Hopefully, everyone enjoyed WinterStar. Just sent the final manuscript for MorningStar to the Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) last night and I believe it is in the publishing process everywhere as we speak.
In between, you got some time.
SeekerStar comes out this weekend (technically Mother’s Day so maybe you need to get Mom hooked on some awesome space opera with something other than your NW Euromale protagonists. Next month, we’ll talk about Hammerhead Sharks, so stay tuned.)
I’ve been consciously working in writing fiction that doesn’t follow the standard white northwest European male archetypes, because you know you are in a Blaze Ward novel when someone it sticking it to the Man. Right now, that’s literary publishing. Technically, there are only two Anglos in the entire series, both of who are largely walk-on parts.
In this series, Daniel largely sacrifices his agency at the beginning of WinterStar, and then works hard at not doing things, because he had the power to alter the universe. And a fear of turning to evil, because NOBODY can stop him.
Agency and evil are my themes here, because in my sordid and semi-troubled youth I embraced evil.
I know people say that, but most of them just dye their hair and act tough. I actually destroyed people. Emotionally. Psychologically. Not anything I’m particularly proud of, other than to say it was necessary in one case, because someone I knew was using her power for even more chaotic evil purposes. So I rendered her harmless. What happened after that was her choice, but she’s gone now and the world ended up a better place.
So “I understand evil, Mistress. I’ve been evil.”
Daniel has the power to do anything he wants to the people around him. And he chooses to hand his agency over to someone else (Kathra, Erin, Ndidi, Iruoma) that he believes they will do better with it, because nobody but him can wield the power, but everyone else will do bad things with it.
The series, like most, is about family of choice over family of birth. Blood is thicker than water, after all, if you understand what that phrase really means. It’s also about power and evil.
There’s a good stretch in the middle where it also talks about depression, because I went through a (thankfully-rare-and-relatively-short) depressive stretch when I was writing it, so Daniel could talk about things.
It was cathartic. It was good.
I’m pleased with the arc of the series. I’m a better storyteller now than I was several years ago, so I can tell more complicated stories, with more shaded characters, and still keep it interesting and rush you through the book. My brother in law bitches that he sits down to read “just one more chapter” and suddenly it’s two in the morning.
That’s good.
You should preorder SeekerStar to see how things unfold now that the Sept have decided to do something about Daniel, Kathra, and the Star Turtle. You won’t believe where it goes.
🙂