Firekeeper and Mowgli Crossover Announced!
News Flash: Tonight, at 6:45 p.m. I���m keynote speaker for UNM���s ���Intellectual Hooliganism��� colloquium.�� My talk���s title is ���Inverting the Rules or Why We Love Fools.����� It���s free and open to the public.�� For more information, contact UNM Hobbit Society at tolkien@unm.edu, call Dr. Leslie Donovan at (505) 277-4313��or visit the UNM Hobbit Society website at www.unm.edu/~tolkien
And now for some breaking news����� Negotiations have been concluded between the estate of Rudyard Kipling and Obsidian Tiger Inc. for a crossover series featuring my own Firekeeper and Kipling���s archetypal feral boy, Mowgli.
Meeting of Feral Minds!
Mowgli, as many of you know, is the central character in Kipling���s seminal works, The Jungle Books, which feature such stories as ���Mowgli���s Brothers,��� ���Kaa���s Hunting,��� ���Letting in the Jungle,��� and ���The Spring Running.���
Firekeeper is introduced in Through Wolf���s Eyes.�� Her adventures continue through six volumes, concluding (at least at this point in time) with Wolf���s Blood.
The Kipling estate has long been seeking someone to expand upon Mowgli���s adventures, especially someone who ���has actually read the books, rather than only seen the movies.����� Additionally, they wanted someone who understood at a gut level Mowgli���s essentially mythic nature.�� In a recent press release, the estate says:
���In Jane Lindskold, we have found the writer we feel Rudyard Kipling would have chosen himself to introduce Mowgli to the twenty-first century.�� As works like Changer and Legends Walking (aka Changer���s Daughter) demonstrate, Lindskold is completely comfortable writing about larger-than-life mythic characters.�� Her collaborations with Roger Zelazny and David Weber show a singular talent for working with another author, blending voices, and yet bringing her own distinctive contributions to the work.���
Why do these stories as a crossover with the Firekeeper novels, rather than simply continuing Mowgli���s own story?�� Again, we turn to the press release:
���We felt that keeping Mowgli locked in a historical context, one that could not help but eventually cross with some uncomfortable political realities, as Mowgli leaves the Jungle, would become stultifying.�� Yet, if we kept Mowgli locked in the Jungle, we would violate Kipling���s own sense that, eventually, Mowgli needs to expand, to, in fact, grow-up.���
Will the stories take place in Firekeeper���s own universe then?�� Well, yes and no. Again, we turn to the press release:
���In the first novel, Firekeeper and Blind Seer will venture into the Old Country.�� There they will find a gate that opens ��� not to another part of their own world ��� but to Mowgli���s Jungle.�� Some years will have passed since the events Kipling recorded in ���The Spring Running��� and Mowgli will be feeling restricted by village life.�� When he hears the wolves of the Seeonee Pack howling about the arrival of a ���stranger, strange,��� (this last a deliberate evocation of the opening of Through Wolf���s Eyes), he will be drawn to investigate and will meet this strange pair, and investigate the causes of this trans-dimensional gate.
���Eventually, Mowgli will, with Gray Brother, join Firekeeper and Blind Seer in their explorations of the Old World.
���We don���t see any shortage of stories.�� However, we���ve been approached by Hayao Miyazaki, who is interested in seeing his Princess Mononoke and her giant wolves included in this fascinating human/wolf pack.���
Ahem����� April Fool!�� Not the part about the talk, but the part about Firekeeper and Mowgli���
Hope to see some of you tonight!�� No fooling!
