Magenta Salvation
Page 17
Toadstool was shocked at first when he realized his friend had heard his whisper from downstairs and then smiled. His friend was, after all, the Pawben. So Toadstool walked over to his own bed and crawled under the covers beside Aldwin, knowing full well the Pawben wouldn’t be able to resist weaving another tale for them over a mid-day picnic the next day.
“Don’t count on it!” the Pawben yelled.
But Toadstool is right, Pawben thought. He would indeed share more stories with him and Aldwin…and wait for whatever and whenever that final adventure Virtue had spoken of would occur. He couldn’t stand the thought of another adventure now, but knew deep down he looked forward to helping Aldwin Beranger grow into the young man his father and grandfather had hoped for. He wished Dale, Helena, and countless other companions could somehow make this journey with him. In his old age, he felt vulnerable again, as he did in those early years with Beranger and Cycleze. They would watch over him, though, as the Protector would, in their preferred way and not his.
Author's Note:
Piers Anthony
As with the prior novels of this trilogy, Kenneth Kelly started it and I finished it, at least the main text. The middle is mixed.
At this writing I am 82 years old, and have been married for 60 years. I fear that any decade now I will start to feel my age. For example, when I edited this novel I found that we were using different conventions for indenting paragraphs. Ken used tabs, while I had the automatic indent. To get a uniform format I needed to eliminate his tabs, but that was tedious. I could have done it in one step by using a macro, but my Linux LibreOffice word processor over the years has made it harder and harder to have macros, and with the current version I don't have them at all. What programmers have against macros I don't know, but short of hiring one to put them back in, I'm stuck. So I tried Find and Exchange, but my Find command can't identify the tabs. Surely a geek—that is, computer expert—could do it, but I'm just an ordinary user, and in my dotage I can't figure it out. So I had to do it all “by hand,” consuming frustrating time. The programmers must be laughing. But I do feel old.
However, the work on the novel itself was another matter. I pride myself on having more imagination than most other writers I see, but I hardly had to draw on it this time. Ken had the chapters so thoroughly worked out that all I had to do was fill out the details and amplify where necessary. Often in my individual novels I reach a point where I realize I have the beginning, ending, and a general idea of the whole, but need inspiration to fill in several tens of thousands of words of the middle. In school and college we called it mid semester slump; it happens in novels too. That was no problem here; I simply followed his outline.
This novel concludes the trilogy. I have other projects to move on to, but it hardly seems likely that the series will end here. Ken's mind is already percolating on drastic new developments.
Readers who want to know more of me can find me at my web site, www.HiPiers.com, where I run a monthly blog-type column calculated to aggravate anyone with any reasonable wit, and an ongoing survey of electronic publishers and related services, with no holds barred feedback on good and bad publishers, intended to assist writers who have dreams without publishers. As I have said before, I remember how it was; from the time I made my decision to be a professional writer, it took me a college BA in creative writing and eight years to make my first sale. When I fought to get an honest accounting from my first novel publisher, instead I got blacklisted for six years. I'm not sure it's easier now, and time has not mellowed me much. The main difference is that today I can expose bad publishers without much fear of retaliation, because they know that today I have the will and the means to take it to them if they try. Few do.
Magenta Salvation was proofread by Scott M. Ryan and Anne White.
Now get on to the next Author Note to meet Ken Kelly.
Author’s note:
Ken Kelly
This year has been a rough one for me. Due to circumstances I won’t elaborate on here, my life has been completely turned upside down. I was forced to temporarily stop graduate school, lost my job, and have been dealing with depression and other issues for most of 2016. People I thought were friends abandoned me, and I had to completely start over in every aspect of my life. Thus, the tone of this book is somewhat darker than the previous installments. Benny has lost everything: Laughing Jack, Virtue, along with the terrible revelation of his mother and half-brother. He has been separated and seemingly abandoned by his companions, all with the fate of Pakk hanging over his head. There is no light at the end of his tunnel, just as there seemed to be no light at the end of mine. His despair caused him to act out in ways unbefitting of his character, such as getting drunk and killing Belasco and his companions. Much like my despair caused me to act in ways I normally didn't.
However, as bad as things seemed and still seem, this cloud still has a silver lining. Piers Anthony stuck by me when many others didn’t. He could’ve very easily told me to hit the road when my drama started, but he didn’t. He didn’t sugar coat things, or coddle me for my mistakes, but he showed compassion and concern. Piers saw past my flaws and helped my writing become something it never could have been otherwise. I have a long way to go before my life returns to normal, but the Pakk books I’ve written with Piers Anthony have been a blessing in my life that has helped me cling to the cliff’s edge. I don’t expect to become rich and famous off these books, although I won’t complain if I do. But mostly, I hope my writing can have some type of impact on the reader; that they can take something away besides an entertaining story. Hopefully, the reader hasn’t seen the last of Benny Clout. Perhaps Piers and I can work together on future projects if deemed feasible. Regardless of what the future holds, though, you definitely haven’t seen the last of Benny Clout. I sound like a broken record, but this wouldn’t have been possible without Piers Anthony. Thus, I’ll end this author’s note with a quote from this very book: as Nolan Ducat said of his son Dale, when Piers Anthony needs me I’ll be there.