Deby Fredericks's Blog, page 96

Drum Roll, Please…

And cymbals crash as the door flies open. Ta-da! Aunt Ursula’s Atlas is here.

So I’m super-excited, in my stoic way. After years of searching out markets for my retro fantasy short stories, I’ve taken the leap to self-publish a collection. It’s a little bit scary, but mostly fun, to bring out a book on my own initiative.

 

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Cover illustration by Margaret Organ-Kean.

On a high shelf, in a hidden library,

There is a book of unknown wonders.

Open its pages. Explore mysterious lands.

See for yourself what lies within

Aunt Ursula’s Atlas.

So what’s inside?

Dragons, of course! And a unicorn. Some witches. A dryad. A dwarf. Thrilling adventures and hard lessons to learn. All this for $3.99.

Eleven short stories for middle grades — that is, grades 4 to 6. Half are in the fairy tale style you might remember from my podcast, The Dragon King. The others are an assortment of fantasy styles.

Where can you get this wondrous-ness?

Right now, it’s available only as an e-book. Trade paperback is in the works. It’s in Apple, Kindle and Epub formats, through a variety of outlets. I hope you’ll follow your favorite link and give it a try.

General purchase hub (links to Apple, Nook, Kobo, 24 Symbols, Inktera). Others soon to be available include Page Foundry, Scribd and Tolino.

And, of course, Amazon.

Not exactly a purchase link, but here’s Goodreads as well.

One last thing

Reviews! If you do buy the book, I sure could use some reviews. I’ll be contacting a few friends about specific publicity, but any one of you could add it to wish lists, mark it to-be-read, and otherwise help spread the joy.

Thanks for being so awesome!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin

A young girl and her dragon friend embark on a fantastic quest in this Asian-styled adventure for middle readers. Author Lin draws upon her own Chinese heritage to create this sweet story with a mythic flair.

Fruitless Mountain gets its name from a harsh reality: the rocky land bears little fruit, so that the villagers must struggle for survival. Minli works hard along side her parents every day. Hungry nights are softened by her father’s thrilling tales from legend and myth. Meanwhile, her mother regards it all as a useless fancy, and scolds her husband for filling their daughter’s head with dreams.

On impulse, Minli brings home a pretty goldfish as a pet, but Mother sighs bitterly over one more mouth to feed. Realizing her mistake, Minli goes to release her pet in a nearby river. But this is no ordinary goldfish. With her pure faith and trust in the tales her father told her, Minli sets off to bring happiness to her family.

The text in some ways is deceptively simple, and many of the characters have little dimension beyond their roles. And yet, the threads of several stories are woven together so cleverly, it’s hard the grudge anything. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon won a number of awards, including a Newberry Honor. It’s easy to see why.

Haiku 4

Jack Frost standing guard,

Blizzard blowing fierce and hard.

Dragon flies away.

Haiku 3 Plus News

Jack Frost is annoyed.

Naughty dragon making noise,

Scaring off his friends.

Never knew Haiku could be a storytelling form, did you?

Now for that news. I’m excited to tell you that I’ve got the cover art for my middle-grade book, Aunt Ursula’s Atlas. I’m working through Draft to Digital to get it done in e-book and print. There are the usual formatting issues, but I hope to get through them quickly and be able to announce a release date. Crossing my fingers, it will be before Christmas!

Aunt Ursula’s Atlas is a collection of short stories by my alter-ego, Lucy D. Ford. Some are from the fairy tale series that I podcast as The Dragon King in 2012. Others are more contemporary in style. If you recall a few weeks ago, I shared a story called The Dragon’s Ghost on this very blog. That will be part of this book.

So wish me luck as I set out on my self-publishing adventure, and come back Saturday for the next of my haiku sequence.

Haiku 2

Dragon swooping low,

Breathing flame to melt the snow.

Frosty is dismayed.

Haiku 1

Dragon soaring high,

Chasing reindeer in the sky.

Santa is delayed.

The Dragon of Bisterne

Long ago, the English county of Hampshire was covered by thick woodlands called the New Forest. Near these woods was a tall hill known as Burley Beacon, and the den of a dragon was high upon it. The beast caused the usual trouble — devouring cattle and also any humans foolish enough to interfere with its predations.

The nearest manor was at Bisterne, where Sir Maurice Berkeley was visited by a delegation pleading for his help. The villagers had managed to reach a detente that involved them giving all their cows’ milk to the dragon each day. Sir Maurice decided to use this. He had his armor coated with glass, and then set up a hunter’s blind where the dragon came to get the milk. There he hid himself along with his two best hunting hounds.

The next day, the dragon came. Sir Maurice waited until the beast was occupied with its treat. He let his hounds out, and they instantly rushed at the dragon. A furious battle raged across the countryside. It was visible to villagers in Lyndhurst and Bisterne. At length, Sir Maurice managed to strike the dragon from behind. Dragon and dogs died together in a bath of poisoned blood. It’s said that the dragon’s body turned into a hill known as Bolton’s Bench.

The knight’s glass-coated armor shed the blood without harming him… or so it seemed. But Sir Maurice was never the same after the battle. The dragon’s breath was merely a slower poison. He lost his strength and his mind wandered in nightmares. After a month of torment, the doomed knight returned to Bolton’s Bench. He died, and his body changed into a yew tree, which was said to still exist in the 17th Century.

A green dragon became part of the Berkeley family arms. Nearby villages of Bisterne, Alderbury and Brook have all had Green Dragon Inns at various times. The New Forest is a nature reserve, one of Britain’s largest intact native forests. It’s mystique is such that it is frequently referred to in stories by British writers.

And the yew trees grow thick on Bolton’s Bench, even to this day.

The Indian Naga, Part 2 (Reblog)

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I’m deep in the ritual of Madly Cleaning House For Guests. Not to be confused with the ritual of Madly Cleaning Up After Guests, which happens on Friday. But part of me lingers in the warm and wonderful land of India.

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The Indian Naga, Part 2

Much of the naga lore that comes down to us is from the Mahabharata, an epic story cycle of Vedic and Hindu culture. In particular, the Mahabharata contains origin story for the naga race.

The great sage Kasyapa had thirteen wives, who were all daughters of Daksha, a prajapati or creation god. Two of these wives were named Kadru and Vinata. Kadru wished to have many children, while Vinata wanted only a few but powerful children. Kasyapa gave each one her wish. Kadru laid 1,000 eggs, which hatched into serpents, the ancestors of the nagas. Vinata laid two eggs, which hatched the deities Garuda and Aruna. Garuda had the wings and beak of an eagle.

Although they were kinfolk, Garuda and the nagas were destined to become mortal foes. Kadru and Vinata made a bet, and they agreed that whoever lost would become a slave to the winner. Kadru enlisted her many children to help her win, but they wouldn’t do it. Furious, Kadru cursed them. Nevertheless, Kadru won the bet. Vinata, Garuda and Aruna became slaves of Kadru and the nagas.

Garuda was obedient, but his anger grew into an eternal grudge. When he asked Kadru’s children what he must do to release his mother and brother from servitude, they said he had to bring them amrita, the elixir of immortality. Garuda set off, although the odds were long. The gods guarded their previous elixir with warrior deities, a ring of fire, a machine with whirling blades, and two gigantic poisonous serpents. Somehow Garuda made it through and seized the amrita in his beak but did not swallow it.

On his way back to his mother, Garuda encountered the gods Vishnu and Indra. Vishnu promised to make Garuda immortal if he would serve as Vishnu’s flying steed, while Indra said if Garuda tricked the serpents and gave back the amrita, he would have snakes for his food ever after. Garuda agreed to both proposals.

When Garuda got back, he laid the amrita on open grass. Vinata and her sons were freed! But he told the nagas the elixir would only work if they purified themselves at a temple before they drank. While the nagas were in the temple, Indra swooped down and snatched the amrita away. Only a few drops were left.

The nagas must have been furious, but Garuda had plausible deniability, and so he remained free. The nagas tried to lick up what was left. They gained magical powers and long life, though not true immortality. Also, this split their tongues, so that all snakes now have forked tongues. From that time on, Garuda attacked and devoured any snakes he could find. Perhaps this is why the nagas eventually retreated to underground domains.

The Indian Naga (Reblog)

I’m preparing for an appearance tonight, but I’ve been recounting the legend of a nagini, Zathi, so here’s a reblog from April 2013 about the mythical race of nagas.

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The Indian Naga, Part 1

If you are like me, the first you knew of Indian myth was an exotic creature in the D&D monster manual, called a naga. It had a serpent’s body and the head of a human. (I know, nagas aren’t dragons! But they’re pretty cool, and I’m going to cover them anyway. So there.)

Nagas are a kind of creature like elves and dwarves, that have a long history in folklore. They appear in lots of stories, where they sometimes behave in contradictory ways. Also like elves and dwarves, nagas are not individual monsters but an entire race, separate from humans but intellectually equal.

Nagas, generally, are snakes that can take human form. They seem able to choose what parts are human and what are serpent, so sometimes they are entirely snake, sometimes they are snakes with multiple heads, and sometimes they are humans with serpent coils from the waist down. Naga are immortal, demi-gods in Western terms, and many are skilled sorcerers.

A naga man is called naga, and a woman is nagini. (If you were wondering, yes, this is where J. K. Rowling got the name for Voldemort’s serpent companion.) They dwell in a nether realm called Patala, and have been ruled by various kings and princes. Nagas practice multiple marriage, with powerful naga men having several wives. There aren’t any stories that I’ve found where nagini act as leaders.*

In part, nagas are nature spirits associated with rivers or underground caverns. As such, they are vulnerable when humans alter or damage the environment. In most tales, nagas are only malevolent when reacting to such depredations. Some also are treasure guardians, so perhaps they strike back to defend what is theirs.

*Update: Technically, the nagini Zathi does not hold a position of power. Yet she is a spiritual leader whose philosophy is highly influential in the world around her.

Three Dragon Eggs, Part 3

In part 2 of this Burmese folk tale, a snow-white crow took word to the Sun God that his wife, a naga princess, was about to give birth. The Sun God sent a precious ruby to celebrate, but the foolish crow left the parcel unattended…

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When the crow had stuffed himself on rice from the cart, he returned to his hiding place. Not knowing that the parcel had been tampered with, he continued on his way. Zathi was in her underground palace, curled around her three golden eggs. The princess was sad to hear that her husband could not return to her, but she cheered up when the crow presented her with a silk-wrapped gift. Imagine her shock to find a piece of dried dung inside!

“Is this what my husband thinks of me?” she cried. “I thought we were happy together. How could he despise me and our children?”

Zathi sent the crow away and shut herself up with her eggs. She brooded for days, unable to bear the Sun God’s cruel scorn. Before the eggs could hatch, she had died of a broken heart.

When the Sun God heard this news, his shining face went dark. He mourned his lost love and demanded news of anyone he could find. Eventually he learned that Zathi had received a piece of dung instead of the ruby he had sent. Immediately, he summoned the snow-white crow.

“You selfish, irresponsible creature!” bellowed the Sun God. His flames blazed with searing heat, and he blew a blast at the crow.

“Forgive me,” wept the crow. “I am but a humble creature of the world.”

The Sun God knew his beloved Zathi wouldn’t have wanted the crow to die, so he caught back his fiery breath. The white crow’s feathers were blackened and scorched, and every crow in the world has been black from that time on.

The three eggs lay in Zathi’s chamber, with no one to care for them. When the rainy season came, a flood washed them out into the Irrawaddy River. The tide tumbled one egg into the rocks near a town called Mogok. It shattered, scattering millions of blood-red rubies over the shore. Since then, Mogok has been famous for the beautiful gems that are found there.

The current bore the other two eggs down to Central Burma, before another one broke against a half-submerged log. Out burst a fierce tiger, roaring with all the pride of Zathi’s great heritage. It climbed up the log and slunk into the forest. That is how the jungles of Burma came to be the home of mighty tigers.

The last log tumbled on until it was caught between two rocks in Southern Burma. That egg, too, cracked open. A huge crocodile swam away, its heart cold with all of Zathi’s despair. Whenever people travel by boat on the Irrawaddy River, they have to watch out for crocodiles lurking in the water.

You see, this is why the crocodile and the tiger share the same nature, even though they look different. They are the lost sons of Zathi and the Sun God. Because of the merchant who stole their heritage and broke their mother’s heart, they will never miss a chance to get revenge on any humans they encounter.