-
SFFSat, March 10th, 2012: a snippet from The Jade Star of Athering
During a break on the march to Southland, Agate takes an opportunity to tell her women about their mission — and encounters some resistance. While her women sat, scattered across the road in a rough semi-circle, chewing on their rations, she spoke clearly and quietly. No one said anything, for her women were loyal, and…
-
SFFSat: Drunken confessions continued
This week’s snippet is a continuation of last week’s, posted here. It caught her completely off guard. She swallowed convulsively in the raw emotion crackling the air. She grasped at her old, Umbra-may-care mood, but her jesting tone fell flat. “What, you’d sacrifice your life for me?” His look didn’t waver, but a small smile,…
-
SFFSat: Drunken confessions from Bellica
Today’s entry is a conversation snippet between Bellica Yarrow and Major Caelum from Bellica. Yarrow is the Empress’s best bellica, and yet she feels herself descending into madness: she committed a crime she has no memory of committing. After a night of drinking, she confesses her actions to her second, Caelum, and his reaction surprises…
-
SFFSat, Feb 4th: a snippet from Bellica
In this snippet, Bellica Anala is attempting a daring escape from an enemy nation where she has been held captive in a drugged state. This is from my recently released novel Bellica, now available on Kindle. Through some stroke of luck she made it to the stables, where a young groom got another sleeper…
-
SFFSat January 28th: Bellica Agate prays at the temple
This is an excerpt from The Jade Star of Athering, a sequel to Dead Transgressions set 10,000 years later and right after the events in Bellica. Bellica Agate has been ordered to travel to Southland to negotiate with the army of Gypsies and their Queen that have laid siege to the province. She decides to…
-
SFFSat January 7th: Adra visits Harbourtown
From my Nanowrimo novel, Dead Transgressions. Adrasteia, the half-Atherian, half-Ixilean hero, is currently visiting Harbourtown with Duke Leandros of Aeril, the brother of the woman she’s sworn to protect from a plot by the Children of IxChel, intent on reclaiming their people’s Jade Star. The Duke has taken Adra on a small tour of the…
-
SFFSat: Adrasteia practices her bad-ass Detective look.
This is a detective story, but it’s in a fantasy setting. Magic and technology are sort of the same thing in this place. She rummaged around in the top drawer for her gun holster. Something she hadn’t worn for a while now — she couldn’t afford ammo recharges, and she hadn’t been on any jobs…
-
SFFSat: a glance at the life of an Aradian Priestess
(Crossposted here.) In this chapter, High Priestess Sarai has just given her younger brother Jules a reading from the Deck of Aradia — the Aradian Order’s main divination tool. She is discussing the results of the reading, which trouble her deeply, with her spouse Kara. The cards were hardly ever wrong. But my interpretation could…
-
SFFSat: the Magi awakes
The beginning to Rosa’s first chapter, in which she awakes after three hundred years of sleep. The awakening from her dream-state had been brutal. In 3721 of the Third Age, Atherian Calendar, when she had secluded herself in her tower and banished herself to a half-life – an unconscious state her kind could reach, in…
-
SFFSat: most of my characters live within serious danger of cirrhosis
Yarrow makes fun of Jules for getting buzzed off noge** instead of ale, and some good-natured competition ensues… “Sure. That, or you have nearly no tolerance.”He raised his eyebrows at her, leaning back in his chair and looking as superior as Jules could. “I’ll have you know I could outdrink you with any beverage, Bellica,”…