Dan Lutts's Blog, page 2
December 25, 2023
Charm Wars and Cinda Williams Chima
Book 1 of the 4-book Seven Realms Series
The four-volume Seven Realms Series follows the two main characters, 16 year old Han Alister and Princess Raisa Ana’Marianna. Han used to be the boss of a street gang and is now trying to start a new life for himself.
Raisa’s mother, who is queen of the kingdom, is a week queen who decides to arrange a marriage between Raisa, something Raisa doesn’t want. Everything goes downhill from there for both characters.
When the two of them finally get together, the action really begins.
Book 1 of the 4-book Shattered Realms Series
The four-volume Shattered Realms Series takes place a generation later with a whole new list of characters. Adrian Sul’Han, aka Ash, is both a healer and a magic user. He’s also falsely accused of murdering people and sets out to learn who set him up.
Jenna Bandelow, a saboteur, has always had a mark on the back of her neck, and now people are searching for her. She thinks their search is because of the damage she’s caused, but it’s actually because of her mark.
Their stories become even more interesting when they finally get together.
I recently learned that Chima is now in the middle of writing a new two-volume series called The Runestone Saga. She published Book 1, Children of Ragnarok, last year (2022) and currently is working on Book 2. I just found out about her new series yesterday and have already ordered a copy of Children of Ragnarok. I can hardly wait to start reading the book and for Book 2 to be released.
July 31, 2023
Revenge of the Estatis
Book 3 of the Charm Wars series, Revenge of the Estatis.
Just a heads up everyone. It’s been a long haul writing and editing Book 3 of the Charm Wars series, Revenge of the Estatis, but the novel is almost ready for publication.
Living in Rural MaineMy wife Lisa and I enjoy living in rural Maine. There are only four houses on our dirt road. The land our house is on used to be a blueberry field, and some blueberries are still growing along the treeline.
Maine blueberries are a lot smaller than commercial blueberries and have more flavor than the commercial ones. Both sides of our main road are lined with blueberry fields and a major blueberry processing plant is less than a mile down the main road.
Blueberry Field Before the Berries Start to Grow
This blueberry field is on the main road near our house. Right now it’s fallow and the blueberries haven’t started to grow yet. In fact, after the blueberries are picked, the fields lay fallow for a year and then the next year the berries grow again.
Workers Picking Blueberries in a Field Near Our Home
Last year no blueberries grew in the fields near our street. This year they did. When it’s picking time, the blueberry company brings in workers to harvest the berries. As you can see, the berries are harvested by hand and not by machine.
The commercial blueberries you find in stores are large. Maine blueberries, on the other hand, are small and have more flavor.
And I must say, there’s nothing more delicious than a warm blueberry pie straight from the oven.
April 28, 2022
BookLife Review of Charm Wars
Recently Charm Wars was reviewed by a BookLife reviewer and posted on BookLife. I was thrilled by the review, which I’m sharing with you.
In Caldon, the world of this accomplished and inventive fantasy epic, women rule, peasants suffer, and the “noblesse” enforce the class order with every power available to them, including magic. The story focuses on a pair of young people whose lives reflect—and entwine—with each other’s. Rill Larkin, the commoner apprentice to archmage Deuth Estati dreams of establishing himself as a mage, vowing “I can become someone important … I can become noblesse.” Secrets surround him, though, both involving his lineage and the intentions of his master. Meanwhile, 15 year-old Alyse Dejun faces the dire fate so many young women have, throughout history and literature: seeing her own gifts languish ignored as she’s impressed into a marriage she doesn’t want, for political benefit.
“You’ll learn to love me,” the young archmage Troy warns Alyse, “because your family’s survival depends on it.” Lutts invigorates these somewhat familiar premises with much heart, invention, and attention to lived-in character detail, demonstrating an awareness of reader expectations and a welcome willingness to upend them. The novel is hefty, even by fantasy standards, but the cast (especially the strong-willed Alyse) is appealing, the magic lively, and the conflicts—cutting across lines of class, gender, politics, and magical aptitude—compelling, especially as alliances get upended, and Rill and Alyse’s stories thread together.
The broader plot centers on the decline of magic in the land and the hunt for powerful mage’s “charms,” but what will grab readers of YA fantasy is the sharply delineated characters, who face tough choices and exhibit rich inner lives. The matriarchal society and the general worldbuilding prove engaging, revealed through action and dialogue without Lutts bogging down the storytelling for explanations. It all builds to a promise of more adventure, and while the late turns and revelations satisfy, readers not accustomed to brick-thick fantasy may wonder why more hasn’t been wrapped up after so many pages.
Takeaway: A memorable character-driven fantasy of shifting alliances, surprising magic, and two bold young mages.
Great for fans of: Garth Nix, Claire LeGrand’s Furyborn.
March 22, 2022
Charm Wars Book 2 Update
Book 2 in the Charm Wars series is currently being edited by my wonderful editor. The novel’s original name was going to be Revenge of the Estatis, but the name has been changed to A Light in the Window. Book 3 will be titled Revenge of the Estatis.
The release date for A Light in the Window will be around June of 2022 and for Revenge of the Estatis toward the end of the year.
My Life-Long Love of Reading and Writing
My parents were avid readers, and their love of reading probably rubbed off on me and my brother. My brother is two years older than I, and maybe his reading habit rubbed off on me. I do know that for both of us our love of reading started with comic books. I can’t remember when I read my first comic, but I was pretty young when I did. We both read mostly Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and similar comics.
I remember that, when my brother and I were still in junior high school, my mother became upset that my brother was still reading comics, and not “books.” So she went to the assistant superintendent to learn what she could do to encourage my brother to switch to “books.” He smiled and told her not to worry. When my brother was ready to switch, he would. And he did. And later so did I.
I began writing in high school. Mainly science fiction. I still have some of my stories. I even sent them out to science fiction magazines, and have the rejection slips to prove it. After graduating from college, I spend a lot of time writing a fiction novel, The Vatican List. It’s about a young Harvard University professor who learns that his father is a Nazi war criminal. I revised it countless times and even got feedback from a major author, who liked the story. Someday I’ll revised the novel one last time and publish it. In the meantime, I discovered YA fantasy novels and really enjoyed reading them.
Excerpt from The Vatican List
After graduating from the University of Chicago with a M.A. in Roman History, I began writing again. But then I stopped because a friend suggested I experience life first instead of writing about it. I thought what he said made sense, but I still have mixed feelings about having done that. Anyhow, I did start up again and worked as a freelance writer for a few years. Later I worked for a World War II museum, and one of my tasks was to edit their bi-annual newsletter and write articles for it too. During that time, I began working on Charm Wars.
It’s been a long journey, but now Charm Wars has been published. And soon the next two books in the series will follow after it.
February 21, 2022
Conrad Richter
I can’t say Conrad Richter is one of my favorite novelists because I’ve only read one of his books. But I can say that his novel The Light in the Forest is one of my favorites. The story takes place in Pennsylvania in 1764, a year after the French and Indian War ended.
Fifteen-year old True Son was kidnapped by the Delaware Indians when he was four years old. But when Colonel Henry Bouquet—the man who advocated infecting Native Americans with small pox—marched into Indian country with 1,500 soldiers and demanded the return of all captured whites, True Son is one of those whites. True Son doesn’t want to leave, though, but is forced to. He has a difficult time being forced to adjust to an alien, white-European culture—one in which almost everyone hates the Indians. Things go downhill for him from there, and when he finally escapes and returns to his real home with the Delaware, they reject him and he becomes a boy lost between two worlds. It’s not exactly a “feel-good” story, but one that probably a lot of colonists experienced because many, preferring life among their Native American families and friends, didn’t want to be repatriated. (One of the themes in S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon deals with that issue.)
Richter was born in Pine Grove, PA in 1890, a town settled in the early 1800s by immigrants from Germany’s Palatine region. But Richter’s family didn’t stay in Pine Grove. Instead, they moved around a lot within the state. Relocating from place to place allowed Richter to hear stories from various townspeople about how their ancestors had come there from overseas. When Richter was 19, he began writing and editing for local newspapers. He also began writing his own stories and published his first work—the short story “Brothers of No Kin”—in 1914.
The Awakening Land Trilogy
Richter married Harvena Maria Achenbach in 1928, and their family eventually moved to the Southwest, first to New Mexico and later to Arizona. Richter became enthralled with the Southwest and began writing stories and novels about it. Many of his themes reflect his concerns about the disappearing frontier, the effects of increasing technology on society, and how human are destroying their environment. His The Awakening Land trilogy are three of his many novels that reflect these concerns. The Trees (1936) deals with the pioneers who moved from Pennsylvania to the unsettled Southwest. The Fields (1946) shows how Ohio changed from wilderness to farmland between the 18th and 19th centuries. And The Town describes how industrialization changed Ohio.
Personally, I think Richter was ahead of his time with these themes. I also think his trilogy will make interesting reading, and I intend to add them to my To Read list.
Richter died in 1968.
January 28, 2022
Hal Clement
Growing up, all my brother, Ralph, and I read were science fiction novels and magazines, along with comic books such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. One of my favorite authors—and Ralph’s too—was Hal Clement. Two of Clement’s novels, Cycle of Fire and Needle, are still on my bookshelf. They must be well over sixty years old by now.
[image error]Hal Clement
Hal Clement was actually the pen name for Harry Clement Stubbs. Stubbs was born in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1922. In 1943, he graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in astronomy. But he didn’t focus solely on his academic studies at Harvard because a year earlier, in 1942, he published his first science fiction story in Astounding Science Fiction, a magazine Ralph and I used to buy at the local drugs store, and devour.
During World War II, Stubbs served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a pilot and copilot of a B-24 Liberator, which was a heavy bomber. He was no slouch after the war because he earned two more degrees: a Master of Education and a Master of Science. Except for his first two years, Stubbs spent his entire forty-year teaching career at Milton Academy, which is “an independent college preparatory K-12 school,” just a few towns over from where I lived in Quincy, MA.
Stubbs began his prolific writing career in 1949 when he published Needle as a series in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. By 1953 he had published two other serialized stories in the magazine too: Iceworld and Mission of Gravity. All three books got picked up by publishers and came out in paperback and hardcover editions.
Personally, I think Stubbs was a caring and wonderful man. When Ralph was in junior high school, he belonged to a Science Fiction Book Club that met after hours in the library. The school librarian, Miss Bear, who ran the club invited science fiction writer Isaac Asimov to speak to the club. Asimov said he would do it for a hundred dollars. That was a large sum of money at the time, and the library had no funds to pay a speaker. So Asimov suggested Miss Bear invite Harry Stubbs. She did, and Stubbs agreed to speak to the group for free.
When I was in high school, I learned that Hal Clement was appearing at the nearby junior high school for a book signing the next day. The next morning, I grabbed my copies of Mission of Gravity, Needle, and Cycle of Fire—which I still have—and brought them to school. I couldn’t wait for the day to end and hoped I wouldn’t arrive too late to have him sign the books. When I arrived at the school, I was relieved to see he was still there speaking to students and signing copies of his novels. I handed Stubbs one of my books and asked him to autograph it, which he did. He was a bit surprised when I presented him with a second book, and he signed his name. And he was really surprised when I handed him the third book. He wrote with a flourish: “Best wishes, Hal Clement.”
If you can get your hands on any of Hal Clement’s books, they’re well worth reading.
Stubbs died in 2003 at the age of 81, and the world of science fiction lost an icon.
December 16, 2021
The Inspiration for Charm Wars
Readers have asked me what inspired the idea for writing Charm Wars. The inspiration came when I thought of the book’s ending. (You’ll have to wait until the last book in the series to see what that was.) From the ending I worked my way backwards, figuring out how the refugees from Euloria in the Forbidden Lands crossed over the Rocky Strait to settle in a place they named Caldon in a country they called Caldonia.
Map of the World of Charm Wars
Next, I created a social structure for the society, one that would be a bit different from the societies in many of the novels I’ve read. I have an MA degree in Roman History, which I taught along with Medieval and Renaissance History. So it came as no surprise—to me, anyway—that I based Caldonian society on those three societies, plus with a bit of Native American Iroquois thrown in as well.
The eldest woman in a family is the matriarch, whose word is law. The husband lives with his wife’s family, and their children take the mother’s last name, not the father’s. If the couple split up, the kids stay with the mother and the ex-husband returns to his family. Everyday terms we are used to using, such as “husband and wife” and “man made,” are flipped around, becoming “wife and husband” and “woman made.”
The Naming Charm determines which kind of magic the potential mage can wield. If one of the gemstones lights up, the teen has the potential to use that kind of magic. If all but the blue gemstone at the top light up, the teen has the potential to become an archmage and can access all kinds of magic except the one represented by the blue gem. If all the gemstones, including the blue one, light up, that teen suffers a fatal accident during fledgling training.
Charms that contain spells for spell casting form the basis of the First and Lesser Families’ power. The refugees brought charms and staffs with them when they fled the Forbidden Lands to settle in Caldonia. Unfortunately, in their haste to flee and the limited number of ships and boats available, they couldn’t take all the charms and staffs with them. The shortage meant that the First and Lesser Families would have to steal them from their political opponents in “charm raids” if they wanted to become more powerful. Why not go to the Forbidden Lands and collect more charms and staffs? Actually, some people did venture there from time to time, but none of them ever returned. Except for one person: a mage named Rodleen Gespar. He came back as a “hollow mage”—a magic user who had all her personal energy sucked out of her by the magic plane and became an empty shell.
Map of the City of Caldon
I do admit, though, that part of the Caldon’s social structure is a common trope. Society is divided into two classes: noblesse and commoners. The first and lesser noblesse families control the charms and staffs brought from the Forbidden Lands, which form the basis of their power. If commoners have magic abilities, they can become mages but must serve a First or Lesser Family to use that magic. If they don’t serve the families, they’re conscripted to serve in the Legions in Caldon’s centuries-old war against their archenemy Gaetan in the east and also against Annatol in the west, across the Sharp Teeth Mountains.
Because of the charm raids, noblesse live in fortresses-like compounds similar to the ones powerful families inhabited during the Middle Ages. Armed “protectors” patrol the wall walks and “backwatchers” accompany family members whenever they venture outside their compound. Most commoners live in tenements, although some live in houses. They become clients of noblesse families, seeking protection and handouts in return for their allegiance to the family and their vote in the elections.
So welcome to the world of Charm Wars, where “the men receive the honors, but the women have the power.”
September 26, 2021
The Fort—Past and Present
Bernard Cornwall’s The Fort is a fictionalized account of the infamous Penobscot Expedition during the American Revolution that occurred from July 25th to August 15th, 1779 in what is today the town of Castine, Maine. The expedition was the worst American naval defeat in history until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. The leaders—Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell, and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere (of midnight ride fame)—were court marshaled for this devastating loss to the British.
Back in 1779, Penobscot was a part of the Massachusetts province of Maine. A contingent of naval, marine, and infantry forces headed out by ship from Boston, intending to capture a partially completed fort—named Fort George, after King George—the British were constructing. The Massachusetts General Assembly sponsored the expedition because they feared three things: fleeing Loyalists would seek refuge there, the thick woods would provide trees to make masts for the King’s fighting ships, and the British would use the area as both a naval base and also a trading post with the local Native Americans.
Map of Fort George (Map courtesy of the Castine Historical Society)
After the British victory, Fort George stayed in British hands until the end of the Revolution. The fort was the last military outpost the British abandoned at the end of the war. At that point the Loyalists fled, leaving Penobscot in the hands of the small number of residents who had remained during the British occupation. Citizens began removing bricks and other materials from the fort to help build their growing town. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British again captured the town and reoccupied and rebuilt Fort George. In 1819, they abandoned the fort for good and destroyed it, leaving it in ruins.
1909 Photo of Fort George. The image on the left was erroneously thought to be a dungeon, but is most likely a well for water. (Photo courtesy of the Castine Historical Society)
But the incompetently led, ill-fated expedition isn’t the focus of this post. Nor is its reoccupation during the war of 1812. Fort George is the focus. Why? Because the fort survived both wars and, according to one scholar of 18th century forts, Fort George’s earthen-work ramparts are in extremely good condition. In 1940, the state of Maine took ownership of the fort to maintain it as a tourist attraction. Fort George’s ruins are one of Castine’s prized treasures and just one of many forts that were built from the 1600s on in this strategically important location on the coast of Maine.
Fort George, Late 1880s (Photo courtesy of the Castine Historical Society)
Besides being a tourist attraction, Fort George over the years was used by townspeople for recreational activities such as baseball and golf. In addition, pageants were performed there and more recently plays put on by locals. Since the Bicentennial, several reenactments have taken place at the fort as well.
Playing Baseball at Fort George, around the 1880s (Photo courtesy of the Castine Historical Society)
Pageant at Fort George, 1920 (Photo Courtesy of the Castine Historical Society)
Re-enactment at Fort George
Here are some photos of how Fort George looks today.
The Fort Today: A Reconstructed Section
The Fort Today: The Parade Ground
The Fort Today: A Fort Cannon Overlooking the Maine Maritime Academy
If you should ever go to the Town of Castine during tourist season, be sure to visit the Castine Historical Society, which has a wonderful exhibit about the Penobscot Expedition. The Historical Society also gives guided walking tours of the area’s fascinating, 400-year history.
September 2, 2021
Charm Wars Goes on Sale Today
Both paperback and e-book versions of Charm Wars went on sale today.
Welcome to Caldon, a land of mages and magic, where the noblesse possess massive political and magical power and destroy anyone who threatens the noblesse way of life—especially the commoners.
Rill Larkin, the son of a commoner blacksmith, has high ambitions. To be a mage, join the exalted ranks of the ruling noblesse, and establish his own noblesse family. Defying both the system and his family, Rill becomes the apprentice of Deuth Estati, a powerful archmage. But appearances deceive. As training progresses, Rill learns of decades-long secrets and manipulations that threaten his dream. And Deuth might not be as benevolent as Rill thought.
Alyse Dejune despises magic, even if she does belong to one of the oldest and most powerful noblesse families in Caldon. The deceits and treacheries of noblesse life and the loveless marriage alliances among the noblesse families disgust her. Her family however has high expectations: that she fulfill her role as a noblesse girl by marrying Troy Estati, an arrogant, selfish noblesse boy she does not love. And Alyse harbors a secret—the potential to become one of the most powerful mages in generations and wield forbidden magic—that, if revealed, could mean her death.
In this deadly game of ever-shifting alliances, where the state wages perpetual war against an ancient enemy, Rill and Alyse are thrown together in a land where magic is failing. And as greedy noblesse families raid surrounding family compounds for powerful charms, Rill and Alyse are left standing at a terrible crossroads.
You can buy Charm Wars at these and other physical and online stores:
Amazon Kindle: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsKindle
Amazon Paperback: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsAmazonPB
Barnes & Noble Nook: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsNookBook
Barnes & Noble Paperback: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsBarnsAndNoblePB
Reedsy: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsReedsy
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/charm-wars
Target: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsTarget
Books-A-Million: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsBooksAMillion
Indibound.org: https://bit.ly/IndiboundCharmWars
Waterstones in the UK: https://bit.ly/CharmWarsWaterstoneUK
July 23, 2021
Living in Rural Maine
Penobscot Town Hall
Being married to a wife who works in the museum field means moving from place to place as she goes from one museum to another to advance in her career. I’ve lived in Massachusetts, where I was born, and then bounced from there to the Adirondacks in New York to Tennessee to New Hampshire to Downeast Coastal Maine.
Going to Maine was like returning home because my father was born in Kittery, Maine—one of a long line of my descendants in Maine dating back to the 1600s. The one difference is that we’re now living in the rural, downeast coastal town of Penobscot. How rural is Penobscot? As of 2020, the year-round population was 1,220 men, women, and children who live in 883 houses. The local grocery store is a little larger than a garage. The nearest towns are Bucksport (population 2,885) on one side of Route 1 and Ellsworth (population 8,518) on the other side of Route 1. For us, Bucksport is a fifteen-minute drive while Ellsworth is a forty-minute drive. During the summer months, “summer people” increase the town’s population.
We both love living here in Penobscot. There are only four houses on our dirt road, and we have plenty of backyard space for our two dogs, Faith and Mac. Woods and blueberry fields are all around us. And we see deer, turkeys, and other wildlife crossing our lawn all the time.
Turkeys in Our Front Yard
There were a few quirks we had to get used to. For instance, when we first arrived, the town hall was open on Tuesdays from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. Lately they’ve increased their hours to include Mondays, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. To open a small business, the only documentation you need from the town is, well . . . nothing. Just satisfy the federal and state requirements and you’re good to go.
Downeast Costal Maine is known for its blueberries. W. R. Allen, Inc. operates a huge blueberry farm a short distance down the road from us on Route 15. Allen blueberry fields occupy both sides of Route 15. Our house is built on a former blueberry field that was “repurposed.” Every two years, W.R. Allen burns part of their blueberry fields, which acts as pruning and helps the bushes produce large crops the next season. The burning is done by machine and tightly controlled. Lisa and I watched them burn the blueberry field on the other side of our fence. It was quite interesting. Some wild blueberry plants on our property survived the transition from blueberry field to house yard. Lisa and I take full advantage of them.
Burning the Blueberry Field Behind Our House
Burning the Blueberry Field Behind Our House
We live by the coast, and the sights are magnificent. Every year , bald eagles sit in the trees on the edge of a marsh, waiting for the alewife to go upstream into a lake on the other side of the road so they can feed on them. You can take some good photos of the eagles too. You also have access to a beautiful coastline, along with fishing and swimming. And, of course, when driving at night you have to keep a sharp watch for deer. Oftentimes they emerge from the woods and cross the road without looking or just hang out.
Marsh Where the Bald Eagles Hang Out—and Be Sure to Watch Out for Deer at Night
Penobscot Shore
The only thing I miss is ethnic restaurants. Well . . . maybe even just restaurants!
All in all, we enjoy living in Penobscot and will probably remain here.
