It’s a book birthday! The Cost of Power: Return is out today, both in ebook and in paperback through Ingram Spark. I haven’t set up the paperback link in Bookshop yet, because my experience has shown that I need to give the listing about 48 hours after it clears at Ingram before Bookshop will pick it up.
The Cost of Power is a trilogy. Books two and three will be releasing in September, plus an omnibus ebook-only edition in November (though I might bite the bullet and see if anyone wants the whole saga in one book…at around 270,000-some words, though, it will be expensive). So yes, the series is complete and you’ll have the whole thing in your hands soon. Book Two, Crucible, releases on September 10th and Book Three, Redemption, releases on September 24th.
I’m calling this trilogy a science fantasy NeoWestern. The science fantasy part is because it’s a mix of science fiction and fantasy elements; the NeoWestern is primarily based on the setting on a ranch in rural Eastern Oregon. There’s also minor tropes from classic Western stories–the bad banker and the corrupt sheriff, primarily. But there’s also wildfire sparked by an angry spirit, horses (of course, I try to get horses in everything I write), a nasty blizzard, and everyday life on a ranch. Plus main character Ruby is heavily into agricultural technology and designing her own nanobiobots to improve crop drought resistance as well as provide detailed feedback on what’s happening in the fields.
Power was one of those books that grew in the making (well, don’t they all, but some more than others). I originally wanted to examine the whole mind control programming issue I introduced in The Martiniere Legacy series, as well as the multiverse elements that emerged in the last book of that series, The Enduring Legacy. Then I started playing with the concept that in this universe, the primary villain of the other Martiniere books, Gabriel Martiniere’s father Philip, was as much a victim of mind control manipulation as his son was. Which meant there needed to be other villains. I pulled on a common trope from more literary Westerns, the bad banker, as a minor villain. Philip’s adopted son Joey turned into a bigger villain, but…there needed to be more. I had the Braun family and their Zingter Enterprises as corporate opponents, but…there needed to be more.
(There needs to be more seemed to be a consistent theme of this trilogy when I was drafting it!)
That’s when I realized I had unconsciously been thinking about La Chanson de Roland and the entire Carolingan mythos. Plus a dose of the Melusine of Lusignan mythos. The Martinieres have always been a cadet/illegitimate branch of the Valois French nobility, but I tied them directly into the Lusignans in this story. But I couldn’t have just one European water spirit floating around in this story. There had to be an opposing spirit, so…I brought in the Lorelei, who is the patron of the Braun family just as the Melusine is the patron of the Martinieres.
However, I also didn’t want this story to be all about European spirits. It is set in the Pacific Northwest, and Ruby, the female lead, has Native ancestry, albeit somewhat diluted. Ever since her great-great grandfather claimed the ranch, the Ryder family has made small offerings to the wild creatures of the Double R Ranch, very quietly and without any fanfare. That led to the subplot where Etienne Martiniere was a fur trapper in the Oregon Country, married a Native woman of Nez Perce/Cayuse affiliation, and left daughters in the country. He was tasked with protecting the Melusine and she found refuge with a Native spirit, Bear.
But that’s not all! We have digital thought clones, including malign ones. Lots of secrecy including the recent past history of Martiniere involvement in the MK-Ultra program, a feud between the leaders of the Martiniere and Braun family tied to that involvement, and more. One of the obstacles that protagonists Ruby and Gabe struggle with is the slow feed of information from the Melusine, Bear, and the digital thought clones about the impact of history on their current situation.
Then there’s the relationship between Ruby and Gabe which parallels their experiences in other universes. A betrayal in Book Two leads to disaster (hey, there’s a reason it’s titled Crucible) and recovering from that disaster is part of the story of Book Three, Redemption.
Ultimately, there is a cost to gaining power. Yes, Ruby and Gabe are powerful. But they pay a price for it, especially Gabe.
This is my last visit to the Martinieres but I wanted to end their saga with a bang.
I think I did.
Here are the links for Return. Click on your preferred ebook distributor to buy it.
