Spring Special Reminder & Favourite Character List
Abigail and I are offering a spring sale on our books The Shadow Things and The Soldier's Cross, from now until April 30. The books will be available for $20 (combined, not each), including shipping, and will also be autographed; if you would like a specific note in each, post a comment with the desired inscription, or email Abigail (jeanne@squeakycleanreviews.com) or me (sprigofbroom293@gmail.com). If you enjoy the books, we would love it if you posted your thoughts in an Amazon review!The Shadow Things:
The Legions have left the province of Britain and the Western Roman Empire has dissolved into chaos. With the world plunged into darkness, paganism and superstition are as rampant as ever. In the Down country of southern Britain, young Indi has grown up knowing nothing more than his gods of horses and thunder; so when a man from across the sea comes preaching a single God slain on a cross, Indi must choose between his gods or the one God and face the consequences of his decision.
The Soldier's Cross:
A.D. 1415 - Fiona's world is a carefully built castle in the air, made up of the fancies, wishes, and memories of her childhood. It begins to crumble as she watches her brother march away to join in the English invasion of France. It falls to pieces when he is brought home dead.
Robbed of the one dearest to her and alone in the world, Fiona turns to her brother's silver cross in search of the peace he said it would bring. But when she finds it missing, she swears she will have it and sets out on a journey across the Channel and war-ravaged France to regain it and find the peace it carries.
Multiple Copies April Special $17.50
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By way of entertainment, to myself and others, I drew up a list of my thirty favourite fictional characters, sticking strictly to literature and inserting none of my own. These are figures whom I admire, who amuse me, who have influenced me, who have stuck with me through the monstrous plethora of books I have read and the vast pantheon of characters I have met. Let me introduce you to my friends!
1. Beowulf: One of the toughest guys in legend, and the most God-fearing.
2. Wiglaf: Beowulf's loyal young cousin, the only man who stuck with him to the end.
3. Tiberius Lucius Justinianus: Shy and steadfast, Justin is the most darling of unlikely heroes. But don't tell him I said so.
4. Marcellus Flavius Aquila: A comet-tail hero, a natural leader, frank, open, 
self-assured…and Roman.
5. Doctor Elwin Ransom: I have difficulty remembering Ransom is a university fellow in light of the wealth of his mind, his actions, his occasional humour, and his mystery. He is so much more than a mere Englishman.
6. Puck: Beneath his jovial persona of your magical creature is a seriously enchanting pulse worthy of Merlin.
7. Eltrap Meridon: A loyal friend, a fantastic fighter, and he's ginger. Enough said.
8. North Wind: I don't have a lot to say about North Wind, because she's not an easy character to know. Nevertheless, her motherly, wild, shape-shifting mystery lends her enough charm to make her one of my favourites.
9. Bjorn Bjornson: I like the quiet, potent, clairvoyant types, the ones whose battles are all fought within and never sung about.
10. Bagheera: Halfway up the hill [Mowgli] met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat. The sleek black lord of the jungle, wise and mysterious Bagheera, the shadowy genius of Mowgli's story…how could I not love him?
11. Cottia: I relate to Cottia in a lot of ways, in her fierceness, in her smallness, in her fear of being caged and cramped and squeezed into a modern mould which harkens of none of her wild earthy ties.
12. Aslan: This character has always brought to the forefront of my awareness the knowledge that God's splendour and majesty, his loving-kindness, his justice and his mercy is deeper and more wild than I could ever imagine.
13. Puddleglum: Optimistic though dour, Puddleglum is the bedrock of The Silver Chair.
14. Tirian: Despite his rashness, despite the overwhelming odds of defeat, the last king of Narnia remains faithful to the true Aslan to the end—and beyond.
15. Jewel: You can't have Tirian without Jewel. As with electrum, Jewel is the silver to Tirian's gold.
16. Jill Pole: While I can't say I necessarily share personality traits with Jill, I've always related to her and she has always had a special place in my heart. And I've always wanted to know how to shoot a bow.
17. Tyr: I've always liked the one-handed holm-ganging god, and the fact that he got off rather lightly in Loki's taunting.
18. Bilbo Baggins: Probably your most unlikely hero of all time, this diminutive character grows to a shining light in Tolkien's story and quite possibly tops the hero on whose story his is styled.
19. Eowyn: Tolkien's tribute to the proud ancient Norse woman, Eowyn's backbone and tender heart are fantastic to read about.
20. Jonas Faulkner: Despite his mysterious past and scars, Jonas presents to the world a dashing, smiling image, a touch of seriousness coupled with a gushing child-like attitude. And I have a thing for skinny, convivial Victorian gentlemen.
21. Screwtape: This most logical if not always valid villain has intrigued me for years. His attitude of a schoolmaster (occasionally longing to give his pupil a good shaking)—blunt and reasonable—cuts through the tangled web of ethical conundrums to get at the heart of the wickedness that plagues us from day to day.
22. Aunt Honoria: As good as a man with a penchant for makeup. Aunt Honoria's worth is as hard to pinpoint as a single beam is on the face of the sun: she is permeated with stalwart nature and a tender if practical disposition.
23. Lady Talarrie: Resourceful, loving, magical, a woman for all seasons… I am not sure I have met a mother in a story to match this one.
24. Elizabeth Bennet: Elfin, intelligent, sure of her own mind to the point of being prejudiced, I can see a lot of myself in this famous heroine (some of the good bits and a lot of the bad). Her wit and charm filled me with endless delight as I read her story.
25. Emma Woodhouse: Spoiled but well-meaning, precocious and naïve, as with Elizabeth Bennent, Emma and I share an alarming amount of traits.
26. Mr Darcy: The pride of Pride and Prejudice. Mr Darcy cuts a straight-laced, unforgiving figure on the Georgian scene. He gives the motionless but masculine image of Greco-Roman statuary a potent life (and a better wardrobe) which I find fantastic.
27. Mr Knightley: A gentleman among gentlemen, I have the good fortune of knowing a man much like Mr Knightley: witty, intelligent, tender-hearted, a stalwart figure in the midst of a whirling, silly world.
28. Lena: Lena's tremendous physical power and presence is only half of why I love her. Beneath her hideous exterior beats a loving and repentant heart. And rushing out with all the noise of a shadow to bite a bad guy's leg in two is kind of awesome.
29. Gummy: It came to my attention after another reading of The Gammage Cup that Gummy, albeit much more jolly, is a lot like my own dearly beloved character of my own invention. Sunny-hearted with a backbone of iron, that's Gummy. Couldn't do without him.
30. Loki: Eh, not the most endearing character, but he makes the sort of villain you can really hate: shake-you-down-to-the-roots-of-your-soul hate. For some reason I've always liked that smooth, insidious, conniving villain. He's taught me a thing or two, Loki has. But he's a little tied up right now.
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No, thirty is never enough, and I always feel a twinge of guilt having to leave some people out. But as I said, I had to narrow it down to make any sort of impression. As for Bilbo, it's actually Beowulf's story that he mimics: the stolen cup, the woken dragon... But where Beowulf was no acquaintance of fear, Bilbo wrestled with fear and prevailed - so I think that even Bilbo is a greater hero than the Geat king. I think it would be hard to pick apart the favourites and the influential. I'm sure a little bit of everything I read is filtered into what I write, and I would be hard pressed to sort it out again. Take my character Rhodri, for instance - though far more melancholy and reserved, his tone and Gummy's tone are very alike, and I didn't realize it until I went back and read The Gammage Cup a month or two ago. My pooka owes a lot to Loki, and that, too, I didn't realize until I picked up my Norse studies again. Characters will surprise you when you take the time to research the origin of their birth.
Well, I'm sure the fictional constructs whom you were forced to exclude will feel better at least knowing that you felt bad about doing so.I know what you mean about influences - as one author once said, "Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life." But sometimes it's so obvious it is, as you said, surprising. I was reading Suttree last November while we were all busily Nanoing, and as I began to look back I was surprised by how much of that character's listless, disaffected apathy had bled into my own protagonist. I suppose it's not too surprising, as that state of mind is one in which I frequently find myself, for that with which I identified in the man I was reading to have been channeled into the man I was writing. Some of this, of course, was by design, as Tarc's experiences drive him from cynicism to despondency, but I think when I go back to edit I'll need to rein it in some to avoid a major tonal shift. We'll see. But I can't start the edit until I finish the draft, which won't happen if I keep getting distracted by whimsical pursuits like favorite character lists.
Also, I don't think Bilbo overshadows Frodo, or is meant to, but at any rate the heart and soul of LOTR is one Samwise Gamgee. But of all Tolkien's creations, the most important for understanding the man and the universe he crafted, undoubtedly, is Fëanor.
Which begs the question, do we go with favorite characters, or most influential? In the latter case my list would be full of men who have wrestled life's toughest questions to the point of breaking, and sometimes beyond: Raskolnikov, Yossarian, Rorschach, Dorian Gray, Valentine Michael Smith, Edmund Dantes, Konstantin Levin!!!, Alessandro Giuliani, Hamlet, Quentin Compson, Sidney Carton, Cornelius Suttree... thirty might not be enough.