Tales of Tiberius: Backstory Blog

Having decided to base my fantasy world, loosely, on Roanoke, I then had to go into the details.  First question was, should I actually use Roanoke?  There were pros and cons, but ultimately I decided to use an entirely fictional colony.  Trouble is we know a little too much about Roanoke.  It’s a famous lost colony, sure, but there is a lot of evidence that bad things happened to the real colony.

But I didn’t need the actual Roanoke Colony, just something like it.  Was that plausible?  Could there have been other lost colonies during the early 1600’s?  A little research shows that it is actually quite plausible.  The political climate of the day made English colonization of the new world technically illegal, so ‘off the books’ colonization attempts were quite plausible.  There’s been some debate about whether the  missions we know about, like Frobisher’s journeys, were colonization attempts or not.  A few ships getting ‘lost’ back then wouldn’t exactly have been headline news.  More like business as usual.  Some day I’ll get into the details of the fictional lost colony attempt, but as background it makes perfect sense.  We know ships traveled to the new world and not everyone made it.  We know ships got ‘lost’ in the Bermuda Triangle along the way.  Why not take the next logical step.  Some of those ‘lost’ colonists made it to somewhere else.

There are actually a number of interesting stories running around in antiquity about mysterious people going back and forth across the Atlantic.  Thor Heyerdahl’s work proved the ancient Egyptians could have made it.  There are odd stories about bearded white men arriving in ancient times in South America.  And I still don’t think we know exactly where Vineland is.

So when you read “Path of the Magi” you should recognize the (human) cultures that are around.  Norse, Elizabethans, Spaniards, Dutch, Roman and even pre-Columbian south American cultures are represented.  Could the Magi have made it over as well?  Why not.  We know they were travelers.  Who knows where else they went.

At nearly every science fiction convention I’ve been to, some young kid stands up and asks if Einstein could possibly have been wrong? He or she wants to go to the stars. This is usually met with scorn and derision by some scientist on the panel who insists the Einstein was not wrong.

What all young SF fans with dreams of actually visiting the stars need to understand is that Einstein does not have to be wrong for your dreams to come true. Understand what Einstein really said. You’re not getting to the Stars by pushing down on the accelerator. Guess what? Even if Einstein was 100% wrong, you’re still not getting to the stars by pushing down on the accelerator. We can’t even get up to .1 C yet, much less worry about what happens when you get up to .5 C or so when realistic effects are really relevant. Even at 2xC it would still take you a couple of years to get to Alpha Centauri.

So Einstein wasn’t crushing your dreams. What Einstein did was point out that Hyperspace, or something like it, was going to be necessary to go to the stars. The key to getting the right answers is asking the right questions. Einstein showed us that the question “How can I go fast enough to get to the stars?” is the wrong question. You can’t go that fast. To get to the stars, we need to try something else. We can all thank Einstein for pointing that out to us. Now that we’re looking for something else like hyperspace. Maybe one day we can find it.

What’s the background like, for Path of the Magi and the Tales of Tiberius? On the one hand it’s the usual for a fantasy novel. I’m talking about Knights, Dragons, elves, etc, so naturally there are taverns, castles and the usual stuff you’d find at a renascence fair.
On the other hand, things are a bit different. My fantasy world is populated from the same people who were colonizing North America and there is certain colonial American flavor to the countryside. The local governments are generally democracies, not monarchies, the food is more likely to feature johnnycake than blackbird pie, and so on. Why? Partly because you write about what you know, and I’ve been an American History student forever. I also think it’s worth remembering that not all the magical stuff happens in Europe. We have Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman right here in New York. And did you know that Jousting is the official sport of Maryland? Something to think about when you read the Path of the Magi.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. “

The question posed by a friend of mine is how can this be correct when the bible states in Romans 13:1 that “The authorities that exist have been established by God.” How can we justify rebelling against a King? Do any of these rights even exist?

First off to clarify a definition a “Right” according to the dictionary [Merriam-Webster] is, in this context, a “power or privilege to which one is justly entitled.” The Bible states thou shall not murder, so the right to life, at least, may be safely inferred. It’s not a question of does anyone have rights, but what rights do we have?

Now as to the question of our right to form Governments to secure the rights to which we are justly entitled, the question is do we always have to put up with whatever we have, or can we act to change Governments? Certainly a casual reading of the Bible implies that we should put up with whatever comes our way. But on mature reflection we realize that the Bible cannot mean that all Governments are always correct, as the very people who wrote Romans were themselves preaching Christianity against the laws of Rome.

It’s much the same contradiction we face in Jesus’ attitude of pacifism. Matthew 5:39 tells us not to resist evil, but other Bible verses tell us specifically to resist evil e.g. James 4:7 and Romans 12:9. You understand the contradiction when you understand that the Bible teaches us to resist evil but not to hate our enemies, engage in revenge or otherwise engage in petty disputes. Our guide should be Mark 12:17 “Give Caesar what is due to Caesar and give God what belongs to God.” When there is a conflict we give God priority. In slavery the Bible’s advice in sensible, there is no point in being a grouchy slave if your lot in life is to be a slave. Better to be a great worker and make your boss feel guilty about having slaves. But this doesn’t mean we should continue with the institution of slavery. It is right and proper for Governments to abolish this practice and if the Government doesn’t want to do that it is right and proper to abolish the Government and make a new one. One should not rebel against the government lightly. In general the Bible tells us to respect authority. But when that authority descends into true evil, it is our duty to oppose it.

You will forgive my quoting but I really cannot put things better than Jefferson did: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” I don’t just quote these words, I say Amen to them. I think these words are fully within the spirit of the law as layed down to us by the Bible.

Captain Blood – You’re kidding me, right? The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has made a zillion dollars and you don’t want to compete with that?! Captain Blood is the best Pirate story ever written period. Even better than Treasure Island which gets filmed all the time. There is a LOT of excellent material in the original books untouched by the old movies.

Rainbow 6 – Tom Clancy’s best novel, a book with everything the Jason Borne series has and much more. This should start shooting tomorrow, and yet Hollywood is fooling around with making up their own Jack Ryan books.

The Tar-Aiyam Krang – The lead in for Alan Dean Foster’s Commonwealth series is a very solid science fiction story. Compared to the stuff they are filming, e.g. Prometheus, Battleship, etc. this is an amazing story. Young kid goes on an adventure to discover the secret of an ancient alien weapon. This is the real treasure island in space.

The Passion II – The Passion was a great movie, but it wasn’t the end of the story. We have the Acts and that is the obvious and a very important follow up. Mel can produce if he doesn’t want to direct. Even bad sequels make 80% of the original.

The Iliad – One of the most famous books of all time, it has NEVER been filmed, unless you count the movie “Troy” which I don’t as it got the story wrong from beginning to end. e.g. in defiance of both history and a literary work ranked with Shakespeare they changed the ending?!?!? Please find a writer and director that realize they are not better writers than Homer and film this book.

Just finished watching Season 1 of Full Metal Jousting. Interesting to see this ancient sport come back to life. Not a bad show either. Second half of the show focused a bit more on the actual jousts and I thought that was more interesting. The one thing they need to fix is this Red vs. Black idea. If they have teams, have teams, make it means something if your team mates win. As is they had a couple of matches where team mates were jousting each other in the same exact armor and that’s just confusing. If they must go Black vs Black at least paint the helmet a different color.

It’s ELVISH not ELIVS! Amazon keeps trying to autocorrect Elvish Christmas to ELVIS Christmas.

I’m here to categorically deny that my new book “An Elvish Christmas and the Secret of Santa Claus” has anything to do with Elvis. It’s not like someone whips out a musical instrument right before confronting a giant spider in the book. Well, Ok that does happen, but trust me no one suddenly changes into a garish outfit suitable only for the stage… except for the Elf Archer, but that doesn’t really count because it was just a spell. There is NO wild dancing…well except maybe a little at the very end. And apart from the two kids, no one is having a Blue Christmas. There, hope I have cleared that up for everyone.

The christmas carol “The most wonderful time of the year” has an odd line in it. “There’ll be scary ghost stories And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” Scary Ghost stories? On Christmas? Who thought of that? We’ve all heard of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” but isn’t that just a weird exception? Shouldn’t the ghost stories all be on Halloween?

Actually no. It’s not in vogue these days, but Christmas Ghost stories are an old English tradition. Did you know that Dickens wrote other Christmas ghost stories, including “The Haunted Man”? Here’s a link for you. http://charlesdickenspage.com/christmas_books.html

Why Ghost stories on Christmas? Well, Christmas was a time to gather with family around the hearth and back then there were no TV’s, so people would tell stories. We’d probably tell detective stories today, but back then Ghost stories were popular, so out came the Ghost stories at Christmas. They didn’t have to be “Christmas Ghost” stories, just good stories. But anyone in the writing business occasionally does holiday episodes. Sherlock Holmes has an excellent Christmas Detective story called “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”

It’s in that tradition that I’ve included “A Gift for a Ghost” in my forthcoming collection “An Elvish Christmas and the Secret of Santa Claus.” It’s part of the “Tales of Tiberius” and it’s a Christmas episode in the fantasy series, as are all three of the stories in that book. It’s also a Christmas Ghost story and it was written to honor the long tradition of telling Ghost Stories at Christmas. This Christmas if you want to add a bit of tradition to your holiday, why not gather around the fireplace and read a few Ghost stories?