Themes in the FLU SEASON Saga

By now you've gotten your copy of THE GRANDSONS and are quickly learning what happened to Bart, the young son of Maggie from Book 5. It is a tragic story, but not without some joys, as Maggie wishes for her son. Even Bart himself sees connections between events in his life and those who went before him.

Now that THE GRANDSONS (Book 6) has launched (albeit unexpectedly early), I can reveal some of the themes that weave through the series. In this latest volume, I didn't hold back letting the theme show. It is in the epigram at the beginning, a quote from "The Way of the Son" - the opera Maggie composes based on the notebooks of her great-grandfather, Sandy. In fact, Book 2 is titled THE WAY OF THE SON and follows Sandy and his young family as they struggle to survive after leaving the island where they briefly had sanctuary. That year-long adventure becomes a test for Sandy. He nearly succeeds only to ultimately fail in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Book 3).

The Way of the Son is fraught with danger, menace at every turn, and a lot of stupid mistakes that pop up when you least can handle them.

 

Sandy writes the line in one of his notebooks, and Maggie draws from it for her opera at the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5). Bart sees the start of her composing effort before he disappears. Yet the theme stays with Bart, haunts him, providing a challenge for him. He takes it as a test for himself, believing he must do better than his ancestor did. Bart, too, has many of the same flaws and does the same kind of things Sandy failed at. Bart is a flawed character, in literary critic terms, who tries and tries but fails as much as he succeeds. Partly it is due to his circumstances, but more often his varied choices, perceptions, and how moments turn him back and forth like a weathervane in the wind. In the end, the storm comes for him.

As THE GRANDSONS launches, I've been writing a new book, what I could call Book 7. It began as a lark, something to do while THE GRANDSONS sat to await one more read-through/revision. Tying the timeline together with other books of mine (see this post), I set this new story more than 200 years after Bart's time. Civilization has fallen further, become medieval - even in Missouri. It shall be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN.

At one point our heroes meet some actors who perform the famous play "The Way of the Son" - based on the songfest by Maggie Baumann. Everyone knows some of the songs from the old opera, it seems. As a comedy, Book 7 plays the play for laughs, twists lines so they now sound like legend rather than the scribbling of a desperate teen boy trying to save his young wife and daughter during a pandemic.

Another major theme in the series involves the often tumultuous relationship between mothers and sons.

THE BOOK OF MOM (Book 1) gives us Sandy and his single, never-married mother, Polly, a music professor and tuba player. She's gotten along on her own for most of her life and often lords over her autistic son. Sandy sees her behavior as love, protecting him, encouraging him to stand tall and be strong as the pandemic worsens and they flee their city. It is time for him to be tough, so his mother pushes him, teases him, makes him be strong for what lies ahead. Up to a point where Sandy realizes his mother's weaknesses and unrealistic advice. He tries to save her only to fail. His failure gets him and his young wife/cousin exiled from the island sanctuary - leading to THE WAY OF THE SON where he must grow up fast and take charge, though often making mistakes - much like Bart does in Book 6.

To a lessor extent, there is mother - daughter conflict in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, but adult Sandy still struggles to reconcile his relationship with his mother. 

As baby Isla grows into a young woman, she becomes the mother who has conflicts with her own son, Fritz (who goes by Frank in adulthood). Fritz also tries to figure out his mother in THE BOOK OF DAD (Book 4) as she reaches the end of her life. Being in the reconstructed capital with all of its Ideal Society rules and restrictions, Fritz/Frank fights to tell the truth about what happened during and after the pandemic - even as government entities, including his own older half-sister (Isla's daughter) who is now in charge, refuse to accept it as truth. This Big Sister insists the pandemic never happened: only a few localized pockets of sickness. Fritz/Frank upholds his mother's lived experiences to his detriment.

And in THE GRANDSONS we find young Bart at odds with his mother, Maggie, who wishes him to follow in her musical footsteps only to see him take more interest in his uncle's ranch and desire to follow him as a lawman. As Bart struggles to "find himself" he knows he can't face his mother again after what has happened. Yet his mother continues to haunt him as he goes through his life. Dreams, nightmares, visions, voices, ghosts seem to rag on him too many times, keeping him on edge. 

A final major theme weaving through the series is the idea of needing someone to carry on: the family name, the family blood, ideas about connectedness and salvation in survival. 

In each book characters raise the idea of carrying on the family, like it is a crucial task - which would make sense in a time of pandemic, virus, and death. Who will survive? By golly, we need someone to survive. That idea pressures the characters to try to have babies. Even a group of scientists has set up a breeding program since half the population has been lost through disease, war, and starvation. 

It isn't so much a matter of the author's personal beliefs (I know many people do not want children or are unable to have children), but in this story setting the urgency to make a baby is truly a matter of survival. It is a realistic situation, a plausible mindset. Each generation in the series eventually must rely on the younger generation to care for them and to carry on the family, to continue civilization, and therefore humanity - a universal theme.

This final theme shall definitely reappear in THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, leading to the ultimate novel to be titled: A TIME OF KINGS.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2025 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER Launches!

The fifth book in the FLU SEASON series, THE GRANDDAUGHTER, launches today or tomorrow depending on the internet gods, while the ebook version for Kindle has already been available since September 10. Click here to get the ebook - the paperback link will be here as soon as I get it (should be September 15). 

UPDATE (9/15): Due to the vagaries of the internet the paperback version's availability will be delayed by 2-3 days.

UPDATE (9/16)! The book gods have ruled! The paperback link is here. Thanks for your patience.

You can get the entire series (five books) here.

Does that end the series? Hmmm. I thought I was writing a stand-alone novel when I wrote the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, but I realized half way into it that the story would have to continue. Because I couldn't see a two-book series, I immediately went for a trilogy while writing Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON. However, as I was concluding Book 3, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I had ideas for another book. Then, while writing Book 4, THE BOOK OF DAD (out this past June), I had ideas for Book 5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER. I began to wonder when the madness would end while hoping it never would. (I am currently well into the writing of Book 6, THE GRANDSON, which should be the final book in the series.)

FLU SEASON is a series. Each book follows after the previous book. Each book, however, is a stand-alone novel, complete in itself. A lot of series are set up this way: yes, you are meant to read them in order for the best experience but each volume can stand as its own story regardless of having read other volumes. A character may appear in more than one book and the timeline traverses the series, and in that way they are linked. But standing as individual novels, the characters do catch you up and give you what you need to know from earlier books so you're not left confused. (Note: I never make use of the infamous "As you know, Bob..." constructions.

Here is a look at what you can expect in each novel of the series, as tweeted previously.

FLU SEASON (Book 1): THE BOOK OF MOM

Everything was fine, just me and Mom. And her precious tuba. Then the pandemic came and everyone had to adapt to a new normal. Until the new normal became unbearable.

We awoke one morning and the news was worse than before. Food rationing, no power, gas lines. Mom decided we should leave, wait it out at my grandparents' farm, but danger followed us, all the way to the coast, trying to find safety with family members who instead needed our help more than we needed theirs.

I had to trust Mom to find a sanctuary - hopefully not an island where other survivors are trying to set up their own society with rules as strict as back in the city. And definitely not a place where our family secrets will be exposed. 

That's the last thing we need as we wait for this pandemic to end.

FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON

Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail. 

Now you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow, and it's every man for himself.

I call it the Way of the Son - definitely not the way Mom would've gone. 

The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that’s already set before you. Yet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place. You have to find your way back home again, wherever that may be - even through a deadly pandemic.

FLU SEASON 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS

It was hard enough trying to start from scratch after the pandemic destroyed half of everything. Best to settle far from anyone, hiding in the forest of a national park.

But with militia from the new government coming by, rebels still on the loose, and new neighbors settling nearby, the new normal was a mix of intense danger and surprising joy.

But which kind of life would win in the end?

How can you raise a bunch of daughters in this kind of world?

Hiding away in the forest of a national park, Sandy's family (from Books 1 & 2) waits for the world to return to normal.

But they soon discover other families have the same idea. As the survivalists of the national park work together, his family faces challenges and opportunities. They suffer through the vagaries of an on-going civil war between North and South territories. 

The conflict splits the family into convergent destinies, leaving Sandy's daughter, Isla, to carry the family into the future, living to witness the reconstruction of a new society.

Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD

Fritz is sent for rehabilitation, then assigned a street cleaner job in the city, just for making a video exposing the true history of the ten-year pandemic and civil war that followed - based on everything his mother, Isla, has told him all his life - whether he wanted to hear it or not.

 

Now he finds himself in trouble again in the capital city as he tries to make sense of this Ideal Society. With weekly counseling and constant surveillance, Fritz is going crazy. Only getting back his family's tuba might save him.

That crime sets him up for a crucial act which lands him in the Department of Social Order. Only a reprieve by the Governor herself - the self-styled Big Sister - can save him this time. But it comes with a cost, one he may not be able to pay.  

The next chapter in the FLU SEASON saga follows Isla's youngest child, now grown and a husband and father, as he fights for truth, justice, and a way out.

FLU SEASON 5: THE GRANDDAUGHTER

Isla Baumann is born in the seventh year of the great pandemic (Books 1-3). Her last child, Fritz, goes to the capital (Books 3-4) and suffers under the restored government's oppression. His children escape to a small town in the western corner of the nation.

THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5) follows Maggie's life as a young woman with ambition stuck in a dusty cowtown. She decides what this post-pandemic town needs is a children's band. But first she must return to the dirty capital to claim the family's tuba. 

Following in her great-great-grandmother's footsteps, she vows to play the tuba and gets a musical instrument salesman to help her start the band. But there are plenty of obstacles to achieving her goals, a struggle which brings her to the ultimate decision that will save the capital and the nation.

I hope you enjoy this pandemic/post-pandemic/dystopian family saga which, back in March 2020, I didn't intend to write. But I had some time on my hands while staying home the rest of the year. This is the result and I'm quite pleased with it. Even as I get older and other things work less well, my twisted mind can still dream up twisted stories to entertain myself - and you, if you so choose. Thanks as always for your support all of these years.

I expect FLU SEASON 6: THE GRANDSON to be finished sometime in 2025, likely toward autumn as I'm not in any hurry. 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2024 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The FLU SEASON Trilogy: Doing What I Do

It has been a week since my new novel FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON launched and the excitement of that minimalistic day still lingers. The thrill of seeing my finger push that button to send a tweet into the void sizzles even now. It's all about the thrill, you see. I really can't stop. It's like a role-playing game and I get to play all the characters and make them do what I want them to do. By the end, I feel like I have put together a million-piece jigsaw puzzle and can finally see the big picture.

Whenever anyone might ask me why I write - a typical question in writing communities online - I pause thoughtfully, then launch into a diatribe about how it is all fun and games until I come to the end. Then I feel a great emptiness as the published book leaves the nest and tries to fly on its own. But the game analogy is valid. When I really think about it, that is what it is: a game. It gets me up in the mornings to play it. I want to see what happens next to these invented characters - blithely acknowledging that I have the power to make things happen in a certain way.

Puppet master? I think not. For as the characters come on stage more and more, they become real and often argue with me, demand a different turn of events, threaten to sit and pout. I offer a quick way out in the form of a murder or unlucky fall, but usually I cannot part with them. Even the villains compel me to assist in their crimes. Sure, there is some clear-headed planning and crafting a narrative that goes this way and that, making arcs, dropping seeds, foreshadowing, flashing back, information dumping but only in spoonfuls here and there. I know what to do.

However, at the bottom of all of that writerly stuff is the game. An old adage for writers goes a little bit like this: Write the story you want to read. And I do. I don't often know what kind of story I want to read when I start, but it comes to me soon enough. It usually comes to me when I've written about 10,000 words. By then, the story stays with me when I'm not actively writing. I start to think of what happens next - and what just happened and what I may have missed and need to add or change - through the day and into the evening. As the story progresses, I may be so driven as to sit down in the middle of the afternoon and type out another scene. Or, surprisingly, delve back in late in the evening just as I was certain it was time to sleep. It's a crazy process, but there it is.

For my FLU SEASON trilogy, which began as a stand-alone book, THE BOOK OF MOM, until 2/3 of the way into writing it, I developed a regular routine (me being a retired fool with little to occupy my hours). I would rise and get coffee while booting up the beast (an old desktop computer running Windows whatever-number, using Word of some kind). I'd sit and open the file, a running manuscript in which I add the next bit straight into the file, which is already set in book format - all the better to see how it will look in the final version. While starting the session, I begin listening to the "soundtrack" I've put together: music which fits the scene, always instrumental (don't need sung words getting in the way of the words in my head).

I usually begin by addressing spots I thought about since the previous session and fix those. Then I might read through the last scene I wrote and revise/edit it, which leaves me ready to dive into the next scene or chapter. In the alternative, if an idea is hot when I'm starting, I may go straight to typing out that scene while it rages, then return to my normal routine. Depending on the scene - writing coaches talk about the goal of a scene - I may begin with a little setting information, or jump into dialog to get it started. I'm always thinking of the mood of the scene - mood of the characters as well as what comes from the setting, like the difference between the same dialog and action in a sunny setting versus a dark and rainy setting. I know from a lot of previous writing how to mix exposition ("telling") with live action and dialog ("showing"), with the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

However, I tend to "write lean" just to get the story down in a basic form, knowing I will go back over it and make it richer. Sometimes an exchange of dialog runs the scene. Other times, getting the look and feel of the place and situation is most important. I find I have the uncanny ability to "become" a character and think, speak, and act as that character would. And yet I was never a great actor! Yet, in becoming my characters, I feel what they feel and that makes the writing effort exhausting - or occasionally energizing. It is almost like going to the gym for a hard workout, depending on the conflict in the scene I'm writing. A lot of that is driven by whatever is happening in my head when my fingers hit the keyboard. I might say it is magic but I don't truly know. Probably a form of mental illness of which I can make full use of its quirky features. Living in one's head is not just a metaphor.

I will write as long as I can. When the scene is finished I will go back immediately and read it through, revising as I go. I add more description (a sentence here or there), fill out dialogue (can't just have the necessary words but also need the extra phrases that make dialog sound real), and add thoughts and feelings (of the protagonist; can't know what other characters are thinking and feeling but I can suggest those through what the protagonist notices). When I get tired or I run up against having to do some other task, I'll pack it up, save everything in 6 places (3 places off the desktop computer), and call it a day.

Then I think about the story as I go through my day. I'll drive to the grocery store but there is the next scene in my mind's eye as I'm sitting at the traffic light. I push the cart through the store and I'm thinking through that last exchange of dialog, perhaps deciding a better phrase to have my character speak. Or I might realize I forgot to include something or I discover in reviewing what I just wrote that I need to add some important detail - something a reader would point out. Later, often lying in bed ready to sleep, I will also find "plot holes" (seldom these days, despite being a make-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of writer) or other spots I need to address. Then, if I'm lucky, I will go on to sleep. And sometimes I will have a dream which relates to the story I'm writing and I'll pop up in the darkness to scribble something on a note pad next to my bed and deal with it in the morning.

So for the two years in which I've worked on three novels, this has been my usual daily work routine. It is good to have a regular schedule when nothing else such as getting to work is there to keep me on track. I often confuse the day of the week now, unless the TV schedule reminds me. After a while they all run together as one big writing session, anyway, and I don't mind that.

I'm not sure what comes next. The FLU SEASON Trilogy is finished with Book 3: DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS - coming in fall 2023. I have teased that I will have an artificial intelligence app read my trilogy and then create a fourth book. Then a fifth book. And I shall be reduced to mere editor. We shall see. At least read Book 3, the final fully human-written novel of my career!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

FLU SEASON 2: THE WAY OF THE SON Launches!

Hurray! The Way of the Son, the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, has launched! Paperback is available now and the ebook for Kindle will be delivered May 15 although you can pre-order it now. Click the links.

Sanctuary from a pandemic is only good if you can stay there. When Sandy and his young family are exiled from the island, he struggles to find a way to save them while they face the worsening situation. Without Mom to guide him, Sandy must now take on all the responsibilities of survival in the lawless Outerlands.

It's hard to believe that a couple years ago I was fumbling around for a way to write a novel based on the very same pandemic we were all going through and constantly getting to a dead end, no pun intended. Now I've achieved a miraculous goal of writing three novels in two years, with two of them published and the third book already completed.

Meanwhile, I've interacted with other writers on various social media platforms, and an interesting question keeps coming up about my pandemic trilogy. What's the genre? My immediate knee-jerk reply is "science fiction". But then I have to stop myself and wonder. I worry that many sci-fi readers might be confused by the story I've put together in this trilogy. 

In this on-going interaction with other writers I came upon the term "psychological sci-fi" which seemed to be used for stories like Orwell's 1984, in which the focus is on the psychological (and social/cultural) aspects of the setting and how characters face it. The term doesn't mean it is about the psychology of the characters, not their mental illnesses or such, but rather, how the story may influence the psychological aspects of the reader's experience. In this way, the story need not have a fantastical setting or be filled with wonderful new technology.

Psychological science fiction = involves a "complex theme, ethical dilemma, existential questions" and exists "beyond time and space", involving "what it means to be human"; it may "reflect on the influence of science and technology", focus on "reality and consciousness", and morality. (cobbled together from remarks spoken in a video, link lost)

This may be compared to "literary sci-fi" in that both sub-genre might have similar subject matter but "literary" - at least to my thinking - is more about the style and depth of the writing and not specifically the setting or subject of the story. Note that in all three books the narrator speaks in first-person so we get the style of that person's manner of speech, which grows more uneducated and uses more Southern dialect as the story unfolds.

The FLU SEASON trilogy is traditional sci-fi only in that the people in the story are in distress as a result of science (virus) and technology (electric grid down, fuel runs out, etc.), and the story shows how they find solutions to the problems or find other ways to get by. This is done in a world/setting that is realistic in today's terms rather than fantastic or only plausible in the future or in extreme circumstances. The closeness to the present moment and the lack of things more typical of post-apocalyptic fiction makes FLU SEASON psychological sci-fi. But it is also action and adventure fiction. It also has a teen romance story line. There is humor and dark humor. And...well, you get the idea: it's like life itself, full of everything.

The immediate cause of both my writing and the story's setting is the coronavirus outbreak of late 2019 through late 2022. I pondered, in the days when our society seemed most set upon, what people would do if it got even worse. Suppose this "present situation" (think summer and fall of 2020) lasted six years - four more years beyond our "present" experience. How much worse would everything get? How would, say, an autistic teen and his single mother cope? What would they do? What would be the results of their efforts? And that was my story. And what would become of Mom's *tuba?

I wasn't but a little past the half-way point when I knew this stand-alone novel had to be a trilogy, although I had no firm idea what would happen next. As I finished Book 1 The Book of Mom and waited through all the miscellaneous hassles (cover art, etc.), I started right in on Book 2 The Way of the Son. Here, that teenage boy is on his own, without Mom to guide him, and he learns an awful lot on his journey.

Book 3 Dawn of the Daughters (now in the 'tweaking, then tweaking back' stage) picks up the story from the end of Book 2 and takes readers through the lives of our hero's growing family, in epic multi-generational tradition, as they experience a bloody civil war and the painful reconstruction of society afterwards - much like Gone With the Wind but set in 2035 with a deadly virus.

*Mom (of The Book of Mom) is a professional tubist and music professor, who refuses to leave her instrument behind when they flee the chaos of the city. Her son dutifully takes care of the tuba (Book 2), and his daughter eventually learns the backstory of the instrument and why it is so precious (Book 3).

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Writing Edgy in 2023

Whoa! That last blog post nearly ended the year for me. Seriously, a couple days after posting it I came down with a true illness not seen since August 2019 before anyone gave it a name. But I've recovered, thankfully. (By the way, greetings and salutations for the new year!)

However, something good came out of my drug-induced stupor: creativity. Dreams turn into notes, that turn into outlines, then become paragraphs on pages. And before you know it the first chapter exists. And the writing has not stopped. I'm in a zone where I cannot sleep at night or in an afternoon nap because of the on-going scene construction that would be better done by a Hollywood studio.

Back in 2020 when everybody was alarmed by a mysterious illness and we engaged in lockdowns and all sorts of lifestyle changes, I thought it would be the perfect time to write a post-apocalyptic novel. That lasted about two weeks. I read a few novels on the theme during the following year. Finally I was ready to write mine. When I found a way into the story (e.g., a single mom, her teen son, and a tuba), I could begin.

The first book of my FLU SEASON pandemic trilogy The Book of Mom came out late last year (click that link!). That was all well and good, but during the weeks of cover art and during the publication process, I finished book 2 in the trilogy The Way of the Son, which I expect to be available sometime in spring. Again, a good effort: two full novels within a year. But wait! There's more.

I couldn't find the entrance to the story for book 3 in the trilogy, Dawn of the Daughters, even though I knew the basic story. Then I got sick, swooned a while, and arose at the keyboard to pound out that manuscript. As I stare at this blog post, book 3 sits at what I consider to be 2/3 of the way to the end. That could change, of course. The story left to tell could be a full novel in its own right. I'm tempted to add a fourth book....

But here's the thing. I had two overarching goals for the first book - before I decided half-way that this would be a trilogy - and those were (are!):

1. a story of ordinary (if quirky) people and how they handle an on-going pandemic - without resorting to unusual motifs like zombies or other more sci-fi elements of most stories of this genre.

2. push myself to the edge of the envelope with regard to the sex and violence meter - not to throw gratuitously depicted action in readers' faces but to address the unfortunate likelihood of such aspects in a pandemic-ruined society.

So I let her rip. Book 1 opens with an anecdote of how our narrator was conceived on a nude beach when his mother was technically underage. I let "Mom" be her true self (not in any way based on my own mother), teasing and flirting yet offering quips of wisdom and songs played on her tuba. I introduce a love interest for our narrator, becoming a teen romance - but allowing our teen lovers to do what teens will do.

And the violence! It doesn't appear to shock or to drive an agenda. Rather, the violence our characters encounter is what may very well occur in that lawless situation. It pushed home the real nature of what we might expect were we to be them on the road, seeking sanctuary not only from a virus but from other people who would kill us for an old sandwich. It escalates as they travel from one destination to the next, expecting but not finding a refuge.

But the destination, a barrier island where the family's vacation home still sits, is not truly a sanctuary. Gathering people who are not infected, a kind of community has formed, but not a free society. They are, instead, something of a cult. Again, I push myself to press that envelope to its tearing point. Book 2 takes it much further as our characters try another way to varying degrees of success - yet not enough to settle down.

As I crash through Book 3, having a new narrator tell the story, the opportunities for my twisted mind to unfold schemes is enhanced. And I take full pleasure in the dirty and the dangerous which they encounter in their experiences. They gradually come into the greater world and we see how society is trying to rebuild. It seems a better place and readers may get a sense of hope, but soon the darker underbelly shows through the cracks.

I've stated on my social media how this trilogy may be my final work, with me getting old and surly, my fingers less sure on the keys, my mind taken to greater flights of fancy. Therefore, I'm allowing myself to be as naughty and violent as I can imagine for my characters. They all hate me for it, obviously. And yet I persist. I push and press and kick them forward into their fate! Why? Because I can. Because I'm mean and gnarly, and want to see them suffer. Because I want them to cry out to the universe their misery and pain! To shriek how their suffering brings universal truths to light. And they finally get it: the message. 

Oh, sure, I may, as happens with most of my novels, rein it in during revision. I tend to get the shivers. What would my mother think were she to read this? Well, Mom, I'm all grown up now, so I'm not holding back any longer. I'm being edgy now! Just remember, FLU SEASON is not a theater of the macabre but a view into the near future of what could be. It is a warning not to be too surprised when things don't go our way!

Book 1 THE BOOK OF MOM is available now in paperback and for Kindle. (click the link)

Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON will be available in spring. The manuscript is completed, revised, and edited. Cover art is in process.

Book 3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is nearing completion and is expected to be available by the end of 2023. (We also get the story behind Mom's tuba and why it is so precious to her.)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

DeConstructing the Language of Sebbou

My latest novel is out now. THE MASTERS' RIDDLE is a science fiction epic in which an alien being is captured by members of a mysterious race. The bulk of the novel is this alien's attempts to return home...to his home planet of Sebbol. Although the novel is in English, of course, there are moments when the alien speaks - which I do partly for flavoring the scene, partly for expressing emotion, partly for fun. I like alien languages.

I first encountered alien languages in my science fiction trilogy, THE DREAM LAND, set partially on the planet of Ghoupallesz. There I had the principal language most residents used, plus three languages used by peripheral societies. With a background in linguistics, I relished the opportunity to create full-functioning languages (and even included some quirks so they were not so perfect...like real languages). (Read more about inventing languages here.) I used them where relevant whenever we have:

1) the names of things with no equivalent word in English;

2) the phrases spoken by the native speakers;

3) the phrases spoken in reply by Earth characters who know the native language;

4) the words/phrases which are added here and there to help lend authenticity to the scene.

I recognize that having extensive passages in other-than-English is tedious for a reader. Thus, I try to limit myself to following a few rules when writing with alien languages (or Earth languages other than English, for example the Hindi spoken by Indians in my India novel about tiger hunting).

Rule 1. When the character hears spoken words which happen to be in the other language, I write out some of it. This is literally what the character hears, even if he doesn't understand it.  I can then explain what it means, as appropriate to the scene. For example, an announcement over a loudspeaker.

Rule 2. When a character literally speaks in a language other than English - because the character does not know English or chooses to speak in another language - I either provide a simple unobtrusive translation or otherwise tell the reader what was said. I do not want to give up the authenticity of the scene by avoiding the foreign language. For example, whenever it is vital that the character speak his own native language (which I give at least a clue as to what it means).

In THE MASTERS' RIDDLE, there are intelligent beings from several worlds. I give each its own language although for the most part I tell the story in English. How can they communicate with each other? An advanced species would have elevated means of communication. First, there is vocalization...which is not going to be understood no matter how well heard. Next is the attempt to communicate visually with facial expressions, hand gestures, and making marks on a surface or circumscribing designs in the air. I have them doing the 'Vulcan mind-meld' in some instances, where one being touches the other and through that neural network connection they can communicate. And a few other clever methods.

But what do they communicate? Not a system of language which one of them would not know. They can only communicate raw ideas - simple ideas, basic information without nuance. No metaphors, idioms, or slang. Even when two beings knowing different languages communicate through telepathy (no physical contact; mind to mind) the effect can only be this fundamental level of ideation: e.g., 'Go, sit, there.' rather than 'Would you please step over to that rock and have a seat there?'

When I worked on Ghoupallean, the main language used on Ghoupallesz, I devised the complete grammar and lexicon, made a thick dictionary of the language, learned to speak some of it - to the dismay of people around me in public venues. For THE MASTERS' RIDDLE I held back. Sure there are a few phrases our hero speaks in Sebbou, the native language of Sebbol, described variously as chirps, squeaks, and squeals. Not a commanding language at all. It is difficult for this alien to lead the ragtag gang of other species but he possesses a unique feature which gives him an advantage: his inner Ru. 

The inner Ru is a homunculus-like entity inside the mind, a miniature man, which both advises and translates. I imagined this little being much as I pondered the drawings of Plato's allegory: a cave with someone writing on the walls. Much of the writing was actually drawing, a visual language, thinking in images rather than abstract marks that made up a formal script to represent the phonetics.

Therefore, Sebbou takes the form in the novel mostly as category 1 above: things which do not directly translate into English, primarily the names of flora, fauna, and geologic features of planet Sebbol. There are a few direct phrases which help show the way of thinking of the Aull who live on Sebbol, the way myth informs their society.

In one scene of instruction, the mentor speaks a Sebbou phrase taken from our hero's mind:

“The Process is what you do with your mind to tear space apart and project body through tangent opening. Do with power of mind, which can be greatest force in the universe. Bio-chemical, electro-chemical energies created in the brain of an advanced creature, applied to engineering problems, can move mountains—sometimes planets. Or, as you say on your world, to ‘raise the stars’.”

Toog’s face flashed bronze. “^sT’_n Ra’_q.”

“You remember expression from childhood? Took from your mind, from memories of childhood training, so can understand. Is true. This power, when focused on right spot and increased to right magnitude can rip curtain between two sides of universe. At such a moment, while rending this curtain, step through to other world.”

The phrase is a common expression and means something significant to our Aull friend and it makes him press on with his lessons. The initial /s/ is a polite hiss which initiates all speech in Aull society. The /T/ with apostrophe represents /t/ with a trailing vowel huff. The falling /n/ is a gutteral utterance. The /R/ is a strong consonant followed by a longer vowel represented by /a/ and the same apostrophic huff. The final /q/ is an emphatic grunt which acts as a conclusion in Sebbou. Therefore, 'Tin rai q'  means “raise the stars”. 

Let's try it:  s (high-pitched hiss) T (with a huff) n (deep in throat) R (almost trilled) a (normal vowel, add huff) kh (unvoiced growl)

Not bad. It's easier if you have the oral apparatus of the Aull throat and mouth. They are, after all, descendent from amphibians. If you can't do it, don't worry. You got the idea. (A glossary is included at the end of the book, if you're curious about Sebbou.)

I wanted to get on with the story rather than indulge in linguistic play, so these kind of direct expressions of Sebbou are kept to the minimum. I tell what they all say, as they communicate mostly through mind-meld or telepathy. The languages are not the main point of the story but are something real that needs to be accounted for in the story. We cannot pretend beings from different planets can all speak the same language. That would not be realistic. I am not a member of Starfleet and I do not possess a handy communicator device (although the Masters in one scene do employ a similar machine). 

But supposing these various characters happened to be in this setting with this problem? How would they communicate with each other in order to solve their problem? That's the point we have to operate with throughout the book. It's all about what's real.

NEXT: Summer vacation reading list.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Independence Day: Not the Movie

Dear Independents,

Most of the past several Julys (Julies?) I've been posting your summer reading list and then fleeing to parts unknown. Not this year. Last July was the lockdown. Before that I did a driving tour of Canada. Prior to that I went to China four Julies in a row to teach at a university. Before that I taught a class at my own university. Earlier Julys have faded but I remember a lot of summer classes as a student, a few days near a beach, more days indoors next to the air conditioner, and a little dip in a pool or two.

However, as fate would have it, I have a new book launching today. It's a science fiction novel about an alien (undocumented non-human being?) who through no fault of his (her? its?) own is captured by a mysterious race (species?) that tortures and enslaves him. This cruel treatment leads him to want to escape, moreover to return to his home and be with his family. But there are obstacles, of course, or we wouldn't have a good plot. 

There is no direct connection between this story and Independence Day, commonly known as 4th of July. I looked back to past July blog posts and found none that had an American holiday theme. So I suppose I'll have to start one since I'm still around today.

Yes, it's been a tough time lately. Almost everyone has suffered in a multitude of ways. I think I've skated by fairly well unscathed by all the happenings, both viral and social. I've never been a big rah-rah kind of guy but I can get choked up by some displays of patriotism, the same bald-faced nationalism that most nations have on their birthdays.

Then part of me says "now wait a minute" and I can easily list some things "we" (people long gone ahead of me?) got wrong, did wrong, or failed to do when it should've been done. It's a complicated history, we understand, and one that cannot be told in black and white. We try, but the grays (not the aliens!) are overwhelming. Take any geographical area, any group of people, any planet of intelligent creatures, and there will be the good and the bad - and for movie buffs also the ugly. 

There: I said it. Now let us work toward returning to the righteous path, staying the course, keeping to one's lane, and/or being the best we can be. It's not too difficult. Some people I know like to say we should treat people how we would want to be treated. This may seem a bit narcissistic to some of us. Or not. All is in the mote of the eye of the beholder. But we can still dream, can't we?

(No, I'm not drunk. Just short of sleep and typing too fast. But you get the idea.)

So why not give my latest novel a good read, be filled with the wisdom of First Goddess and hope you return home before it's too late, as our friend Toog wishes. It's kind of like The Shawshank Redemption but with aliens. Actually I've never seen more than a passing minute of it. And, yes, an interdimensional portal. And alien languages, some inter-species seduction, and new military hardware on a frozen, dying world. Perfect for a read beside the pool or on the beach.

Note: there is an actual human among the captives, but this is just for comic relief.

Thanks in advance. Enjoy!

Sincerely,

The Author

Here is a handy dandy link to the Kindle version (click on the word 'Kindle').

Here is a professionally designed link to the Paperback edition (click on the word 'Paperback').

NEXT: The insider info dump about THE MASTERS' RIDDLE.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.