R.J. Weinkam's Blog

Young Jane Austen Novels

R. J. Weinkam is writing three novels that feature young Jane Austen at some period that will prove to important to her later writing.  While entirely fictional, they attempt to capture Jane as she was known to her family and friends, or at least as we know her from their correspondence and commentary.  Alas, these are not sexed up bacchanals or the preternatural modern woman as sometimes portrayed by contemporary romance novelists, but the life of the unknown, country girl that she was, struggling with the talents we know she had, but with no inkling of what she might become.  Still, she was a happy, witty girl who met some fascinating people, had a taste of interesting adventures, and turned out rather well in the end.

Meeting Elizabeth – Pride and Prejudice Inspired

Meeting Elizabeth – Pride and Prejudice Inspiredis a young Jane Austen novel by R. J. Weinkam.A Pennon Select Publication, March 2014

Meeting Elizabeth is presently available as a trade paperback and as an e-Book from Amazon.

Miss Jane Austen began writing her novels when she was about nineteen years of age.  The very first of these, Lady Susan, was never completed.  The others, after being revised and rewritten, and after the passage of many years, were eventually published and are among the world’s best-loved works.  It is well known that Jane Austen used many familiar characters and scenes in her stories.  Readers acquainted with both her life and works can connect the two, but attempts to identify the inspiration for her best-loved characters, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, have failed.  That, of course, does not mean that there were no such individuals.  Very few details of Jane’s teenage years remain and so we do not know what she may have done and whom she may have known.  But suppose Jane, then seventeen, accompanied her friend, Mrs Anne Lefroy, on a visit to Maybridge during the summer of 1793.  She would have had an opportunity to meet the delightful brown-haired village girl, and the tall, dark and proud young gentleman who was visiting nearby.  She might attend dances and balls, and visit grand estates.  No doubt romances would develop, but they would hardy proceed without some share of difficulty.  They so rarely do.

The Young Jane Austen Series

The series of three Young Jane Austen novels will fictionally explore periods in Jane's early life that will influenced her future novels.
Meeting Elizabeth – Pride and Prejudice Inspired (March 2014)
At age 19, Jane travels to Maybridge with her Mrs Anne Lefroy where she meets the individuals and has the adventures that inspire Pride and Prejudice and other early novels.
Finding Jane Austen (Fall 2014)
It is 1805, Jane, after a series of family tragedies and personal disappointments, has given up writing with no expectation of taking it up again.  What a loss should she never complete her novels, our time travelers thought, as they befriend the young woman and do what they may to encourage her talents.  Later, during her declining illness, they have the opportunity to meet again and share with her something of her future fame.  It was a bittersweet time.
More Sense than Sensibility – Shades of the French Revolution

Jane, age 18, is companion to her cousin Eliza de Feuillide, whose husband had recently be executed during the terror of the French Revolution.  Jane becomes embroiled in British attempts the discredit Robespierre and along the way meets a number of memorable characters.

OUTWARD BORNE _ Second Edition

OUTWARD BORNE – Alien Abduction and Return
At last!  After months of effort the revised and edited version of OUTWARD BORNE is complete.  The story now has a stronger narrative flow and my always shaky grammar has been corrected.
The second editions for the paperback and ebook were published in May 2013.
OUTWARD BORNE could be called wonky science fiction, if there were such a genre.  That there is no such genre probably reflects the fact that a science-first approach does not have sufficient commercial potential, put if the problem of real interstellar space travel appeals, you might enjoy OUTWARD BORNE.
The vast bulk of science fiction ignores most physical laws to create often exciting and always imaginary tales, but what if the laws of science were largely maintained.  What would that be like?  'Manned' interstellar space travel might be all but impossible within those constraints, but not entirely so.  In OUTWARD BORNE, a distant alien world embarks on the galaxy's first interstellar voyage, a millennia-long mission to discover and study intelligent beings in their quest to learn why so few technologically advanced civilizations survive.
Adherence to physical, chemical, and biological principles has its story limitations - Would Luke Skywalker travel to planet Naboo to visit his girlfriend if it would take him a hundred years to get there?  But it also has its own set of problems - How could you feed an alien if you had one?  How could a populated space ship be supplied through a thousand year voyage?  And why have we not detected any alien signals?  Space is not crackling with interstellar telecommunications; we know that much, perhaps there are very few technologically advanced civilizations.  Why?  OUTWARD BORNE envisions one scenario in which interstellar ‘manned’ space travel would be possible within the context of the key facts that we know about our galaxy.
The other driving goal for this novel was the story.  The ‘manned’ space ship would, of course, come to Earth, So what if there was an alien abduction that is still happening now?  An abduction that happened in the past, which left no trace, but which will be known in the future when the People are returned.
Earth - An alien abduction occurs from a time and place lost to history.  People and their dogs are taken.  Their descendents survive for centuries within the Outward Voyager where they overcome a mission-threatening alien assault to gain the respect of the ObLaDas.  A body-dissolving plague that has leapt the boundaries of evolution comes within moments of eliminating all life on the Outward Voyager.  Shocked by their mortality, the ObLaDas vow to preserve the few advanced species they know to exist.  A small number of reluctant humans are trained for their return to earth.  Unknown even to himself, one has been given a dangerous, but powerful gift.
This blog will updated periodically to summarize some of the scientific perspectives that were followed in the novel and answer questions that readers might have.

OUWARD BORNE _ Second Edition

OUTWARD BORNE – Alien Abduction and Return
At last!  After months of effort the revised and edited version of OUTWARD BORNE is complete.  The story now has a stronger narrative flow and my always shaky grammar has been corrected.
The second editions for the paperback and ebook were published in May 2013.
OUTWARD BORNE could be called wonky science fiction, if there were such a genre.  That there is no such genre probably reflects the fact that a science-first approach does not have sufficient commercial potential, put if the problem of real interstellar space travel appeals, you might enjoy OUTWARD BORNE.
The vast bulk of science fiction ignores most physical laws to create often exciting and always imaginary tales, but what if the laws of science were largely maintained.  What would that be like?  'Manned' interstellar space travel might be all but impossible within those constraints, but not entirely so.  In OUTWARD BORNE, a distant alien world embarks on the galaxy's first interstellar voyage, a millennia-long mission to discover and study intelligent beings in their quest to learn why so few technologically advanced civilizations survive.
Adherence to physical, chemical, and biological principles has its story limitations - Would Luke Skywalker travel to planet Naboo to visit his girlfriend if it would take him a hundred years to get there?  But it also has its own set of problems - How could you feed an alien if you had one?  How could a populated space ship be supplied through a thousand year voyage?  And why have we not detected any alien signals?  Space is not crackling with interstellar telecommunications; we know that much, perhaps there are very few technologically advanced civilizations.  Why?  OUTWARD BORNE envisions one scenario in which interstellar ‘manned’ space travel would be possible within the context of the key facts that we know about our galaxy.
The other driving goal for this novel was the story.  The ‘manned’ space ship would, of course, come to Earth, So what if there was an alien abduction that is still happening now?  An abduction that happened in the past, which left no trace, but which will be known in the future when the People are returned.
Earth - An alien abduction occurs from a time and place lost to history.  People and their dogs are taken.  Their descendents survive for centuries within the Outward Voyager where they overcome a mission-threatening alien assault to gain the respect of the ObLaDas.  A body-dissolving plague that has leapt the boundaries of evolution comes within moments of eliminating all life on the Outward Voyager.  Shocked by their mortality, the ObLaDas vow to preserve the few advanced species they know to exist.  A small number of reluctant humans are trained for their return to earth.  Unknown even to himself, one has been given a dangerous, but powerful gift.
This blog will updated periodically to summarize some of the scientific perspectives that were followed in the novel and answer questions that readers might have.

OUTWARD BORNE - First Chapter

Chapter 1     14 April 2126      DePat Kiefer, my grandfather, is one of the thirty-five men and women that were returned to Earth sixty-one years ago from the interstellar ship they called Outward Voyager.  DePat is an old man now, almost 81, and the eldest of the three surviving Voyagers.  He is somewhat diminished from what he was, but I can still see him as I did when I was a child.  Tall, erect, and graceful, with his long fingers, blond hair, and green and yellow markings, he was a fierce presence.  People were drawn to him.  They wanted to be near, but not close.  As he came into a room, people would step away and then reached out to touch his sleeve, his unearthly origin always present.  It seemed that he was always at the center of some spectacle, in the midst of a crowd, but I knew him as a quiet man who was forced to live his life amidst a plague of notoriety, suspicion, and morbid fascination.
I always thought that I knew as much as any Earth-born person about the Outward Voyager and what had happened to the people who had lived on it.  Everyone knew about the landing, it was such a sensation, but there was so much hype and confusing publicity that that a lot of the things that people now believe are not actually true.  We know why they were abducted, it was part of some grand scientific experiment by the ObLaDas to study intelligent life in our galaxy, but we know very little about the abduction itself.  People, I forget exactly how many, and dogs of course, were taken from some isolated villages in northern Germany around the year 650.  They and their descendents lived and traveled through space for nearly fifteen hundred years.  Grandfather told me stories of his life on the ship, which is why I thought I knew more than other people.  He said that their habitat was like a sprawling hotel that was built inside of a windowless warehouse.  I still cannot imagine living all my life in such a place, but they did, and those people must have adjusted to it because DePat said that very few were willing to be returned to Earth when the time came.  Why their alien masters chose to return a few of them to Earth, no one knows, not even DePat, or so he had always claimed.
That was not true.  He does know.  He was the only person who did, until he told me.  I will never forget that day because it changed my life.  I was nearly twenty when I received a message from Hali Umballa, the daughter of one of the other Voyagers and DePat’s sometime helper.  DePat requested a formal appointment with me, Michael DePat Kiefer, grandson, college student of undeclared major with somewhat average grades, to meet with him in his home office on the evening of 14 April 2126.  This struck me as being a bit odd because I often stopped by and talked with him, at least once a week, and had been doing so for as long as I could remember.  So why was it necessary to set up an appointment?  I knew the old guy.  He would not do anything like that without a reason and I was not sure that I wanted to hear it.
I had always been close to my grandfather.  He took time to talk with me even when I was small.  I liked to hear his stories and always asked a lot of questions.  He always seemed to make time for me, even when he was very busy.  I never quite understood this attention, but recently he seems have become distracted.  He looks off into the distance when he talks.  I feel that he is struggling with some problem, from his body language perhaps, I am not sure.  He might again be on the dangerous side of being a Voyager.
As I walked toward his house that day the wind was strong, not a quick urgent wind that precedes a storm, but a persistent wind, a wind that would continue for some time only to die down in its determined place.  I arrived early on that fourteenth of March.  Hali and a man were already there waiting.  They scanned me for bugs.  DePat was in his office, they said, but I should call him before going back there.  All this protocol was strange and getting stranger.  I made the call.  Grandfather answered right away, he told me to shower in his private bathroom and put on a yellow robe that was in a plastic bag near the sink.  Obviously, he was going to great lengths to get rid of the ubiquitous recording widgets that infect our lives.  Grandfather once found twenty-two miniEars, sticky confetti-like transmitting microphones, and ten FlyingEyes in his living room alone.  He obviously did not want any of those things around today.  Even his dog, the beauteous longhaired Gweneth, a notorious bug carrier, was banished to the yard.
Duly washed and wrapped, I went to the office, entered, and closed the door quietly.  DePat was sitting at his old desk, looking out the window, back into the dark leaved oaks.  His thoughts were far in the past.  When I said hello, he seemed nervous and more serious than I expected him to be, but then he did not usually summon me to an audience and have me cleansed and gowned either.  He looked up and I saw his timid smile.  I relaxed a bit thinking that all this formality was not really because of me.  At least that was that I thought until Grandfather started talking.
His expression changed, the color drained slowly from his face and he seemed to grow smaller.  I was taken aback to see him so hesitant and perhaps afraid.  He is still a tall, lean man though not as erect as before, his blond hair has now turned white and he has lost some weight recently.  DePat has unusually straight eyebrows that determine his look.  He has wide yellow stripes went from the side of his nose to his ears, with narrow green stripes across his face above his brows.  His hair was always cut to give another straight line high across his forehead and across the nape of his neck.  He sat before that desk, leaning forward with his jaws clenched looking into the evening’s fading light, then turned toward me and took a deep breath.  He had no choice but to begin.
“I have something that I must give to you, Michael.  You have long been my favorite grandchild and a very bright and talented young man, though you have slacked off lately.  Ever since you were a small child, I could see your curiosity and determination to understand the meaning of things.  You could not be gotten rid of with some silly explanation.  You were annoying, really.”
I felt a lump in my chest, as if I could not breath.  I never expected my grandfather to talk this way.  “There is something that I have, something I have kept for many years, waiting until it was the right time, for the right one.  I know that I can trust in you, but I apologize for all the difficulties that this may bring about.  You did not ask for any of this, it was my task, but I could not finish.  I have no right to impose it on you, but I know you, Michael.  I know you will want to make it your own.”
I was not so sure about that.  Not when someone who has been jailed, robbed, slandered and tracked by spies most of his life starts talking about trouble.  He is not referring to a parking ticket and I was about to say so, but was not given the chance.  He again looked toward the window and into the past. 
“The Outward Voyager had been following a course toward some star, another solar system that the ObLaDas thought might harbor life, but midway into the mission the ship had been changed to a new course.  The People were told that the ObLaDas’ had decided to begin promoting planetary life forms.  It was many years later that they learned that they were that species, that some of them were being returned to Earth, the planet of their ancestors.  They were stunned.  The idea had a chilling effect on all of them.  They knew Earth only from ancient legends, some distant past event that had no relevance to their expectations.  They had no thought whatsoever of going near the place.  They were People of the Outward Voyager and had been for some sixty generations.  No reason to change.”
DePat took a sip of water and settled back into his chair.  “In time, a group of children were chosen, raised, and educated to make the return.  I was one of those selected, I never knew why.  The return to Earth came to have a profound effect on everyone, even those who would not be in the landing party.  For me, it fuelled an interest in the People of Outward Voyager and its mission though the interminable years that it had been in space.  I did not really care about Earth, as some did.  I was drawn by our past.  I was encouraged to pursue this project and the ObLaDas gave us, KeDom Sa and I, access to some achieves and later to the computers that operated the Outward data storage systems.  We spent almost four years looking through those files and pulled out a lot of information.  I even found records of some other aliens.”
I was confused.  I knew that DePat had the famous Alien Planet Cube.  He had given it to Earth many years ago, but it only had data on planets and some low life forms.  There was nothing about the Outward Voyager or aliens.
“Did they make you leave your files on the Outward Voyager?  It would have been fantastic to have such a thing.”  I asked.
“No, I have it here.”
“What!  Where?”
“Here, well, over there,” he said pointing to an antique cabinet.
“You mean you have kept some data from the Outward Voyager?  All these years?”
DePat seemed to snap into the present.  “Some, oh yes, much more than some.  That is the point.”
“Oh shit!”
“Why shit, and that stricken look on your face?”
Stricken, like in cold panic fear.  There can be hardly anything more dangerous than keeping ObLaDa information secret from the government.  So much flashed through my mind, fear of having forbidden information, excitement when I thought of looking at that file, dread of the likely prospect of being caught.  Caught, I would just disappear into some secret prison and no one would ever know.
“All of that material is here, some of it is still a hash of copied files, but the thing is, what I need to tell you, Michael, there was much more in that memory cube than we ever put there.  A great, great deal more.  There is data from ObLa, how that cloud-bound planet came to know of the universe, all their science, information on alien civilizations, I do not known how they acquired such detailed knowledge.
DePat paused a while, inward-looking, he gathered himself.  “When I discovered all this, the question I kept asking myself was why?  Why did they give me this huge repository of knowledge?  I began to look into these files, trying to find out.”
He shook his head, “there was something that was very curious, Michael.  The ObLaDas were very anxious about Earth’s technology and concerned over how fast it had developed.  They saw the same things happening here that troubled some of the other planets that they had visited.  They wanted me to use this information to help, somehow.  Help prolong our way of life I think, but they did not know enough about Earth to tell me how and I could not find a way to do it.  It took too long for me to understand, then Liana and I were arrested, all the problems in the Compound, when she became ill, was dying, it was too hard for me.  I was too old by then.  What I am telling you,” DePat said, very seriously, “must be kept an absolute secret.  It is extremely dangerous.”
“For certain!  I imagine the government would confiscate the data, or steal it, even break in, take us hostage.”
“Yes, there is that, but I mean dangerous to everyone, to Earth.  If some nation or organization had this knowledge, they would be able to dominate the planet, or start a war should others try to stop them.  That is the opposite of what must happen.”  DePat was drained. 
I was stunned.  My grandfather, all the Voyagers, were pawns of the alien ObLaDas and now I was drawn in as well.  I was to continue their plan, it seems.  Who were they?  I wanted to know all about them.  How could they launch an interstellar space mission?  They seemed to be the only civilization in the galaxy to do it.  To deliberately give us knowledge far beyond everything that we had, it could change everything here.  Why?