The killer and whale story at the very beginning

Use this forum to discuss the February 2022 Book of the month Totem: (Strong Heart #3) by Charlie Sheldon
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SamaylaM
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Re: The killer and whale story at the very beginning

Post by SamaylaM »

I think the story that Myra tells Sarah at the beginning can work in two ways. For those who haven't read previous books like me, it incorporates the mystery element with legends, and for readers who have read the books, it is like a connection to the previous sagas.
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Post by Charlie Sheldon »

Actually this story contains within it the seeds of the entire thesis as to how modern humans arose....and if the reader has paid attention to the various discussions between Myra and Sergei, and then between Anne and William in the book Adrift, hopefully the parable can come clear.....this is the puzzle I have left to all.....
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Post by Harsh Soni 3 »

I think that the author includes the story from the first book to enhance the interest of readers who have read the whole series. He also keeps the story standalone, so that the new readers don't confuse and keep interested in the book.
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Post by Joe Candle »

I think this story told by Myra to Sarah is her interpretation of the old legends of the nordic people.
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Post by Obinna Chima Agoms »

Most times, it's easy to get lost in a series that we lose sight of where the story began. I think that story will help readers who haven't read the book have an idea of where the story began. I think this was thoughtful of you to include that.
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Post by Tori_J »

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.
Thank you for this. I have just started the story also, I do find it quite captivating, and the killer and whale story is a good insight into the previous book. Perhaps when I am done, I will pick up the previous book too.
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Post by Mbenma Esther 080 »

I believe that the author knows that Totem would fit to be a standalone book and he had to refer to the previous one to engage the readers
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Post by Bezos »

I'm only halfway through the book, but I devoured the first two books in the series. If the first two books are any indication, and predicated on the story Myra tells at the start, this book will be packed with Native American citations to the creation of the inhabitants of the country, living off the land in collaboration with other living beings, and the fascinating mystical themes that filled the first two novels. It also contains a preview of a discovery regarding how much Sarah has drifted toward the society, in addition to being the epitome of her forefathers' mystic culture.
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Post by Tim Toby »

I think the narration of that story was actually instrumental to the plot, especially for those who have read the prequel. I haven't read the prequel either, and I like the inclusion of that part to the story. It does make it tempting to read the prequel.
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Post by SnowStorm244 »

In many books series I’ve read each of the books were different, however, they add to each other. All the different totem books probably add to each other to get the full understand of the world.
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Post by Nwadinso Michael »

It shows connectivity between the books. In my opinion, the series is filled with legendary stories of the native American and Indian culture. Well, I'm yet to read the first prequel so I do not have much to say on this.
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Post by jemimapaul »

This is a captivating story of how the bear and the whale fought over the same fish but ended up falling in love and having children that were neither whale nor bear but both. The author uses this analogy to show that a new tribe originated from war and marriage across tribes.
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Post by jemimapaul »

This is a captivating story of how the bear and the whale fought over the same fish but ended up falling in love and having children that were neither whale nor bear but both. The author uses this analogy to show that a new tribe originated from war and marriage across tribes.
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Post by Mildred Echesa »

I haven't read strong heart so won't say much. However, the story is one of vital importance to the whole series
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Post by Hussein21 »

I think that is a way to remind readers that it's a series, although the book can be read alone, it will be much fun to understand the book from the beginning
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