Monthly Archives: February 2025

Making notes now for future reference.

I think we’ll all agree that this past winter in the Northern Hemisphere has been…something. Between atmospheric rivers, horrendous fires, wobbly polar vortexes, and more, it’s been a wild ride (some might say it’s reflective of the current international political scene and far be it from me to disagree with that).

Locally, it’s been something. While the mountains started getting snow in October, the high mountain valley was…well, something to be worried about because neither rain nor snow was happening in any amount, definitely enough to be concerned about with regard to groundwater supply. It got cold and the ground froze. Oh, we had moments of light snow followed by ice, enough to be a concern for me about riding Marker at anything more than a walk or fox trot because the ground was hard enough to emulate concrete.

Then we got a wet spell where everything turned soggy. I became concerned about old Mocha’s feet–for good reason because she developed a small abscess in one hoof, enough to set off a significant limp. Her history of white line disease made me worry even more as we progressed through December, then January, without significant snow.

Well, that started changing in late January/early February. We started getting snow, and temperatures plunged below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on the location of the reporter, those temps ranged from -4 F to -27 F.

Quite a variance.

February was the month of snow. We ended up with about a foot and a half of it.

But now it’s almost March, and the weather is warming up. It’s almost as if February was, basically, our entire winter. Which…the rapid warming creates its own issues. A foot and a half of snow doesn’t go away quietly, especially when the ground is still frozen. It runs off. It pools in every low spot possible, including under existing snowbanks. Encountering a sudden squish-squish that means there’s a bunch of water hiding under that snow is always entertaining…NOT.

Plus with all that water sitting in places where it can’t run off quickly ends up being nervous-making when the temperatures drop. We’re not likely to have another intense cold spell where 32 F is the high, turning everything into a dangerous ice slick, but…

Until we get consistent warming and the ground thaws, I’m nervous. In part that’s because it’s clear this is old Mocha’s last winter. Her knees have gotten even bigger with arthritic changes, and a veterinary examination confirmed what I was thinking–this is her last winter. When I go to pick up a front hoof she can barely bend the lower leg to a 40 degree angle. Not good…and that portends the likelihood that she may go down and not be able to get up again without help. Especially if things ice up again.

That leads to all sorts of potentially awful situations, especially since old mare has made it known that after spending her first fifteen years in a stall, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with one ever again.

Ideally, her trip over the Rainbow Bridge will happen on a warm day with lots of love and treats beforehand before that last walk to the burial hole. Or she’ll go to sleep in the field during the summer and not wake up. In both those scenarios, while getting her body out of a pasture might prove to be a challenge, it’s not as awful as the possibility that she would go down in a storm when the ground is frozen, and freeze to death.

Right now she’s on a painkiller and moving better. That’s not a good long-term situation because those meds can be hard on a gut. So she gets extra probiotics and attention, along with a heavy blanket and neck wrap. All the same, it’s a sad time because I know what’s coming. She’s had a good twenty-five years, and the last ten have allowed her to live outside like a horse should, in a herd.

Anyway. That’s a reality I’m going to be sitting with throughout 2025.

Now I’m watching for signs of spring. There’s one ambitious daffodil bulb in the front yard that may be growing even faster than crocus. Soon I’ll be exchanging insulated boots for mud boots. Marker may be getting his road riding boots on regularly soon.

I’m not quite ready for spring yet but–I am looking forward to it. For Mocha’s sake as well as my own.

Like what you’ve read? Want to help defray the cost of treats for the horses? Feel free to drop a contribution to my Ko-fi here.

Welcome! This year I’m creating a set of posts/blogs/whatever you want to call them about the “story-behind-the story” for my backlist. This month, my final work (for now) in the Martiniere Family Saga—the story of one powerful family, across several universes is one of my featured series for discussion.

Housekeeping note: all related posts will be linked at the bottom.

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“I’m sorry, Rubes. I have to go.”

“No. Gramps says we’ll figure out something to keep the three of us safe. Get Mike and Vickie to activate that Home Guard they’ve been talking about to protect us.” Her arms tightened around him. “Damn it, Gabe, no. Please. I love you.”

“I love you too, but it’s not safe for me to stay.”

“Bullshit. We’ll find a way, damn it, Gabriel Martiniere. If you run, it means that fucker wins. If I have to spend the rest of my life packing a weapon and watching our backs, so be it. I want you. Here. With me. Forever.”

The Cost of Power: Return

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The Cost of Power. This trilogy has always been one that lurked at the back of my planning brain during the times I was writing what became the Martiniere Family Saga, especially as it evolved into a multiverse story. I had ambitious plans for Power and…I really didn’t achieve everything I wanted to do with it, in part because other notions crept in that blew the story up in a large fashion.

One of those pieces is the Carolingian element. It wasn’t until I neared the end of Book Three that I realized I had subconsciously been channeling pieces of The Song of Roland into the development of Gabriel Martiniere. I knew about the Melusine element and wrote it into the story early on, but the inciting feud between the Melusine and the Lorelei really didn’t come into shape until I consciously dredged up Roland as well as some other, related mythos tied to Ys and other European stories—and I will be the first to admit that my take is probably not as informed as it should be. I tend to dodge too much involvement in European-origin mythos because my personal connection to Europe is pretty tenuous after three hundred-or-so years of my family being in North America.

(That’s a discussion for another essay.)

Fortunately, I’d planned to release the trilogy after all three books were completed. I’d learned my lesson about dealing with continuity in both the Netwalk Sequence and Goddess’s Honor series, and had come to terms with the reality that no matter how careful my worldbuilding tends to be, the creative brain behind the characters ends up throwing me some curve balls later on which reveal motivations behind what happened earlier in the story that can significantly affect the early pieces of the plot.

My original notion, though, was an examination of just what power might cost those who achieve it. Ruby and Gabe pay a price big time in health, in challenges to their relationship, and in what they lose to balance out what they gain. While I wanted to explore impacts of the mind control technology developed by the Martinieres, I also wanted to consider redemptive elements.

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Philip exhaled. “I’ve been a shit of a father. To you, Justine, and Joseph. I admit it. I probably will need to keep admitting it. I fucked you over worst of all, Gabriel. And for that, I am so, so fucking sorry. I just—I wanted you to be mine. When I saw just how much like me you already were, in all the ways I didn’t want to see myself replicated, I—” he raised his hands, a sad, defeated expression on his face. “I couldn’t stand it. I fucked up. I’m just grateful that you and Justine have turned out well, in spite of me.”

The Cost of Power: Return

Enter Power’s version of Philip Martiniere, Gabe’s father. In other Martiniere universes, Philip is vicious. Nasty. Downright evil. Narcissistic. Sociopathic.

You get the picture.

And yet—at times I got glimpses of Philip’s potential, even when writing him as someone awful. His clone, Mike, definitely showed that Philip didn’t have to be horrible. I decided that one of the secondary stories in Power would be Philip’s redemptive journey—tied to that mind control technology. But one of the pieces that also came out was the close relationship between Philip and his younger brother Gerard. Gerry acted as a modulating influence on Philip in the world of Power, providing him with a center that he didn’t have in other worlds.

The role of mind control technology, egged on more and more by supernatural and quasi-supernatural elements, grew bigger. The feud between two aristocratic families, the Martinieres and the Brauns, became a bigger element than existed in almost any other piece of the Martiniere Family Saga, except for A Different Life: What If?, where the Brauns first emerged as a major counterpoint to the Martinieres. Both families are somewhat the tools of tutelary spirits who play out their own feuds through their human descendants (the Martinieres, from the Melusine; the Brauns, from the Lorelei) over the span of centuries, going back to…the Carolingian era.

More and more pieces came together. A Cold War background to the current day feud between the Martinieres and the Brauns. The role of a distant ancestor, Etienne Martiniere, who escaped Napoleon by getting into the North American fur trade. Etienne’s enduring influence upon the Martinieres up to the present day. The creation of rituals that tie the generations of Martinieres together, including traditions such as the Family Call.

Who goes there?

Martinieres.

Who are the Martinieres?

We are the fighters!

What do the Martinieres do?

We stand and fight!

My notion of the Martinieres as a close-knit, aristocratic extended family with a tradition of being fighters and brawlers came to the fore. Ruby’s first exposure to just what becoming a Martiniere might mean is when she first sees Gabe initiating the Family Call to confirm the identity of the security force arriving to protect them. Developing that tradition explained a lot about Gabe’s upbringing, including military school, learning how to fight, and submitting to mind control programming as a means by Martiniere elders to manage their youngers, especially after the events of the 1960s and ‘70s.

But the existence of that sort of centuries-long aristocratic family tradition is also an element of this particular world. The world of Power, while it has many similarities to our own, has corporate power and influence being much more significant in ruling structures. Indentured servitude came about in the early 21^st century. There’s also a powerful, toxic, religious cult known as the Electric Born with an elite subgroup called Heaven’s Reach that engages in massive genetic experimentation using elements stolen from the Martinieres, amongst other things.

Eventually, every major character in the book ends up dealing with their own relationship to power and what they’re willing to pay to gain it. Some end up submitting to a more powerful person—the villain Nathan Bonham is one of those. Another is Terence Braun, for whom the choice becomes power or close family. Not all are willing to pay the ultimate price, such as Gabe’s cousin Joey.

A significant piece of redemption in The Cost of Power is that everyone pays the price to achieve it—or else they’re ultimately doomed to fail. Gabe screws up in a particularly nasty way near the end of Book Two, Crucible. The price he pays for his mistakes is horrific but—he accepts it and works to expiate his wrongs. Philip has his own atonement arc.

But they aren’t the only ones…for there are digital thought clones who can cross universes, as can Fae spirits the Melusine and the Lorelei. Those beings end up dealing with their own payment for power, across the multiverse, in their own way.

How on earth could I manage to bring in fur trappers, mind control technology, digital thought clones, Fae, rodeo queens and more? I managed it…somehow. I’ve called The Cost of Power the book of my heart—and there’s a lot of truth to that statement. That said, it’s also somewhat a failed ambition, because while it’s probably one of the best things I’ve written, it’s also one of the most difficult to promote. I didn’t quite reach what I wanted in that book, but…I came close.

If you only read one thing in the Martiniere Family Saga, however, this trilogy is it.

The Cost of Power omnibus edition, including the books Return, Crucible, and Redemption as well as worldbuilding outtake snippets, is currently on sale in ebook for $3.99 at all major ebook outlets and can be requested through library apps.

I’d be honored if you checked it out.

https://books2read.com/thecostofpower

I’m not one of those people who stops riding my horse in the winter. Oh, I understand the challenge of garbing up, trudging through snow, dealing with wind and chill, and so on. But short of an outright storm, I’m on horseback with a regular schedule, even in the winter. And even in the face of a storm, there are times when I’ll still be out there. I didn’t let weather stop my skiing when I was a regular downhill skier (except when conditions made it hazardous to get to the ski area, or shut down the lifts), and I use much of the same gear I used for skiing for my riding. Ski base layers for the win whether we’re talking horseback riding or skiing.

That doesn’t mean my winter riding looks like summer riding. Or that I’m doing the same things with Marker that I did with Mocha. For one thing, he’s a strong young horse who to date lacks significant soundness issues. For another, he’s actually easier to ride in the winter than Mocha. She wore front shoes year-round to support the trim appropriate to keep her in work—complex and problematic hooves on the old lady. Plus, as an older horse, I didn’t want to push her.

But Marker boy has big, good, solid feet and he doesn’t need shoes. Between that and the quirks of his gaited breeding, he seems to handle winter riding conditions much better than the old lady did.

Still, as we progress from mud to ice to a foot and a half of snow, Marker’s winter riding looks a lot different from Mocha’s. I did much more pattern work on her than I do him—doesn’t mean he doesn’t work in patterns, just that we have other priorities right now.

For one thing, when the snow got as deep as it is now, I rarely took Mocha away from paths plowed by the barn owner in the field. We ended up doing some complicated must-avoid-certain-horses movements because of her status in the herd as we followed those trails. Deep snow meant pretty much walk or trot with Mocha even on the paths, due to her age, strength, soundness, and dealing with the side effects of her wearing shoes.

Ugh. Snow and horseshoes are a pain. Snow tends to ball up in horseshoes, and can create up to two-inch-high stilts before the ball finally flips out of the shoe…if it does. There are several different types of pads that can be used to supposedly make dealing with shoes in snow easier. They kinda worked. Not well. There were times when I needed to carry a hoof pick and plan to dismount because Mocha couldn’t flip the snowballs out of her front feet, or she could flip one but not the other. And there was one winter where I went through several cans of cooking spray because that was the only thing that really helped the ice break loose in those feet. Even with Mocha’s pads.

Not a problem with a barefooted horse.

More than that, Marker is one of the medium status horses in the field. He doesn’t get bothered by riding near the herd, and the herd doesn’t fuss about him going by or try to push him away. We’ll still avoid horses eating hay because that’s just polite, but it’s not about keeping away from horses that make him anxious. He doesn’t get anxious around the herd, not like Mocha did. That may also be the difference between a mare, for whom the herd is more important, and a gelding who, while he likes being part of a herd, doesn’t have the same drive to be with them all the time.

Marker also handles the deep snow better. He starts out at a slower walk than Mocha, in part because he’s feeling out the footing. If he has a question about it, he asks for a longer rein so that he can lower his head to examine the footing. While Mocha started out in the same speed of walk that she continued throughout the ride, I’ve noticed that the first quarter mile or so with Marker is him settling into footing with a rider. I can tell when he’s warmed up and ready to do more because his rhythm changes. He moves out with confidence. Doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer, it seems he needs that time to settle in.

This winter, we’ve been working on canter and bareback riding. We’ll start the canter on the paths, in areas that aren’t too slick. Then we move to the deeper, untracked snow. I keep those stretches short because they’re more work. But I also am using the deep snow canters as short conditioning for strength—something he’s needed to develop. He plows right through those short intervals—all in straight lines, no circles like I used to do with Mocha in shallower snow. We’ll probably move to circles when the snow is less deep, but for now, a short interval on one lead in deep snow, then a walk break, then a second interval on the other lead in deep snow is appropriate.

Bareback is something I’m still figuring out with him. He’s pretty bouncy in deep snow so we keep it at a walk, and not in the field but in a right of way that allows for work by the road (to keep him tuned up for spring road work) and small serpentines. Mocha was always a difficult horse to ride bareback for very long. She has a sharp spine no matter how much topline she builds up, even with the cushioning of a bareback pad. Plus the old lady is pretty catty and agile, thanks to her reining and cutting horse breeding. At most I could tolerate about half an hour riding her bareback before I needed to get off.

Marker, on the other hand, has a nice flat topline that’s broad across his back. My biggest challenge is managing that round belly of his—apparently a Foxtrotter characteristic. I have to move my legs a couple of inches further ahead than I would riding bareback on Mocha to find a secure placement. But, once I’m settled in, he’s a nice ride and I don’t have that aching need to get off before I feel like I’m being split in half like I did with Mocha.

There are other parts to winter riding. Looking at tracks in the snow. Admiring the mountains. Spotting birds. Mocha was always about go-go-go, even in snow. She would also find things she wanted to show me in the field—where a cow got through the fence, and places that worried her for some reason. One time she showed me a fawn leg where a predator or scavenger had dragged it into the field (culprit could have been anything from an eagle taking advantage of roadkill to a coyote or something else). Marker is happy to just go along, going places away from the plowed paths.

Winter riding is a slower pace, with different goals. It’s more relaxed. And cantering through the snow is the closest I get to the thrill of downhill skiing these days. Now that Marker’s gotten the feel of doing it with a rider, it’s really fun to go flying through the snow on horseback, popping up in my stirrups to keep the weight off of his back (better for him in deep going).

It takes me back to those younger days on horseback, when I was mostly a self-taught rider on half-trained horses. Only now, at sixty-seven, I have the knowledge and skill of many years and multiple trainers. But putting Marker into a canter through deep snow brings back the thrill of those early days on horseback. I can almost capture the feel and freedom of that young girl.

And that sensation is…priceless.

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Like what you’ve just read? Feel free to buy me a coffee! Or check out my sale books, including The Cost of Power: Omnibus Edition for $3.99 at all ebook vendors through the end of February! Three books plus bonus matter…such a deal!

Welcome! This year I’m creating a set of posts/blogs/whatever you want to call them about the “story-behind-the story” for my backlist. This month, the Martiniere Multiverse is one of my featured universes for discussion—that is, the duology specifically identified as “Martiniere Multiverse.” This label refers primarily to the two books: A Different Life: What If? and A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. Otherwise, they’re overall a part of what I’m calling the Martiniere Family Saga, which spreads across multiple universes. There are also a couple of short stories which loosely tie into the Multiverse that are included in this grouping.

Housekeeping note: all related posts will be linked at the bottom.

The seed of the Martiniere Multiverse…

“We wouldn’t have met if this hadn’t happened.”

“We would have,” Gabe said. “Only I would have met you as Gabriel Martiniere, potential Martiniere-in-waiting, looking for talented bot developers to bolster my qualifications to succeed Saul as the Martiniere. Not as Gabe Ramirez, broke saddle bronc rider.”

“You really think so?” Ruby looked up at him.

“One of your competition bots from high school caught Cousin Arthur’s attention when I was interning in his agricultural technology division during my time at the University of Paris. If it hadn’t been for Philip’s insistence that I start work in the Los Angeles labs, and—my testimony in US vs Martiniere Group—I would have approached you during your junior year at Oregon State. Talked to you about considering a future with the Group. If Saul had survived, Philip’s notions about women in positions of power wouldn’t have dominated the Group, and the Martiniere Grant that died with Saul would have been available to you. Hell, I would have been the person interviewing you for it. I have no doubts that you would have become quite the force in the labs, even without our relationship. But I like to think we would have gotten together.”

From The Enduring Legacy, published 2022

Before I wrote this part of The Enduring Legacy, I hadn’t really considered alternatives to any of the books or series I’d written before then. Gabe’s musings in this circumstance—a funeral where he and Ruby visit the graves of his family, killed in a plane crash when he was twelve—sparked off some ideas, especially since I was developing short projects to publish on Kindle Vella. I started wondering—just what would this alternative version of Gabe and Ruby have looked like?

A short dabble led to more as I developed this different world, with a different life. A world that didn’t go into mind control technology issues. A world where climate change was a greater concern, shaping even the availability of food items for the wealthy. A world where political change was happening more rapidly than in the four books of the main Martiniere Legacy.

What would that world look like, and how would Ruby and Gabe be different from who they were in the Martiniere Legacy?

This time around I also set out to write a story where the early stages of a romance are featured, front and center. Oh, I have relationships written up in other books, but even in the other Martiniere books (with the exception of Broken Angel), the early days of Gabe and Ruby’s life together isn’t depicted in any sort of detail. The Martiniere Legacy picks up thirty years after Ruby and Gabe got together, and twenty-one years after their divorce. We see them in the process of recreating their relationship in the Legacy. In The Cost of Power, we see them after they’ve been together for four years.

So. What would things look like if Ruby had met Gabe as Gabriel Martiniere, not Gabe Ramirez? Would there have been less trauma? More trauma? What about Gabe’s biological father and his toxic cousin—and the relationship he would have had with his younger sister if she had not died in that crash at age six? I look at those questions in A Different Life: What If?

Then I started wondering about peripheral couples, and a potential romance between Gabe and Ruby’s executive assistants presented itself. Plus that book—A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever.—also set up the potential for seeing just what happened to Ruby and Gabe after the dramatic ending of What If? Linda and Armand started talking to me, especially Linda with her…connections to a rising political star in a United States that is becoming more oppressive. Overall, Armand and Linda have a rosier prospective future in this universe. And creating Armand Martiniere allowed me to show what one of the lower-level heirs in that family would be like. Not with as much baggage as Gabe lugs around from his past, no matter what universe he’s in, but still raised with similar structures and expectations.

Linda and Armand from Now. Always. Forever. show up as minor characters in The Cost of Power. Their love is as intense as Ruby and Gabe’s—but perhaps less star-crossed than those two.

These books are probably two of the least science fictional works I’ve written, except that they’re set in a different near-future than would be directly extrapolated from our world, as well as the multiversal elements. Ruby’s development of agricultural biobots still play a role, however. As far as I know, current tech hasn’t gone that far—yet. Gabe’s use of solar-powered electric hybrid private jets is nowhere on the horizon—as far as I know. There’s also a subtheme of corporate dominance and power which, based on my assessment, points to a future where we’ll see more of that sort of thing happening (that said, corporate hijinks are something I find myself writing about when it comes to science fiction. For whatever reason, I’m more comfortable writing about that than I am political hijinks, despite similar experiences).

Stay tuned for more discussion of these elements.

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Buy link for A Different Life: What If?

Buy link for A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever.

And if you’ve already bought the books, feel free to buy me a coffee!