PRICE OF FREEDOM TIDBITS.

Status: Writing on Chapter 192 of The Price of Freedom. (Page 1,678)

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Conserving energy to keep the house cool during today's 90+ degree weather.

Listening to: "No Ordinary Morning"; "Strings for Yasmin" by Chicane/Tin Tin Out

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 252.

TOPIC: UPDATES AND OTHER INTERESTING TIDBITS

Was thinking how I was going to continue the storyline up to the next big confrontation in Waco. But seeing how Kayla went from being an adult of 35 back to a teenager of 16 (and driving Kenneth nuts with conflicting emotions and needs (hehehe) ), I saw some prime opportunity to do a little exploring of the changes going on in Kayla herself.

And Mother knows this too. But they both know that this won't change anything between them.

So the fight continues unabated.

Right now, the two are engaged in a bitter argument over who is the stronger and which has the upper hand. It's a bit ironic that Mother's creation would one day break from the fold and side with humans and latch onto one of the more prominent freedom fighters; thus vexing Mother herself.

And to think that Kayla was once cold and calculating--completely without emotion or feeling. (Of course, I've delved into this past aspect of her a few times throughout the book. It's still a fascinating subject to fall back on--just for personal inflection.)

Now...being sixteen years old has given Kayla's character a whole new dimension to explore--not at least with the ongoing relationship between Kenneth and her. I found it surprising to know that this was the age in which they encountered each other in 2162. I had always thought that she was 19 years old when the book first opened up--and that's how things were.

It never once occurred to me that Kayla also can change from what she was once to the person she is now.

The more I write in this book, the more stuff keeps popping up. And I'm glad that I never saw a reason to restrict myself like the industry hacks want me to.

This kind of personal exploration and flexible writing allows me to just...write.

Forget the limitations and what lies ahead, I'm just going to see what will come down the pike.

However, since I've already established Kayla's character in the last many...hundreds of pages hence (including the nervous breakdowns and other behaviorial shorts in her programming), I think I'm just going to keep going with the way things are and see what happens.

I'm bound to scare someone with what's buried in these latter pages. :0)

***

I know that there are going to be a lot of questions when The Price of Freedom finally debuts sometime in 2018, but for the time being--? I'm not worried.

I've also been toying with a new prequel novel for The Price of Freedom called The Frontlines of Freedom. I was talking with a new writer contact last night (or over the past couple of days), and she was doing a prequel for one of her books.

Now, even if I hadn't talked with her, I had also been toying with the idea of doing a backstory after the first two books are complete. (Because by themselves...? It's going to be a long publication run for this saga.)

But I've been so engrossed in finishing the first book and seeing where it leads before I embarked on a possible sequel...? I didn't want to risk torpedoing any new information which will be embedded in the current tome.

However, the book will document the battle outside of Waco, Texas in 2162--where the reader is first introduced to Kenneth Sparks--where he and Captain James Tanner encounter a stray Neos reconnaissance unit headed by Kayla Sorenson herself.

While most of The Price of Freedom stays focused on Kayla, this prequel will zero in on the fated decision to allow Kenneth and Kayla to return to one of the few remaining Free Earth Movement strongholds left over in Washington D.C.

The novel will also explore some of what Kayla used to be--seeing how the current novel only gives out hints and such; but nothing seriously concrete.

Think of the hints as being dream images laced in perpetual fog of unreality: You don't know if it is real or not. You just go along for the ride and hope for what passes for a happy ending.

But I've always wondered why I didn't backtrack the novel from 2162 and up until the current year of 2166.

I didn't see the need, I suppose. I just started it out a month before the new year (December 2165), and went with the flow.

Seeing how I'm halfway through the novel (at 326,006 words), the urge to do so is getting stronger as time goes on.

However, if anyone here is worried that The Price of Freedom will somehow be "derailed"--don't start betting now.

Cause the book will be completed first--and then I'll see what happens next.

Sky

A GREAT BOOK RECOMMENDATION!

Status: Writing on Chapter 191 of The Price of Freedom. (Page 1,672)

Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)

Watching: Baseball! (Mets vs. Tigers)

Listening to: Not a thing.

Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 252.


TOPIC: CRUCIBLE: MCCOY-PROVENANCE OF SHADOWS

It isn't often that I do a book review. Rarely, in fact does a book just tear at the heart strings of this avid book worm and author.

But after reading Crucible: McCoy-Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III, I was like...so crushed with emotion. I spent the last couple of days finishing up the book (and not being on the internet as much)--not being able to put this one down for a second.

I wanted to know what happened with Doctor McCoy in the alternate timeline--after he had saved Edith Keeler. (For those of you who want to reference--you may want to watch the TOS episode of Star Trek called "City on the Edge of Forever".)

It turns out that he spent a lot of time in the past--almost a quarter century--before he met his end when the Nazis bombed the East Coast and wiped out Atlanta with a nuclear bomb; McCoy being killed by a German pilot whom he tried to help rescue from the wreckage--leaving behind the woman whom he had been married to for only a year.

What drove this one part of the storyline that David George had written so well--was the emotion and a sense of urgency behind McCoy's initial attempts to find his way out of this mess that he caused.

I was most taken by McCoy's struggles to adapt to some most unforgiving circumstances--to try and blend in into a most difficult time period; the Great Depression--as he moved from one place to another in an effort to basically survive.

As time went on, he became more and more entrenched in the life of the other people he commonly associated with; people like Phil Dickson and his wife Lynn.

Or Doctor Lyles.

McCoy became a mainstay in the little town of Hayden, South Carolina. And this version of the old Southern doctor died in a past he never once belonged to; because of one act of selfless heroism.

In the other timeline--the one that the other McCoy lived in--he didn't save Edith; thus allowing her to die.

However, events from his other "life" leads McCoy on a personal journey of self-discovery, heart ache, sorrow, and loss--as he spends the next 35 years trying to uncover a mystery that is connected to the life he never had.

What's interesting about this is how this one section of the book documents events covered in the last season of TOS, the movies--and sideline events which were fracturally obscured by time itself. (Those of you who know the romance between one Yeoman Barrows and McCoy should be delighted in knowing that the two finally married shortly after Kirk died at the beginning of "Generations"--and stayed married up until 2366; whereas (as he author hinted then), McCoy passed away with his wife of 71 years. Oddly still, the event chronicled then was a prelude to the TNG episode "Encounter at Farpoint"--where Barrows presented McCoy with the view of the newly commissioned Galaxy-class starship, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)--for their anniversary together; from their cabin lookout on the USS Hood. Though there are some contradictory themes here with this book and William Shatner's Star Trek saga involving the resurrection of Kirk and him joining forces with his some of his old crew far into 2371 and beyond. (McCoy was alive in this series.)

But one had to wonder: Why didn't DeForrest Kelly's character make anymore subsequent appearances in either TNG or Voyager episodes?

Because--as the last lines of the book indicates--: "...he peered back at out at the yard, at the trees, and no matter how it had started, he had a wonderful, happy life. He'd done good work, had enjoyed the company of close friends, and had shared much of his life with a loving partner.

"He knew that he could not have been more fortunate. And then he closed his eyes for the last time."--Doctor McCoy died soon after his visit on the new Enterprise.

Of course, we all know that Gene Roddenberry wanted to connect both generations together when he launched the new Star Trek franchise back in 1989. And so he brought a very old and very frail Admiral Leonard H. McCoy on board.

But the last pages connecting the final scene and this episode was marked by McCoy's comments about how he viewed Tonia Barrows as his "home"--and not the one he had been spending in Atlanta, Georgia, for the last 70 years.

This much he remarked to Lieutenant-Commander Data during the tour--but wasn't delved on in the famous scene in the pilot episode of the Next Generation.

Still, it was a nice touch by the author to connect a few loose ends together.

And by and by? A book I would strongly recommend--if not to read the last chapter over and over; for sentiment's sake.

Sky