At The Bright Empire....

What a difference a few days make! Hardly had I posted the July 20 update of First Protector than Shadar was shaking his metaphorical head and arguing that the story just wasn't working. It didn't need updating, but relaunching, as two separate and yet related first-person narratives from the viewpoints of Kevin and Vespyr. He's busy with the first part now, and I've made some changes to the second, but I need to see his part before I fine-tune the details. I also have some new ideas about how to carry the story of Vespyr forward. But meanwhile, I'm getting ready to hit the road with Velvet to visit her family, and I want to give readers a going away present.

"Arden" is a short story Shadar wrote last fall as a one-shot. When he sent it to me, we'd just been hit by Hurricane Sandy, and although I read it at the time and did a few copyedits, it kind of fell between the cracks because I was caught up in other projects, including The Popcorn War, Empress of the Dawn and, of course, First Protector. As I said, "Arden" was intended as a one-shot. But it implicitly tied in with First Protector in featuring a Halfen (halfling) Aurean character, and it occurred to me to tie the two stories together explicitly – not in terms of plot, but in terms of background. It's set in what I imagine to be within the first two centuries of the Enlightenment, and one of the early Protectors figures off-stage. But the story itself is still the same. It's a love story with what romance fans call an HEA (Happily Ever After) ending.

www.brightempire.com/Arden.pdf

Book Two of Empress of the Dawn is almost finished today. One last chapter remains to be written, and that may be an anti-climax compared to "Necessary Murders." Here is where Kalla decides that she must become a killer in cold blood to save her adopted world Andros from a catastrophe even worse than it is already experiencing under the mad Patriarch Kyros.

I'd alluded to this eight years ago in a conversation between Kalla and Ju'lette I wrote for Homecoming II, knowing full well that I was writing myself into a corner. It was only three years ago that Empress of the Dawn itself, based on an outline by Shadar, began to appear, and only last year that I got to work on Book Two. But I knew all along I'd have to face up to having Kalla face up to what she had to do, and I knew I couldn't weasel out of it. So here it is, and I hope I've succeeded:

www.brightempire.com/Empress-2.pdf

I have also made some tweaks to the scene in Homecoming II, but only in a few details. And I've uploaded a slight revision to Book I of Empress, correcting a few glitches.

www.brightempire.com/Homecoming-2.pdf

www.brightempire.com/empress.pdf

Shadar might be weighing in this week. He's just returned from one long trip, and is soon to embark on another. The reboot of First Protector has been in abeyance for several weeks as a result, but I'v been working on my end.

--Brantley Thompson Elkins

www.brightempire.com/Empress-2.pdf

It's my birthday today, and I have something to show for it: finally, finally the final chapter of Empress of the Dawn 2, plus an epilogue that sets the stage for Empress of the Dawn 3 -- in which Kalla Zaver'el will spearhead a space program for Andros, and lead the world's defense against an Aurean attack.

It's taken longer than I expected to finish Part Two, because while the crucial events were clear in my mind, I needed to find a new way to lead up to them, and give them more substance, greater nuance. Moreover, I had to deal more effectively than I did before with the hard choices Kalla had made, and why she made them, and the pain that they brought to her.

Of course, there's also a teaser at the end about Alexius. He'll appear again in Part Three, but he already appears in the epilogue of Homecoming 3, and will play a part with Vespyr in First Protector -- not that he can have any idea of such a destiny at the tender age of 16!

--Brantley

Happy birthday, Brantley... will be off to read the new episodes soon. Thanks,

Shadar

Happy Birthday Brantley. Thanks for sharing Empress 2.

Happy Birthday.

Now I have to get to work on Part Three!

--Brantley

Was hoping to work more on FIRST PROTECTOR for a Winter Solstice update, but details of that depend on an update of what is now a prequel by Shadar, which is still delayed. I could also do an update of EMPRESS OF THE DAWN with a first installment of Part Three, but the details haven't gelled yet.

And then I thought of SHORE LEAVE. Last spring I fiddled with Shadar's old version in connection with another story about Alisa Liddell, PASSION PLAY. But PASSION PLAY didn't get much readership because it couldn't just rehash the events of SHORE LEAVE as part of her background, but without that background it's impossible for the reader to understand where she's coming from. So now I'm taking another look at SHORE LEAVE and its two sequels, trying to do a bit more world-building (The façade of Rostran versus the reality), and clear up some confusion of the whys and wherefores and multiple conflicting motives, and take a more serious look at what it will mean to Alisa and Andre Kalik -- who are the real center of the story, however spectacular the events around them. I may also tweak a couple of other stories to accommodate this, and will do major surgery on PASSIONPLAY.

--Brantley

Busy with Part One. Changed one name to avoid confusion, and have rearranged some chapters to better convey the timeline of the story. Plus I'm using a few less mundane titles for key Rostran characters.

--Brantley

Reboot time!

www.brightempire.com/ShoreLeave1.htm

It’s been just over ten years since Shadar posted the original version of THE GWYNDYLIN –first book of the Shore Leave series – at Aurora Universe: Other Worlds. Last April, I mirrored the most recent edit at The Bright Empire (along with the second book, PRIMAL WAR) to tie in with a new Alisa Liddell story, PASSION PLAY.

At the time Shadar was writing Shore Leave, I was still working on the last episodes of ORDINARY VELORIANS – the series he had begun in 2002 that had introduced Alisa Liddell. Earlier in 2003, he had posted “Alisa’s Story,” the account of her (ill-fated, as it turned out) affair with Captain Peter Durgin aboard the Anders Flame. Even before that, I’d given her a part in THRONE OF THE GODS, and made her a lead character in “Pictures of an Expedition,” a prequel to Throne and sequel to Shore Leave – then still in the final stages of composition. But a lot has happened over the past decade, including another major Alisa Liddell story, ENCOUNTER AT WESTFOLD, and in looking over Shore Leave recently, I thought it was time for an overhaul of the mirrored version – and even time (Shudder!) to make a stab at completing the series – the third part of which has been in virtual limbo since 2004. That’s a major gap in the Alisa Liddell saga, as is a yet-unwritten story of what befell Andre Liddell at the Lost City of the Old Galactics. This reboot is part of the groundwork for that.

Some of the changes are only a matter of convenience. There were characters named Tyla and Tala, and Mara and Marla, which might be confusing to some readers, so I changed the latter in each case to Frida and Gudrid – old Nordic names, those. I also decided to Nordicise some titles – Prester for priest and Lawgiver for senator, both actually adopted by the progeny of Vikings after they became acquainted with the rest of Europe. Prester was a variation of Presbyter (hence the Presbyterian Church), but in Medieval times it also took on the meaning of patriarch, notably in the legend of a Christian kingdom in Africa ruled by a Prester John (possibly inspired by vague reports about Ethiopia). Of course, here signifies a matriarch. Kirke, likewise, was the Nordic word for church.

Shadar had described Tala, head of the Gwyndylyn salon as “Mother Superior,” but I thought that was confusing because it made the salon seem like strictly a religious order – and yet it is locked in a power struggle with the Church. So besides changing her name to Frida, I made her title Heysta (Highest), and had Mara Kaltquest address her as such. In the same vein, “bishop” seemed an odd title for the head of the Lawgivers (senators), so I replaced that with Vorstaler (a Nordic portmanteau word for First Speaker, a term used in sf by both Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven). In the case of Marla (now Gudrid), the new terminology clarifies her role in playing a double game as a disgraced former Gwyndylyn now working secretly for the Kirke. One other thing: to be consistent with my other AU3 stories, I toned down the effects of a Velorian removing her gold – that could cause some real problems in tight situations.

Despite making these changes, I wanted to keep the complications of Rostran political intrigue – and how Alisa and Andre and then Durgin and his men become unwittingly involved in them. I wanted to keep the problematic details, such as the roles of the child woman Lara and the Goddess Tyla/Aayla, and the connection between Sanctuary and Rostran. And I wanted to keep the raunch – can a Shadar classic be stripped of its raunch and remain worth reading? But for me the core of the story is the development of the relationship between Andre and Alisa, even if they don’t realize it yet, and the extant version seemed to lose track of that – Andre disappears from the story after his chance encounter with the human underground (and is hardly mentioned in Primal War).

Alisa sometimes seems slow on the uptake – from the start, I thought it was important for her to come up with a theory to account for the origin of the Rostrans, based on what the Culture Section thought it knew about the time it had been settled. When she learns from Lara that Durgin is launching a rescue mission, she seems slow on the emotional uptake, her reaction is just too casual. I wanted to convey how fearful she must be about in face of what may happen – and how frustrated that she can’t do anything about it. For a hard-headed scientist, moreover, she seems all too gullible during her tête-à-tête with Excelsia, coming out of it as practically a convert to the Rostran cause – like the “useful idiots” on Earth who bought into Soviet-style Communism in the 20th Century and are buying into religious fundamentalism (Christian or Islamic) in the twenty-first. So it my version, she is playing a game – a game which she can only hope to win. That’s not to say Alisa won’t make mistakes, in this or other stories, but the very last thing I want her to be is a useful idiot.

But I’m trying to remain faithful to the spirit, if not always the letter, of the original story. You won’t catch me trashing a crucial Aurora Universe story the way J.J. Abrams has trashed STAR TREK!

--Brantley

You've been busy, Brantley! My goodness. You are the awesome at extending, connecting and fixing the problems that came from my being more interested in making new stuff than with fixing and pulling together what I left behind.

But I love reading what you do with my old stuff, and how you add such interesting new angles and tweaks on characters. Also the great writing you do in putting together stories that knit the AU together.

I am also enormously pleased that you are doing a JJ Abrams on the AU. I am literally unable to watch his Star Trek "adaptions". I try, I look for the good (I love Star Trek), but I just can't do it.

Of course. Peter Jackson isn't doing so well on the Hobbit now either. The LOTR movies were pretty good (except for the growing trend toward violence by the third movie), but now Peter's gone completely into gratuitous, video-game level violence. (On the other hand, Evangeline Lily is hot -- she just didn't have very good writing.)

But I can't resist seeing any movie that deals about Middle Earth. I need to see Desolation of Smaug one several times before I talk too much about it. An Unexpected Journey grew on me after a few viewings.

Shadar

shadar wrote: You've been busy, Brantley! My goodness. You are the awesome at extending, connecting and fixing the problems that came from my being more interested in making new stuff than with fixing and pulling together what I left behind.

Shadar

Speaking of "new stuff," how about the lead-in to FIRST PROTECTOR? I would have done more of the story of Vespyr's journey to Velor, maybe even finished it by now, if...

--Brantley

By the way, ever hear of her? Was she around in 2003, I wonder:

twitter.com/theyarndemon

--Brantley

Just realized I had to make another tweak early on, regarding the physics paper Andre and Alisa are working on. No reason for an imminent deadline when they're way out in space; presumably the paper could be presented only when they get back home.

Hope that's all. Happy Winter Solstice, everyone!

--Brantley

Anon wrote: Usually I'm [not] too interested in the AU, not because I don't recognize the effort and the quality of the story, but rather because it's too big of a deal for me. Even so I can't but plaude at such a monumental effort from Brantley. Excellent work is all I can say.

THE GWYNDYLYN was Shadar's story to begin with, and is still mostly his. The same will be true of PRIMAL WAR. But the third part, CHANGING GODDESSES, will be at least half mine because Shadar and his collaborators got bogged down and lost any sense of direction. I hope he'll return to writing other AU fiction. We'll see...

Shadar (then posing as "Sharon Best") was my inspiration back in 2002, and even later. COMPANIONS and EMPRESS OF THE DAWN were both inspired by ideas of his, but the writing was all mine.

--Brantley

Thank God for JJ ABrams and his new take on StarTrek. He's essentially wiped out 30 years of nonsense, And his ST movies rocked. Don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of the old stuff.....But after mistake, after mistake....Nonsense after nonsense I'm relieved that in a way.....All those episodes with gigantic plot holes left unattended by future episodes, have effectively been wiped out, as if they never even happened

I agree about how Abrams has wiped out everything as if it never happened. He's completely reinvented Star Trek. What was lost was the original humanity, emotion and humor, along with that sense of optimism about the future. A vision that humans would become better, less warlike and more evolved and more humane. That's all gone, and that's what I loved. Its been replaced by gratuitous violence committed by people with the maturity of teenagers.

It would have been better if Abrams hadn't used the label Star Trek and had come up with something else that he acknowledged was "inspired by Star Trek".

But... one thing about attempts to remake movies... you get a lot of different (and strong) opinions about the process and results. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and they all weigh about the same when placed on the scale.

Shadar

d_k_c wrote: Thank God for JJ ABrams and his new take on StarTrek. He's essentially wiped out 30 years of nonsense, And his ST movies rocked. Don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of the old stuff.....But after mistake, after mistake....Nonsense after nonsense I'm relieved that in a way.....All those episodes with gigantic plot holes left unattended by future episodes, have effectively been wiped out, as if they never even happened

For some reason, there have been a lot of hits recently on my 2005 story "Houseguest." Maybe random Googlers have been looking for some other story or article with the same title. But I just looked at it myself, and saw that it needed some minor edits (mainly updating Arion references to Aurean). And it's closer to the kind of ubergirl fic SWM fans like to read than my usual (these days) stuff. So you might want to check it out.

www.brightempire.com/Houseguest.html

--Brantley

I've just noticed that clicking on the link using Safari as a browser brings up the new version, whereas on Firefox I get the old version on my former office computer but the new version on my laptop. Can anyone tell me if they're having the same problem?

--Brantley

brantley wrote: I've just noticed that clicking on the link using Safari as a browser brings up the new version, whereas on Firefox I get the old version on my former office computer but the new version on my laptop. Can anyone tell me if they're having the same problem?

--Brantley

Using Bing and even Dogpile search engines at Firefox, as opposed to Google, brings up the Dec. 21 update at this computer. Internet Explorer as well as Safari works. Just why I'm having problems with Firefox I don't know, but the Start page for this computer (which I got from the office as part of my retirement package) includes an appeal for donations by Mozilla, whereas the Start page on my laptop doesn't. Hope it isn't a shakedown. Anyway, use Safari or Internet Explorer or Bing or Dogpile for:

www.brightempire.com/ShoreLeave1.htm

--Brantley

The link works with Firefox as well(V26). The pictures of the old version have been removed?

somat

somat wrote: The link works with Firefox as well(V26). The pictures of the old version have been removed?

somat

The pictures were exclusive to Shadar's original version of the story at Aurora Universe: Other Worlds. They never appeared in the mirrored version at The Bright Empire. Incidentally, I've noticed that on my desk computer's Firefox display, the Dec . 21 version comes up if I delete the www from the address and re-click on the URL.

--Brantley

www.brightempire.com/ShoreLeave2.htm

We can't compete with Super Sunday, and there isn't even any reference to Scrumbles in today's update at The Bright Empire. But we hope veteran fans of the AU will want to know more about how the game is afoot on Rostran in a revised version of the second episode of Shadar's Shore Leave, which originally appeared at AUOW a decade ago.

Updating Shore Leave is a challenge, and it's been even more of a challenge with Primal War. It isn't just a question of what happens, but who knows what – and when. The last time we saw Andre Kalik in The Gwyndylyn, he had accidentally made contact with the underground of Ordinary humans. Only, he drops out of the story after that, and never appears in the original version of Primal War. Alisa makes it clear in that version that she meant for him to be enhanced, even though she had never brought that up in conversation with him or (except by implication) with Gudrid. That makes for a story line I thought worth pursuing in new chapters for this version, which also has to account for Gudrid's interest in his enhancement -- and for why he and Alisa are kept apart. The fact that they long for each other, but neither realizes their longing is reciprocated, adds some spice to the relationship. But that will have to be further addressed only in Changing Goddesses. Durgin's awakening from enhancement by Lara is also being deferred, as I think his recovery time would be longer than Alisa's. NB: If you're using Firefox, and it takes you to April 2013 version of Primal War, you can access the new version by pasting the link into the URL box of Safari or Internet Explorer.

--Brantley