Winning the Trifecta!!!

In honor of the launching of the second book in my third trilogy, FLU SEASON, I thought I would wax poetic over my three trilogies and how they came about and how they proceeded. Of course the third book of my third trilogy has yet to be published but it is complete and considered finished, so it counts. Now I have a set of three trilogies and thus have achieved the Trifecta! These nine volumes make up fully half of my writing output of 17 novels. (All novels are available in paperback and for Kindle; click on links at the top right corner of this blog.)

THE DREAM LAND

The first book, originally titled The Dreamland, was composed back in those days of typewriters and mailing a box of paper to a publisher. It was intended to be a stand-alone novel. Yet being full of interdimensional intrigue on an alien world, there was much room for utilizing the world I'd created. The first book, retitled Long-Distance Voyager, covered everything I had intended for the story and I had no idea for a second book. I eventually had an idea and launched right into the second book. But I got stopped a short way into it. I ran into a plot conundrum and sat it aside to figure out how to proceed. Then life got in the way and I did not return to it for ten years. 

The conundrum was figured out by then and I continued it, taking it into a kind of time travel plot that was quite mind-twisting. When I was ready to throw book 1 into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, I was also finishing writing book 2. By the time I finally got book 1 published, I knew it would be a trilogy so I came upon the idea for book 3 without too much gnashing of plot lines. As book 2 Dreams of Future's Past, was being published I was already writing book 3, titled Diaspora. It followed immediately after book 2 in the publishing schedule and I was very happy, thinking I might not be able to write more. I did dabble at a book 4 but didn't get very far and have not resumed writing it.

Being first, and introducing a new world of steampunk fashion and geopolitical skulduggery, it did well enough. Book 2, while being more ambitious and thought-provoking, sat on the shelf. Book 3, while deemed by me my most humorous of the three as well as the most horrifying, was hardly touched. That is the issue with trilogies, I suppose.

THE STEFAN SZEKELY TRILOGY

After a while, I decided to join the vampire trend and wrote a novel purportedly a medically accurate vampire story. My hero was Stefan Szekely, an ordinary guy, American of Hungarian ancestry, with an odd background. I threw a lot of personal angst into it, and came to realize I could make a pretty good vampire myself, given the chance. One and done, was my intention. But the ending nagged me through the writing of two other completely unrelated novels.

What happened to our vampire hero after the first novel ended? Because I'd set the story in the same year as I was writing it (2013-14), I began to jump ahead in the timeline. Thirteen years into the future we pick up our story - and a trilogy was born, both novels conceived at the same time although the exact story line was still vague. It was really an exercise in traveling in my head and doing research about Croatia and Hungary and calling them novels.

I wrote SUNRISE and SUNSET back to back. The first novel, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, was well-received and garnered attention among the vampiric crowd. Book 2 was less popular, perhaps because the vampire trend was already receding. So Book 3 received little attention, although I thought I put some amazingly evocative material in it. I planned a book 4 and started writing it but got stopped when the even-further-into-the-future world I set it in began to overwhelm me with technologies I didn't have the patience to figure out.

Then I wrote three stand-alone novels: a sci-fi story with a non-human hero, a contemporary crime thriller, and an action/adventure story about a man-eating tiger. Then I was bored.

FLU SEASON: A Pandemic Trilogy

I've blogged about this trilogy in the past few months, so let me go over some of the history of its creation. I started something at the beginning of our real pandemic but didn't get far. The idea boiled inside my head for another year. When I found a way to start it and thought what would occur in the journey plotline, I still believed it was going to be a stand-alone novel. However, a journey is all well and good, but what happens when our hero and his Mom arrive? What then? 

Giving the first book the subtitle of The Book of Mom, I let it be a narrative by a teen boy about his single mother and all her quirks and whims while fighting to get them to safety from both viruses and violence. Once they arrived at a kind of sanctuary, I knew it had to be a trilogy. I already had ideas of what would happen next. By the end of book 1, I definitely knew how book 2 would begin and end.

By the end of book 2, The Way of the Son, I had book 3 planned - although I do not write out an outline like many authors do. Just as book 2 picks up where book 1 ends (like on the same day!), book 3 also picks up where book 2 ends. The difference is that book 3, Dawn of the Daughters, has a lot of ground to cover story-wise. It could be a stand-alone in its own right, if I had conceived of the story first instead of the book 1 we now have. 

Too early to tell how this trilogy will be received. As of this blog posting, books 1 and 2 are out and available with book 3 scheduled to be published in the fall of 2023. The main thing, I think, is that I've enjoyed creating these various worlds and the characters who inhabit them. I only hope that others will enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

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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.

On keeping up with the Future

Most novels cover a certain span of time, and we see characters develop over that timeline, regardless of flashbacks or foreshadowing. Some science fiction is set in the future so we begin the story ahead of the present. For writers of science fiction, this can be tricky. Far enough in the future and the author will be long gone and perhaps the copyright expired and the work forgotten so it won't matter how the years turn over after the book is published.

However, writers setting a story in the near future - close enough that readers only a few years from the publication date will be able to look back and read of events which did not happen as the author wrote about them - are screwed. Unfortunately, I've fallen into that trap with the second and third volumes of my vampire trilogy. I failed to predict how the years 2020 and 2021 would actually unfold. 

My vampire trilogy begins with A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, which is the first symptom of vampire transformation our hero Stefan Szekely notices. The book is set in 2014, which is also the year in which I wrote it, and set in the same city where I lived. I actually "lived" our protagonist's experiences week by week so I was up-to-date with whatever events were happening. I included a tornado that actually struck my city. Then I wrote two more novels that were unrelated to this vampire novel.

Eventually I had pondered enough what may have happened to our hero 13 years later - thirteen being an ominous number. So I began writing the sequel, SUNRISE. I knew at the time that it would be a trilogy and I loosely planned the third book (SUNSET) while writing the second book. With the second book beginning in 2027, I felt I was sufficiently far in the future that I wouldn't need to worry about the future catching up to me. But wait!

At one point a character from the first book reappears [trying to avoid spoilers] and because they have been apart for so long, the arriving character tells our protagonist what has transpired during the absence. The narrative switches to a first-person account of the misery the character has lived through. Remember I wrote this second book in 2018, with the story set in 2027-2028. (SUNSET opens in 2099 so we're good.) Then we learn in the pages what happened in 2020: nothing particular. No virus, no pandemic, no lockdowns, no vaccine - as we have seen play out.

Here's the scene, where Penny Park is explaining to Stefan:

Then I got the reality check for real: the mirror.

Remember the mirror, Stefan? We used to stand naked in front of that wide mirror in my bathroom, side by side, staring at ourselves. One woman, one man. You were slender, a geek. Me with no boobs. We were a couple. Those were good days. But you know mirrors can lie. You told me that more than a few times. Especially when you started poking at those dry patches on your face. You cursed the mirror. Then you turned them down or covered them, you said. You refused to look at yourself. But I saw you. I looked at you, Stefan. I was your mirror, and I saw you falling apart. Every single day. I still went ahead and put my eyes on you, no matter how bad you looked.

March 15, 2020. The next worst day of my life. I stared at myself in the mirror. I saw the patch on my cheek. Brown. Scaly. Itchy. Mottled edges, sort of diamond-shaped. If I had never met you I wouldn’t have a clue what it was or how I might have gotten it. I would try what you did, what I first suggested: apply some lotion. Dry skin needs lotion. And hydration. I can’t laugh anymore at how many times I told you to hydrate. Your skin was too dry, so hydrate. Remember?

You know me: I hydrate like a fish. So that was not my problem. I tried lotions, which softened the patch—patches, eventually, on my face, shoulders, back, also my chest. There didn’t seem enough lotion in all the stores of the mall to cover my needs.

But I did know you, so I had a clue. A creeping feeling started to run up my spine.

I know what you’re thinking: Why does she have this problem? She is not Hungarian. She doesn’t have those genes. And she eats a ton of garlic in that Korean food. I wondered that, too. It made no sense. But there I was, naked in front of the mirror in the bathroom, examining myself, staring at my brown-patchy skin, wondering what to do.

And my mother walked in!

“What are you doing?” she asked, half in shock to see me naked.

“I was about to take a shower,” I told her. “I was checking these . . . a few spots of bad skin.”

She stepped closer and took a look at them. She doesn’t have any medical training, but she is a mother. That must count for something, right? But she had no idea. Then it was déjà-vu all over again: “You better see dermatologist.” 

So she gets some medical problem, sure, but she doesn't mention the entire world having a medical problem. Yes, everything is serious in 2027, as though there is a world-wide problem, but nothing is mentioned about what we have all come to experience in 2020-2021. 

What to do? I could explain it away as her focusing only on her own personal issues and not bothering to say anything about a pandemic. I could go back and add a couple sentences to cover it, then republish the novel. Or I could let the trilogy fade into the sunset and write something new.

Well, my latest work-in-progress is about what happened in 2020-2021 and the years after. It's the pandemic novel I tried to start in March 2020 but didn't get far. We sci-fi writers are used to imagining scenarios, even truly awful situations. So when something awful actually happens, we may not feel that it's so real. I wanted to wait and see how it unfolded. More than a year later, I've seen enough that I can write my own version of a post-apocalyptic novel. This one is about a boy and his mother and a tuba. Should be out in 2022...if we live to see that day.

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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.

Greetings & Salutations!

I see you. I know what books you are reading. And which books you have avoided reading. Perhaps you only read certain genre, particular themes, about characters much like yourself...or quite the opposite. Either way, I forgive you. It is not too late to pick up a copy of one of mine. The odds favor you enjoying them.

So after lazing through a dull and dreary holiday pause, I pondered the first blog post of this, the year of 2021, that of the Ox. I've been thinking of "years of" for several years and finally have brought out my novel of a similar name: YEAR OF THE TIGER which is set, as you may guess, in a year designated for tigers; in this case 1986...before computers, cell phones, social media, and TSA checkpoints and a pandemic. Although the first inkling of the complete story was composed in 1983, I waited to share it until I thought the world needed it as a profound distraction for the viral dilemma filling our lives in 2020. 

Which leads me to this blog's topic: How do I get the titles for my novels?

As 2020 turned surreptitiously into 2021, I realized that I have been at this writing effort for ten years. Sure, I wrote before, but it was not until 2011 that things began to improve exponentially. (You can read about this career arc in earlier blog posts.) I dared offer a "weaker" work to an untried publisher, willing to throw this story away if the deal fell through or I got burned by unscrupulous purveyors of publishing pomp. AFTER ILIUM is a contemporary tale of misdirected romance in the exotic setting of northwest Turkey and the ruins of ancient Troy. Troy also had the name Ilium. The 'after' part refers to what happens to our hero after he visits the site with his new, older lady friend. Much of the story is how he struggles to get back to her after they become separated. So...after Ilium. 

(Click the link in the upper right corner of this blog page to get a copy of any of these books for yourself.)

At the same time, my offering for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition that year caught the eye of another small publisher and we tried to make a go of a career launch. A novel I had already written and submitted to the ABNA became our focus: A BEAUTIFUL CHILL. While working on a revision of this campus relationship novel, I also got another novel, AIKO, involved before the publisher dropped both books, and me, over creative differences. The title of the first novel refers to a phrase the heroine says, describing a feeling of loneliness or a melancholia which can only be alleviated by brief random encounters, such as with a professor on her campus. The second novel is, obviously, a Japanese girl's name, who is the center point of a story involving a man's search for the daughter he suddenly discovers he has. He goes to Japan to claim her but it is not an easy mission.

At that time I wanted to bring forth my magnum opus, a science fiction book revolving around interdimensional voyaging, an alternate universe, and the twisted reign of a pair of high school science nerds who find their way there. I called it THE DREAM LAND, later with volume two and three, The Dream Land trilogy. Originally titled simply Dreamland, I found a book in a bookstore one day about the Coney Island amusement park in New York City which had the same title. So I changed mine to The Dreamland. And wouldn't you know it? Another book already with that title, so another change to what it is today. The three volume epic is quite the tour de force of interdimensional intrigue with a lot of steampunk elements and a fatal comet, a personal favorite.

With the vampire craze reaching its peak, I became enamored with the medical side of the condition and swore to write a medically accurate story of transformation into a vampire. I titled my novel A DRY PATCH OF SKIN after the first noticeable symptom which marks our hero's descent into monstrous madness as he seeks a cure only to surrender to his family's curse. A couple books later, I had ideas for continuing the story, making it into a trilogy, so I sought matching titles for two books and came up with SUNRISE for volume 2 and SUNSET for volume 3. They fit: Sunrise tells about his rise and reintroduction into polite society. Sunset sets the theme for the downfall of his vampire empire.

Between volume 1 and the other two of the Stefan Szekely vampire trilogy, I wrote a novel based on the real childhood of someone I met online (a relative of a Facebook friend) whose experiences I believed would make a good story. Because the heroine's name meant "wolf" in her native language, we agreed on the title A GIRL CALLED WOLF - slightly different than our first choice A Girl Named Wolf which was already a nordic folk band's name. I crafted a novel from a list of her adventures gleaned from many interviews and added a fictitious conclusion sequence.

My colleagues at Myrddin Publishing have championed the fantasy genre so I boldly declared I would write a fantasy, too. In fact, I asserted, I would title it Epic Fantasy just to make clear what it was. I was further challenged to include dragons in the story. No problem. I made the title of my longest novel EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS - yes, with the asterisk, just to be a little tongue-in-cheek. While starting off in an easy manner, the tale of an unjustly exiled dragonslayer on a quest to find the dragons' breeding ground and kill them all to regain his position, I found myself exploring all kinds of big ideas and profound themes by the end of it. I declared when I had finished it that I would never write again because I had "said" everything I had to say in this tome. Then I returned to the vampire theme....

In summer 2019, I had an idea burst into my head that I had to write - and put aside what was trying to be the 4th book of the vampire trilogy. EXCHANGE was a contemporary drama revolving around a mass shooting and the surviving husband/father who must put his life back together while dealing with the arrival of a Chinese exchange student who doesn't know what has happened to her host family. You can guess where the title came from, and yet there are several kinds of "exchanges" that occur throughout the story, including a couple big twists as we rush to the final pages.

The Year of the Rat (2020) was not anything like what we wanted. I delayed launching Exchange until finally I decided to hit the button. People had plenty of time to read but it seemed few were, aside from the apocalyptic plague novels. I read a few of those myself; I even tried to start writing one. Instead, I worked on yet one more revision of my YEAR OF THE TIGER novel which I had kept putting off because other books poked me more. With not much going on and nobody buying books anyway, I did the only thing I could: I put it out there onto the bookshelves of the world. I will let you guess where the title of this book came from. Hint: all the action occurs during the year 1986.

The kitschy cover for my 2014 NaNoWriMo effort.

My next novel started in the 2014 National Novel Writing Month competition, where I wrote the first 55,000 words of it but still unfinished. It is a science fiction tale of alien abduction (the alien is abducted, not a human abducted by aliens) and his escape and attempt to return home (but not at all like that movie E.T.). I'm nearing the end of a final polishing. It should be coming out by summer 2021. The title is THE MASTERS' RIDDLE - which refers to the question of why the evil captors took our hero away from his home world. It may be my last novel. 

Oh, I'll keep writing, but I may not get to the end of what I have left to work on during my idle days of retirement. Stay tuned for the amazing conclusion.

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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.

The After-Reading Party

I came, I read, I answered questions.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't like crowds, especially doesn't like speaking before a crowd. I can handle a classroom of inattentive students, say, up to about 25, which is my day job. So I worried about the reading opportunity that was foisted upon me this past Tuesday. I prepared by selecting which scene from each of my three books I would read, something short yet evocative and which demonstrated in a couple pages my great craft.

My event made the campus jumbotron!

Then obstacles ensued. The largest was a faculty meeting the hour right before my reading. In fact, as faculty meetings tend to go, it could run long and thus extend into my scheduled reading. I wondered whether or not I should leave the meeting a little early to be at the appointed place at the appointed time. But then, I feared, the university vice-president, who leads these meetings, might call me out for my reading and if I were not present it could be a major faux pas.

However, everything went as the proverbial clockwork. I attended the meeting, sipping on a caffeinated beverage throughout. As the clock ticked down, the VP did indeed call me out to say a few words about my new/latest book. "Give us a couple sentences," he said. Knowing my colleagues were anxious to exit, I just gave a two sentence summary of my event and all were pleased. 

I returned to my office to grab the three books of the Stefan Szekely Trilogy, plus another trio to be used as a raffle prize. I thought to carry the box I had of other copies but thought I could sell them later, after the "show" or the next day, rather than carry the box across the campus. (In hindsight, no, I did not sell any books afterward; I believe I could've sold some if I had them there at the event - mistake number one.)

When I arrived at the student union for the event, I found everything set up for me, thanks to the English Club! I'd worried that I would be walking into an empty room and would need to announce myself and gather passers-by to form an audience. My colleague introduced me and acted as MC. First I told about my new/latest book, the third of a trilogy. That led me to explain where it started, where I got the idea (anecdotes about my daughter being hooked on Twilight, etc.), and an overview of the trilogy.

Then I read a scene from the first book, which I felt showed the style and tone of the story quite well: the first time my protagonist seeks medical help for his skin problems. I paused to explain what happens next, intending it as a lead-in to reading a scene from the second book. However, a hand went up so I called on that audience member and answered her question. That led to other questions, divided evenly between questions about my writing process (in general and for this trilogy) and the process of "getting published". The questions continued and I never got to read more in the hour-long event.

Given that the audience was mostly students, I had worried how attentive they might be at such an event. I know how they can be in my own classes. I also knew that my colleagues had offered "extra credit" for attending, so I had little expectation of an enthusiastic crowd. Their questions, however, seemed genuine and not off a script. Several were apparently very interested in writing stories and trying to publish them. I made generous offers to take a look at their work. One colleague reminded me to mention I would be teaching the Creative Writing course in the fall semester.

A Journalism professor attended and later suggested some journalism students would interview me for a feature in the campus newspaper. Great publicity! Especially for a shy guy who would rather write than speak. In any case, it was a comfortable experience. I urge anyone of similar temperament to go ahead and accept that invitation to do a reading. It will be over before you know it!

It was later than usual when I left the campus for the drive home, but I did not stop off at my neighborhood bar for a drink. I was not unnerved and in need of that stress-relief. Instead, when I arrived home, I indulged in ice cream. I could almost sense paparazzi outside my door. Almost.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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 Curse of the Author Spotlight

[NOTE: Strange transformations going on with Blogger, so be patient while we see how it all plays out....]

This week I've been invited to be the guest and chief entertainment for a session of what those who invited me have dubbed "Author Spotlight". Now, as an author, I am also somewhat of an introvert; I prefer to express myself on the page rather than, say, face to face, especially when the other is represented by multiple faces. Worse yet would be no faces. But colleagues have assured me that they are giving their students extra credit to attend my dubious carnival act.

This Author Spotlight came about when a potential English major asked a reasonable question at an English major reception: "So do any of you do anything? Like write?" To which I immediately raised my hand and uttered the fateful words: "The third volume of my vampire trilogy just came out." Of course, I was then pressed upon to tell more. Any Book 3 requires divulging the whole story: Book 1 and 2, the impetus for the entire story, etc. That led to several other questions. 

My colleagues knew about the first book, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, because it had been reviewed in the local newspaper, The Oklahoman, as part of a short list of Halloween-themed books. As it was set in Oklahoma City where I live and work made it all the more topical. It garnered enough curiosity, in fact, that the STEM-obsessed Dean of our Arts & Sciences School, mentioned it at an all-faculty meeting, even holding up a copy for all to see - as I slunk in my seat to keep out of view (the introvert thing). I then wrote two other books, unrelated to the vampire genre, and thought I was finished with vampires.

But the ending nagged me. I had to know what happened next, having ended the story in 2014. By the time I got the idea of what would happen next, it was already 13 years in the future in the story and 3 years in my real life. With a vampire as the main character and narrator, there were only two ways I could go with the continuation: treat him as a vampire, ugly and miserable, scraping by on the blood of peasants, or have him fit in somehow with polite society. Either could have been an interesting discourse, but I chose the latter and Book 2 was born: SUNRISE.

In the first book, I allowed my protagonist, Stefan Szekely, to get into conversations with God, who he jokes about initially then comes to blame for his worsening affliction. Thinking he has made a deal with God, he discovers to his horror that God has backed out on the deal, leaving him to his fate. In the second book, Stefan still converses with God - or believes he does - but it is a mocking diatribe this time, no longer taking God as a kindly grandfather but a spiteful menace. In SUNSET, the third book, when the situation demands another bargain be struck, Stefan believes it is being made with God. Unfortunately, it is with God's number one interloper, Lucifer, who sees the potential in him. In the third book, that potential is realized, much to the world's chagrin. Chaos and cruelty reign! 

Now, when pressed upon to be the featured guest at this campus function designed around a book series, I was immediately concerned with our well-discussed conundrum of our students disdaining reading long passages and how I might get students interested in reading my books. Of course I will read a short scene from each of the three books, something stand-alone and interesting in itself. There is a great deal of dark humor, irony and sarcasm in the telling of the story, so I worry they would not see it as a dramatic tale of man becoming vampire becoming holy terror personified. No monsters leap out of closets. Since part of the story is set in Oklahoma, I shall read one scene set there which involves our hero, Stefan, and a lowly grave digger - thereby allowing me to use my well-trained voice to affect the Okie accent. I may otherwise use my vampire voice while reading other parts. I've mastered how to speak the classic phrase: "Good Eeeeeving."

Other than reading short passages and telling how I got the idea for the books, I will likely talk a bit about my childhood interest in reading and writing. Then I should segue into how they should be writing something, starting with events in their own lives - perhaps change the names and call it a story. I want to get them to see the potential they have in expressing themselves. Sure, they can make videos, come up with songs and spoken-word poetry, share raps, but those are all short-form expressions. Can they create an extended form with a complex, layered narrative? I will challenge them. Perhaps my inspiring words will translate into better classroom productivity. Who knows?

Lastly, I shall take questions from the audience. I have no idea what they may wish to know. I will have explained much already, so . . . I must be ready for anything. I must deflect any questions about the Penny Park (pseudonym!) affair recounted in Book 1. Hopefully, I shall be done with the session before my glucose drops and my head goes foggy and my voice cracks. It is the author's equivalent of a marathon. And I have not been training much. The only thing that might save me, give me an edge, is that I will know some of the audience already. The other saving grace is that I sure do love to talk about myself!



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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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 Future of Vampire Stories (a continuing resolution) Part 2

With a welcome weekend off for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations (There are no naturally occurring Irish vampires, thankfully!), we return with Part 2 of our continuing resolution on the future of Vampire literature: A look into the Future Society.

The 3rd book, SUNSET, in the Stefan Szekely Trilogy opens in 2099 and extends into the 2100s, remarking often on the situation in the world and especially the Empire of Europa, born of the expanded Hungarian Empire, led by the vampire Emperor. His Holiness chastises his governing council, lectures them on how He has improved the world from the way it was in the days of His transformation in 2014:

Case #4

His Holiness, Emperor Stefan: “It needs to be controlled, this world of ours. I agree. Too much and for too long the scientists and the inventors sought to expand only leisure and sloth, leaving the masses unemployed and starving. Those who could work willingly worked for the lowest possible wage. Others were slaves of sloth: no will to enter the night, to make something, no, only the attention to divertissements. For each man and each woman must have purpose in their existence, so we have given it to them: make good your efforts to bear children prior to your transformation, raise them to obey, honor our traditions and maintain our heritage. A logical scheme. Look how we smashed the towers of commerce, those thirty-floor skyscrapers that were not a part of our traditions and our heritage. We return to the common architecture style which represents the best of our land, the best of our history—true art! And we should continue to make works of art and beauty and sing songs that glorify the empire and praise the Most High. Diligently make your specified production each night. Enjoy a sport or celebrate music in your hibernation. Notice the world around you and your place in it. Nothing occurs in isolation. This is what we do within the span of our existence. We do not seek to advance society into some strange new world full of strange objects and stranger beliefs. This is our home. Let us keep it clean and dark.”

Case #5

Later we meet Oklahoma grave digger Bucky Denham and learn of the wars that have been on-going in Europe: the Ukrainian front on the east and the front on the west coast in Frisia (northern Netherlands):

    “Oh, that?” Bucky thumbed to his shoulder. “I was o’er in Frisia for a year, fightin th’ Europa vampires. Got this here wound ’nd they sent me home. Yeah, don’t hurt now, but shee-yit shore did when it was still burning, I mean li’l blue flames rising from each hole, like to beggin for someone ta kill me right off. But I got ta th’ hospice in time ’nd they put out th’ flames ’nd bandaged me tight. Worst year of my life, lemme tell ya.” He shrugged to show it didn’t hurt now. “But they get me good now, takin half whatever I make diggin graves for folks no matter I did my service. My pops kicked off while I was o’er there. My baby boy had with a gal down the street, too.”
. . . 

   “Yessiree. Them vampire brigades come at us during night, firing flares ’nd shee-yit at us. Then they got th’ Black Storm going ’nd they started attacking during th’ day. But it weren’t like no day, black clouds coverin th’ sun, dark as night. They could go out then. Nothin we threw at ’em ever did much. We tried silver bullets but they just went straight through ’em. Silver’s too dang ’spensive. We had ta get some sabers ’nd go fer th' heads. Lop off a head 
’nd they stopped cold dead. Yep, true dead. We heard they kept ’em starved of blood then released ’em at us so they’d tear after us, ya know, ta get our blood. Ya never saw no more gore than th’ battlefields of Frisia. I mean, arms ’nd legs ’nd heads laying ever’where. So many gyawdamn crows peckin at shit.”

Case #6

Finally, as expected, more and more fundamental tasks will be taken over by automation - robots - thereby leaving humans to enjoy their leisure. Sometimes the technology works too well, or doesn't work at all:

    Twice a surveillance drone approached him. Finally, it flashed a red warning: MAXIMUM WARNINGS EXCEEDED. A security patrol drove up beside him, hovering over the pavement.
    “What’re you up to, fella?” asked the robot in a life-like voice.
    “I like the scenery on this street,” he said in as calm a voice as he could conjure, imagining the robot might detect voice stress. “So I’ve been walking this way for my daily exercise.”
    “Residents have complained. Please choose another route.”
    “Yes, of course. Sorry. I meant no harm.”
    “No harm is not no harm,” the robot replied like a Zen koan, eyes blinking. “Residents feel harm even if you intend no harm.”
    “I suppose that’s true,” he said with a smile.
    “Please choose a different route. You are forbidden from this route from now.” The robot’s arm telescoped out from the hovering vehicle, a tablet attached to its hand. 
    “Apply chip here.”
    He was wary of the authenticity of his chip now and stepped back from the neighborhood patrol. He turned his back to the robot and walked quickly down the slope, around the curve, back to his Hoverina parked on the street—recharged with his old paper money converted to credits at a bank, where he was advised to get a replacement chip since his was not connecting properly to the grid.

Case #7

Toward the end of the novel (not to give away any spoilers), a major character travels to Moscow and we see that Russia has not suffered the degradation of a vampire society:

This train ran smoothly, she noticed, a much better vehicle than the old one they had ridden from Budapest. Someone mentioned the train sailed over jets of compressed air. She was entering a modern world. Arriving in Moscow, she could not believe the architecture that had sprouted up like a great forest. There were the Seven Colossi marking the old wall towers of ancient Muscovy, silver office buildings rising fifty floors, topped with great communication towers. Nothing like them existed in Budapest or anywhere else in Europe; the empire disdained anything modern. In the center of the city stood the 800-meter tall statue of Saint Vladimir, savior of the republic. Below the feet of the statue and its mountainous hill of earth and granite blocks, the walls of the Kremlin were crumbling, finally allowed to decay as an unwanted symbol of the Communist era.

She exited Okhotny Ryad station at the north end of Red Square and found the streets crisscrossed by driverless trolleys, stopping to pick up anyone who waved. After strolling the square and assuring that St. Basil’s Cathedral was still as colorful as she remembered—it was, undamaged; Lenin’s Tomb, however, had been occupied by the latest iconic figure—she rode to the west, then north, past the huge Bolshoi Theater extension—the arts were flourishing again, it seemed—and a grand new Orthodox cathedral on Neglinnaya Avenue dedicated to St. Vladimir. Another trolley took her past blocks of solemn gray high-rise apartments where she thought she had lived with Yevgeni. She became confused. Eventually she realized her location and stepped off.

So we see that a vampire tale - its logical, if not unexpected, conclusion, that is - must necessarily describe a transformed society, as well. In this respect a vampire tale must cross over from mere urban fantasy or a paranormal genre into science fiction. Rather than bedazzle readers with the amazing inventions of the future, a vampiric society would, when it had the chance, I believe, return wholeheartedly (no pun intended) to an early age culturally and practically. Yet it is the principal characters we must follow as they function within and attempt to alter the world that we know in 2019.

The Stefan Szekely Trilogy is complete!
(Look to the upper right on this blog for links.)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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.

How to Write a Medically Accurate Vampire Novel

Spring is not usually the time in which we think of vampires - or the undead in general. However, it is not only October, or specifically the season of Halloween, that brings out our less lively kin. Oh, no. The vampire is a stock character for all seasons, for the vampire is not a seasonal being sent to frighten us on one occasion but to serve as a constant reminder of what can happen to the rebellious, evil abominations who walk among us.

The Stefan Szekely Trilogy is now complete! 

Get Book 3, SUNSET, at an Amazon link near you today! 

(Kindle lovers click here: SUNSET.)

When we think of the vampire, we have many models from literature and cinema to cast in our mind. From legends far and wide comes the idea of someone who has died returning to life or of someone not truly dying but settling into a degree of existence between life and death, what many have termed the undead. It is a frightful situation, indeed, both for the poor sucker [pardon the pun] who must "live" such a "life" as well as for those who may encounter him or her. (Read more information here.)

Back in 2014 I awoke from a nightmare - actually, fell off the darn mare and hit my head on a stone - and I had the idea of writing a vampire tale. Much in the vein of my paranormal-writing colleagues, I sought a story of Gothic pathos, a horror tale of bloody delight! Alas! I could not, however, in good conscience, create something along the lines of more recent vampire fictions. They were too much filled with magic, melodrama, and frou-frou accoutrements than suited my sophisticated tastes. I needed a real vampire.

I knew there were some medical and biological causes of symptoms which are typically associated with those folk claiming vampirism. I did my research, both into legends and customs of Eastern Europe, and into the science behind such awful disorders as porphyria. Is there such a thing as vampirism as a medical condition? And, if so, how does one combat it? Is it genetic or does one catch it from someone who is already a vampire? (One valuable resource was the scholarly book by Paul Barber.)

So I deliberately sought to create a horrific tale as contemporary and realistic as modern science and my twisted imagination could make it. 

The result is the amazing true-to-life story of Stefan, an American of Hungarian ancestry, who is doomed to become a vampire - at precisely the wrong time in his life. Just when Stefan is falling in love with his Beloved, local TV reporter Penny Park, and they are planning to marry, he notices the first sign: A DRY PATCH of SKIN.

“I do care about you,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound positive. “We can’t let a dry patch of skin get between us, now can we?”

But I digress...

Check yourself. Check your family members. Look over the people standing close to you. Examine all with whom you come into contact. Look for the tell-tale signs of oncoming vampirism. To aid in your quest for avoidance, here is a handy checklist:

• dry skin, in blotchy patterns and red-brown shades regardless of natural complexion
• gaunt features, as though the skin were pulled back tightly against the bones
• withering away of musculature, rendering the person unusually thin
• loss of hair, head and body
• protrusion of teeth as gums shrink
• protrusion of eyes as sockets decline; loss of lashes and brows
• semi-hunched posture due to less of muscle and bone integrity
• heightened senses, especially of olfactory ability (smell)
• metallic taste in mouth and bitter breath
• decreased urine and fecal output
• decreased hunger and thirst sensation
• exposed skin sensitive to light, especially sunlight; prone to either drying and shredding or to melting
• hands and feet painful due to swelling; nails may appear to protrude due to reduction of skin borders
• bearing the scent of decay, mildew, etc. or alternatively a hint of sulfur
• constant physical readiness for sexual activity
• capable of periods of sustained activity (3 to 4 days without sleep) followed by prolonged sleep (2-3 days)
• consumption of heme (blood) improves symptoms temporarily
• contagious via exchange of bodily fluids
• no cure, only treatment which offers brief relief at best
• long-term prognosis: a lengthy, miserable existence filled with alternating nights of desperation and days of coma-like sloth
• usually a normal life-span (90-120 years), barring attempts at suicide
• onset usually 30s through 50s; fully symptomatic 2-5 years after onset; transformation complete after 7-10 years

Be aware of those around you who may appear normal yet may have begun the transformation. Take particular note of any strange discolored and/or unusually dry patches of skin upon the face. Avoid those who wish to sample your blood. Call for help should you be unable to extricate yourself from the magnetic aura of a true vampirism sufferer. It is not glamorous; indeed, it is a miserable existence, and in that misery boils an unholy rage, often exploding into violence.

For further information about transforming into a vampire, I recommend reading A DRY PATCH of SKIN.

The truth about being a vampire: It is not cool, not sexy. It’s a painful, miserable existence.

Good reason to avoid that situation, thinks Stefan Székely. He's too busy falling in love with TV reporter Penny Park, anyway. Until one day he has a dry patch of skin on his face.

At first it's annoying, nothing to worry about, some weird skin disease he can treat with lotions. However, as his affliction worsens, Stefan fears that his unsightly problem will ruin his relationship with Penny.

If only that was all Stefan has to worry about! He soon realizes there is a lot more at stake than his handsome face. To save himself, Stefan must go in search of a cure for the disease which is literally destroying him inch by inch. If only his parents had told him of his family's legacy.

The next step in creating an accurate vampire trilogy was to

write books 2 and 3. Keeping it medically accurate proved more challenging. With Book 1, A Dry Patch of Skin, being set in the same year I was writing it, 2013-2014, a sequel needed to be in the future. With only 13 years passing, in Book 2, SUNRISE, it was easier to formulate how much society will have been changed. 

By Book 3, SUNSET, existing even further into the future, I had to stretch myself. This future-creep required a more science-fictionesque approach. Thus, the vampirian aspects seemed to take a backseat to updating the new setting; then I could let my creature play in that setting. However, such a vampirian-led society might choose to return to an older, more stately style more akin to the times of their ancestors and not be so inundated with technological flamboyance. A cultural regression made the re-setting easier, yet I still needed to recount how the world changed back - rather like a clock once a year.

More about the regression next time.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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 Future of Vampire Stories (a continuing resolution)

Now that the more exciting half of the month of February has passed, there is only the President's Day non-holiday to give a nod toward. (I say non-holiday because most of us still must attend to work or school.) But fear not, for here is a blog post which empathizes with you. Suppose instead of presidents there were an emperor. Now suppose he had absolute power over everything in your world, including your life and, more importantly, your blood.

In writing the conclusion of the Stefan Szekely Trilogy - which began with my medically accurate vampire novel A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, set in 2013-2014 - I had to imagine the future of a vampirian society in 2099. Book 2, SUNRISE, was set in 2027-2028, when the problems of our current time were seeing fruition in a world in chaos.
In Book 3, SUNSET  (coming in late February), we see order restored but at a heavy price: oppression at home, wars on the frontiers. Imagining the future, whether utopian or dystopian, is always an exercise in cause and effect.

In Book 2, human-led society in the Hungarian Federation made use of the latest technologies. However, in Book 3, the vampire-led society of the Empire of Europa, has railed against modern advancements, decrying much of what we take for granted today and in its monstrous transformation by 2028. By 2099, at the centennial celebration, and the council of governors meeting that follows, we learn what has happened in the interim.

Excerpts from SUNSET, 
Book 3 of the Stefan Szekely Trilogy

Case #1: surveillance

[His Holiness speaks:]
     “Perhaps you are too young to recall when citizens were monitored at all times, forced to sign their names hourly, compelled to indicate their approval or disapproval on trivial matters by pressing a finger to a painted icon on their monitors. That was not freedom. Fail to sign in and police would hunt them down, examine them for cross-thought or bio malfunction. If found disabled, they would have their amusements suspended. Likewise, if the amusements consumed too much of their nightly tasks, the amusements would be suspended. Yet we learned it was these amusements which compelled many to rise at all upon the dusk. How great the inventions of the past! How the imagination of the Most High corrals us, mends us, makes us into obedient servants despite our best efforts to rebel. How we must free ourselves from the tyranny of technologics! The answer, as we now know, is only in a determined return to the past, to our traditions, to our heritage, to a new society based on the best of the old.”

Case #2: making a world more vampire-friendly

     “Every day our factories are pumping out millions of cubic meters of dark matter to feed the Black Storm. We have managed to blot out the sunshine an average of three-hundred-seventeen days each year, days with seventy-five percent of more darkness. As you know, the natural wind pattern continually blows it eastward. Thus we must continually replenish it. The Russians complain instead of welcoming our efforts to contain the sunshine. Look at what we have wrought on our own soil. The empire is now sixty-two percent fallow, a great improvement over the past decade. Some of the bloodlings complain. They beg for plants, for their crops, for pretty flowers to beautify the yards. Yet fruit and vegetables do not satisfy the vampirian palate. You cannot get blood from a turnip.”

Case #3: artificial intelligence, surveillance

     “Indeed, I recall the electric days of my youth—when everyone was monitored and conditioned and manipulated into all sorts of behavior not ordered by their own minds. The mindless youth, we called them, assembling in hordes to rain destruction upon whatever target their electric masters deemed worth destroying. A violent age. All of their petty demonstrations arranged locally by electric messaging! Yet we have extinguished the grid and freed the masses. Is that not a worthy goal? Cameras everywhere. Spying on us all. Drones flying the skies, often so thick we could not know exactly which of us they surveilled. People deigned to stay indoors to avoid official cameras—and privately commanded drones, too, snooping into windows, reading over your shoulder from kilometers away! 
     “Yet even there, in our own homes, we were constantly watched, our choices on the electric venues noted, our searches for information captured and used against us in the political correction courts and re-education camps. They did not know what they had created, nor did they surmise how their lives had become not their own but merely tools in a government toolbox, each of them put to use as needed, when needed, and put aside when no longer needed—given over to pointless games, animations of birds and puppets and pieces of candy, not to mention the shooting galleries and bat games, all to satisfy an abhorrent need for constant stimulation. While I endured thirteen years with only some books.

     “That was not living—meaning in the old sense of existing inside a prefabricated society that considered us as bits and bytes in a program designed by ‘artificial intelligence’. Oxymoronic drivel! It was called ‘A.I.’ in those days. Do you understand what I say? The electric boxes we now outlaw were common fodder in those days. Ubiquitous. We used to communicate through those machines. Without a machine we could not communicate. And without a code number, we could not use those machines. Predictably, all our communications were checked and double-checked for correctness and compliance with standard norms, and when out of parameters a friendly drone would knock on your door, zap you to unconsciousness when you opened the door, and off to re-education camp you went.
     “No, I mean the term ‘artificial intelligence’—a machine acting like a human brain acts, the machines and the instructions to operate them independent of human thought, in essence a self-operating machine, much like the vehicles designed to carry us about our nightly tasks.
     “Yet such automated machinery can also bring about our demise. Hence we outlawed them. All the A.I. machinery. You may not recall that incident—it was famous, notorious as an example—where the English's prime minister sent the image of his sexual organs to the queen through this electric system—quite by accident, he insisted. It was the work of this artificial intelligence, certainly, yet the queen was not amused. That prime minister had to lose his personal parts to make amends. Pity. Yet we see what can be accomplished without our knowledge or our will. Embarrassment is the least of our concerns...."


Indeed, the opportunity to create a new world, regardless of its positive nature or hideous transformation, is one of the reasons I got into this author business. I liked imagining and stepping into a new situation, an escape from the mundane reality of junior high school or, as it is now, from the workplace. And some of us still enjoy playing God - or at least Emperor!

To be continued...

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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 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.