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Author Spotlight: AJ Hartley

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

My publisher is ecstatic – we picked up A.J. Hartley for a short series his Big Press didn’t want to keep the rights to because it couldn’t sell the 100,000 copies they need to make money. Mr. Hartness became friends with the NY-times best-selling author on the convention circuit (remember writers, networking is a thing) and when Dr. Hartley mention a pet project of his that was available, John threw himself on that grenade to keep the Shakespearean professor from trunking his Will Hawthorne stories.

For his day job, A.J. Hartley is the Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare at UNC Charlotte. Which means he doesn’t just like literature, he breathes it.  Working with David Hewson, he recreated prose versions Macbeth and Hamlet. 

Well and truly bitten by the writing bug, he puts pen to paper for a variety of genres: thriller, fantasy, the previous mentioned historical fiction, and even some middle grade and young adult. He goes as far as to write additional works under a pseudonym of Andrew Hart. But nearly everything he does, including his literary non-fiction professor publications, are doen under A.J. Hartley.

His Steeplejack series is the “new thing” and worth a read, as is nearly everything this master of the English language produces.

Flash: A Dragon and a Witch

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Phil_Bird at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

Leathery wings silently glided the dragon over the Nether Gate. Twisting to the pond as he dipped below the fruit trees scattered throughout the garden, Indigo called to the Inner Fire and flashed bright for a moment, transforming into human shape to touch boot on the stone pier.

“Well, if isn’t His Hotness invading my home yet again.”

His dark eyes searched the shadows for the witch whose vitriol-laden sexy voice had sent shivers down his vulnerable flesh form. He found her plucking a plum from a tree. Striding forward onto the rich loam, he closed the distance between them.

Not moving, she bit down on his favorite fruit, and he watched her cheeks hollow, sucking the juices out before she asked, “What did I tell you the last time?”

“That if I ever showed up here again, you weren’t going to kick me out.” The sometimes-man smirked down at the small, but curvy witch. “I fail to see the threat.” He grabbed the hand holding the plum and pulled it up to his mouth to take a bite where she had already broken the skin, Vera fighting him all the way but failing. Despite her inhuman strength capable of maintaining the magical garden, his arms could carry a dragon’s weight into the air. There was no real contest even though she pretended there was.

“I assume you carried this message to your queen as well.” She huffed, standing on tiptoes, waiting to regain her limb.

Taking a second to admire the juices flowing down the slim white arm from the half-eaten fruit, he eventually answered, “In all the glorious detail you provided. That you no longer owed fealty to the Air. The treaty had played out it four score and once more and anything coming from your garden will be paid for, not taxes and tribute collected.” He licked the juices which had reached the hollow of her elbow as she continued to struggle ineffectively against his greater might. He watched out of the corner of his eye her reactions while he followed the sticky line back up her arms, giving special attention around her wrist before prying the fruit from her fingers and releasing her arm.

During the entire time her eyes widened and darkened. She hadn’t stepped back, but instead licked her lips and her breathing deepened. The witch could have spoken a spell to throw him from the shade of the tree and into the water, but she hadn’t risked the start of a war, or maybe there was another reason. They had been playmates while she had resided as hostage-supplicant in High Aerie until her parent’s death and her inheriting their land.

“I also carried your warning that anything entering your lands is to be considered yours from now on to do with as you see fit.” One quick bite finished the fruit, and he threw the pit aside. “The queen does not care.”

After shaking out her arm, Vera brought the fingers to her mouth to suck the last of the stickiness from them. Pulling two moisten fingers from her mouth, the brunette looked up through her bangs and asked, “Is that Regina’s only answer?” She popped her thumb into her mouth, swirling her tongue around as her cheeks hollowed again, sucking firmly.

Indigo felt his eyes go completely purple as he watched her. Two sides of a cold, cold war kept them apart during their adolescent years while she became a ruler and he a trusted solider. The childhood friendship had changed into something else entirely the next time them met. Something that could never be pursued without total surrender on one of their parts, her part. Something the queen expected him to acquire before the next full moon – the surrender, not the results that both of them really wanted – to Void with the queen’s expectations. A short laugh twisted from his gut. “No. She expects the normal tribute to be brought by your farmhands in six days. And your presence to sign a new treaty.”

Satisfied all the stickiness had been removed, the witch wiped her hand on her apron, then pushed her long braids back bringing his attention to her long neck. He did like graceful necks in both his forms.

“Or?”

“I have been instructed to burn field after field until you capitulate.” Indigo’s broad shoulder’s shrugged, his face stoic.

Vera gasped, laying a hand upon her generous bosom. A feature he only appreciated in human form. “Oh, no!”

Indigo’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t fear but extreme overacting.

“You do know,” her voice continued with the excessive hyperbolized tones she would use back when they were planning something their caretakers would rue later, “that as an Earth Witch bound to my lands, burning them will send me into agony.”

“Which is why your grandparents surrendered the first time.” He cocked his head to the side, moving to lean under the fruit tree and crossing his arms. Flower petals drifted down from the ever-fruiting tree bearing heavy branches of pink flowers, green young fruit, and full purple plums. “Why are you even trying?”

“Because I rule here.” Her heart-shaped face firmed into marble, her tone cutting as sharp flint. “I owe those tied to these gardens and fields to try.” A small smile slipped in like gold flecks in a High Aerie mining vein. “Plus it affects all those in my family.”

He shook his head at her obstinateness. “You have no family left. You are the last of your line.”

“Except for my husband.”

A cold hollow formed within his Inner Fire. It roared back to fill the void and leaped higher, a hint escaping as smoke from his nostrils. He found himself suddenly learning towards her, his fists either side of his body. “What husband?” he growled.

“Fruit bit and shared, from lip to lip and hand to hand. Thus it is done. Thus is it done. It is done thus.” She stood on tiptoes and quickly pressed her lips against his where he leaned forward.

His world exploded, and he fell like a stone as the world, a land, rushed in to welcome him, bind him, ground him.

(Words 1030 – first published 8/19/2018)

Geeking Science: Too Smart

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of zirconicusso at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the harder things to write well is someone smarter than you. The top 2% of humanity can be as hard to decipher as a teenager – “What are you thinking? – and yet, we love to write about them. Kind-of like middle-grade and Young Adult (YA) likes to read about people one or two years above them; how do these people who have a slightly different view of the world interact with it?

So many romances feature a super-smart female who falls for the Alpha male. And Urban Fantasies love the tech-genius sidekick trope. With the added time allowing to think things out, a writer can create a portrayal of someone able to think a few steps ahead of those around them. And yet, is this how such a person will act?

Not necessarily.

Dr. Kohlenberg reposted an article from his old website on June 23, 2017: Understanding Very, Very Smart People. It’s been widely shared on educational and entertainment websites including Medium.

Some things to think about when writing the Very Smart are:

  1. The Very Smart are not allowed to talk about it. – In the age where everyone gets to talk about their neurological divergence, talking about the trials of a 140 IQ sounds like bragging instead of problem-solving like when one talks about being on the Spectrum. Thing is a mental outlier is still being a mental outlier even when it is “positive” – trying to figure out how to fit into the larger society doesn’t just happen even when one can process information faster than normal.
  2. Failure is very frustrating. – After twenty years of being the brightest, entering the job market and running into peers can be crazy intimidating. In addition, if one is in a job to push the brain limits, failure becomes real for the first time and the very smart have no experience with this. Often they start avoiding the problem and dumb down their job until failure isn’t going to happen. This is how doctorate holders flip burgers. It isn’t just because the doctorate is in Medieval English Literature.
  3. Depression is more common. – Not only because the difference of being a mental outlier, but because of seeing Too Much, the Very Smart are more prone to depression and hide it a hell of a lot better for a lot longer than most. Because it starts early. They understand more than their age indicates. While a normal eight year old just sees a sunset, a Very Smart eight year old understands the light refraction and sometimes wonders about the pollution adding to the colors. And then starts thinking about how to fix pollution and gets angry when most of their solutions are not possible at their age. Then tired and depressed the older they get when they realized they don’t have the pull to fix all the problems. By age 18, not 40.
  4. Very Smart isn’t knowing All the Things. – Especially among males (who are always more likely to be outliers in anything genetic thanks to less averaging factors in the X against Y DNA), intelligent specialization occurs. Great at Math and Music, not so hot at Social. Political genius can’t figure a checkbook or morality. Know all things Pre-Historic in flora and fauna, but don’t have time to study Current Events.

This is the most common issues seen in books and television – the Genius of Everything – hacker, history expert, and auto mechanic! If you are writing a genius, choose one specialization topic for work and one side interest per decade old.

For example, Computer Hardware Specialist – forty years old – also dabbled in medical field, brain studies, for an AI he was interested in, then again for muscles when he was into robotics. He had taken the violin middle school through college and continues to love classical music and has tickets to the symphony – and can name every Vivaldi piece within the first minute of hearing it. Recently, because of the woman he is dating, he has come to an appreciation of Roller Derby especially the architecture and crowd distribution to maximize sound and fan-fever.

Don’t do all the things. Go deep, not wide in subject matters.

Tony Stark did machines, while Bruce Banner does radiation. And Natalia Romanavoa, languages.

If you want to read the article, you can find it here: (or maybe not, it looks like it has been removed again)

WRITING EXERCISE: Review your body of work. Have you ever written about Very Smart people? How were they realistic, and how did they diverge from reality?

***

In Is the Sky Blue?, we met one of the Ranlo brothers, Eugene, for the first time. We see his failure at work, his emotional quagmire leading to depression at not being able to please his boss like he had his teachers, and his problems with his relationship with Jordan and both of them working at the mental outlier issues. By the way, Eugene is brother to Joe from the what I have nicknamed “the Joe and Cheryl Show,” and Eugene and Joe’s younger brother is mentioned in Memory of a Lifetime. Eugene is the eldest; Joe is the middle. Little bro prankster is unnamed as yet.

I really should return to this family and write out the three romances of the genius brothers and the women who have to deal with them.

Editing Rant: Bruised and Battered

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I get it. Really I do. Action means characters get into fights. Thriller, mystery, urban fantasy, sword & sorcery – fist-to-cuffs and knife fights, sword clangs and gunshots.

But what makes all these so thrilling is the threat of injury. Not necessarily death; even simple disablement could mean the difference between finding the treasure or the enemy staying two steps ahead.

For the threat of injury to carry weight, the consequences of any injury need to be real and continuous. If a normal person gets a shiner, it takes a couple days for the swelling to go down. A healthy teenager or twenty-something will have a visible bruise for ten days to two weeks; while a sixty-year old, slow to heal and with thinner skin providing more visible bruising, may take a couple months. If writing a fantasy, such  as a superhero or werewolf, healing will be faster and pain is the biggest threat.

This editing rant is based on a book I read (not edited), published by a big house for a named author. A cyber-thriller with “normal” human beings who were exceptional hackers.

I’m going to call them “continuity” issues.

The main point-of-view character gets beat up, a lot. Before his arrest, some people who he had hacked found him and registered their discontent. He barely pulled himself home with a loose tooth, split lip, likely black eye (swelling), and BROKEN ribs (he heard the snap). He arrives home to find the feds, who taser him. Tasering in the real world makes all your muscles contract, which wouldn’t help his injuries but wouldn’t make them noticeably worse. Next time we see the POV, the agent-in-charge only notices the split lip. Please note BRUISED ribs take three to six weeks to heal in healthy adults, BROKEN ribs more so. The book narration reports no medical evaluations or intervention.

When he meets the rest of the hackers, no one thinks anything of his injuries even though they all sleep in the same area. Have you ever gotten out of bed with bruised ribs? I have. Unfun.

How long has passed between the first fight and him getting stuck in the dorm room? No clue, this “thriller” has no ticking clock, and therefore no thriller ride. Best I could figure is about a week, likely less.

The second day in the secret hacker prison/”work-for-us-and-we-erase-stuff” location, the POV gets tasered again and, the same day, a guard “pistons a fist into his side”. Even if the ribs were bruised and on the other side, I seriously doubt a geek-hacker would “launch himself upwards” swinging fists. Getting punched that hard hurts, knocks breath from the body. Doing it in a body area undergoing healing, opposite side (no side specified for either injury so let’s be generous and say opposite side) just means both sides are non-functional.

The POV continues to be a punching bag throughout the story, but I gave up at 25% of the book because the injuries of this normal human being had no impact on his life or the story.

I understand. Someone getting beating bloody in a thriller is a wonderful image. But obey the rules of the world. If you have normal people, SHOW the consequences of the injuries, CONTINUE the consequences of the injuries.

Editing Rant: How Injuries Work Series
1. Bruised and Battered (8/14/2018)
2. Gonna Leave a Bruise (4/13/2021)
3. The Burn (8/13/2024)

Flash: Bowman

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Bowman reviewed the duty assignment screen wistfully. His unit-individual number was followed by a blinking active, in-port code, and after that was a duty code he was beginning to know far too well. No change from yesterday. Meaning he got to mop floors in the Mess … again. He grabbed his undress yellow blouse and made his way to the Port Kitchen, arranging the securing sashes before stepping out of the empty barracks.

His severed hand, a minor injury by modern standards, had held him up just long enough to miss the 94th Infantry Division’s deployment. The tattooed private inhaled as he walked into the cooking area. He had to admit after all the times he had been on brick rations, being around live food was nearly worth the monotony.

It did not make up for the loneliness.

He wondered who was left to cook for. The last remaining divisions using Squamata Port mustered out yesterday for the Orion Theatre. All the support staff except for a few old-timers went with them. He never did get to adequately thank the doctor who screwed up his nerve reattachment badly enough that even after the second and more successful surgery was completed, he had to go through physical therapy.

Stripping out of as much of his uniform as one could tweak regulations, Bowman tied an apron over his already kitchen stained trousers and made his way to the ticking sounds of rapidly moving knives. “So Fatso, what are we mutilating today?”

Rounding the corner, Bowman saw a perfect heart-shaped butt snugged in mustard yellow weave. His eyes made their way up a back bare of everything but two apron loops. His fingers twitched for a second as he contemplated untying the loops. A blond by the military fuzz adorning her scalp. Damn, he loved blonds.

“That would be Colonel Fatso.” Replied a heavenly contralto, with an unmistakable undertone of command. “And breakfast will be vegetable omelet.”

Served him right for forgetting Faraday had been on one of the outgoing ships yesterday. “I am so sorry, Sir. What do you want me to do, Sir?”

“Apology accepted; been in kitchens before.” Watching her julienne the potatoes, Bowman had no doubt about that claim. “Second, it’s Dame. Air Force not Army – civilized people have genders. Third get the food. Net closest to the entrance. Put all three meals there when got vegetables last night.”

Bowman looked at the officer’s profile out of the corner of his eye while pulling on the environmental suit. Her small breasts popped over the top of the apron, tangerine nipples puckered tight. Her face was young; she could pass for his age. Her golden-hued eyes gave away her home sector of Orion, pushing up Bowman’s age estimate from nineteen to twice that. His eyes dropped to verify her origin, sure enough, a Rigelian parasite had replaced the pinky and ring fingers on her left hand.

After a second staring at the red veins pulsing with human blood visible through the translucent green skin, Bowman discovered he was caught staring. Cold gold chips met his blue eyes, “Do you have a problem, Private?”

“No, Sir … Dame.” Normally he wouldn’t add more, the Army did not like explanations – either getting them or giving them, but he had heard Air Force was a little different. “I just haven’t seen one before. Not in person, Dame.”

She sighed, “Get the food and we will let you closer look. Can’t have you making an accident staring.”

Wanting to break the tension and trying to gauge the officer. “Does that count for the boobs too, Dame?”

A laugh escaped her. A surprised look crossed her face like she didn’t laugh much. “Get in the airlock Private. … And no. Men having accidents over knockers is inevitable. Nothing can be done to help there.”

“Getting in the airlock, Dame.” He sealed the door and starting doing what his superiors constantly grumbled was his defining characteristic. He started thinking.

While moving the food to from the cold storage nets located on the skin of the port habitat, he went over the puzzle represented by the new person in charge of the Mess. An Orion in a Sol uniform, Air Force in an Army Port, Colonel cooking in a kitchen where the highest officer since before today was a lost second lieutenant, a new person after the base has been emptied, – and most importantly – the sexiest woman he had ever seen. Whatever was about to happen in the Snake Rut was big and very, very secret.

The big question: Could he avoid the shit fan about to hit, while also getting a chance to hit on her? Rhetorical really, he admitted as he started the airlock cycle to return inside. No way would a mud pounder be able to avoid any shit fan, let alone the size that this one seemed to be. And no way would he be able to jump that high of a grade let alone fuck another military branch.

(words 837 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 3/25/2013 – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; republished new blog format 8/12/2018)