Read an eBook Week at Smashwords

Here's a perfect opportunity to read This Time, the first book in the series about Richard III in the 21st-century before the second book, Loyalty Binds Me is published this coming May. For one week, until March 12th, Smashwords is promoting ebooks. To purchase This Time at a 75% discount, go here and enter the coupon code posted at checkout.

News: Loyalty Binds Me

The sequel to This Time publication is scheduled for May 23, 2011 by Star Publish LLC. We had originally planned to publish earlier, but made the decision to get the book reviewed prior to its publication. Advance copies are out for review.

Watch this blog for pre-order information.

More’s Code

dit dah dah dah / dah dit dah

Oops, not Morse Code—More’s Code, that sainted friend of Henry VIII who wrote the “History of King Richard the Third” that ultimately accused Richard of murdering his nephews. But this so-called history is rife with errors and contradictions--points that are easily verified, that an educated man such as More would have known to be incorrect and points that state one position in the first sentence, only to be contradicted in the next. But it has been used as proof of Richard’s guilt among many traditionalists who hold the view that Richard III would have murdered his nephews.

Although true that Thomas More was beatified in 1886 and then canonized in 1935, does that mean he could not have written a piece that was meant to be satire? He began the “History” around 1512 and stopped before completing it by 1518. He did not have it published. His nephew, William Rastell was the first to publish it in 1557, well after More had been executed in 1535. The quoted text below is taken from this publication available on the Richard III Society, American Branch website.

The first glaring error is found in the opening line of the history: “[K]Yng Edwarde of that name the fowrth, after that hee hadde lyued fiftie and three yeares, seven monethes, and five dayes,..., dyed at Westmynster the nynth daye of Aprill,...” Edward IV was born on 28 April 1442, which means that he was about three weeks shy of his forty-first birthday, not fifty-three and change. While the common medieval citizen might not have known how old Edward IV was when he died, it was in the records and those people with whom More might have shared this text would almost certainly have known the age More gave was incorrect.

Although there are no extant contemporary reports that Richard III was physically deformed (Richard was in fact a soldier who fought in battles in full armor) More described him as: “...little of stature, ill fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher then his right....” This is a very clever combination of using what is verifiable—contemporary chroniclers described Richard as slight of stature—with elements that are made up. Certainly, the physical deformities that More attributed would have been noted by contemporary chroniclers, especially in light of Richard’s military prowess.

Then, why should we believe that two men who More claimed Richard had ordered to murder the princes had been able to bury them undiscovered under a stone staircase in one night in a place bustling with people, and then to later remove them and rebury them in consecrated ground. That people believe the skeletons found in 1674 during the tower renovation are those of the princes based on More’s work stretches credulity to the breaking point. Because if More had been factual instead of just spinning a tale, the bones would not have been found there and both Henry VIII and his father Henry VII would have known where the princes remains were. If More had been correct, they were not under the White Tower stairs.

I think the opening salvo of giving an incorrect age at time of death for Edward IV leaps out as a warning to the readers that this work should not be taken seriously. Could it be that it was his code for j/k (just kidding)? Or as Morse would have telegraphed it: dit dah dah dah / dah dit dah.

Encyclopædia Britannica article on William Rastell.

More, Thomas. The History of King Richard III.

A plea to recycle electronic equipment responsibly

One of my favorite radio shows is “Fresh Air” hosted by Terry Gross. She broadcasts out of the public radio station, WHYY in Philadelphia. I listen to Fresh Air on my local public radio station, WNPR. On December 22, 2010, Gross interviewed Jim Puckett, executive director of the Basal Action Network about the issue of properly recycling electronic equipment such as cell phones, computers, TV’s, etc. I’ve always known that these devices contain toxic materials and have in the past, tried to properly recycle them. The cell phones are easy as they can be turned into centers where they are redistributed to people in need of a cell phone for emergency use. For the rest, I’ve brought them to a retailer where I pay $10/item so that these items are responsibly recycled. However, after listening to this broadcast about what happens to electronic waste, I’m not so sure that I’m accomplishing my goal.

Much of this waste is shipped to countries such as China and Nigeria where the waste is dumped and then the valuable material is scavenged from the waste using dirty and unsafe methods, such as burning the materials so that the salvageable metal is left. The toxins pollute the air and water. The people working in these places, often children, have to breathe the poisoned air.

I think it’s time we stopped sweeping the dirt under the rug and recycled responsibly.

Time Travel in Fiction

Laura Vosika, a fellow time travel, historical fiction author invited me to submit an article on using time travel in fiction, which was published last September on her Blue Bells Trilogy blog. Thank you Laura!

Time Travel in Fiction:

Ever since I read, and reread A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain when I was but a girl of ten, I’ve loved time travel fiction, for many reasons, not the least of which is because one can examine culture and technology with alien eyes.

One point of fascination for me is the mechanism the author uses to get the time traveler from his or her now to the past or the future. To get his Connecticut Yankee into the past, Mark Twain simply had his hero’s head bonked and when the man came to, he was in the sixth-century. When I read it as a child of ten, I didn’t know that sixth-century English would not be recognizable to a nineteenth-century American, nor did I fully appreciate the laws of conservation of mass and energy, so I was able to enjoy the book and imagine myself in King Arthur’s court.

Authors use a variety of literary devices to get their character from one time to another. Many use natural objects or phenomena such as the “standing stones” in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Other authors such as H.G. Welles and Michael Crichton have “invented” devices that would enable time travel. Although I fall into the latter category in that I created a device that I call a Quantum Displacement Engine, I don’t go into any great detail as to how it might work. I am aware that there are some current theories that involve quantum mechanics that might point to how time travel might be accomplished, but this aspect is at its most nascent phase. I used time travel to enable the story that I wanted to tell.

Another consideration of time travel is that the Earth, our Solar System, the galaxy, and our universe are themselves all traveling through space at incredibly high speeds. So for anyone to go into the past to a specific point on this planet, would require knowing where the Earth was in space at that time. I haven’t read any time travel novels that even hint this might need to be solved. In addition, I haven’t read any that compensate for the laws of conservation of mass and energy. I have tried to do this in my novel, and have used the laws of conservation as a plot point.

Even though my inner-geek not only made me consider the scientific considerations and the improbabilities of time travel, I do agree that novels that don’t try to cover the science, or even give it a nod, are worth reading. It is up to the skill of the author to convince the reader to suspend disbelief, regardless of what mechanism the writer chooses to use.

In This Time, my novel about Richard III in the twenty-first century, I was interested in the attitudinal and cultural differences between fifteenth-century England and twenty-first century America. One of the first challenges Richard would face was to understand today’s English. Many of the words that Richard would have commonly used, are today not currently used or have changed meaning. For example, if we use the word corpse, we are referring to a dead body. Not so in Richard’s time. Then, a corpse was a living body (from the Latin, corpus). Interestingly, I learned that the English spoken then was more like what we can still hear in some isolated areas of the American Appalachians, which is close in sound and pronunciation to sixteenth-century English.

While forks existed in Richard’s time, they were used primarily in kitchens. When served, meats were cut up into bite-sized pieces that could be picked up with ones fingers or with the point of a knife and then dipped into a sop (sauce) before ingesting.

Even though the poor didn’t have access to frequent baths in Richard’s time, the wealthy (including a burgeoning middle class), not only bathed regularly, but would often travel with their tubs. Some baths in castles were fed by pipes and fitted with spigots as early as the twelfth-century.

Religion was a large presence in every day life. This was before the reformation, so the state religion was Catholic. Richard, like many of his peers, kept a book of hours for daily prayers, and for prayers of special occasions. Religious tolerance was low, if non existent—the Jews having been expelled from England in 1290. While the last crusade had ended shortly after the expulsion of the Jews, most Christian leaders saw the Turks and the Muslims as a great threat. Richard was no exception. However, Richard was the first English king to knight a converted Jew (Edward Brampton in 1484), so I thought that maybe he was a little more tolerant than your average fifteenth-century king. Bearing these factors in mind, I tried to imagine what his reaction would have been to a country where all the leaders, national and local are elected, where most citizens have the right to vote in these elections, and where there is no state religion and everyone is free to choose how and whether to worship or not.

Time travel gave me an opportunity to not only look at these differences between now and the past, but by my bringing Richard into this time, I was able to see the world today through my main character’s eyes. I hope the people who have read or are going to read my book will experience the same.

Proper protocol on hugging a baby :-)

Sorry for not posting for so long, but my excuse this time is that I'm working on the edits for Loyalty Binds Me, the sequel to This Time. So I have to thank my cousin for sending sharing this delightful manual: Instructions for Properly Hugging a Baby.

Enjoy!

Review: VEIL OF LIES by Jeri Westerson

Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson
Published 2008 by St. Martin’s Minotaur, New York

Veil of Lies: A Medieval Noir is Jeri Westerson’s debut novel featuring Crispin Guest; a medieval tec of the Sam Spade ilk. Originally from nobility with land, wealth, and a promising future, he loses it all to a rash and treasonous act against King Richard II. Although lucky to be alive, he was degraded and left with nothing but the clothes on his back.

Though literate, Crispin doesn’t have the skills for most employment. But he has a knack for finding things and develops a reputation as “The Tracker.” He contracts his services for six pence per day, but rarely has two farthings to rub together. At the novel’s start, we find him in debt, owing his landlord, the butcher, and the couple who befriended him, pub owners who are willing to maintain a running tab. He is summoned to the manor of Nicholas Walcote, a wealthy cloth merchant who wants to hire Crispin to spy on his wife, who Nicholas suspects of infidelity. Crispin is loath to take the job, and even though his fee is the only thing between him and supper, he turns it down.

However, Nicholas would not be so easily dismissed, and what ensues is a tale of loyalty, murder, love, and international intrigue that stretches from England to Italy. At its heart is a relic—a medieval lie detector, the Mandyllon or Veronica from the Latin: vera icona, true image. Through his investigation, Crispin not only discovers his quarry, but also learns a good deal about himself, and he is not altogether pleased.

Westerson wastes no words bringing the characters to life in a fourteenth-century London that the reader can not only see in the mind’s eye, but hear, feel, and smell as well. This book should appeal to readers who enjoy a medieval setting, mystery, and the hardboiled detective that is Crispin Guest. For me, the best thing is that there are more novels in the works. The next, Serpent in the Thorns, is currently available, and the third, The Demon’s Parchment, will be available this month. Happily, there are more to come, as I know this is one series that I’ll want to keep reading.