The killer and whale story at the very beginning
-
- Posts: 184
- Joined: 07 Apr 2017, 13:23
- Bookshelf Size: 0
The killer and whale story at the very beginning
- Timothy Rucinski
- Book of the Month Participant
- Posts: 1410
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 07:20
- Favorite Book: Dead Bob
- Currently Reading: Midnight Mass
- Bookshelf Size: 610
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-timothy-rucinski.html
- Latest Review: No One Will Hear You Scream by EJ Goldberg Phillips
- Reading Device: B00JG8GOWU
- 2024 Reading Goal: 81
- 2024 Goal Completion: 29%
- Susan Kihleng
- Posts: 527
- Joined: 05 Feb 2021, 21:59
- Currently Reading: Just Give Me a Soft Place to Land
- Bookshelf Size: 273
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-susan-kihleng.html
- Latest Review: Elizabeth's Garden by Phillip Leighton-Daly
- Verna Coy
- Posts: 1234
- Joined: 30 Sep 2018, 00:36
- Currently Reading: The Magician's Secret
- Bookshelf Size: 194
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-verna-coy.html
- Latest Review: The Fate of AI Society by Kenneth Hamer-Hodges
For me, it reveals that the author is a 'holder of stories,' and that this series may just be one of many stories that are possible in time.Charlie Sheldon wrote: ↑02 Feb 2022, 10:10 The story Myra tells Sarah at the very start of Totem is taken from the first book in the series, Strong Heart, which takes place the summer before Totem begins. What does this story reveal about the series?
It also reveals that this series was born out of old legend and stories that have been carried down through the histories of the northern peoples.
Great job!
-
- Posts: 184
- Joined: 07 Apr 2017, 13:23
- Bookshelf Size: 0
-
- Posts: 326
- Joined: 06 Sep 2021, 10:38
- Favorite Book: Kalayla
- Currently Reading: Global Business in the Age of Transformation
- Bookshelf Size: 95
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-j-edwards.html
- Latest Review: Of Zots and Xoodles by Zarqnon the Embarrassed
I think I understand your explanation that all the books in this series are stand alone. I say this because I have not read the previous two books, especially where the tale of the the whale is relevant . I am an avid reader and I have previously read books by this author and this is what made me jump at the opportunity to sample this work of a genius writer.Charlie Sheldon wrote: ↑03 Feb 2022, 22:39 I wrote the books to be stand alone tales, and have had enough readers start with, say Adrift or Totem, and then they go back to read the first two, usually. Of course, it is best to read the books in order to fully experience how the characters and events start and grow, and how the books are linked, separate but telling one grand story. When I started writing the first one, Strong Heart, in 2013, I had no idea or sense this might be a series. None. A series, at least to me, is both good and terrible - good because you can play with many characters and complex story lines, but terrible because you are then trapped in the series, and must decide how to finish, how many books to write. When I started writing Strong Heart I used the story frame Conrad uses in Heart of Darkness - he had a group of men meet at a pilot boat and then while waiting for the tide to turn to go out to the ship one of the people, I think it was Marlowe, told the story of Kurtz and the Heart of Darkness. I love that sort of frame, stories in stories, so in my initial draft I had a lifeboat crashing ashore up on Haida Gwaii off British Columbia and the trapped sailors, in winter, marooned, unable to cross the mountains to the one known settlement far away until the weather broke,. forced to hunker down in shelter. The mate asks one of the characters, William, who is a sailor from the ship the lifeboat came from, and who was born on Haida Gwaii years before before being sent away to a government school to become like a white man, then running away to the states, to tell the others a story to keep them sane. That was my frame, but when I finished the book the tale seemed too long and so I simplified it, removed the frame and just told the story William told as a tale itself, Strong Heart. But I had all these chapters about this lifeboat and sailors and storms and after finishing Strong Heart thought, well, what about this lifeboat? Where did it come from? What happened to the ship? What happened to the other sailors? So that was when the series began, as I built those chapters into Adrift, which became the second story, happening about four or five months after the first. The third tale, Totem, is really two books in one, and I debated long about how long to make the series, and in the end decided I wanted a trilogy, something long, one grand tale, but not endless, and hope the readers will agree. In the end of course, all that is important is that the reader, in the best case, fall into the book, be there, in it, whatever order the tales are read.
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
French novelist Marcel Proust.
-
- Posts: 52
- Joined: 11 Jan 2022, 11:20
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 21
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-larissa-sawers.html
- Latest Review: Speaks for Itself by Jeffrey Paul Bailey.
-
- Posts: 241
- Joined: 03 Feb 2022, 18:29
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 64
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-uchechukwu-fortune-njoku.html
- Latest Review: Reconfigurement by E. Alan Fleischauer
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 566
- Joined: 28 Dec 2021, 07:09
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 99
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-precious-amarachi-nzeakor.html
- Latest Review: I'll Always Be With You by Violetta Armour
-
- Posts: 332
- Joined: 12 Jan 2022, 05:58
- Currently Reading: Bugs, Weeds, and Water
- Bookshelf Size: 68
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-janelydia-mwangi.html
- Latest Review: Surviving Life As An Actor by Jerry a. Greenberg
- Reading Device: Android
- Vidhi Adhikari
- Book of the Month Participant
- Posts: 613
- Joined: 30 May 2021, 00:45
- Currently Reading: True Teryn
- Bookshelf Size: 280
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-vidhi-adhikari.html
- Latest Review: Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless by Mitzi Perdue
-
- Posts: 7
- Joined: 08 Dec 2021, 11:45
- Currently Reading: Totem
- Bookshelf Size: 6
- Reading Device: B00JG8GOWU
-
- Posts: 290
- Joined: 12 Aug 2021, 07:34
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 57
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-peace-m.html
- Latest Review: Terms of Service by Craig W. Stanfill
- Kira Bonita Reece
- Posts: 640
- Joined: 12 Jun 2021, 18:53
- Favorite Book:
- Currently Reading: The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy, Box Set
- Bookshelf Size: 358
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-kira-bonita-reece.html
- Latest Review: Starboard Eight by Brian Casey
-
- In It Together VIP
- Posts: 194
- Joined: 02 Dec 2021, 00:40
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 63
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-danielle-briggs.html
- Latest Review: Moonlit Nights by Jacob Parr