Also:
Book 1: The Collar and the Cavvarach
Book 2: The Gladiator and the Guard
The story takes place in the Krillonian Empire, which is in a world whose culture and technology are almost exactly like our own in most ways. The main difference is that slavery is legal there. (To learn more about the Krillonian Empire, click here.) In today’s post, however, we will focus on life in the province of Tarnestra (also called Tarnestran Province). Tarnestra is unique in that it recently became the first province in the empire to outlaw slavery. As you can imagine, this history-making event sparked hope in the hearts of slaves throughout the empire, and for many, dreams of escape suddenly became a real possibility. As a result, in addition to freeing all its local slaves, Tarnestra has recently seen an influx of escaped slaves from Imperia and other provinces. These changes have had unfortunate effects on the economy, since many businesses cannot afford to hire as many employees and have had to shut down or cut way back. (The accepted salary for enslaved workers – paid to their owners, of course – is two-thirds what free workers earn.) Tarnestra is now dealing with huge numbers of unemployed and homeless people.
If we were to visit Tarnestra as tourists, what would you recommend that we see or do there?Snow sports are popular. Tarnestra’s Rurionis Range has several mountains high enough to have snow at the top all year round, and it’s a common destination for anyone who likes skiing, snowboarding, or sledding.
Because of the high homeless population and the fact that so many people are unemployed, there’s been an increase in crime recently. In addition, you’ll want to watch out for the street gangs, especially if you go out alone at night. Rumor has it that at least one of the gangs has even been involved in kidnapping people to sell them as slaves in other provinces where slavery is still legal.
An emperor, who is never named, governs the whole Krillonian Empire from the capital city, Krillonia, on the continent known as Imperia. Tarnestra is one of eight separate provinces on nearby continents. Like the others, Tarnestra is allowed to elect its own legislature and decide on many of its own laws, but the emperor reserves the right to veto any of them and make changes as he sees fit.
Are there any other unique cultural practices that we should be aware of if we visit Tarnestra?
Some Tarnestrans consider it stylish to wear silver in their hair. (Most Tarnestrans have blond or brown hair.) It’s not uncommon to see men, especially, in dreadlocks entwined with silver wires, or braids with silver beads on the end. If you choose to follow this particular custom, though, beware: a dangerous gang known as the Silverheads is famous for doing this, and it’s possible you’ll be mistaken for a gang member, especially if you have a burly build and go out at night with a weapon. If you happen to meet any of the Corner Creepers, their rivals, watch out!
Has anything in your actual life inspired the locations, cultures, etc. in your book?
I borrowed a few details from places I’ve been. For example, the Corner Creepers’ bladeclubs are made from rounders bats, which are about half the length of baseball bats. Rounders is a sport similar to baseball that is played in Kenya, where I grew up. And the character Boris has a bad habit of chewing betel nut, a mild narcotic that is common in Taiwan, where I live now. (It’s legal in Taiwan, but not in Tarnestra!)
Is it better to live as a slave or to be homeless, unemployed, and starving? Is it okay to participate in activities you know are illegal or unethical in order to bring about good for someone else? What do you do when you are forced to make the choice between being there for two separate sets of people who both need you in their lives? Can someone be justified in making a promise they know they will break to a person who trusts them if that’s the only way to help someone else? Is it a good thing to have ended slavery when the results are mass unemployment, a huge rise in homelessness, and the economy taking a “deep sea dive”? These are all issues characters have to wrestle with in The Student and the Slave.
The Student and the Slave is available on Amazon here in both Kindle and paperback formats. Its regular price will be $2.99, but I’ve discounted it to 99 cents for the month of November!
Here are the links to my other books:
The Collar and the Cavvarach
The Gladiator and the Guard
Annals of Alasia fantasy series
Hide it In Your Heart (Bible verse coloring/activity book)
Student poetry anthologies
Click here to read other posts in the Realm Explorers series.
Please join us again next Monday for a trip to another world in next week’s edition of Realm Explorers!
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As I was working on my recently-released action and adventure novel, The Student and the Slave, I got stuck several times on story details and wanted fresh ideas. When I put questions out there on Facebook, it was fun to read people’s suggestions and decide which ones I was going to incorporate! I used the same hashtag in each post, so that made it easy to go back later and search for all my questions and people’s suggestions.
Here are a few of the questions I asked, and people’s replies:
I need a good name for an exciting two-person video game that 13-year-old boys would enjoy. It can be about anything. We won’t actually see the game being played; I just want one character to mention that he’s going to kick his friend’s rear in ________ as they go off to play it. (It can’t be a real game!) Any suggestions would be appreciated! #TheStudentandtheSlave
Some of my favorite replies included Swords at Dawn, Combat Lords, Squid Racer, Dojo Showdown, and Duelists at Doom Mountain. I combined a couple of them and added a twist, and here’s part of the scene in which the annoyingly arrogant Raymond ends up mentioning the game to a slave boy he trains with:
“My godfather sent me this awesome video game as an early New Year present, since he won’t be able to come this time. It’s called Showdown at Destiny Mountain, and it’s really expensive. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, ’cause I have so many others, plus I’ve been busy with my cavvara shil …. So anyway, you probably don’t know anything about video games, but if you were bored, I could show it to you. The two-player version is more fun.”
And another query related to Raymond and his family:
Question for those of you familiar with gyms and workout equipment. What sort of weights and equipment might you be likely to find in the home of a very rich family whose spoiled rotten teenage son competes in a martial art? (For those who have read my books, the martial art is cavvara shil, if that makes a difference.) The teenage son is the only family member who would use any of it. Also, what would be a good name for the room in his home where it’s kept and used? Work-out room? Family fitness center? Something more lavish-sounding? #TheStudentandtheSlave
Suggestions included more details than I could mention, but pretty much everything in the following scene (except the trophies) came directly from my Facebook friends:
On Sunday morning, Steene climbed the stairs to the third floor, where he had been ordered to meet Raymond in the workout room. The boy wasn’t there yet, and Steene looked around, impressed. He had never seen a private home this well equipped with workout equipment: weights, elliptical, cable crossover, punching bag, and a treadmill and exercise bike positioned side by side in front of a large TV. Most of the equipment looked as though it was seldom used. Opening the fridge in the kitchenette, he saw a collection of energy drinks and bottled water. Nearby, a cupboard was stocked with energy bars of various flavors. A gigantic mirror stretched across one wall, and before it spread an open space covered with interlocking floor mats for cavvara shil practice. On a shelf that topped the mirror stood a little collection of cavvara shil trophies: five bronze, three silver, and two gold.
Here was my next question:
I need to come up with a good name for the leader of a street gang. He’s burly (as you might expect) and wears his shoulder-length blond hair in dreadlocks. He has to have an actual, legitimate name, not just a violent-sounding nickname. Ideas, anyone? #TheStudentandtheSlave
There were so many great responses to this one that I picked several to use for other members of the gang. Axel became the leader, though – I loved that name for him right away. This snippet shows some of the others I picked:
Axel introduced everybody, and Bensin did his best to remember the names. Most of them sounded pretty ordinary: Joe, Tanner, Hugh, Randal, Sid, Vance. For some reason he had expected gang members to have violent nicknames, but nobody did.
Then I asked:
I need a name for a classy clothing store that treats its employees (and before slavery was outlawed in that area a few months earlier, its slaves) terribly behind the scenes. Suggestions, anyone? #TheStudentandtheSlave
There were so many creative answers to that one! My favorites included Minx, Couture Closet, Fancy Frills, Entitled, La Mod, Style Street, Racque (pronounced rack), Allure, Fabricated, Illusion, Flawless, Runway Chic, Sublime Design, and Premiere Designs. Here’s the scene in the book where you’ll see which one I picked:
Deiv lowered his voice. “You see that building way off in the distance? Eighteen stories, white with green trim?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s Entitled, Tarnestra’s classiest clothing store. Back before Emancipation, it had a reputation for treating its slaves worse than any other company in the province. Eighteen-hour work days, no lunch break, you mess up or talk back or show up late and they’d beat you half to death. Even after they had to free their slaves, they’ve treated their paid employees almost as bad. There’s more people looking for work in Tavallia these days than there are jobs, so they can afford to be as mean as they want.”
“Okay. So?”
“So, let’s just say that no one felt sorry for them the night they lost a bunch of their most expensive inventory and all the money in their cash registers.” Deiv grinned.
Some of the most fun answers I received were when I asked about a possible gift for a little boy:
I’m looking for fun and educational gift suggestions for a character in the book I’m working on. He’s a 7-year-old boy of above-average intelligence and curiosity with an independent/rebellious streak. He plays chess, is learning martial arts, and skips school whenever he thinks he can get away with it (because it bores him). He’s a former slave who stowed away on a boat by himself for a 3-day journey that resulted in his freedom. Now he’s living with a kind stranger who took him in and has become his unofficial foster dad. This “dad” would like to get him something unique as a holiday gift (they exchange gifts on New Year’s Day in this world). Any ideas? The culture and level of tech in this world are very similar to our own, if that helps. #TheStudentandtheSlave
Suggestions included a puzzle box similar to our Rubiks Cube, a kitten or puppy, a memory-making experience instead of an object, a chess set with the figurines of martial arts masters, an intricate marble run, a compass, mini terrarium kit, mock excavation kit, books about martial arts or chess, butterfly kit, dissection specimens, microscope, telescope, metal detector, origami kit. Here are parts of the scene I used a couple of the ideas in:
Lee met Bensin at the door and led him through the smithy and into the kitchen. “Come see what I got! Garrett and Will both gave me presents on Monday, ’cause free kids get presents for New Year when they’re good, and I’m almost always good.” … Lee grabbed Bensin’s hand and tugged. “See, look, Garrett bought me all those books there that tell about everything in the world.” He pointed to a set of encyclopedias, obviously used but still in good condition, arranged on the bottom shelf of the huge bookcase. “They go through the whole alphabet, but I’m only halfway through the ‘A’ one so far. Now I know all about accordions and agriculture and aircraft, but when I finish reading them all, I’m gonna be smarter than Garrett and Will both put together. And Will gave me a kit to build a telescope. Someday he’s gonna take me camping and we’ll look at the stars with it.”
I’m deeply grateful to all those who gave me such great ideas for so many different aspects of the setting, characters, and other details. The Student and the Slave is a richer story as a result!
If you would like to see more of how I incorporated people’s suggestions, The Student and the Slave is on sale for just 99 cents through the end of November. Click here to download your copy before it goes up to $2.99! Or to read the trilogy in order, you can buy The Collar and the Cavvarach here and The Gladiator and the Guard here.
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The series is set in an alternate world that is very much like our own, with just a few major differences. One is that slavery is legal there. Slaves must wear metal collars that lock around their neck, making their enslaved status obvious to everyone. Another difference is the popularity of a martial art called cavvara shil. It is fought with a cavvarach (rhymes with “have a rack”), a weapon similar to a sword but with a steel hook protruding from partway down its top edge. Competitors can strike at each other with their feet as well as with the blades. You win in one of two ways: disarming your opponent (hooking or knocking their cavvarach out of their hands) or pinning their shoulders to the mat for five seconds.
First, a Little Information about Books 1 and 2:
Book 1: The Collar and the Cavvarach
Bensin, a teenage slave and martial artist, is desperate to see his little sister freed. But only victory in the Krillonian Empire’s most prestigious tournament will allow him to secretly arrange for Ellie’s escape. Dangerous people are closing in on her, however, and Bensin is running out of time. With his one hope fading quickly away, how can Bensin save Ellie from a life of slavery and abuse?
Click here to read chapter 1 of The Collar and the Cavvarach.
Click here to read about life in the Krillonian Empire, where the series is set.
Book 2: The Gladiator and the Guard
Bensin, a teenage slave and martial artist, is just one victory away from freedom. But after he is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he is condemned to the violent life and early death of a gladiator. While his loved ones seek desperately for a way to rescue him, Bensin struggles to stay alive and forge an identity in an environment designed to strip it from him. When he infuriates the authorities with his choices, he knows he is running out of time. Can he stand against the cruelty of the arena system and seize his freedom before that system crushes him?
Click here to read about life in the arena where Bensin and other gladiators are forced to live and train.
And now, The Student and the Slave, with another awesome cover by the talented Jack Lin!
Book 3: The Student and the Slave
Is this what freedom is supposed to be like? Desperate to provide for himself and his sister Ellie, Bensin searches fruitlessly for work like all the other former slaves in Tarnestra. He needs the money for an even more important purpose, though: to rescue Coach Steene, who sacrificed himself for Bensin’s freedom. When members of two rival street gangs express interest in Bensin’s martial arts skills, he realizes he may have a chance to save his father figure after all … at a cost.
Meanwhile, Steene struggles with his new life of slavery in far-away Neliria. Raymond, his young owner, seizes any opportunity to make his life miserable. But while Steene longs to escape and rejoin Bensin and Ellie, he starts to realize that Raymond needs him too. His choices will affect not only his own future, but that of everyone he cares about. Can he make the right ones … and live with the consequences?
Click here to order The Student and the Slave from Amazon for $2.99 a discounted price of just 99 cents through November 31st!
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