Giveaway of Book #1 in Progress

There is a giveaway of book #1, "The Saeshell Book of Time Part 1: The Death of Innocents"  in progress on the book series Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ChildrenOfSophista . Check it out!

Excerpt from Book #5: Tyco

#‎amwriting‬ Book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion", draft 6, 152,975 words, 71% complete on incorporating the professional edit. I thought I would treat you to a really intense passage around where I am editing.
{
Tyco raises his palm.

“What are you doing, Tyco,” Patrick asks. “My brother has given up.”

“I'm sorry you will have to suffer doing this,” says the Greeter softly. “Do it soon before they detonate me.”

The Greeter holds his head and jumps around like he is being electrocuted from inside, and then he stops. Stoically he says, “Do not defy us or I will detonate now.”

A black beam from Tyco slams the Greeter as if it is a machine gun shooting bricks. The little boy collapses to the ground, withering in agony as his glowing youthfulness struggles to repair itself, as if it merely has a skinned knee. Tyco calmly adjusts his palm to track the Greater as he crawls in the gravel, clawing with his bloody fingernails toward escape. Patrick looks at Tyco, shaking with fear.

“How do you like war, Patrick,” Tyco snaps. “Hang on, the best is yet to come.”

Black marbles surrounded by a faint blue glow stream up the beam from the Greeter and enter Tyco's hand.

“Man, this is going to take a while,” Tyco muses aloud. “He is definitely packed. They're lucky he didn't explode when they loaded them. I don't suppose you know the story of Dante's Inferno so that you could tell me while I'm doing this.”

“How can you... you... you be so brutal Tyco,” Patrick says in a quivering voice.

“War's hell, isn't it? I was hoping you could help me pass the time. This is awfully boring.”

“He's suffering.”

“So is the hive connected to him. I'm sure they are trying to detonate him now. Then they will try disconnecting but I've locked up that stupid mechanism they put in him. I'm going to pull it out in a minute when I've eaten all his singularities.”
}

Whence Comes the Owl

#IllustrationOfTheDay This illustration is derived from the cover of book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion". Below it is a poem from the book related to it.

 Whence Comes the Owl

The owls of immortals 
See unto eternity,
Sifting the sands of time,
Perceiving life 
Beyond present reality.

They were hurtled from oblivion,
Following the winds of change,
Watching the humans suffer,
From Chaos’s fiery rage.
They know the immortals imbued 
With the purity of time,
Their knowledge is power,
Flowing from beyond 
Synchronicity’s line.

The owls of immortals 
Sit high in the tree,
Trapped with the sands of time,
Surrounded by the corporeal sea.

Quote from Syon in Draft 6

#‎QUOTD‬ From Syon in draft 6 of Book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion" {

Syon frowns momentarily as he thinks, “I wish you were still my dad on the other timeline. From a being of infinite power and love to Leonard, a being of infinite hate… I am truly like a fallen angel—I have fallen from being the creator of fate to become its victim.”

}
Syon is comparing his dads: the one on the supernatural timeline vs. the one on the reality timeline that beats him.

Throwback to Matilda

#‎tbt‬ (a day early) ‪#‎matilda‬ Miss Trunchbull is coming to take you to Crunchem Hall School. Escape through the portal... Call Syon, he can open the portal. ‪#‎gifted 

In the novel, "Matilda", by Roald Dahl, a gifted and talented girl, who is persecuted by her crude family for reading books, must escape a fate of following in her father's criminal footsteps. She discovers that, in addition to her intellectual talents, she has the talent of telekinesis, which she uses to save her friends and beloved teacher from the evil bully called Miss Trunchbull, the head of the Crunchem Hall Primary School. She  becomes the adopted child of her favorite teacher.
 
By contrast, Syon in Book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion" is unable to save himself from his alcoholic parents and a father that incessantly beats him. Both his child and adult friends must come to save him. But there is more to Syon than being a mere genius. He controls the portal to a supernatural timeline where all his friends have enormous powers. Syon, himself, is the Master of Time on the supernatural timeline. If Syon's father kills him before his friends can save him, the portal from the reality timeline to the supernatural timeline will be closed forever. 

With spies and assassins complicating the rescue of Syon and a disaster in time on the supernatural timeline that causes the creation of the reality timeline, you will be kept in suspense for hours, that is when you are not crying about Syon. Book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion" will be released this summer.







‬

#amwriting status 3/8/15

#‎amwriting‬ Book #5, "The Owl from Oblivion", 148,901 words. I have gone through 34% of the professional editor's corrections and comments. This is getting really hard. According to my wife I have a phenomenal memory and according to the editor I am expecting the reader to remember too much. So the editor is challenging me to either delete characters or to further state their context and relevance, which for me seems a bit unnatural since I don't see a problem. Cough. Well this is why I have a professional editor look at things.

The editor is telling me to do this even if I have talked a lot about the characters in previous books. The editor tells me that it's been long enough that people won't remember. So my challenge is to write in informative helps on the characters to give some of the important background information on them without it sounding like a data dump. That is a very challenging task.

Illustration of the Day: Tova2's choices

#‎IllustrationOfTheDay‬ Which would you choose: preserve humanity and destroy your immortal love or let him live and humanity burn? In this scene, it's even worse: she must choose between Peter3 and the Great Sophistan being destroyed --- the creators of her new and powerful body who rescued her life --- or allowing the transformation of her immortal love into a new, powerful life form. Tova2 lives perpetually in conflict because she is the only one who could possible destroy Stefan if Stefan starts using his powers irrationally yet she also must protect the younger, vulnerable Stefan who she dearly loves. It is a difficult situation to be in.

The scene depicted occurs in Book #2: "The Saeshell Book of Time Part 2: The Rebirth of Innocents." Here is a higher resolution view of the scene.

Prototype for Tyco on the Reality Timeline

#‎IllustrationOfTheDay‬ I'm trying to come up with an illustration for Book #5 of Tyco on the reality timeline. This isn't it but it is the start of it. This is one illustration step away from the picture of the model. I've done the initial rough editing on it to try to get an idea if this model would make a good Tyco in the end. What do you think? Could this kid pass for Tyco, the fifth grade boy of Mayan descent? Ignore that he is wearing a blue shirt. In the real illustration, he would not be wearing that but something much more dramatic.