Read and Rated: May 2016

Inserting Horror and Sci-Fi Into a Fantasy World with Guest Author Val Griswold-Ford

It is my great pleasure to have Val Griswold-Ford on Welcome to My Worlds this week to share about her new book release: Winter's Secrets! I have had the pleasure of knowing Val for a little over a year and have been moved, inspired and completely entertained by her work. I am sure you all will be as well :)

Hi, C.E., and thank you for inviting me over to talk about my new book, Winter's Secrets, a cozy fantasy that nonetheless has quite a bit of sci-fi (and a little bit of horror, although not as much as some of the later stories in the series) in it. In particular, the thing that makes Carter's Cove unique is that it is a CrossRoads Town, with not one, but two Gates that allow people to move from Realm to Realm.

While I originally went very much towards the fantasy side of things, I realized that I didn't want to just hand wave and say "Oh, it's magic," in terms of the Gates and the Roads that connect them. Instead, I wanted to have them be both magic and technology, since I fully agree with Arthur C. Clarke that "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So the Roads are magical, but the Gates that connect them are both magic and technology.

I do admit that it was a little easier to do since I've set Carter's Cove in the present, so there's a lot of technology around. Drew has a tablet he uses to find a rogue Road in one chapter, and there are phones and cars and snowmobiles. I think one of the challenges in doing a story like this is to make the technology and the magic seem seamless, because that's the wonder of it – how can these two seemingly opposite processes work together?

The Gates were a lot of fun to figure out, because I envisioned it as a kind of magical subway system. I knew I needed some personnel – a Station Manager, who runs the place; two Gate engineers, who you really don't meet in this book, but will play a bigger role in later stories; and three Gate technicians, who do the actual work of running the Gate and fixing things. (Funny sidebit: I originally was going to call the Gate Stations Transfer Stations, until it was pointed out to me that at least in New England, a Transfer Station is the dump. So yeah, the name changed.) It's the techs you see most of in this book, but in later books, you'll see more of the Station itself, and more of the personnel.

For the Gates, I realized that I needed to understand how the technology worked with the magic of the Roads. Here's where I got a little metaphysical, and went looking at quantum physics and string theory. For those who may not know, string theory postulates that everything in the universe is tied together with strings of energy. I took that (thank you, Mr. Young, for the Physicist as Humanist class you taught that got me interested in this!) and posited a series of interconnected realms, some more magical, some more technical, that are connected by strings that are currently called Roads. The Roads exist in a subspace dimension that runs throughout the entire multiverse, and sentient creatures have created Gates to bring those Roads into the Realm they live in. In the beginning, the Gates were magical arches that forced the Road into that particular Realm. Then the humans started working with technology, and created the Gates that are used by most of the Realms now. These Gates work by converting the magical strings into computer algorithms that the technicians and engineers can manipulate. Sometimes, though, the computers break down, and they have to do it the old-fashioned way: magic. Every Gate technician is sensitive to the Roads, which allows them to find the Roads if they have wandered (which happens). Gate engineers can actually create Gates – they have additional training in building the arches that house the energies needed to force the Roads into the physical realm.

There's not a lot of this in the first book, as it doesn't deal as much with the Roads as some of the other ones do. But in the next book (which doesn't have a name yet, but will be out next year), you'll see a lot more of this, as there is a lot of Road traveling. You'll also see the Sea Roads for the first time – because Roads don't just go along the ground, but they can be sailed upon as well.

Winter's Secrets is out TODAY! It's available on Amazon in trade paperback, and will be out in ebook soon. You can check out the next stories on my blog at vg-ford.com, and follow me at Patreon for other stories that blend technology and magic.

The Evolution of the Writer

Today's post is coming late in the day and it's going to be fairly short.
I shared in the final Terror Tuesday post that I was taking a break from my home genre of horror. Some of you may like to know that  I am choosing to focus on my science fiction pursuits, along with a few new editing opportunities and trying my hand at epic fantasy. Something mixing Tolkien and Rand. I gotta say, I am loving writing this new book. As I explore a more academic side to my writing, I will be upping my output of articles and poetry as well. So stay tuned for what I hope will be exciting updates!

Terror Tuesday- Farewell.

Horror has been a cornerstone in my life for as long as I can remember. However, at least for now I am moving away from the genre for awhile and so will retire the Terror Tuesday segment of my blog. Don't worry, the new Tuesday posts will be revealed next week :)
And so I shall end it, with the character that began it all for me: Dracula

"I am all a sea of wonder. I doubt; I fear: I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul."- Dracula, from Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

Artist unknown

The Books That Shaped Your Mind

Reading is one of the noblest pursuits. Like all pursuits it can be perverted into a mere shadow of what it is meant to be, but none the less it stretches your mind. What you choose to read will shape your thoughts, your world view, your prejudices, your vocabulary, and even your heart. Some books you will think you are reading just for your pure entertainment and you will find in them a character that moves you so deeply that you can't imagine a world without people like them in it. You will find those people. You will fall in love with imaginary persons and come to realize that those persons were based on living people. You will find someone like them to love. Some books will revolutionize your brain, you will see the world not as it is currently, but as it should be. Or in the reverse not as it should be, not the world you are working for, but as it is, with a new and cold clarity that is both devastating and invigorating.

For me those works have all been fiction. I have learned and changed and grown as a person through the works of Anne Rice, J,K, Rowling, Stephen King and Ayn Rand. As a child I learned through the eyes of hobbits( The Hobbit, LOTR by Tolkien) and wizards( The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce) and shape changing teenagers that were fighting to the save the world ( The Animorphs by K.A. Applegate) about bravery, courage, conviction and value of friends. As a teenager I lived through thousands of horrors in the works of Stephen King, had my foundational beliefs challenged by the devil himself (Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice) and found my escape from reality in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling). In those most impressionable years I discovered that suffering was mearly a temporary trial, that the mind was the greatest of all weapons and that family is not always defined by blood and DNA.

In college I delved into ancient mythology, I fell in love with Set and Anubis of Egypt, reveled with Thor and Sif of Asgard, went on perilous journeys with Jason, Heracles and the gods of Greece and Rome. I traversed the levels of Hell (Dante's Inferno) and lived through the gang wars of New York City. I fought in the legions of Troy, philosophized with Neitzche, flew through space on the backs of dragons (The Pern series by Anne McCaffery) and my mind became a wellspring of idea, knowledge and endless possibility. The past brought the present into sharp focus and everything I had been learning, and was learning at the time began to ruminate and coalesce into a shining light house in the harbor of my true self.

As an adult, I have begun down that path of my true self. With the warning and victories of Galt and Roarke (Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand), the desperation of women in their darkest hours (The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins), the adventures of young heroes and heroines across the board in young adult literature (Leigh Bardugo, Rick Riordan, Pamela Freeman, Kiera Cass) and through the Plight of the great Priest Riveda (The Fall of Atlantis by Marion Zimmer Bradley) I have turned a corner from the darkness in my harrowed past into the brightest days of my triumphant future.

These books are a small sample of the many worlds, words and stories that have shaped me as a person throughout my life. They have supplemented my real life experiences, saved my life, enhanced my person and given me strength when I had none without them. So, as you look into the books in the store, or the library and you make your choices, know that you are shaping your self as you read. Will you choose the paths of heroes (Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss) or another path?  Whatever path you choose, it is important to remember that you chose it and the freedom to walk that path and to make that chose is yours. The freedom to shape your mind to the farthest reaches of your ability is the greatest of all your freedoms. I beg you, do not squander it.

Terror Tuesday

“The death of God left the angels in a strange position.” 

― Donald Barthelme

Art: The Prophet by Keith Thompson