We are moving!
Reality Skimming is moving to a new location at:
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The archives will remain here indefinitely, but you can read posts from as early as August 2011 on the new blog.
posted by MMilburn at 22:00 permalink
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JelloDVDs and Mokusgirl are re-vitalizing the Okal Rel Fan Club at Deviant Art. They're looking for art and will be sharing stuff. Pro, fan and whatever. :-)Labels: Deviant Art
posted by Lynda at 12:30 permalink
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Today's featured continuing character is Deryl, the psychic in the Mind Over Trilogy by Karina Fabian.
Continuing Characters: A series of interviews featuring continuing characters and the authors who know them best.
The Mind Over Trilogy by Karina Fabian begins with Mind Over Mind (2011), published by Dragon Moon Press. It is also available as a Kindle ebook.
Deryl Stephens is the psychic character in the Mind Over Trilogy, the first book of which came out in August 2011 (Mind Over Mind). At 13, Deryl's telepathic abilities manifested to an uncontrollable level, driving him insane. After five years in an asylum where no one believes in his ability save one psychiatrist who uses him as a case study, Deryl is cynical, hopeless and suspicious of the new intern, Joshua, hired to try to befriend him and help him redevelop his social skills. Joshua will instead take him at his word and try to help him control his psychic abilities, which will make all the difference in the world.
"A gilded cage is still a cage. Never mind. Just a passive-aggressive response to my incarceration." --From Mind Over Mind
Questions for Deryl
Note: Characters are interviewed in "talk show" mode, where they can be themselves without fear of anything they say getting back to their fictional setting. Deryl's interview is from just before Mind Over Mind.
Q. Psychic powers! How exciting. What's it like?
(laughs) You really want to know? Because I can show you. I can bring you into my mind. I'll strip away your identity and replace it with a revolving cast of strangers who don't know anything about you, don't care, and don't believe in psychic abilities, anyway. Even if they did, they wouldn't know how to guard their thoughts. You won't just know the problems of the couple next door--you'll feel them. How about the mailman's lower back pain? Want to forget ten years' of schooling? There's a kid walking down the street--just wait. You'll know just how much that scraped knee stings, too. Come on--open your mind to me and I'll toss you in--see if you can claw your way back out to your own skin and remember your own name.
That's what being psychic is to me. It's not cool. It's not fun. It's pure, unrelenting torture, and if my control slips for even a minute, it's insanity--except the voices in my head are real.
Q. How do you stand it?
I didn't for a long time. I just did my best to deal with it, looked in the mirror reciting my name a lot, and hoped I'd find someone, somewhere to believe me. Then when...well, things got too much, I tried to kill myself. That's when I got committed. I don't recommend either course of action. There are months of my life I don't even remember, and I don't ever want to. I don't know how I clawed back to sanity--I'd honestly believe an angel helped me, except that then it abandoned me in SK-Mental. That's where I am today--desperately trying to shield my mind against the truly crazy people, where the staff tolerates my peculiarities. Malachai--Dr. Josias Dolfus Malachai--believes in my abilities, but he just wants to study me, make me his guinea pig, maybe try to find that "psychic center" of the brain and activate it in others. How heinous is that?
So I'm marking time, wishing for but not expecting a miracle.
He's got a lot of work to do before he can live anything like a normal life, if living among psychic aliens who think he's some kind of savior. However, his experiences have given him compassion and a unique look on life that is going to be vital in how he handles the challenges in the next books.
Lots more confusion and pain. (Sorry, dude.) The Master isn't going to let go of him so easily; Tasmae is even freakier in person than she is in his mind, and he is going to have to save two worlds with his limited knowledge, extensive imagination and some true grit. But it's not all bad. Tasmae's as attractive as she is bizarre, and once he helps her through the crazy bits, they'll get along just fine. Joshua, the psychiatric intern and his best friend, will be there to rescue him when he needs help, as will Joshua's fiancé and Deryl's other friend, Sachiko. Plus, Deryl will do a lot of healing of his past and forge himself a wonderful and calmer, if not "normal" life. Who knows? He might even get bored now and then.
posted by MMilburn at 06:00 permalink
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I'm on google+ ... have it configured to send PUBLIC circle messages to twitter. Still playing with circles.
Labels: google+
posted by Lynda at 10:07 permalink
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Today's featured continuing character is Amir, the prince/detective of the Prince Amir Mystery Series by Nathalie Mallet.
Continuing Characters: A series of interviews featuring continuing characters and the authors who know them best.
The Prince Amir Mystery Series by Nathalie Mallet consists of: Princes of the Golden Cage, The King's Daughters, and Death in the Traveling City.
Links for Death in the Traveling City:
Prince Amir Ban is a loner with a penchant for alchemy, who's never as happy as when his head is buried in one of his beloved science books. He is brooding, pessimistic and afflicted by sudden bouts of melancholy. His only wish is to be free. His sole ambition is to remain anonymous. He's flawed, what can I say, I love flawed characters. They seem more real and more human to me. Amir also has great qualities. He is intelligent, brave, when need be, and capable of inner growth and acts of kindness. But I must admit that it is his weaknesses I love the most: his suspicious, sometime sarcastic, nature; the way his emotions overwhelm him when he falls in love with Eva, even how he keeps a festering grudge against his brother Darius.
"I think there's more curse in a bad piece of mutton than in magic." --From The Princes of the Golden Cage
Questions for Amir
Q. Magic seems to work yet you prefer science. Why is that and how do you reconcile the two?
I think science and magic have and always can coexist without problem. One is based on concrete proof while the other draws its power from faith. It's a fact; it just took me awhile to accept it. But I've seen too much magic at work recently to deny its existence any longer. Therefore I am now a believer. It feels odd to admit this, though. Still, I prefer science because it more predictable and far less temperamental than magic. Moreover, with science one has to use logic and reason while with magic far less reliable senses such as intuition and other sorts of feelings are needed. But the main reason I prefer science to magic is that to do successful magic one has to forgo all control, and I hate losing control.
Q. How do you feel about women? What do you look for in a lover?
To be honest, women mystify me. I don't know what they want, and I don't understand them, especially foreign women. They're not behaving in ways I'm accustomed to. It's very confusing. I'm not looking for love at the moment. I must admit, I feel somewhat scolded by Eva's refusal to marry me. She prioritized her country and duty over me. I would be wise to choose someone different next time: someone who would put me first, someone intelligent and loyal, but more importantly someone with whom I have something in common. In short, someone who is more like me. I'm done with the exotic and "opposites attract". It's a recipe for misery.
Nathalie Mallet is a Canadian mystery and science fiction/fantasy writer. She grew up in Shippagan, New Brunswick, but now resides in Prince George, British Columbia with her husband and two Scottish terriers. She is the author of the Prince Amir Mystery series. Visit her website at http://www.nathaliemallet.com/ or her blog at http://nathaliemallet.blogspot.com/.
Definitively, his capacity for growth and lack of worldly experience. He has a lot to learn about life in general. Don’t forget, until recently everything Amir knew about the outside world came from books. So everything is new to him and, of course, nothing is has he expects, which makes for a lot of fun. I really enjoy putting him in uncomfortable situations— the dicier the better— and watching him wiggle out of it. I know it seems cruel, but hey the boy has to learn somehow. (Just so you know I never pulled wings off of bugs when I was a kid.)
Amir is growing with each book. He started as a spoiled pretentious prince so he has a long way to go. But his attitude toward people of lower status, like commoners, has improved quite a bit. His distrust of servants has diminished as well, thanks to Milo. It’s a slow and sometime painful process, but to me it is a far more natural progression than if he had a sudden change of heart. So from time to time, Amir is still going to behave like the pompous know-it-all that he is. It would be boring if he did not. But by the end of Death in the Traveling City he is a much-changed man.
Labels: Amir, continuing characters, Nathalie Mallet
posted by MMilburn at 06:00 permalink
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