Sorrel's Triplane!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was building a 1/48th scale model triplane. The bird is finished, and I proudly present some photographs of my handiwork.






 There are a number of faults with it, some of which I am still planning to rectify (in particular the propellor needs another coat of paint, which I hadn't noticed when I took the photographs). But in the main I'm pleased with the way it looks - the rigging looks the right sort of thickness and looks taut, and the paint job isn't bad.

 

No, it's not perfect - but it should be effective as something to show when I'm at book signings. And it's large enough and solid enough to survive such events.

Now all I need is a similar sized model of Wrack - which my wonderful wife is painting for me at the moment. Expect to see pictures soon!

SFFSat 11/4/2015 Sorrel in Scarlet

 This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. I couldn't post last week - real life intervened - but this week I'm back. 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.

Once again, I'm posting an extract from Sorrel in Scarlet.

 My pilot heroine is travelling through the strange, scarlet landscape of the Chasm, and is thinking about the creatures she has been warned about.

 

I was forming the opinion that the Chasm was a distinctly unfriendly place. Grathks, graalur, wild olgreks and snarqs I knew. Ruzdrools, inskiirs and adjaliks meant nothing. Vrusks I knew and didn't fear, assuming they weren't twice the size and viciousness of the ones I knew. The good news was that he hadn’t mentioned dragons… no, I wasn't even going to think about that.

Even the smaller denizens of this strange countryside were peculiar. As I'd trekked up a red grassy hill I'd spotted some dark blue lumps grazing near holes in the ground. I'd tagged them as rabbits. When I got closer to one, I realised it had a shell like a tortoise. It then astonished me by bolting for the nearest rabbit-hole at a speed that made rabbits look geriatric. The shell was segmented, so it moved across its back. It made me wonder what the local carnivores were like.

 As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 4/4/2015 Sorrel in Scarlet

 This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. I couldn't post last week - real life intervened - but this week I'm back. 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.

 I missed last week - too much else going on. This week, I've gone back to my first novel, Sorrel in Scarlet. 


My pilot heroine, Sorrel, is trying to find somewhere to sleep for the night. She has crept into a stable, then hears something moving...

Something stirred in the straw spread over the floor. It was dark in here - no helpful lanterns to show me what I was facing. I ducked into the shadows and tried to make out the bulk nestling in front of me.

It suddenly raised a head, and large, emerald green eyes were looking my way. Moments later, a second pair of eyes were also peering towards me. I guessed what I was looking at - I really, really hoped it had poor night vision. A large wing twitched, confirming my very nasty belief - this had to be a snarq. Which meant it had two fully-functioning and lethal acid-spitting heads. And it was looking my way. I stood very still, and waited, wishing I didn't need to breathe.

One of the heads lowered into the straw, and then the other settled down as well. Slowly, cautiously, stepping gingerly so as not to knock into anything at all, not even a piece of straw, I tiptoed backwards like a frightened mouse creeping away from a dozing owl.

Did I really want to stay the night here? The logic was fine, but I didn't like the bed partner in that stable. After I had a fling with Lorgren, Tolly joked I’d sleep with anyone – I was glad to prove his accusation false. 

 As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 21/3/2015 Korax Crisis

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.

Today's snippet is again from Korax Crisis, a novel set in a traditional fantasy world, about one hundred and fifty years after an industrial revolution. So we have steam trains (but with elementals in the firebox), growing levels of mass production and industrialisation, but also a range of typical fantasy tropes. In this snippet, one of the characters is waiting for a train.

Maidencircle Station was always hung with the tapestry of transit, an endlessly swirling and changing pattern of figures interlocking in a weave of swift motion and ever-present tumult, the noise rising into the high steel rafters that held up the glass roof over the six tracks. At no stage would the stationhall be at peace – there were always peoples of myriad types, shapes and sizes seeking a thousand destinations. Challenden always thought of Maidencircle as the enchanted gateway that led to the rest of the world.

He sat in the teashop overlooking the concourse, watching the people. Nowhere else in the city really reflected how cosmopolitan Torbridge had become. Afoot in the hall he could see skin hues ranging from pale pink through to dark brown, pale green to deep blue, soft grey to brick red. The costumes they wore varied almost as greatly. Islanders in loose kaftans of red and yellow, Sekhaanese in white, and others in whatever colours took their fancy. On platform five, a ramp had been lowered from the wide stable-doors of one of the wagons, and a family of centaurs were clip-clopping daintly aboard. Probably heading for the community at Arleth, he surmised. From the collection of packages in their voluminous saddlebags, they had probably been in Torbridge for the sales.
 

With a crunch that cut through the endless commotion, a dark blue engine, wreathed in smoke, backed against a rake of coaches. A uniformed man leapt down to conjoin them in unholy matrimony. Challenden sighed, recognising that his train was soon going to depart, and downed his last mouthful of tea.

As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 14/3/2015 - Korax Crisis

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. 


Before I post my snippet for the week, though, I have to express my sadness at the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett. He was one of the best writers of fantasy of our time. I was privileged to spend an hour in a pub in Brighton with him in 1987, at the World SF Convention, and I have read his books with considerable pleasure over the years.

My hope is that Death will have greeted him with some comment along the lines of "I'M YOUR GREATEST FAN."


Turning to SFFSat, my snippet this week is again from Korax Crisis, a novel I wrote over ten years ago and with which I was never happy. It had some good scenes, though. In this snippet, a group of foreign soldiers have taken over the town of Melmin, hunting for the missing Korax of the title.
Beris, a local engineer, is endeavouring to be a one-woman resistance force.

 

Two soldiers were making their way towards Nerik’s workshop, evidently planning to bang on his door. As usual, there was a pile of empty sea-shells towering untidily outside his doorway. The cream, three-quarter circle shells were each four feet across, the original occupants ripped out of their homes and cooked, while their tentacles were turned into the gripper-ropes that Nerik sold across half the Marches. Climbers and people with difficult cargoes swore by the sucker-ribbed hawsers that clung to whatever they were wrapped around. Nerik sold the empty nautilus shells in batches, loading a truck or two with them every few months. Until then, he left them as a menace to anyone who happened to brush into them. Beris grinned evilly. She had snagged a discarded short length of gripper-rope, and hooked one end, very cautiously, into the stack. As the soldiers approached, she hauled suddenly.

With a deeply satisfying series of crashes, the seven-foot high stack tumbled sideways, slamming down onto the luckless soldiers as they passed. Beris knew from helping shift the shells that they were heavy and brittle, and that when a shell cracked it tended to disintegrate into a host of viciously sharp shards. These were no exception to the rule, and she grinned more as the soldiers cried out in alarm and then in pain as the shells crashed around and over them like exploding wheels, rolling and crumpling dramatically. She hastily scrambled backwards, away from the scene of her escapade. She did not think either of her victims would be killed by her assault, but they would not make any more trouble for a while – or so she hoped.

She slid back into the alleyway beside the workshop, and looked around, wondering what she could try next.

As always, comments welcomed!

SFFSat 7/3/15 Korax Crisis

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. I couldn't post last week - real life intervened - but this week I'm back. 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.

Today's snippet isn't from Sorrel. This is from Korax Crisis, a novel I worked on over ten years ago and which didn't work out. I'm wondering about having another go and seeing what I can do with it. In this snippet, a railway engineer, Beris, is waylaid on her way to work.

    A lace from her left boot endeavoured to trip Beris as she got close to the engineyard’s buckled railings. As usual, inanimate objects had a cruel desire to inflict grievous bodily harm upon her.

    By the time the bootlace had been persuaded to do its job properly, she had company - three soldiers, in smart uniforms.

    “Where are you off to?” demanded the one with the most braid on the dark blue shoulders as she got to her feet slowly..

    “None of your business” she retorted instantly. “What are you doing here?”

    The mouthy one glared at her. “Answer the question, girl.”

    'Girl' - Beris drew herself to her full five foot six, and glared at him. No one called her a girl any more - especially not a jumped-up soldier.

    “I work here, boy. What gives you the right to ponce around in your pretty uniforms stopping honest citizens working?”

    One of the others grabbed her arm. “Don’t get lippy” he snarled.

    He was on the ground before he realised it was her solid fist that had punched his lights out. 

   As always, comments welcomed!

When is a Sopwith Triplane not a Sopwith Triplane?

 

I'm off to Huntingdon Library in a couple of weeks – they are holding a morning for self-published local authors to talk about their books. Having done a certain amount of such events already, I am well aware that some props to hold up and show off add immeasurably to a speech. The obvious prop for my novels is a triplane of the sort that Sorrel flies.

Now, the one on the cover of Sorrel Snowbound (and also on the cover of Sorrel in Scarlet, just visible crashed into the trees) is actually a Sopwith Triplane. 

I already have a small 1/72^nd Revell Triplane, but I have just discovered – and purchased – a 1/48^th scale plastic kit of a Sopwith Triplane, by a company called Eduard.

I am therefore hard at work building the kit, so it is ready for the event on 21^st March.

 I have to admit I am not the world's best kit modeller. I enjoy building model aeroplanes, but the results aren't always wonderful. My hands lack sufficient dexterity. The paint gets into the wrong places, and small pieces can be difficult to position correctly. And rigging the triplane accurately will be a nightmare. On the other hand, I can do enough that at a casual glance the finished model should look reasonably good.

However, I anticipate the finished model will not please any experts. They will study the airframe, snort, and tell me that I'm lacking half the necessary rigging wires, the ailerons are too thick, and the angle of the wings isn't right. They'll probably also tell me that no Sopwith Triplane in history had the garish bright yellow colour scheme I'm painting it in.

Which is when I can gleefully point out that it isn't a Sopwith Triplane. This is a Belkani Triplane, built in Sendaal and flown during the rebellion against the dragons. Of course the rigging is different – that's how Belkani triplanes are rigged. And the colour scheme is absolutely accurate for Sorrel's tripe. And the ailerons in Sorrel's world are precisely that thick.

My own fantasy world, my fantasy triplane! The best excuse in the universe for poor modelling!