by Beth Cato
When creating a new version of Phoenix, I had to consider the effects of ten years of war and how that would impact the settlement of the western frontier. Historically, Phoenix was a small town in that time period—it really didn’t experience tremendous growth until World War II and widespread use of air conditioning. I decided it would need to be smaller yet in my alternate history, and therefore I kept the territorial capital in its original location of Prescott.
The Blood of Earth trilogy is fiction and intended for entertainment, but I sincerely hope that readers are surprised, enlightened, and even angered by the bits of real history they encounter in these books, and that they might read more about this often-ignored period of history.
The full research bibliography for the series consists of some seventy works. The sources for Breath of Earth and Call of Fire, as well as the ones that follow this section, are also listed at BethCato.com with links to where they may be purchased online or are available for free legal download. I want to emphasize the latter. Many of the old travel guides I read for Hawaii and Los Angeles are available for free, in a wide variety of e-book formats, courtesy of the New York Public Library. They have over 144,000 books on Archive.org. Go there and fall down a wonderful rabbit hole.
Hawaii
The Japanese in Hawai’i: Okage Sama De by Dorothy Ochiai Hazama and Jane Okamoto Komeiji
The Islands at the End of the World (A Novel) by Austin Aslan
Hawaii: A History, from Polynesian Kingdom to American Statehood by Ralph S. Kuykendall and A. Grove Day
Vacation Days in Hawaii and Japan by Charles M. Taylor Jr.
Seven Weeks in Hawaii by an American Girl by M. Leola Crawford
The Hawaiian Archipelago: Six Months Amongst the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands by Isabella Lucy Bird
The Real Hawaii: Its History and Present Condition by Lucien Young, USN
Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes: Collected and Translated from the Hawaiian by W. D. Westervelt
“The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic” by Alex Golub, The Appendix: Bodies 2:2 (April 2014)
Early Twentieth-Century America (General)
Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era by Kevin Starr
California Revisited 1858–1897 by T. S. Kenderdine
Victorian Los Angeles from Pio Pico to Angels Flight by Charles Epting
Southern California by Charles A. Keeler
A Tenderfoot in Southern California by Mina Deane Halsey
Phoenix: Valley of the Sun by G. Wesley Johnson Jr.
California Wings: A History of Aviation in the Golden State by William A. Schoneberger
“On the Wings of To-day: An Account of the First International Aviation Meet in America, at Los Angeles, California” by Charles K. Field, Sunset Magazine 34:3 (March 1910)
The Giant Airships (The Epic of Flight) by Douglas Botting
Acknowledgments
The research involved in the Blood of Earth trilogy has been daunting, and at times, downright overwhelming. I’m grateful to everyone who has provided guidance along the way. In particular, I want to call out Codex Writers for helping me with numerous queries over the four years I have spent on these books.
My work on Roar of Sky included a trip to Hawaii to walk where my characters would have walked and to get a genuine sense of the place. Thanks to Wilma and Zarli Win for the wonderful day tour around Oahu; I will never look at feral chickens the same way again. At Hawaii’s Plantation Village, ninety-year-old Charlie (with the help of his little dog, Tomo) “talked story” for two hours about growing up on a local sugarcane plantation. On the Big Island, we had a wonderful stay at the Kona Bayview Inn Bed & Breakfast, where Sharon and Thomas embodied the aloha spirit. The access to fresh-off-the-tree macadamia nuts and softball-sized avocados (alligator pears, in my book’s parlance) has spoiled me forevermore. If you’re planning a visit to Kona, do look them up. At the Jagger Museum in Volcanoes National Park, it was a delight to hear the rangers talk with such enthusiasm about the Big Island. I fell in love with the place, too. Nothing in my life can compare to watching the distant lava lake churn at sunrise, or hiking miles across the dried lava bed of the Kilauea Iki crater with full knowledge of the catastrophic potential of the ground beneath my feet.
Many people helped me to try to do justice to Ingrid’s spasticity and the daily challenges that she would face. I want to thank Pat Esden, Erin M. Hartshorn, Tina Smith, Jolenna and Bill Cullum, Dr. Geoffrey Habershaw, DPM, and others unnamed. Rebecca Roland read the full rough-draft manuscript and provided pointed advice on making Ingrid’s assistive devices as accurate as possible. Any errors and inconsistencies that remain, of course, are my fault alone.
Rachel Thompson critiqued this book, as she did the previous two. At some point, my immense gratitude will be expressed via cheese.
My agent is Rebecca Strauss at DeFiore and Company. She’s worthy of an entire thesaurus entry of synonyms for “awesome.” Here’s to more books to come!
Many thanks to the sloth-loving crew at Harper Voyager, including David Pomerico, Caroline Perny, Angela Craft, and my editor, Priyanka Krishnan. I’m so happy to work with you all.
Last but not least, I need to thank my family: Mom and Dad; Scott; my husband, Jason; and my son, Nicholas. Jason deserves particular praise, as much of his vacation time the past few years has been used so that he can stay home and kid-watch while I go to conferences and frolic with plush sloths and flaccid foam breadsticks. He’s the best hubby ever.
About the Author
Nebula Award–nominated author BETH CATO hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She’s the author of the Clockwork Dagger duology and the Blood of Earth trilogy from Harper Voyager, plus scores of other short stories and poems across a multitude of publications. She shares her household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and three feline overlords.
www.bethcato.com
Twitter: @bethcato
facebook.com/beth.cato
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Praise for the Blood of Earth trilogy
Breath of Earth
“The book as a whole strikes a nervy balance between easygoing charm and suspense . . . As brisk as Cato’s plot is, it’s also straightforwardly simple. But she embroiders it richly with gorgeous period setpieces, imaginative speculation and the charismatic Ingrid herself, a hero-coming-into-her-own full of gumption and dimension . . . Cato’s exhaustive research of the time and place gives the book texture and grit, and she hasn’t whitewashed what was a very problematic chapter of America’s history.”
—NPR
“Readers in search of steampunk and alt-history can find them here charged with magic . . . A strong cast and an unconventional approach to alternate history and magic . . . [in] this extraordinary world.”
—Locus
“The acclaimed Cato creates an alternate early 20th-century San Francisco of stunning detail. Drawing on the power struggles of the refugees and women’s work, this vivid reality will keep readers intrigued to the very end.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Cato . . . begins a new steampunk fantasy series with supernatural creatures, action-packed adventure, mystery, humor, a touch of romance, and more to come.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“With an interesting mix of steampunk, alternate history and urban fantasy, this mystery and slow-building romance—first in Cato’s new series—is excitingly different. Her marvelous star is multi-faceted and her costars are colorful. Her fantastical fiction is unique.”
—RT Book Reviews
Call of Fire
“A powerful, fast-paced, entertaining enigma, a fantastic melding of alternate history and urban fantasy with a definite taste of steampunk thrown in. Memorable costars, a protagonist with real st
ar power, picturesque scenes and her use of mythical Asian creatures, plus flowing dialogue, make it a real page-turner.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Cato’s sequel to Breath of Earth takes readers further into an alternate turn-of-the-20th-century America, wrapping a dark time in U.S. history in a bright fantasy veneer. The incorporation of sympathetic characters results in a gritty, imaginative, and unforgettable read.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Cato brings increased nuance and skilled characterization to her second Blood of Earth historical fantasy . . . [She] ably juggles historical fact and fantastical elements to create an alternate 1900s America as finely adorned with Asiatic touches.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An entertaining installment in a series that tackles an ambitious reimagining of history.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“It’s been a long while since I’ve looked forward to a book as much as this one and I’m happy to say that it delivers.”
—Nameless Zine
Also by Beth Cato
The Blood of Earth trilogy
Breath of Earth
Call of Fire
Roar of Sky
The Clockwork Dagger series
The Clockwork Dagger
The Deepest Poison: A Short Story
The Clockwork Crown
Wings of Sorrow and Bone: A Novella
The Final Flight: A Short Story
Deep Roots
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
roar of sky. Copyright © 2018 by Beth Cato. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
first edition
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration by Gene Mollica; molten lava © Willyam Bradberry/Shutterstock
Map designed by Paula Russell Szafranski
Map image © THEPALMER/Getty Images.Istock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition October 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-269226-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269225-2
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