SFFSat 30/11/13

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here.


This week's snippet is again from Sorrel Snowbound, and carries on from last week's extract. Sorrel has reached the surface. Two thuggish officials have cornered her, and one points a knife at her. She decides to retaliate - is she going to use lethal magic from the magerealm?

I slid my spindles around a fireflow in the magerealm, and yanked at it.

At the last instant I swung it to one side, hauling through only a fraction of the fire. The sword blade was a sliver of emerald green in the ‘realm. It became a blaze of brilliant light in reality, and Moustachio screamed and jumped back, flinging the remains of the sword hilt away from him as it glowed red hot. Beardy, still holding my arm, pulled away in alarm. I dived into Beardy, throwing him to the ground and kicking him as he tried to get away from the sudden conflagration. I really wanted to kick Moustachio, who I suspected was the worse of the two, but at least he had a burned hand for his pains.

Moustachio stood across from me, anger blazing on his ugly face. ‘Gonna regret that, girl,’ he growled. ‘Now I'm gonna kill you fer sure.’

Comments welcomed!

SFFSat 23/11/13

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here.


This week's snippet is again from Sorrel Snowbound, and carries on from last week's extract. Sorrel has reached the surface. Two thuggish officials have cornered her, and one is pointing a knife at her...

I held his eyes for a brief eternity – he had pale blue ones, with a hint of the psychopath about him. I was increasingly sure that he was the kind of thug who enjoyed inflicting violence. 
 

Moustachio slapped the side of his sword against my cheek, hard; I felt the edge of the blade dig in enough to cut me. I’d been right – he did enjoy hurting people. 

‘Shut up and do as you're told,’ he rasped. His pupils had dilated, and he was breathing faster. Anticipation of what he intended, I had no doubt. 

I slid into the magerealm. The easy answer would be a column of fire. Toast them both.

 Which raises the difficult question - is Sorrel any better than the thugs she is facing? Find out next time...

 

Biggles and Worrals

 

I realised when I did my first blog post about Biggles that there was more to say than would fit into one post. I'd forgotten a lot about Biggles which came flooding back when I started checking my facts – and I also learned a lot of new and surprising information.

For instance, “Captain” WE Johns was never of that rank – he was a Flying Officer (about the level of an RFC Lieutenant) - he gave himself the rank as his authorial byline. The first Biggles stories appeared in 1932, and he went on writing until his death in 1968, with the last couple of books appearing posthumously.

  

 

Whilst Biggles was his most popular series, Johns wrote other series – I can dimly remember being aware of Gimlet, a brave British commando, when I was a boy, though I don't think I ever read any of them. 

 

 

I also came across his science fiction tales about “Tiger” Clinton. As an avid SF reader I devoured them... but wasn't desperately impressed. 

 

The character I did not know about, though, until I started these blog posts, was Worrals. In the 40s Johns wrote 11 books about plucky WAAF Flight Officer Joan "Worrals" Worralson who flew adventurous missions with her friend Betty “Frecks” Lovell. In the first book she flies a fighter, shoots down an enemy plane, and sabotages a German plot. 

Considering that I criticised Biggles for the total lack of female characters, I am pleasantly surprised at his creation of a strong and capable female role-model. From what i have managed to glean from my trawl across the internet, he was encouraged to create Worrals by the Air Ministry to encourage girls to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

Apparently the series was very successful, and sold well in the 40s and 50s.

I said in my last post that James Bigglesworth's spectre encouraged the writing of Sorrel in Scarlet – I suspect that the spirit of Joan Worralson was there, too, standing shoulder to shoulder with her more famous colleague. It was a complete coincidence that my heroine and Johns' heroine had similar sounding names... wasn't it?

SFFSat 16/11/13

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here.


This week's snippet is again from Sorrel Snowbound, and carries on from last week's extract. Sorrel has reached the surface. 

Two thuggish officials take a grab at our heroine...

Beardy grabbed for my arm, while Moustachio yanked his sword out of its sheath. I had been expecting it. I dived sideways, sliding my knife out of the belt-sheath, but Beardy was a fraction faster. His fingers fastened around my left wrist, dragging me towards him, while Moustachio's sword lifted to point threateningly at my throat. I froze for an instant, realising I was in real trouble. There wasn’t enough room to move – they had boxed me in against the hedge. I had a nasty suspicion this was not the first time they had performed this manoeuvre.

‘Drop the knife, girl,’ Beardy snapped.

I snarled a short answer, then added my views of his parentage and physique. Not complimentary views, needless to say.

 As always, comments welcomed!

Biggles

 

James Bigglesworth was a pilot and adventurer who was the title character of almost a hundred books by Captain WE Johns, published between 1932 and 1970. They were unashamedly boys' own adventure tales, with the hero taking on Germans in World War One, flying as a charter pilot between the wars, fighting Nazis in World War Two, and then becoming an air policeman in the fifties. He flew a wide range of aircraft ranging from Sopwith Camels, to Hawker Hunter jet fighters in one of the last books. By that stage he must have been in his 60s.

 

I encountered Biggles when I was about 8 or 9, and enjoyed the books immensely. I was building Airfix kits of the early biplanes and relished the chance to read stories about them and the brave pilots who flew them. For about three or four years I devoured the Biggles books alongside all the other books I was reading. By the time I was in my teens, though, they lost their appeal and I didn't read another for many years.

 

While on holiday a few years ago I found a couple of ageing paperbacks in the cottage where we were staying, and read them with interest and amusement. They were competently written adventures, but to an adult twenty-first century eye they creaked very badly. Unthinking casual racism, a complete lack of female characters (one of the two I read had no women at all within its pages), and characters who were limited in their complexity. They were a product of their time, and I wasn't surprised at my adult's eye view of them. Some books I enjoyed as a child I happily passed on to my children – Biggles was not in that category.

But the structure of the pilot getting into a range of adventures caught my imagination again. And there is no doubt in my mind that when I started work on Sorrel in Scarlet the spectre of James Bigglesworth was standing at my shoulder, encouraging me.

SFFSat 9/11/13

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here.


This week's snippet is again from Sorrel Snowbound, and carries on from last week's extract. Sorrel has reached the surface. 

Two thuggish officials are confronting our heroine...

An unpleasant smile wreathed Moustachio's face - I had a nasty suspicion that he was the type who would enjoy beating up a peasant on principle. Wrack's brave new world clearly hadn't changed the outlook of the militia who served the dragonlords. To them, I was unarmed; neither had bothered to reach for the swords they wore at their belts. It would be the work of seconds to fling fire from the magerealm and barbecue them both. Frankly, seeing Moustachio's leer turn to agony would be rather satisfying. But I wasn't going to kill them just because they were thugs.

I simply shook my head. ‘Get out of my way or you'll both regret it.’

I relied on a stern, level gaze and hoped it would be enough.

Which, of course, it wasn't. 

 Looks like Sorrel is in trouble again... As always, comments welcomed!

Sopwith Triplane

Very early on, when writing Sorrel in Scarlet, I decided that my heroine's primary form of transport was a Great War style aeroplane. A biplane? I wanted something that seemed more unusual but was still believable – and so I chose a triplane. But the classic WW1 triplane is the Fokker DR1, the plane flown by the Red Baron.

  
 




Too corny and obvious. So, when picturing Sorrel's aeroplane (even though it actually crashes before the novel begins!) I had a mental image of a Sopwith Triplane. A well-made airframe, but not an image that was immediately familiar.

 

Revell made a plastic kit of the Sopwith Triplane – I spent a number of happy hours building one.

 

And coincidentally a Poser 3D model, Ace of the Skies, appeared at Renderosity – and it was clearly inspired by the Sopwith airframe. When I finally published Sorrel in Scarlet myself, it provided the wrecked aeroplane upon the cover – and also provided the bright yellow Belkani 3 on the cover of Sorrel Snowbound.

Sorrel's triplane is steam-driven, and a two-seater. The Sopwith Triplane was a single-seat fighter. Less than 150 were ever built. It was powered by a 130 hp Clerget 9B rotary engine. It was apparently very manoeuvrable with an excellent rate of climb, and apparently so impressed the Germans that they rushed a slew of triplane designs into production. It was successful in combat, and over 80 German planes were brought down by Sopwith Triplanes.

Only two real Tripes still exist – one at the RAF Museum Hendon, and one, strangely at the Central Air Force Museum, Monino, Russia. One flying replica exists, at Shuttleworth, and I had the privilege of seeing it fly.

SFFSat 2/11/13

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here.


This week's snippet is again from Sorrel Snowbound, and carries on from last week's extract. Sorrel has reached the surface. 

Two thuggish officials are questioning our heroine...

The first officer looked at me suspiciously, eyes running up and down me. ‘You got any valuables?’ he asked sharply, clearly not expecting a positive response. 

 

His companion scrambled down from the trike, and joined his moustachioed friend. ‘Wot's wiv the headgear?’ the newcomer asked before I had had an opportunity to think of a smart answer for his friend. He had grubby fingernails and a beard that was as unkempt as his friend's facial hair. Evidently the militia of Rendmer didn't think much of grooming.

I reached my hand up to my head, realising as I did so what he was talking about. Actually, my hair probably left a considerable amount to be desired in the grooming stakes.

As always, comments welcomed!