Chamberlain's Folly

I just published the first novel in my series The Terra Nova Chronicles. It's called Chamberlain's Folly.


When I was much younger, and not necessarily inclined to express myself with the written word - I really wanted to be a musician at that time - many of these characters were born. Of course, they were not nearly as complex as they are now. Just how complex could they have been coming from the imagination of a twenty-something wannabe metal-head?



Most were interesting, to say the least... Morning Grass was always feline, distrustful of humans and not quite female. (Those who have read the book will point you to Chapter Four...) But, originally, she looked much more like a tiger and was not a human-feline hybrid. She was an actual big cat that had been genetically modified to walk upright and was highly intelligent. Russo was meant to be a strong male character and would eventually have been the captain of the star ship that trundled himself, Morning Grass and a few other characters around the galaxy. I must admit, though, that the Historian, at that time, was only the italics at the beginning of each episode that set up the action. He was my "captain's log" or my "marquee crawler".


So. What happened between then and now to add enough dimensionality to each of these characters to make me dare to write about them? The easy answer would be, "Life."


I know for certain that my life at twenty wasn't nearly as interesting as I would like to think that it was. I had a guitar and played it quite well. I could have probably dated more than I did at that time, and probably might have had a few more adventures, if I had been open to them. The kindest thing that I can say about my teen and twenty-something self is that I was shallow. There was no way that I could have  given the world the Russo, Morning Grass, Teacher or Zheng that live inside the pages of Chamberlain's Folly.

By the way, I still play the guitar...

Chamberlain's Folly is available Here and Here for those of you in the US.
Chamberlain's Folly is available Here for those of you in the UK.