Guardian Chronicles
Masquerade
As mentioned on the first page, Masquerade is the first novel in a series called Guardian Chronicles. It introduces two of the main characters in the series. Luapp Nostowe, a Grey Guardian (Intelligence) at the beginning, and who is transferred to space duties at the end, and Enegene Namrae, a Spyrian (Private detective). Both are from the planet Gaeiza, the mother planet and seat of power for the Seven Systems.
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The blurb on the back gives you some insight to the story, but I will write a brief résumé here. Basically it is a dectective story set in space with an alien detective.
To write this novel, I not only had to try and think how a man would think, but also to try and think as an alien would think. But it has been done successfully before by other authors. My one saving grace is that he is my creation, and therefore I have a good chance of getting things right. The fact he has taken on a life of his own is neither here nor there!
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The Beginning
The book you see above is not the original novel. It is basically the same story, but it has changed and evolved over the seven years I was working on it. It didn't take seven years to write; I managed that in about two months. It was at a time when I was desperate to find some good sci-fi to read, and was frustrated at not finding any. I had several Isaac Asivmov books, Ray Bradbury novels and the John Wyndham series, but nothing else appealed to me. I was tired of buying books that promised a lot but turned out to be frankly... boring. Then I found the Anne McCaffrey series of Dragon Riders of Pern and got through those. After that, once again I hit the buffers.
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While flicking through a writers magazine one day I saw some advice from an author I can't remember the name of, but it struck home. They said that if you can't find a book you want to read, write it yourself; and so I did.
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I had written many short stories based on a character who was elven-like. But I didn't want to write fanasty or fairy stories, I wanted to write sci-fi, so my character, a man, lived on a planet in a different galaxy to ours. After some thought I made him a member of the law enforcemnt group. Later he became an intelligence agent dealing with security within the Seven Systems.
While he had many elven features such as the pointed ears, raised brows, greater than human strength and great agility, to make him different from an elf I gave him red skin and fangs, but he was also a total vegetarian. The reason for the fangs I worked out later.
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While searching for a name for my character, I kept seeing a car around my local area with the number plate LU27AP - Luap was 27! That fitted well and so he was called Luap. Looking at other car number plates (they are a great inspiration) I saw NS03 TW. Jiggling it around a bit I came up with Nostow, and so he was called Luapp Nostow.
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Finally putting pen to paper, literally as I always wrote out my stories by hand, my frustration of not having a good story to read just poured out from my pen. As I was writing it by hand, and as I was working full time as a teacher, the first version took me two months.
Over the next few years I frequently went back to the story and expanded it until I had a novel that was over 600pages long. The first version started with Luapp's senior officer sitting in a darkened room watching strolling lights and trying to think of a way to persuade him to move into the space division. Then I began to type it out to make it easier to read.
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By this time I had married, travelled to Okehampton and returned to the small rural town where I live now. I had also joined a writing group where the leader of the group, Michael, told us about a new publishing firm setting up in Spain. They were wanting to publish the work of new authors.
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Masquerade had done the usual rounds of publishers and I had given up hope of getting published. By the time I sent off my sample of manuscript, I had graduated from typwriter to my husband's computer. We could send emails but not manuscripts over the internet. With all the previous rejections, it came as a shock when I noticed an email from them asking to see the rest of the manuscript. As at that time publishers wanted authors to send hard copy manuscripts to them, it was fortunate that by typing my manuscript I had the hard copy ready and had reduced the page count to 500 plus, but it was still expensive.
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To get past the "not being Universally Appealing" problem I joined an online critiquing site. This really helped to give me the hide of an elephant. There were a lot of nice people who paid me compliaments and made suggestions for improvement, there were also those who thought to critque a work meant being nasty and insulting. One in particular stood out. His critque went as follows: I don't know why people write this sci-fi crap, it's a waste of time. There's no action, and nothing interesting. Try something else. I decided that he suffered from limited word usage and was unable to articulate well and ignored him.
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While on this site I did come across a well meaning but very irritating man. I had no way of correcting his theory and I doubt if he'd believe me if I had. Because his mind worked in a particular way, he read Luapp's name Luap Nostow backwards and came up with Paul Watson, and from then on referred to him that way. While he couldn't do the same with Enegene, he did comment on the fact her name reads the same backwards and frontwards. He was the reason I changed the spelling of Luapp's name to what it is now. It stops the eye from immediately reading something other than his correct name while still sounding the same.
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Over the next year I re-wrote the novel and finished the second version. This one started with Luapp meeting Langa Char on his home planet and spending a short time with him while he instructed him on how to behave as a slave. They then went to the Black Systems planet Farro and travelled around so he could get first hand experience of how slaves were treated and he could observe actual slaves. This is briefly referred to in this version of the book.
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Having read an article which suggested that if your book wasn't grabbing the imagination of others, you could try starting it elsewhere in the story, I decided to do that. The third draft started with a "zoom in" at the slave fair at Trhaan which got a positive result from some critiquers. The fourth draft began with a prologue where a victim of the serial killer was already in their clutches. What changed this beginning was another article that suggested an author shouldn't start their novel with something as dramatic as that, and then go back to a slow paced first chapter, which is exactly what I had done.
So I changed it again. The fifth and final draft starts with Luapp and Oona walking into the area for him to be sold.
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Guardians feature strongly in all my novels in the Chronicles, as you would expect. In this novel, there are six other guardians mentioned apart from Luapp. Most of them in passing. Luapp's superior, Grey High Commander Bran makes a brief appearance in the debriefing, and he mentions Space High Commander HaJaan.
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Also mentioned is Green Commander Yetok who takes Enegene out to the Black Systems and teachers her how to act like a wealthy heiress. He also takes her to the Galactic Council's planet Padua, and returns her home. He even has a scene near the end when he and Luapp discuss the case and Enegene.
Luapp mentions two other guardians who are close friends. Nommys - his sub commander and Pilih. Finally, Space Guardian Tholman Kerran Gyre appears. He is Luapp's contact in that area of space and his emergency back-up should he require it.
​​​The Road to Self Publishing...
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...was long and conveluted as far as I was concerned. It involved self-doubt, despair, elation and finally acceptance I would never be published by the mainstream publishers. It seemed to me at the time that all they were interested in was making money and didn't give a hoot about new authors.
Of course publishing books is a business and businesses have to make money, but in bygone times the publishers would have their core of big names that were their money makers, and then tried out new authors. But when I was trying to be published, there were a host of celebrities writing their memoirs, some of whom were so young they had nothing much to remember. I also had serious doubts that they could write,and probably had a ghost writer doing the work for them. Not that I was envious, annoyed or prejudiced.
I doubt that anyone reading this will be under the illusion that when the novel's finished, it's finished. If you want to get it published, it's got to be edited, copy read and checked for spelling and grammar. I read, and re-read this story countless times and still there were mistakes. Part of the problem lay in the fact that I knew it so well; that I was reading what I "knew" to be there. But there was another problem I was unaware of; I was dyslexic.
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When I was in primary school in Devon, I had a teacher who I'm convinced hated children. We had a weekly spelling test that I dreaded, for, try as I might I never ever got the whole lot correct. She would lambast me for being stupid and lazy and make me spend the whole day's playtimes writing them out numerous times.
When I became a teacher I carried a dictionary everywhere and was extremely careful about what I put on the blackboard. Similary, when I started writing, the same dictionary was always in reach.With the coming of computers we got spellcheckers, but my delight was somewhat dimmed when someone pointed out it used American English and some words were spelt differently. My experience with Miss Parsons, and this new revelation made me paranoid. I wouldn't submit anything to any competitions promising publication(this was the route I was now taking to try and get published), unless I had spell checked it three times and then checked every dicey word in the dictionary. It took a long time!
Finally came the time when the computers gave us a choice of US and UK English, and although I know my computer is on UK English, I was still paranoid about my spelling. No matter how many times I read it, I would find words not there I thought were there, words there that I didn't see, words spelt wrong, and words written back to front. I thought it was part of my creative process." My brain was ahead of my fingers", I'd often tell my sister, who was my reader.
My daughter being diagnosed as Dyslexic at Univerity, was given equipment to help her with her studies, including a text reader. When she left University she donated her old reader to me.When it finally gave up the ghost three years ago, I bought a new one.
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Even with my trusty text reader, I have still read Masquerade so many times, that quite frankly, I'd be happy not to read it again for another two years. To get to the point of self publishing, I have resisted binning the story and starting another one - something suggested by one competition reader. Changing its name as suggested by another as there was "currently a film out with the same name." I couldn't do that as the name "Masquerade" sums up the story, and "perhaps writing for children" as some female editor put it. As much as I like children, I didn't want to write for them.
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The trouble is, my novel doesn't fit neatly into one category. It's a sci fi because it's based in space with an alien detective. It's not a Star Wars type with interstella war, it's not an alien invasion as in Independance Day, and it's not a horror as in Predator or Alien. In my galaxy, or should I say Luapp's, most of the genus' are aware of the existence of the others and live in harmony. Of the ones who don't, mostly they are closed planets, meaning they think they are the only intelligent life in their galaxy and the rest, the open planets but unfriendly, are the reason for the space division of the guardians.
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But, my book isn't just a sci fi, it's a detective novel as well. Luapp is a guardian; a law enforcer, primarily for Gaeiza his home planet, and then on a galactic scale. Most of the novels I've written, and at this time of writing there are at least 15 involving Luapp and his friends, include a crime of some sort that he or they are working on.
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As with all crime novels they involve kidnapping, terrorism and murder. Masquerade is about a serial killer on the loose. And while there is one scene that covers the killer torturing someone, generally my novels might be considered "cosy crime" - a description of what takes place after the crime has been committed and not viewing the crime itself.
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And so, to get Masquerade to the point of self publishing it has taken much blood sweat and tears, disappointments, having to put up with peoples opinions on how I name my characters, what I named my book and why I should just give up. Like that original reader said, something kept me going. There had be a reason that kept me writing, and I found two.
Firstly, I find writing theraputic. I love the creative process and write every day. It's no hardship for me to sit in front of my computer and work on a current novel. In fact, I get twitchy if I can't work, like someone suffering withdrawal symptems.
Secondly, Luapp wanted this book published and he got his way. He can be quite demanding at times. I have it in my mind to write a scene and then find myself writing somethng totally different because "he wouldn't do it that way".
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No, I've not lost the plot after all the hard work. I have met several authors who say that their characters are so real to them that they are guided to write things a certain way.
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So this is how Masquerade came to be self published. I couldn't find something to read so I wrote it myself. I couldn't find anyone publish it so I've published it myself. I hope you enjoy reading it.
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