape to my story.

I wondered what would have happened if we, as adolescent boys, had seen something that would expose the gambling ring and maybe put some of the Mafia leaders who drove in from who knows where in danger? I had recently seen Road to Perdition, a film with Tom Hanks about a small boy who sees a mob hit and becomes the target of a crime gang. If we, at age twelve and thirteen, became a threat to the Mafia, what would they do to us?

In the story, two boy walk by Tony’s and witness the aftermath of a gunfight. One man is killed, another wounded. As they gaped at the sight, they are suddenly surrounded by mob soldiers and the head of the mob. He comes over to question the boys, asking if they saw what happened. They tell him they heard noises, people shouting, thought there was a fight on, and ran over to see what was going on. Phil, the head man, seems not to believe them and they are perceptive enough to know the danger they in.

Just then, Tony shows up. He says he knows the boys, they are good boys, and they can be depended upon not to tell anyone what they witnesses. Phil seems reluctant, but he respects Tony, they’re friends, and he lets them use his place for—well, whatever it is that goes on inside. Tony says he’ll talk to them. This exchange occurs:
“Do you boys know what happened here?”

We nodded.

“You’re in trouble, but I can get you out of it. You’ll be okay.”

We did not know what to say. I felt like I might cry but didn’t think that would be good. I managed to hold it.

“I know Phil,” he continued. “He and I are friends and he respects me. I’ll get you out of this, but you can’t say anything about what you just saw—not to anyone. I mean anyone. Not to your parents, teachers, friends, brothers, sisters—no one—not a word. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

We did. We could only nod.

“I’ll talk to Phil. He’ll want to talk some more with you. It will be okay. Just be honest and give him honest answers.”

Phil reiterates what Tony told them. They must not tell anyone. They nod. Phil smiled and tells them to go on their way. They walk home. The story ends on a positive note—of sorts. This incident will haunt them for years to come. They will not feel safe. They will never know if the mob will need “protection”—that is, will protect itself by eliminating everyone who might be a witness or reveal the crime. The ending is semi-happy but also dark because it is ambiguous.

“Tony” appeared in Sparkbright, another magazine that has bit the dust and is no longer in publication.

 For further titles, see my Writer's Page.

My vampire novel, Sinfonia: The First Notes on the Lute, will soon have sequence. Get a copy of Sinfonia and be prepared to read the sequel.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy reading.

How To Write a Story: #81: Steampunk: “Appomattox”

I’ve found that in writing, exploring new genres can generate good results. I wrote fantasy and horror and some literary fiction, but I had not tried Steampunk as of yet. Steampunk is a relatively new genre. According to Wikipedia, Steampunk is "a sub-genre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic design inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.” It is a world of steam engines, dirigibles, submarines, but all powered by steam with the sort of technology that propelled the Titanic rather than that of the Space Shuttle or a modern jet. Steampunk also plays with the historical time line. It may rearrange history just slightly. It may put historical figures in different roles.

The notion of writing a story always, the thing that spurs the creative impulse can come from encountering a new genre like this and exploring it. When I did, I began to get the idea that became the story “Appomattox.”

Lee Surrenders to Grant

Even if you’re not a Civil War buff, must people who know anything about that conflict know that it ended when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant at the courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865. By the month of June all other active Confederate armies had surrendered as well.

I thought it would be fascinating to jumble things up, beginning with history. In my revised history Frederick Douglas wins the election of 1860 on his promise to reconcile the North and the South. He dies after only four months in office, and his Vice President, a pro-South politician named Johnson (not Andrew Johnson) takes office. Lincoln accepts the post of Secretary of War. Four years later, Lincoln is elected President and the war begins. During his term as Secretary of War, Lincoln promoted the development of technology. The Union began to produce submarines and, more importantly, airships. The South has prospered from the slave-produced cotton it sells and is confident its troops are superior fighters to those of the north. But eventually a slave revolt, led by John Brown, breaks out. It is contained but not completely quelled. Lincoln sees an opportunity to win the war when two Confederate Generals, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson make an appointment to negotiate with him near the city of Appomattox, Virginia.

Exploring the Steampunk genre released possibilities, flurries of creative, and the chance for a unique story simply by its newness. The story flourished because it opened up new possibilities for the main elements of a story:  plot, character, narrative, setting, symbolism, and theme.

The historical figures mentioned are not the main characters of the plot. Two engineers, a man and a women, are in fact the point of view characters for the story. Mitchell Judd and Electra Koteos are a couple who have built the airships the Union army has used to win the war. Electra is a woman who defies conventions of the time.  She owns a business, is a single mother, an engineer, and a formidable woman. Once when they are on date, a robber accosts them; she pulls out a derringer and shoots him. When he first meets her she is wearing a short skirt. He stares and she explains. “Long dresses are too hot and too dangerous in a work environment such as this [the research factory she owns]. Once we were riveting some plate and the hem of my dress caught fire. I have scars on my legs from that and  since then I’ve worn this costume. It serves me well.” They marry and begin to develop technology. 

The Civil War will end in 1865 like it did in history and at the place it ended in history. Lee and Jackson are ready to negotiate. General Nathaniel Bedford Forest, however, has learned about the negotiations and sends a large army to intercept Lee and his troops. By skillful use of the airships, however, the northern forces are able to repel Forest’s army. The negotiations to end the war begin.

In writing a story, the new and the fresh are sometimes the path to increased creativity. You might want to try a different genre:  if you write horror, try a fantasy story; if you write fantasy, explore the genre of literary fiction—or steampunk or cyberpunk, dieselpunk (a lot of punks floating around out there) or science fiction. It opens doors and gives shape to new thinking and new ideas.

“Appomattox” appeared in an anthology titled Conquest Through Determination. It was published by Pill Hill Press, which has closed, and the book is, sadly, unavailable—though when I checked Amazon there are copies of it offered for $500.00 (I'm not joking, that’s what it says—the people who priced the books must be joking).

For additional titles, check out my Writer's Page.

A great Christmas gift for readers of vampire stories is Sinfonia: The First Notes on the Lute, A Vampire Chronicle, Part One. The Sequel, Sinfonia:  A Painted Lady, A Vampire Chronicle, Part Two will be available for Christmas.

Happy reading, happy writing.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #66: "The Ghost-Doll of Valerian."

I don't like to write about politics. I don't write often about social issues. I think such matters are compelling only when they are framed as moral issues. William Dean Howells' famous story "Editha" is an open attack on jingoistic patriotism; and while that is something that certainly deserves to be critiqued, the  head-on, confrontational manner in which Howells frames the story and goes about criticizing the idea that war is glorious and romantic makes the tale gauche and propagandistic. Contrast this to Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms, which contains no overt criticism but is the most effective critique of war I have read because of the way it illustrates the moral chaos, stupidity, brutality, and waste of war. The same could be said of Winfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum." It is not a shrill denunciation of attitudes on armed conflict, but a memoir showing the horror of war and the glibness those who would romanticize it. 

The dramatic techniques used by Hemingway and Owen reflect my approach. You don't have to sing "War, what is it good for?" to point out the moral wound war creates. The same is true with other issues, and in my story "The Ghost-Doll of Valerian," I pointed out the crimes of tyrannical, intolerant government, religious persecution, and dogma. Rather than engaging in denunciations, as Howells did through the speeches of his characters in "Editha," I chose to point out how tyranny violates and destroys the very things that make us human and the things we most cherish.

Vahid Dabushi is a member of the Revolutionary Council of an un-named Middle  Eastern country (which is a lot like Iran). He presides over the trial of a Bahá'í woman. Bahá'í is a religion that grew up in the Middle East in the 1800s. A monotheist faith, it emphasizes the transformation of the human race and that God uses various human messengers to direct people toward moral improvement. The religion is non-violent and apolitical. But it has been severely persecuted, especially in Middle East. The Bahá'í woman in Vahid's courtroom has been accused of heresy. She is given the option to convert from her faith, but she refuses. Vahid sentences her to hang.

Valerian uses as a stepping stone

As he waits for the execution, he reflects on the odd events that have occurred on his estate the last week. Servants claim to have seen a naked man about the premises. His appearance is odd, they say; he looks puffy, like a stuffed doll, or a puppet, and only appears at night. Vahid, who claims descent from ancient pre-Islamic kings, wonders if it's a joke some of his more mean-spirited friends might be playing on him. It was Shapur, a pre-Islamic ruler of Persia, and of whom Vahid says he is a descendant, who captured the Roman Emperor Valerian. Legend had it that Shapur used him as a stepping stone to mount his horse and that, eventually, he had Valerian skinned alive and had his body stuffed by taxidermists and put on display in a pagan temple. Legend also had it that women would take their daughters, just before their wedding night, to see the doll of Valerian and get an anatomy lesson on the male body.

Bahá'í Temple, Chicago

The story, he knows, was apocryphal—anti-Christian propaganda aimed at the Zoroastrian Persians. And he has other worries to occupy his mind. He is concerned with his daughter, who has gone to school in England, returned, and is full of new ideas. He warns her that she must not be too vocal and keep her beliefs to herself. He has also learned, from a physician who conducted a physical on the young woman recently, that she is not a virgin—a thing she acknowledges. He warns her to be quiet and says he will arrange for an operation to, as he puts it, "repair" her (reconstruct her hymeneal tissue—a procedure done in some Middle Eastern countries where it is vital that a bride be a virgin). She also chides him for condemning the Bahá'í woman to death. After an angry debate on the manner of her behavior, she says she has seen the naked figured as well. He appeared to her the other night, she said, bare and wearing a rope around his waist.

Vahid is skeptical—then he himself receives as visitation from the ghost-doll:  Immediately he knew it was the Emperor Valerian. His face, with sharp Roman nose, blue eyes painted on glistening pearl plates, short hair framing a puffy head, gazed blindly in Vahid’s direction. He shrank back, his voice making a strangled, squealing sound.  He saw the misshapen legs, the arms like long loaves of soft bread, fingers like stuffed grape leaves. Its feet, flattened on the bottom, looked like pita rounds. Its member dangled obscenely where the legs met. No rope around his waist, he thought, remembering even through his terror what his daughter had told him. After the specter departs, he rushes to his daughter's bedroom to find she has hanged herself.

He reads her suicide note:  Father, please do not let mother see me. The Bahá'í woman—I had to exchange my life for hers. The ghost-doll of Valerian gave me the rope. I am so very sorry, but it was the only thing left for me to do. As Vahid sinks to his knees and gives vent to his grief, he hears the soft, swishing, paddling sound as the ghost-doll of Valerian goes out into the night.  

Tyranny and intolerance have innumerable negative effects. But the most serious is that it makes us less human. Ideology squeezes out love and affection. Dogmatism—whether it is religious, political, or both—interferes with relationships. The atrocities of the past (Valerian's supposed torture and mutilation) return to haunt us; so do atrocities that are more recent and more immediate. 

"The Ghost-Doll of Valerian" appeared in a journal called Orion's Child, now defunct. I can't find an archive for it. Once more, I see a story that perhaps needs to be resubmitted somewhere.

For fantasy reading, get a copy of my full-length novel,

The Sorceress of the Northern Seas. Lybecca of Dunwood seems like an average village girl growing up in Celtic/Roman Britain. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that she is not typical, that she is a conduit for magical powers, and that eventually she will become the most powerful sorceress in the realm of Britain--The Sorceress of the Northern Seas. Purchase a copy here.

For additional titles, see my Writer's Page.

I would love to hear your comments and remarks.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #65, "Sita's Strategy"

Steampunk City concept

Steampunk emerged as a genre a few years back. Once I understood what it was, I tried my hand at writing it. Steampunk uses contraptions and devices from the Victorian era: steamships, dirigibles, early submarines, and other such devices. In fact, as with Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, it employs the fantastical and the scientific, combining them to create submarines like the Nautilus or the airship in Master of the World. My story, "Sita's Strategy," takes this idea a quite a bit further. Sita comes up with a much more sophisticated and destructive weapon—one that outstrips a submarine or an airship by light years.

Sita

I decided to bring some racial diversity into the genre, probably because I saw a call for papers that wanted steampunk with an African or Asian setting rather than the traditional European setting and Victorian time frame. The story does take place during the Victorian era, and in England, but I created the character Sita, who is Indian. By adding this character I was able to illustrate some of the challenges Indians living in England during the late 1800s might face.

Sita is a young woman who is half-caste (the term used back then), with an Indian mother and a British father. She has grown up in England and played the convert to British culture, but of late, as a married woman with a British husband, she has tried to identify more with her Indian roots, wears a sari, and does not affect British fashion or manners. Furthermore, she has studied physics at Cambridge and has the ability to transform her theories into mechanisms. The British government relies on her as a technical engineer who can produce superior weapons.

She demonstrates her abilities by defeating a massive Spanish invasion of England (a sort of second armada). One of the fun things about writing Steampunk is that you can alter history and politics to suit the world you are creating. In Sita's world, Spain is a massive empire that encompasses the Iberian peninsula and all of South America. The Spanish assemble a huge fleet of ships to invade England. England has airships, but not enough to stop the attack. Sita is able to transform production techniques so that England produces huge numbers of airships and is able to completely destroy the Spanish fleet. She is a hero but also feels remorse that she has caused so much death and destruction using her technological abilities.

Britain is once again facing an invasion, this time by Serbia, a nation that includes all of Russia and Eastern Europe. The Caliphate of Cordoba has allied with them, so that North Africa and much of the Middle East is in the alliance. Britain's usual allies—France, Germany, Italy, and the Lutheran Federation in Scandinavia—have declared neutrality. America is undecided. The Kingdom of Prester John—a vast Eastern Christian land that includes much of Africa and Central Asia—is not convinced it should come to Britain's defense.

Queen Victoria is meeting with Sita to discuss a weapon that will even the score. She trembles to think of using it and remembers how she developed the idea: Sita had long known energy is matter and matter energy. This was a startling concept in Britain these days, but the sages of China and her own homeland had known it for thousands of years. They had not, however, she reflected bitterly, used this knowledge to produce a weapon. She has worked with radium, studied Marie Curie's work, and knows that some elements are unstable and seem to bleed their energy out. The idea occurs to her that the massive energy of matter might be released. When a French scientist sends her mineral samples from Gabon in French Equatorial Africa, she is convinced she can release the energy in the material. Sita and a group of military leaders set off the world's first nuclear bomb in a remote section of the South Atlantic. The military men are delighted; Sita is appalled that she has invented such a destructive device.

She knows the Queen will want her to use the weapon she has developed against the armies and cities of Serbia and Cordoba. In despair, she goes to see Wu Li, a Chinese philosopher she knew from Cambridge and asks his counsel. He reminds her that the ancients taught that the skillful warrior wins without fighting and defeats the enemy by ruining alliances, cutting supply lines, discouraging and demoralizing soldiers. Sita is confident she can do this and will persuade the Queen to follow a different course than direct attack. Wearing her sari, she leaves for her meeting confident the horrific weapon developed under her supervision will not be used.

"Sita's Strategy" appeared in the September 2011 issue of The Wi-Files. You can read it here.

For more of my books, check out my Writer's Page.

Lybecca of Dunwood

This month I'm promoting my book The Sorceress of the Northern Seas. Lybecca, a village girl, becomes the most powerful witch in England. It's a long, hard road, but she is capable of walking it. Book One chronicles her rise through opposition to acquire massive power.

I would love to hear your comments and perspectives.