Author: Edward McKeown
Published: Hellfire Publishing – January 2012
Word Count: 78,000
Genre: Sci-Fi
Reluctant privateer Robert Fenaday searches the stars for
his lost love, Lisa, a naval intelligence officer whose ship disappeared near
the end of the Conchirri War . He’s joined by the genetically engineered
assassin, Shasti Rainhell, whose cold perfection masks her dark past. Both are
blackmailed by government spymaster, Mandela, into a suicidal mission to the
doomed planet Enshar. Leading a team of scientists and soldiers, they must
unravel the mystery of that planet’s death before an ancient force reaches out
to claim their lives.
Excerpt:
“What’s our status on
ground troops?” he asked, adjusting his breather and zipping his leather
jacket. It was bitterly cold in the ship’s shadow.
“Pickings have been
better than I expected,” she said, putting Johan out of her mind. “With
the war over, the economy lousy, there are lots of hard cases available: LURPS,
Commandos, and Air Space Assault Team troops. Mars seems full of people
with little concern for life and hungry for money.” Shasti knew the type
too well, having been raised from childhood as an assassin in the Denshi Order
on Olympia. She’d developed an eye for the good, for the ones putting up
a front and for the plain crazy. She made her picks, hoping she read
people—standard humans as she thought of them—correctly.
Fenaday grimaced,
“Great. Well, the contractors showed up an hour ago and began the most
extensive maintenance Sidhe’s ever received. I’m glad Mandela’s
footing the bill for it. We’ll have shipwrights around the clock.
I’m having them pay particular attention our shuttles and fighters.”
Something tickled
Shasti’s senses and she turned away from him. In the distance, just
coming around a machine shed, a group of people came into view.
Fenaday stepped forward
to stand next to her, eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
“Must be Mandela’s
contingent. About fifty of them,” Shasti said.
“I wish I knew how
you do that,” Fenaday muttered.
“Just rely on it
that I can,” she replied.
The group passed the
gate to Sidhe’s launch pad, led by another forgettable individual.
While the experiences of the SF Universe are out of reach of those unable to pay for a rocket ride, I use my own background to try for an underlying verity in my characters. I’ve parachuted, flown in gliders, hang gliders and strapped to the floor of military helicopters. I’ve been rated as an expert shot and carry a black belt in the martial arts. I’ve been paralyzed by fear, exhilarated by love and walked into fights, both literal and metaphorical, that I knew I could not win. I have the good fortune to be married to the talented artist Schelly Keefer.
Savannah: Edward your
book has just been contracted to become a movie. Who would be your first choice
to play the lead role(s)?
Boy is that a tough one. Perhaps I should have given it some thought
before I came up with a six foot nine-inch, inhumanly fast and beautiful
Amazon!
When I came up with my everyman POV character,
Robert Fenaday, I decided he would be about 6 foot tall and around 190lbs. I wanted him to solid and capable, so that he
would be plausible in the action to come.
He was to be pleasant looking but not overly handsome. In his early thirties so as to appeal to
people as a mature man and not a boy. As
with many such characters, I did not want him overly described, for all my own
emphasis on very descriptive writing. It
would be easier for people to see themselves in the adventure in his place.
Emotionally he would be more complicated than common
for a male character. His childhood
would have been hard though wealthy, with the early loss of a mother and a
bigger than life and domineering Irish father.
It would give him a somewhat harder outer shell. Underneath, he was an
unusually warm and open man, longing for someone to share a life with, to give
meaning and form to the man he was still trying to become. Fenaday would be uncertain and over his depth
in the quasi-criminal world of privateering, having departed a world of
corporations and wealth for a shadowed existence running a barely legal vessel
on the edge of financial collapse.
Yet another frightening layer lies in this man. Once provoked there is literally nothing that
he will balk at. Fenaday will do things
that will make the reader feel at least a moral ambiguity, possibly even a
sense of horror about him. That is
intended. Many of the gentle, wonderful
and decent men I knew who served in wars, could do such actions under the
fierce and irresistible goad of the God of War.
Understand that there is no condemnation in this; it is however an
undeniable contradiction of human life, that the same fine man who would throw
himself between a child and a car, could fly a B-17 over a city of women,
children and kittens. Yet these men are
our best. Purity will elude most in
these circumstances.
This would require an actor who had a great
range. To be frank it is hard to select
one from among the crop of too pretty, too man-scaped actors who seem to fill
Hollywood now. Fenaday hearkens back to
a plainer sort of guy. When I was
working with the cover artist, Michael Church, I was not very helpful to him
because I had a better idea of who he didn’t look like, than who he did. When Michael came up with his cover, I
thought, you know he kinda looks a little like Nathan Fillion. I liked that thought. Fillion is an actor whose work I enjoy. He has gradually, in my minds’ eye, come to
be the mental visual for Robert. The
actor who could give life to Firefly and Castle could, I believe, do it, though
he is a bit mature to play Robert in the first book. Ryan Gosling has been voiced as a possible
also. Another person suggested Danielle
Radcliffe but for all his good work as Kipling’s son I couldn’t see it myself.
Ah, Shasti, the beautiful fantasy female. Shasti has her roots in Japanese anime where
the women warrior character has a long and developed history and mythos. Some of those elements made their way into
her description. Her hair is long silky
and black falling to her waist. Her skin
has an ivory cast to it and her green eyes have an almond shape. I wanted her to be a large and physically
impressive woman, but one whose symmetry was so perfect, that you did not
realize how big she is until you are standing next to her looking up. Like the female body-builder Cory Everson,
she would look like “girl plus” a look we now associate with the fitness
models. Shasti has some of appearance of
Lucy Lawless in the early days of Xena, La Bella Donna sans Merci.
Shasti’s interior life is more like that of the
average female reader than one would ever suspect. I can’t say too much about that without a
spoiler alert. So this actress would
need to combine a certain youthful vulnerability with a power, almost a
savagery that could make even a good friend doubt her sanity or judgment.
Michael Church gave me two or three different
Shasti’s. She is a little more tousled
on the cover of Hero than I usually see her, but perhaps there was a dearth of
conditioner on Enshar. The body is very
much what I envisioned but it is the cold and menacing face that grips me
most. I loved Shasti as he has done her
on each and every cover including the short story prequel Regrets and Requiems.
Since we are fantasy casting here, I guess if we
drop the idea of doing Shasti as CGI then Lucy Lawless at 28 is the best I
could do for you. The suggestion has
been made of Gwendolyn Christie, who plays Brienne in
Game of Thrones. She is 6’ 3” and
prettier than they let her be on Game of Thrones so that might work. I don’t believe she has the facial symmetry
to pull it off but you know what? I
don’t want to be in the role of Ann Rice who was sure no one could play Le Stat
but Rutger Hauer, and then Tom Cruise belted it out of the park. The art of acting is a different skill so may
it falls beyond my scope.
Now there is another character who did come to me
quite literally with the voice of an actor.
Duna, the Enshari professor, a small otter-like creature has always
spoken with the voice of Edmund
Gwenn as Dr. Harold Medford from the movie, “Them” from the 1950’s.
Telisan, the
charming, loyal, Denlenn Ace pilot, should be tan, fit and handsome enough to
end up on the walls of teenage girls.
That role should be easily enough filled.
You have a very lovely blog and thank you so much for having Edward as a guest :)
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