Bones of the Gods (update 1, excerpt)
I have completed writing the first six chapters of my latest novel, Bones of the Gods, the fourth book in my ongoing Sanyel series. These books are action/adventure with a touch of fantasy and include some elements of mystery, paranormal, and sci-fi. This exciting, entertaining, adventure-filled series features an astute, ass-kicking protagonist, the daughter of a tribal shaman who becomes the catalyst for change in a male-dominated culture. Gifted with abilities beyond the norm, those gifts assist her as she challenges the status quo regarding a woman’s place in her society. Her influence affects not only her tribe but extends far beyond it, for her destiny appears to involve bringing change to the wider world. To give readers an idea what to expect from the upcoming novel, I will post occasional excerpts, beginning with this brief opening to the first chapter. The writing is still in the draft stage, so expect further editing before the final version.
Chapter One
My seventeenth birthday had passed unnoticed. I only knew it had occurred because the cold early-spring storms that traditionally mark this time of year had dwindled to nothing. My tribe, the Sakita, has no precise means to mark and record time’s passing, so we measure that passing by the seasons. I had been born during a spring hailstorm, and this year’s spring had apparently overtaken its midpoint, for the weather had warmed and the wicked ice storms had ceased. I am Sanyel, shaman of the Sakita tribe. This past year had gone by swiftly, and I reflected on how settled my life had become in that span. My last venture outside our tribal lands was the previous summer when my friend Izzy and I helped the priest Borsar rescue his son from the madwoman Danara. My relaxed life since had consisted of enjoyable hunting forays and attending to my numerous medicine man duties. It had been a good year, one of peace and prosperity for my people. Births in our tribe had outnumbered deaths for the first time in a long while. The wild herds were plentiful and the seeded crops bountiful. Still, I had begun to grow restless. I had long wanted to learn about other parts of my world, and I knew a large, spinning globe in a hidden mountain cavern could show me what currently existed in those places. With summer again fast approaching, the urge to return to the secret mountain facility began to grow. A year ago, members of my tribe had found in that mountain cavern seventeen-year-old Gamaal, now eighteen, a young man still alive after thousands of years in suspended animation. He told us of a virus that had nearly wiped out the world’s human population and how desperate scientists had created this mountain facility. They had designed pods that would allow a small group uninfected by the virus to remain frozen in time. At some point, they hoped it would be safe for them to reemerge into the world, a world they expected to find devoid of human life. They would then try rebuilding that world. That group, however, had been a bit premature in its assumptions. The virus had indeed decimated the population, but a scattered number of people managed to survive the illness, and although their world quickly reverted to a primitive level, those survivors started the slow rebuilding process long before the sleepers' scheduled awakening. Sadly, the expected awakening never occurred. An unfortunate natural event triggered a malfunction inside the hidden cavern facility, causing the group to remain in hibernation for thousands of years instead of the hundreds they had planned. In addition, a tragic human error had reduced nutrient flow to the sleepers over time, and nearly all had died long ago within their pods of slow starvation. Only two of the brave pioneers survived and only one into our present. Gamaal. Gamaal’s ancient civilization had been highly advanced, and his culture had trained him in science. He had an in-depth knowledge of subjects beyond our primitive tribe’s comprehension. His intricate familiarity with these complex studies had proved valuable. Just this past year, his expertise had helped prevent the escalation of a bizarre occurrence where time itself had blurred its edges, causing past and future events to overlap with the present. Gamaal had solved that problem, discovering its cause as a power unit malfunction at the mountain facility that had enhanced a naturally occurring phenomenon. Now, I wanted the young man’s assistance in learning what lay beyond the few land areas currently familiar to us, for our tribe had remained isolated for thousands of years, and we knew little of what existed in the rest of the world. Only Gamaal knew how to operate the planetary globe, a device from his time that showed the present state of our entire planet in astonishing living detail.
I hope you enjoyed this short excerpt from the upcoming Sanyel novel, Bones of the Gods. I will post longer excerpts in future updates. Sanyel, the first book in the Sanyel series, is available as an e-book FREE at various book retailers. Books in the Sanyel series are also available in paperback.
