Kim Knox's Blog: ...darkness and romance..., page 15

Sold! ENERGY to Ellora's Cave

I've been on holiday so I didn't get a chance to update here…but I've sold the 4th book in the Planetary Bodies series, Energy.

Here's the blurb:

Callie Thiago lives for gossip. And her crew aboard the CMC Theseus provide her with enough lurid tales of sex to keep her lonely nights warm. It sates her curiosity. Mostly. She has no experience of her own to draw on as shyness plagues her…until sheen smashes into her ship.

Now she's stuck on a small outpost moon with Aaron Blane, a man she's wanted for all of her adult life. But she knows sheen can't work through her as it does others. She's different. And it's this difference that Blane is more than eager to explore…

A few little hints about the series are on my website in the Behind the Scenes page for the series

And in other news, Current, Book 3 is out 16 September.

You can read a yummy excerpt here

Filed under: Ellora's Cave, Energy, Planetary Bodies, sale!, Writing

Dragons, Wyverns and Worms… oh my!

I sort of fell away for a bit there. Sorry. School holidays started and double edits caught me.

Dragons have taken up my research time the past few weeks.  I have the start of the story that I love and I've been writing it my notebook at bus stops, on buses and waiting for the hobbits at their various clubs.

Hopefully no one has been reading over my shoulder… I can only hope my appalling handwriting has kept them innocent of the dark and dirty nastiness spidering across the page.

I'm still deciding on the structure of my dragon society, so I poked around my books, trying to decide what…attributes my dragon hero should have.  Here a couple.

—————–

Winging it ?

I think wings were a given. I've had far too much fun in the past with a hero and his wings. Still, I uncovered some wingless, serpent varieties of dragon. Large snakes are the possible start of dragon evolution, or as serpent-like dragons are often associated with water, crocodiles, with the unnerving way they snake through water.

The tale of the Lambton Worm is a medieval myth from north east England.  John Lambton, a dissolute heir, ignored church and piety to go fishing one Sunday.  He caught a creature with the face of a devil and threw the thing down a well.  Scared into atoning, he went off to the Holy Land, unknowingly leaving the representation of his former wickedness to ravage the countryside.

He returned and was forced to tackle the huge worm in a suit of spiked armour.  Killing it in a fast flowing river, so it couldn't reform–the part of the story I remember from when I was small from a book with very gory pictures!–he then had to kill the first thing he saw after to stop a curse falling on his family. Unfortunately, it was his father, but rather than kill him, he killed his old dog.  The curse fell and the Lambton heirs met tragic ends for nine generations.

——————-

Two legs or four?

I'm undecided on this, how much of dragon my hero will become, what his exact final form will take.  I looked at Lindorms–two-legged, but wingless–and Wyverns–two-legged with wings.  A Lindorm story jumped out at me.

Lindorms really like Sweden and a myth from there as another bunny hopping about in my brain.  I really should stop this looking in books thing… lol

A Swedish queen met a fortune teller and the old woman told her that she would produce heirs within a year if she ate two onions.  Excited, the queen ate the first onion whole, skin and all.  It was foul.  So she carefully peeled the next one.

Nine months on–yes, onions are very potent –the queen gave birth.  The first child was hideous, a lindorm, coiled, scaled with taloned legs.  She threw the dragon-like creature from the window into the thick forest below.  Her second son was born, a perfect child.

The second son grew and discovered the lindorm in the forest.  The creature said he would never find love and a bride before, he, his older brother found a woman willing to be his wife.  None were willing.  Until a girl, one forced to present herself to the lindorm, found the fortune-teller who gave her a set of specific instructions.

So the girl stood before the lindorm in a number of dresses.  For each dress she removed, she asked that the Lindorm remove a layer of his skin.  Finally, she stood naked before him, and he coiled his body around her, warm and smooth and she could  that the almost translucent final layer of scaled skin was withering away.  She stayed calm, believing what the old woman had told her, that she would find happiness with the lindorm.

Green mist enveloped them and she found herself wrapped in the arms of  the most beautiful man she had ever seen.  The girl was more than willing to be his wife and ultimately his queen with that discovery.

The fortune-teller had one final word for the old swedish queen.  She really should peel onions before she ate them…

————————

(I love the last part of the story!)

My hunt for my hero's dragon qualities continues, so more dragon-related posts may appear down the line.  He'll no doubt be powerful and irresistible, startlingly beautiful with a fierce flare of fire.

So…just your basic dragon, then.

Filed under: Preternatural Bites, Writing

Biopunk: It's the hacking life for me…

Apologies for the bad title, but I couldn't resist…

I've been playing about with writing a biopunk romance and when I mentioned it in passing in a chat room, someone asked me what that actually was.  So here's my take on it.

Biopunk is biological hacking.  There's no time to wait around for large corporations with vested interests to hand down information.  You want something, or want something done, you do it yourself.

DNA is our source code and having access to the full sequence means the hack can begin.  Link people together, get them working on a problem, using a little money, brains and obsession, and the ability to make the impossible is there.  Anyone want to find out why the naked mole rat lives so long or is immune to cancer?  Their genome has just been sequenced. Have at it!

The chance to play around with DNA, piece it together in new and strange and possibly terrifying ways could be a result. And for me, that's where the fun is.

To move into fiction, biopunk as a genre in a lot of ways can resemble that other punk: cyberpunk.  A future dysoptia, with the little–often criminal–guy(s) up against the mega-corporations or the all-pervasive state.

Machines in a biopunk world are liable to be organic and living rather than a sentience built by a computer and as in a virtual reality world, anything imagined could be grown. Or pushing it further, where it's all gone wrong and humans are genetically altered, diseased by virulent super-bug creations, or existing as little more than pets.

Pets.  Yes, I may have used that in a book before…

Filed under: Cosmic Chatter, Writing

Crocodile dung…and you're putting it *where*?!

A little bit of a quandary this week had me hunting out methods for female contraception in a pre-industrial society.  Who says writing isn't fun and interesting!

The oldest known medicial text, the Kahun Papyrus — almost 4000 years old — has the suggestion of plugging the vagina with a paste of honey and sodium carbonate or that of crocodile dung and sour milk.  The first plug could impede sperm.  The second could absorb sperm or act simply as  a plug.  Though possibly the smell would be off putting enough!

Since my heroine doesn't have access to crocodile or elephant dung–another recommended contraception for its acidic qualities–I'll have to go with something less exotic and distinctly less smelly.

Making a lint plug with ground acacia leaves–which has an effective spermicide in lactic acid–and honey is another option, though still, fiddly.

I ran across other contraceptives, such as olive oil, cedar resin…and the ancient Greek preference for white lead is a little scary.  I needed something easier, an oral contraception.  Something my heroine  could take in preparation for seducing a man.

The Greek physician, Dioscorides, listed a number of plants to act as an oral contraceptive, such as juniper, pennyroyal and wild carrot.  Proven effective by recent testing, these plants could have dangerous side effects. Which is probably why plugs and pastes were popular.   With the lead…

Jumping across the Atlantic, Cherokee women chewed and swallowed spotted cowbane and  Shosone women a 'desert tea' which was an infusion of stoneseed.

With all of this, I can play with plants and rituals to perfect my scene and protect my heroine. Tea, I like.  Holding a cup, the warmth of the ceramic against her skin, breathing in the scent of the steam. And her nerves as she knows what lies ahead…

Can't wait to write it!

Filed under: Preternatural Bites, Writing

Dangerous spaces

Come on, it's time to head off planet and explore the solar system.  No problem.  Jump a ship and head out…

Except most of us are creatures perfectly evolved for our environment, to Earth's gravity, the mixture of air, the pressure at sea level.  Change it and a body will suffer.  Pack the ship, or space suit with too little oxygen and we suffocate, too much and things catch light.

Oh and humans are a toxic box of gases and disease. Filters and scrubbers have to fight the effect of people and equipment to keep the environment safe.  And it's not just these that are the danger. The Mir space station's mold problem caused a build up of dangerous gases, making humidity a another fine balance to be sought. Comfortable enough for humans, but not a breeding ground for fungi and mold.

Then there's the bombardment of the ship and everything in it with radiation.  Light could overheat a ship. Galactic cosmic rays will penetrate the ship's shielding and cause damage to the human body.  Astronauts have reported seeing flashes as their crafts were hit and it's still unknown what long term effect this powerful form of radiation has on a body…

Oh, you don't want to go?  That's fine.  I think, Doctor Who is on.

The TARDIS. Now that's the way to travel.

Filed under: Cosmic Chatter, Writing

Criminal Magic?

I'm still mooching about exploring magic systems for my wip Fury and ran across this bit of interesting history.

Romans believed in the power of song.  It could cast a curse or cure, that power becoming written into their first laws.

Rome created a code of law in the Twelve Tables that bound the needs of the privileged and the common people together.  The Twelve Tables covered, the rights of the paterfamilias over his family, inheritance, debt and the right of the privileged to rule.  It also covered injuries, and in some laws, injury through magical incantations.

Ancient writers referred back to the Tables, quoting them as clearly saying that the act of uttering an evil song, a spell or curse, of malum carmen could find that man or woman being clubbed to death for their crime. To be honest, most crimes in Table VIII–covering crimes of personal injury– carried a death sentence. Tough times…

There were also curing songs. Cato wrote of a particular cantio, a pure magic, a healing incantation that helped with dislocated limbs, mixed with the support of reeds and bandages.  The song had to be sung every day over the patient and they, with the combination of both remedies, would be cured.

I like–and will probably play with–the idea that magic, the song or carmen, wasn't inherently evil.  That the crime was the intent to use magic to do harm, for example to spirit away a neighbour's harvest or to grow rich at the expense of others.

Or in my characters' case, to twist magic into a more… libidinous crime.

Filed under: Preternatural Bites

Help with getting the words down…

Today I've been good and written 2 blog posts–I'm up to 19 July with the Preternatural Bites and Cosmic Chatter posts.  Expect something on ancient contraception and biopunk in the near future They're surprisingly fun to write.  Surprising as I've always run away from writing research posts.

I've also–finally–finished the ritual sex scene in Frequency. Having X-men 1 running in the background on a loop has helped.  Can't imagine why… *whistles*

Filed under: Cosmic Chatter, Planetary Bodies, Preternatural Bites, Writing

Back yard aliens? Not really…

As a writer of Science Fiction Romance, I often run up against The Fermi Paradox and the Drake equation.

The Fermi Paradox is the contradiction between a high estimate of civilisations beyond Earth and the complete dearth of any supporting evidence, as in ships, probes or contact. Exploring why the paradox exists is fun in the writerly way.

Is it because Earth is rare?  That sentient life is only an accidental byproduct of evolution.  Or that civilisations reach a certain point in their evolution and simply implode?  Or they see the rise of any other sentient species in the galaxy as a threat, becoming paranoid predators and seeking out all other life and exterminating it… Oh, that sounds, familiar. *grin*

It's the size of the universe that makes any communication with other life almost impossible.  That's where Drake's equation comes in:

N = the number of civilisations possible.  The rest of the formula relates to stars, with planets, that can support and goes on to develop life…life that's intelligent and able to create technology that can reach into space.  L= the length of time these civilisations would emit these signals.

It's not a perfect equation, but it does make it evident that it's such a remote chance that we'll ever bump civilisations with someone else.

It definitely has one thing missing.  Drake should factor in how many of these civilisations would have fit, gorgeous aliens eager for Earth women…  Or perhaps that's just me.  And my plot bunnies.

Filed under: Cosmic Chatter, Writing

Restless love and magic

Iynx was a Greek mountain nymph, daughter of Pan (or Peitho) and Echo.  And, as usual for a nymph, she didn't fair too well.

Through Hera's wrath or daring to go up against the Muses, she was transformed into a wryneck bird, a bird whose head can twist back on itself.

Aphrodite took Iynx and she became a magical love object.  Turned, the user would murmur the magical words to cast the love charm, either as a jagged spinning wheel threaded with string or the turned neck of the iynx bird on a wheel. The goddess  gave the iynx to Jason to cast his spell over Medea. Of course, that relationship was completely successful…

It's claimed by a Byzantine source that Cleopatra also used the same charms to bedazzle Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Augustus would've been her third conquest. Less well known women in the ancient world used the iynx to enchant their lovers, as Theocritus' courtesan using the iynx to :

"…draw that man to my house."

And the whole section is a woman performing a magical rite to rekindle her lover's affections.

The iynx seems to be capricious in working its magic.  Though, honestly, I'm not sure the ground up lizard helped…

Filed under: Preternatural Bites

Something new…

So I was thinking what I could do to start myself blogging again. I like history and magic, creatures and legends and I also like science and its weird and interesting stuff.  I've decided I'll share the fun bits I find on the web, TV, films and in the tonne of books I have lying about the house, here on my blog.

So starting Friday, it's Preternatural Bites:

And on Tuesdays it's Cosmic Chatter:

Enjoy

Filed under: Cosmic Chatter, Preternatural Bites