Authorpreneur Dashboard – Carl Stevens
They Call Me Merlin Sherlock
Literature & Fiction
He looks like a young adult, claims to be born in the 19th century and laments that the other wizards call him Merlin Sherlock as a taunt. Thaddeus Barlow has wanted to be a detective from when he read newly published stories of Edgar Allan Poe before disappearing into a kindergarten for wizards. Now, after 169 years of learning the basics of wizardry and reading detective stories on the side, he has graduated into the world with the hopes of fulfilling that youthful fancy. He would do so gladly if it were not for the mockery of his fellow wizards who do not consider snooping a respectable endeavor for a newly minted wizard. They Call Me Merlin Sherlock is Thad’s lament as well as his memoir through which he hopes his first case as a detective will convince all that his chosen life is more than a laughing matter. Is he a true wizard, a daft poseur, or a deft publicist for a new and struggling agency? Clues, adventure and humor abound in this tale told from the perspective of an early nineteenth century lad steeped in ancient lore and practicing in an early twenty-first century theme park. Why the park? You really must read the book to find out.
Book Bubbles from They Call Me Merlin Sherlock
The first may be last for a while
This prompts an insight that goes beyond this individual book. You see, at the end of writing it I was all taken up with the idea of They Call Me Merlin Sherlock as but the first in a long series in which I would take the challenge of The Time Traveler's Fool (a book written so that at it's end the mystery was still perfectly balanced amongst many possible solutions and readers enjoy arguing about what really happened) to a series in which mysteries would continue to engage with artfully balanced suspense across multiple books. Halfway through the second book I find my cup runneth over as two entirely different projects compete for attention. Rather than writer's block I am blessed with a writer's fount of inspiration. I just don't know which bucket I will fill first.
The rough edges of innocence
From the cover through the first two paragraphs of text we see developing the theme of the rough edges of innocence. The cover is either a childish scrawl or avant garde Primitive art of the subtlest irony. Your interpretation may depend on the stance you take and perhaps change each time you look. It could be this wizard detective has just spent 169 years in wizard kindergarten and is an incredibly sophisticated and "retrogressed twelve" at the same time. It could be he is a lovable kook, an adult with rough edges of innocence arising from a mysteriously arrested development with a delusion of wizardry. There could be an entirely different game afoot. Meanwhile, the epub conversion process introduced errors in spacing I have left for this bubble because it fits the theme of the bubble though does not appear in the kindle you can buy. I play games like this all the time. Would you like to play along?
The Time Traveler's Fool
Science Fiction & Fantasy
He claims to be a traveler from the future who jumps into the minds of people in the past and is now inhabiting Marvin Waterstone. If you believe Marvin is insane then The Jumper’s time traveling tales describe the evolution in the relationship between therapist and client as Marvin reveals while trying to conceal what has brought him to a mental institution. If you believe that The Jumper is real then The Jumper’s time traveling tales describe the evolution in the character of a time traveler through the course of several trips to the past. You decide if The Jumper/Marvin is a lunatic, a time traveler, a murderer, a victim, all of the above or none. Whoever The Jumper may be he is an articulate weaver of tales hilarious and horrible which include writing love poetry in the body of a shepherd boy wooing his first love, leading a small group of would-be legionaries in the body of a commander who has gotten them into a royal mess in the desert, fleeing a lynch mob in the body of a slave who may have been better off before The Jumper lent him a helping hand (or mind) and much more. Who is the Time Traveler’s Fool? Marvin, the doctor, the reader, the writer? You decide.
Book Bubbles from The Time Traveler's Fool
Legions in the desert
Honorius and Stilicho are just a couple names from a story of the Roman empire told by a man claiming to be a traveler through time, but I'll give you a little hint. Don't tell anyone. This is just between you and me. If you pay attention to the history his crazy story reveals you might just recognize you, me and a few million other people stumbling around our personal deserts today.
What does "Literary Survival" mean?
Literature thrives in the living minds of readers and writers and not on dusty shelves. The text of "The Time Traveler's Fool: A Psychological Mystery of Literary Survival" supports a great many hypotheses beginning with "He's a time traveler who . . ." or "He's a con man who . . ." or "He's a madman who . . ." Amongst the possibilities starting with that last is "He's a madman who has read too much science fiction and philosophy of mind and convinced himself he can travel through time and into other people's minds." Along those same lines you could replace "madman" with "writer."
The Charging Bull of Terry County
Literature & Fiction
Bicentennial Day for America is going to be a long one for Larry. There’s a fifth of Southern Comfort to kill before noon. There’s all the memory other people won’t let the fifth kill off. The woman who’s divorced him three times wants to talk. His older son wants to publish Granddad’s Civil War Journal. Everyone wants to talk war history with a World War II vet. The mayor wants Larry’s crane to lift the statue of a fictional hero into place in time for the fireworks. The only person not bothering him is his younger son shipped home from Nam and resting for five years under a plain flat stone on the edge of town. This day will resonate with history – of one person, of one family, of one nation shaped by war– and all Larry wants is a little peace.
Book Bubbles from The Charging Bull of Terry County
Repetition with difference
It can be said of Waiting for Godot that nothing happens, twice. The phrase "over and over again" is like a brief musical theme that plays throughout The Charging Bull of Terry County. For example, It could be said of Larry and HIldy Treegarden that their love strikes like a lightning bolt over and over again differently every time yet strangely the same because we know it's a disaster every time. Do you know anyone else who falls for red roses over and over again and over and over the next day sees the wilted remains in the waste bin of their life?
The funniest meditation on loss I never wrote
I conceived of The Charging Bull of Terry County as my own literary reflection on Tolstoy’s War and Peace via the saga of an American family with a proud military history dealing with loss on various levels; loss of life, innocence, etc. Thoroughly embroiled in the fictional struggles of my characters two years ago, I found the writing took on new dimensions when a friend died in a car crash. I doubt this changed a single word I wrote but it gave to each word nuances of a greater intensity. The pathos of the writing deepened for me to the point that I was later astonished to see the Kirkus reviewer calling the book hilarious. I have learned that my most serious work contains a sting of wit, a spoonful of sugar to help the philosophical go down whether I consciously intend it or not. I find it funny in the sense of odd or interesting that I never meant Charging Bull to be funny in the sense of hilarious. The words just came out that way as I dealt with the serious issue of loss in its manifold manifestation. I think if Bill were still with us, he would be laughing his ass off.
The Canterbury Tales in Neverland
Literature & Fiction
Jackson Thomas is no longer mayor, but The Ville will not leave him be. The new mayor, Myron Willever, sparks rivalry with the town of Brodman’s Bluff until a summer festival explodes into a riot that Jackson quells but not before an unknown rioter cold-cocks an unwed mother into a still birth. Myron’s wife, Liu Hsi, connives to get Jackson arrested for inciting riot and infanticide. Jackson’s son, Casavero, his friends and their schoolmaster, Horatio, have long enjoyed playing at word games based on Shakespeare, and now talk themselves into a pilgrimage to the mountains to beseech angels and ministers of grace to save Jackson from jail. Jackson has no idea they have slipped out of town to tell themselves amusing tales, they have no idea he has been released to direct his own defense under house arrest and no one knows what Liu Hsi has planned. More than “a cracker-jack detective story and courtroom drama”, though I thank and will quote the reviewer again, in this book “a post-apocalyptic America chooses between reason and superstition as it revives a lost literary heritage in this beguiling fantasy [featuring] a fully realized culture and a quasi-Shakespearean diction that’s vigorous and musical without being fusty or quaint [and] an engrossing yarn that embeds an off-kilter perspective on history in rich language and storytelling.” You also get metafictional parodies, fantasy satirizing the belief in fantasy – and jokes to boot.
Book Bubbles from The Canterbury Tales in Neverland
Metafiction, blessing and curse.
There comes a time in every good theme's life when it begins to turn in upon itself. If one begins to think that the Canterbury Tales in Neverland is about "story" and then later you expand that to something like "story is our most important source of information and our most unreliable" and then you begin to think of experimental fiction asking "what is a story and who is really telling it" then you run the risk of someday six characters in search of a play taking over your novel.
What might word of mouth pass on to your great-gre
The title of The Canterbury Tales in Neverland quite explicitly calls attention to the fact that everything from the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer to the latest movie re-make of Peter Pan resonates in my work. The Canterbury Tales in Neverland also resonates with the theme of the epistemological quandaries of storytelling. Stories, whether passed down through the ages or made up afresh over a campfire, are the sources of knowledge with which the characters wrestle every step of the way. The struggle, whether with reading Chaucer and Shakespeare or arguing with friends and enemies, is an essential part of our edification, our education that never ends.
