Peak Amygdala

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 Goddess’s Honor series, my non-European high fantasy books, are the focus.

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

I’ve never been a fan of hard and fast magic systems with a set of consistent rules. In part that’s because consistent, hard magic systems might as well be technology, at least in my opinion. Hard magic systems are simply a different form of technology and, well, if you want those, dig into the ties to tech (and right now creative brain is saying well, aren’t the systems you wrote into Netwalk and the Martiniere books hard magic under the guise of tech? Maybe…but while Netwalk rules are discoverable, there’s a lot in the mind control and digital thought clone realms that slides into magic under a different name…and we’re not talking about those books right now).

For me, one of the consistencies about a magic system is that it can be unpredictable. In the world of Goddess’s Honor, part of that unpredictability comes from the divine sources of magic. The pantheon in Goddess’s Honor, the Seven Crowned Gods, squabble and love just like the assorted pantheons one encounters throughout many religious structures in our world. Success and failure can come through divine whims and moods.

But there’s another source of magic in Goddess’s Honor, and that comes from the land itself. Each nation has a tutelary spirit of sorts which can help or hinder its leadership, depending on that leadership’s relationship with the land. If the land turns its face from the Leader, the Emperor, whoever holds the title of power…their rule will eventually fail. Given that a lot of magical tools come from the land—magic-infused wool, magic-infused berries, magic-infused wood, for three examples—for this to happen to a ruler becomes a significant turning point in their leadership. Lose the favor of the land and…that leads to first, failures of the magical crops, then the mundane crops.

Does this mean everyone can wield magic? Only to the degree that magical tools and a mix of magic and technology exists. There are still practitioners of magic. For some, their primary role is to serve as a representative for the God they serve. For others, magic is a part of their working role, whether as Healer, ruler, cook, or maker, amongst others. These magics are more constrained and focused upon specific tasks. Their magic is more predictable because they serve a necessary function within society and it’s rare that those practitioners will be called to do more than their daily functions.

(Unless the Gods decide to get involved. Which happens.)

A handful of practitioners possess the ability to wield magic beyond their work. Even then, abilities vary.

But magic is a part of everyday life, especially in the nations located in the land of Varen. For someone living in Varen, the potion whipped up by a local healer might possess some magical elements. Certain clothing items might be woven from magical wool to improve durability while traveling or working outside. A protective charm for a child. Wooden boxes to hide important items. A charm to keep bugs and rodents out of food supplies. Magically skilled people have speaking squares and communicators made of magic-infused wool or wood, spell-locked to certain people.

In the Darani Empire, magitech is even more pervasive. A combination of magic and internal combustion drives vehicles—prohibitably expensive, of course. Magic does run out so alternative fueling also is needed. But even these devices are failing within the run of Goddess’s Honor because the land rejects its Emperors, so magic is less durable.

Then there are the sorcerous sailships that travel the oceans. Sailships are made from magic-infused wood, and piloted by Sorcerer-Captains who go through a secretive initiation (described in The Goddess’s Choice) for which there are only two alternatives—succeed or die. Sorcerer-Captains are dedicated to Terat of the Waters, the Sea-goddess whose influence extends inland not just because of her ties to water but to sap within trees and other plants.

Which leads us to the Seven Crowned Gods.

First is Artel, the Judge, who breaks ties and evaluates the hearts of the dead. Then are Two-faced Staul, the Balancer and Destroyer, and his love Dovré. Staul and Dovré share a role in healing, with Staul’s acolytes often being the ones to guide the dying through their final passage. But Staul as the Destroyer can be horrific should that role completely control an acolyte. It often takes Dovré’s intervention to rebalance Staul. Terat of the Waters, beloved of all those whose work is with water but who also blesses the inland realm of Clenda, where rumor has it that she first emerged from a lake sacred to her hidden deep in the Clendan mountains.

Then come the problematic three. Nitel is the Lady of Vengeance, and it is only her deepest, evil blood-red side which appears in Goddess’s Honor. Her children Karnoi of War and Cirdel of Disorder are problematic, whimsical, and can either create or destroy. They can and will turn on their mother.

The Seven make periodic appearances in Goddess’s Honor, and their current feud shapes many of the events that the protagonists face. They’re not shy about manipulating those humans dedicated to them, and particularly prominent humans in life may end up becoming the Voice, Speaker, or Messenger for their patron after death, especially in appearances to family members. They operate according to their own rules and traditions, and there are times when a God is deposed in favor of a recently dead human who steps up to Godhood. While some sorcerers believe they can manipulate magic and events to make themselves Gods—it isn’t that easy.

But the thing to keep in mind is that the Gods have their own standards, and humans are not aware of them. The Gods are also very aware that at some point they, too, could be replaced, just as many of the current Gods replaced a predecessor. Replacing a God is rare but…when one of the Seven begins to overreach and seek dominance over their peers…that’s when they are at most risk of replacement.

Which ends up being a factor in Goddess’s Honor.

Gods and Goddesses can also be banished from a nation for a generation or so. Most of the Seven keep this in mind and modulate any dominance desires accordingly. But Nitel, Karnoi, and Cirdel….

To say more gives away far too much of the story. But, essentially, the thing to keep in mind when reading Goddess’s Honor is that the magic system is a soft one, not a hard system, and not all of the rules are known or disclosed.

The books of Goddess’s Honor:

This month these books go on sale for a week except for Beyond Honor, which is permanently at $2.99. This week Pledges and Challenges are $2.99. Next week will be Choices, and Judgment the week after. Click on each title for a universal ebook link that gives you a choice of which distributor to buy from (in other words, you have an option besides Amazon).

Beyond Honor and Other Stories

Pledges of Honor (can be read as the first book)

Challenges of Honor

Choices of Honor

Judgment of Honor

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 Goddess’s Honor series, my non-European high fantasy books, are the focus.

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

Where to begin when I start talking about the Goddess’s Honor books, especially now that I’m releasing the third edition? For one thing, they’re drawing from the oldest work I started doing, way back in high school (aka a long time ago in a universe far, far away from now). I had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the—oh, I don’t know how many times I read and reread LOTR. That kicked me off into E. R. Eddison during my high school days which…can be kinda interesting. I developed a fascination for Eddison’s plots, especially A Fish Dinner in Memison. But a big part of my fascination for Fish Dinner had to do with the absolutely amazing Fiorinda, coupled with Lady Mary Lessingham.

That said, another issue was location. I didn’t travel much as a kid simply because my parents were working and when they weren’t working, they were busy on the small farm or else hard-core fishing at a Central Oregon reservoir where the goal was to catch as many trout as possible to be frozen, canned, or smoked. My exposure was either the Willamette Valley or that small section of Central Oregon near Bend. Visualizing European settings just didn’t work for me because they were just something I’d seen in pictures (the closest I’ve come to seeing an actual castle even now? The Louvre. The Rijksmuseum. A castle-like structure in the Southwest built at the Hovenweep site by Native peoples).

The first versions ended up being quasi-science fiction because I discovered McCaffrey’s Pern as well as André Norton, along with Sylvia Louise Engdahl. The story really didn’t go anywhere, so I started looking at other parts of that world.

That…was pretty much the way things went for years whenever I tried to write something in that world. I grew up, did some more traveling, but the core of the story was set in the Pacific Northwest. When I first saw a picture of Wallowa Lake I was gobsmacked because that was part of the world I was visualizing. When I finally visited the place, it was just as I had thought it would be.

All the same, I kept wrestling with the story. I had settled on a strictly fantasy notion, finally, writing about the descendant of exiled nobles who faced a dire situation when the Empire suddenly remembered that they had this colony over the ocean that might, y’know, need to be forced back into compliance with the Empire. Try as I could, however, I couldn’t get the main character, Alicira ea Miteal, to talk to me. She just didn’t want to come clear.

So I moved on to writing other things. Hunting and camping trips both to the Wallowas and the Ochocos gave me more ideas for settings. Pages and pages of notes. I realized that Alicira had fled to the high desert mountains to escape her captor from the Empire, and ended up in a throuple that ruled the Two Nations of Keldara and Clenda. But how had she made it safely to Heinmyets and Inharise? I just couldn’t figure it out.

I finally started writing short stories set in that world. One of those stories was about a roving village healer named Katerin who ended up in a mysterious village with a Healer gone rogue. The last rejection for that story said “this reads like the first chapter of a novel.” And the rejecting editor had the same name as the teacher working in the room next to me. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the same person, but all the same, the coincidence caught my eye and made me think, “perhaps this story might work as the first chapter of a novel.”

Once I started working on Katerin’s story, suddenly things started coming clear in this world. Seven Crowned Gods, feuding and arguing while using humans as their pawns. Katerin moving from being just a bit player in what was going on to becoming a significantly important person who had the potential to be a game changer. That broke everything loose, though it took a while before I could write Alicira’s story, which is why Pledges of Honor was written and published before Beyond Honor, even though Beyond Honor is now listed as the first book in the series.

Rekaré, Alicira’s daughter, was equally challenging. Oh, I finally broke through to her but it also took Katerin to make it happen.

However, by the time I reached Judgment of Honor, the story had completely shifted on me. I didn’t anticipate events twisting in Medvara (Alicira’s homeland) the way that they did. I didn’t anticipate the role of the Gods, or Katerin’s daughter Witmara. I somewhat knew what Rekaré’s fate was going to be, just not how she got there.

The Goddess’s Honor series, however, was the one that convinced me that no matter what, in the future I was going to write a series all at once before releasing it. Continuity became a huge issue toward the end, and I had to figure out how to retcon things I had set up in the earlier stories.

Well, writing is a learning process. I’m happy to say that Pledges of Honor is my “little book that could.” I first sold it to a small press, then took the rights back before it even entered editing due to several issues. It sold well in its first edition, enough that its earnings were a big chunk of my qualifying for full membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. This release is now the third edition for the series, in part due to some formatting changes and new covers.

I hope the whole series manages to sell in this new edition, because it is close to my heart in so many ways. It features magical horses that act like real horses (Mira, Katerin’s first daranval, is loosely based on a school horse I rode for a couple of years, Porsche). I start introducing combinations of magic and technology in Choices of Honor and Judgment of Honor. Katerin’s traumatic return to the land where she grew up, Waykemin, in Choices of Honor was a tough book to write.

Which…is also happening as I begin the work on the saga of what happens after the Goddess’s Honor series. The threat of the Divine Confederation, which emerges in Judgment of Honor. What becomes of the Darani Empire after the events of Judgment. At this point, I’m leaving Katerin behind, but Heinmyets of the Two Nations has a big role to play in this next installment.

But that’s the future. I hope you seek out the Goddess’s Honor books, or at the least their connected short stories (which can be found in the appropriate order at the end of each Goddess’s Honor book or purchased independently).

Find Beyond Honor and Other Stories here.

And hey, if you already have the books but want to toss a few coins to a struggling writer, buy me a coffee!

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.

###

“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

###

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.

###

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.

#

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.

#

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!

I’m not a beach person. That statement usually shocks people because so many folks are into “going to the beach.” The ocean. The sea. Tons of ink have been poured out over the ages about the wonders of the beach, the sea, the ocean.

Not…from me.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it has to do with being raised in a family where sunbathing was something you did while hoeing thistles in the garden. Or picking crops. Or perhaps it has to do with the nearest ocean being the northern Pacific, where you’re not gonna venture into it without a wet suit, even in the middle of summer (ever wandered into the ocean off the Oregon coast? Let me tell you…it’s COLD). Or perhaps it has to do with the way my allergies go nuts on the coast. Or traffic. Something.

This inclination holds even when I’ve been around more pleasant beaches. Something about me just can’t relax in the sand or sun. I get seasick easily, so boats aren’t a thing, either. Never learned to snorkel or scuba. Oh, I’ve dug clams and done some beach fishing, did some crabbing but…just not my thing.

The mountains, however….

I am firmly a mountain person, more specifically the inland mountains of the West on the edges of desert country. Mountains and canyons, that’s my song. Pausing to catch my breath as I hike up a trail, hopefully with a nice vantage point? Oh yeah. Wandering through a shelterwood cut and hearing the soft whisper of great gray owl wings? Definitely so. Watching a herd of Rocky Mountain elk in a grassy gulch? You bet I’m there. Gazing across the distance–yes.

While my family thrilled to going out in the boat at Crane Prairie Reservoir to catch fish when I was a kid, I was more into wandering around the woods around the campground. There were lots of little spur roads–those days marked with metal signs nailed to a small white board announcing FIRE ROAD 9 or some such number–to investigate, along with my Sheltie Mike, sometimes also with his sister Sissy. Or I’d admire South Sister, Broken Top, and Bachelor’s reflections in the water.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t catch fish–oh, I could, and sometimes I’d go fishing off of the bank. It was just that my family had a single-minded obsession with catching as many fish as possible. A subsistence mentality. I don’t think it was as much enjoyment of fishing as it was a carryover from my parents’ Depression upbringing, where recreation needed to possess utility.

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t one I share. These days, married to someone with a degree in economics who is well aware of the expense of boats, fishing, and so on, I focus more on the enjoyment of foraging activities and…most of the ones I prefer tend to be located in the mountains. Mushrooming. Berry picking. Occasional bird hunting. Maybe dipping a line occasionally into a river.

But water skiing? Boating?

Just not my thing, along with swimming.

Doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally enjoy looking at the ocean but given the choice…you’ll find me in the mountains.

Mr. Marker continues to show me just how different horses can be. Between maturing and reasonably consistent handling, he’s managed to acquire a certain amount of ground manners that he had been lacking when I first got him. Now that we’re in the season of slick surfaces and ice, that’s really showing up–along with a level of surefootedness that’s better than anything old Mocha has achieved. Up until she popped her knees, she was pretty catty and surefooted. Now, not so much.

Oh, he’s still pushy at times. However, he’s a lot better behaved than he used to be and more respectful of human space. The other piece is that he is a snoopy, curious, young gelding with an urge to use his lips, tongue, and teeth to investigate the world around him. While he’s learned to keep lips and teeth off of humans, that doesn’t always extend to objects. Last summer he developed a fascination with the grooming caddy, especially the little jar of molasses I have in there to tempt Mocha into eating her grain when she’s not interested. The other day, he managed to get the lid off of that jar. Did he lick it enough to loosen it, use his teeth to turn it, or what? I still don’t know. Nonetheless, I decided it was time the molasses jar moved out of the caddy. He still gets into the caddy, carefully extracting items piece by piece from it.

Today, he deliberately picked up his empty grain bucket and shoved it toward my husband, who was holding Mocha’s grain pan. A request for a handful if she didn’t finish it? Most likely. The husband’s given him her leftovers before, and he had finished up his own grain before husband and Mocha made it to the hitching rail. It’s not a behavior I’ve seen him display before. Normally, he licks the bottom of the bucket when he’s done, then flips it over and starts licking the outside.

At least I know that I can find things to keep him entertained should I need to confine him!

Under saddle work continues in spite of snow and ice. Marker learns differently from Mocha. With her, repeated schooling drills refining a movement in one session worked best. Not so Marker! He gets anxious and edgy if I repeat and refine. The roller in his bit mouthpiece helps a little bit with that tension, but it’s still present.

Luckily, the easiest way to release that tension is to ask him to fox trot for a little ways, with a long rein to let him stretch. As we progress through a session, he starts to relax enough that we can walk on a long rein. Walk doesn’t work quite as well for tension release early on, though–it has to be fox trot.

What appears to work best with him is to introduce him to a new movement, repeat a couple of times, then move on. Refinement happens over repeated sessions rather than doing it all in one session. I need to break down the steps of a movement and build his understanding by honing a single small step in those repeats. He seems to be one of those horses where you introduce him to something, then let him think about it and ask again the next day. For the most part, I’ve found that he’s figured it out by then.

That understanding seems to stick even after a layoff of a week.

Canter is coming right along. Marker has a lovely rocking horse canter. Unlike Mocha, he isn’t inclined to take off in a hard gallop–up until the last few months of her riding life, the old lady relaxed best if she had a chance to gallop and blow off steam. His leads are starting to be more solid, but it wasn’t until the other day that I figured out that it’s easier for him to trot into canter on the left lead, while walk works best for the right lead. Not sure why that is, but it’s something to work on. Probably a strength issue. I’ve noticed some resistance when two-tracking to the left, so he may have strained something on the ice, or roughhousing with the other geldings. Or uneven muscle development. It happens.

I also introduced rollbacks. Fox trot into the rollback, whoa, then turn and pick up the correct lead. We did it for the first time before I had to be gone on some business stuff for a week, and when I came back, he more or less had figured it out. Oh, there’s refining to do, but it’s happening.

He’s solidly in the neck rein and is developing a greater responsiveness to seat and leg, with hand primarily dictating speed.

All in all, he’s progressing well.

Mocha…let’s just say that I’m glad that this has been a fairly mild winter. She developed a small hoof abscess during the wet period and is still not quite right. Oh, she’s still perky and eats well, and loves being brushed and scratched. But it’s clear that the time to make that final hard decision is approaching and closer than I would like. This winter I’m taking the time to enjoy my old lady. Scratch her favorite places; give her the peppermints she so adores. She’ll be 25 in March.

This might be the year the old lady gets a birthday party.

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 Netwalk Sequence is my featured series. It’s the first series I published and as I went through a recent update, I was surprised at how relevant it is, even though the books are over a decade old.

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

Originally, I didn’t write about the earlier political era when drafting Netwalk and Netwalker Uprising. Netwalk starts in the 2070s and the main part of the series goes from there. I just projected multiple decades of decline and chaos, abetted by the appearance of a rogue city-killing war machine that leads to significant worldwide political changes once the device is captured.

Oh, there are hints. Places called the Petroleum Autonomous Zone (which is referred to as a nuclear wasteland). The Florida War Zone. Reference to previous significant changes in North American governance. Hidden nuclear weapons controlled by a private corporation. The transfer of power not to an elected subordinate but to Sarah’s son Peter when she dies. References to chaotic fissures and a lack of unity within what once was the United States. The mysterious Freedom Army militia. Formal Assassination Contracts that could be filed with an entity called the Corporate Courts which…seemed to focus more on corporate entities than national ones. Native reservations that established themselves as strong separate centers of power within the US and Canada—bolstered by their use of protective technology to keep unwanted elements out. Tribal land acquisitions that expanded existing reservations (which, for the record, I consider to be a good thing).

I had my reasons for avoiding the “how did we get here” development. As far back as the ‘90s it was clear to anyone with political science training and political organizing experience that the 21^st century was going to be a rough ride. At least it was obvious to me, if not others. I was well aware of the rising disruptive elements on both right and left and had my own concerns about how things would unfold.

But it’s one thing to suspect what’s coming and another to write about it. So I avoided writing about it, focusing instead on what a recovery might look like. And…there were big issues with parts of both Netwalk and Uprising in early drafts that needed the backstory. Even more than that, there was something missing. A unifying element to carry the story further than the initial rebellion and victory in Netwalk, and explain why things started going weird right away after the conclusion of Netwalk.

Enter the Gizmo. And…the pre-Gizmo stories that make up Life in the Shadows. Most of the Shadows stories were drafted when I was trying to figure out what the Gizmo was, and everything that happened before the Gizmo exploded onto the scene. At the same time I was working on what later became Beating the Apocalypse which—well, if you want dystopia, then there was a lot of it in Apocalypse, though it eventually ends well.

All the same, the pre-Gizmo era is rather grim. Forced relocation to urban areas. An even greater homeless population as a result (which carries over into Netwalk, where part of the story takes place in and around homeless people). Concerns about food—Diana thinks about radiological certifications during a dinner in the “Shadow Harvest” portion of Life in the Shadows. Other suggestions that life is not all peaches and cream in the Netwalk universe, pretty much no matter where someone lives (though things are most likely different on the reservations—that gets alluded to in “Shadow Harvest”).

Still, I needed a reason for the Corporate Courts to exist and have the power they do, extending into everyday lives. A city-killing war machine that attacked assorted cities worldwide, with no apparent motivation, with no apparent ties to any particular alliance, seemed to fit. And, after its capture, there needed to be an entity to take charge of it. At this point in the Netwalk universe, corporate entities were significantly more stable than political ones, so…enter the Corporate Courts, and a similar extension into space, the High Space participants.

I don’t really dig into the governance of the Netwalk world much more than that. I’ve been around legislatures and commissions enough in my life to know that writing about what really happens is full of a lot of snore-inducing stuff with brief flashes of headliners. Sarah Stephens serves as the predominant political voice in Netwalk, and that’s enough. What we see of what happens politically in Life in the Shadows is meant to give us glimpses of a future, and it’s not meant to be prescriptive. Really. Even without weird war machines.

The most political of the Netwalk books is the first one, Life in the Shadows. The rest…well, there are pieces here and there, but Shadows tells you how that world came to be.

Life in the Shadows is available for $2.99 in ebook form. Links to all major vendors, including Kindle, can be found at https://books2read.com/lifeintheshadows.

Or if you’d like to chuck a few coins in my direction, here’s my Ko-fi.

Another gray, gloomy day in Portland. I wander around the neighborhood, catching up on things that have changed since the last time I did these wanderings, and dropping off books in assorted Little Free Libraries (while checking to see if there’s anything I might want to pick up for myself).

This particular neighborhood lacks sidewalks for a good portion of the area. Several short-stay places are tucked back on the long lots, once standard in this section of PDX but now frequently converted into flag lots or short-stay backyard tiny homes. When we bought in this area over twenty years ago, it was in transition from poor to lower middle-class housing to solidly middle and upper-middle class housing. That transition is still in progress but it’s moving along quickly these days. Some houses underwent extensive remodeling while others were torn down, to be replaced by bigger, multiple houses on those big lots. Block-sized apartment complex rise around the main traffic corridors. As building occurs, down come the remnants of the second-growth Douglas firs in the neighborhood.

Not that the area lacks vegetation. Oh no. There’s lots of vegetation, including vining plants of various species, and enough thickets of brush hanging over sidewalks that make me think the place could benefit from the pruning job administered by a herd of town deer.

And that’s where I get into the “it could happen here” vibe.

These days I spend a lot of my time in a more arid climate, near forests and grasslands, in places that have already seen a lot of wildfire. Even in town one doesn’t see the degree of brushy vegetation near houses that one finds in PDX. Oh, there’s some, but it’s not like I see in this neighborhood.

That makes me shudder, because in spite of Portland’s wet reputation, the place has dry summers. More frequent hot summers. While the conditions leading to the 2025 Los Angeles conflagration don’t happen here as often as they do LA, they do happen—as the fires in September, 2020, proved.

This neighborhood briefly underwent a Level 1 evacuation warning during those fires. It didn’t last long and nothing happened, fortunately, but…I look at the brush around so many houses and can’t help but be concerned.

Oh, I understand the instinct. Paradoxically, this section of Portland is also labelled as one of the places that has heat issues due to lack of trees. It’s a lot easier to encourage the growth of shrubs and vines.

But still…I look at a lot of what I see and shudder.

We often think of the Portland wildfire danger as lurking in the West Hills, because of Forest Park and the number of houses built in and amongst the second-growth Douglas firs in that area. It’s not the only part of town that needs to be concerned.

And that doesn’t even get into the bug issues, because vegetation right against the house also gives carpenter ants an easy route inside…and other bugs as well.

But most of all, I just walk through the neighborhood on a foggy gray day and think about fire. Worry about fire.

It’s unlikely but all the same…it could happen here.

Like what you read? Check out my books or…toss a coin into my Ko-fi here. Thanks.