Dramatis Personae - Wordcrafter

Well, that was difficult. I would like to say that after Ara (and perhaps Liz), I was the first to get excited and want to do the same sort of Meet the Characters post; as it turned out, it took me so long to dig up good photos that Jenny, Megan, and Anna all finished and posted theirs before me. Hrmph. But here at last we have the main players of my novel Wordcrafter; I do not own these photos, this is purely for my authorial delight and not for profit, etc., etc., etc.

Justin King [the wordcrafter]

Main character Justin King has two great loves: his writing and his tea. He has lived alone in his Edinburgh flat for several years at the opening of the novel, and each day of those years has fit into the same mold - until the advent of Ethan Prince, whose friendship turns Justin's life upside down and whose very existence forces Justin to accept that not all fantasy is confined to the page.

His arrival in Ethan's home world of Tera is at first a matter of great delight for the men of this other-earth and his love of writing earns him the respectful title of Wordcrafter among them, but it soon becomes clear that his coming has upset the balance of power. He becomes the spark that reignites a feud between Tera's two great races, the Horsemen and the Gypsies, and against his will he finds that he may also be the means of destroying the only friend he has - Ethan Prince.

Ethan Prince [the hound]

Known as the Hound in Tera, where "Christian" names are not used, Ethan takes his other name while in Edinburgh and introduces himself to Justin as such. He is the prince of the Horsemen, and, since the Horsemen subjugated the Gypsies a hundred years ago, the heir of all Tera; but Justin knows him simply as his friend. He is proud and shows a fiercely cold rage when angered, but he commands the love of the warrior Horsemen and the respect even of the Gypsies. Half-Horseman and half-Gypsy himself, he walks the line between the two cultures and embodies both the vivacity of the one and the cunning of the other.


Jamie Fairbairn [the vixen]

Bubbly, vivacious, and a little wild, Jamie had Justin King under her spell from the moment they met in Edinburgh. She is, indeed, a little too forward for his taste, but she makes up for it with her easy laughter and her apparent regard for him. She loves to be loved, but underneath her sweet exterior she has a mind that is ever at work and all the wiles ever possessed by a woman since the world began; she knows what she wants, and she will stop at nothing to get it. Once her disapproval has been earned, it will last forever.



Copper [the jackal's daughter]

The Gypsy Copper, daughter of the Jackal, begins to play a part in the lives of both Justin and Ethan soon after Justin's arrival in Tera. Quiet and unassuming, she is lovely rather than beautiful and wears a veil at all times, as is the custom among the women of both of Tera's races. For reasons of her own she does not have the same bitter hatred of the Horsemen that most of the other Gypsies flaunt, and she is fond of the Wordcrafter and the Hound. At very rare instances she will lay aside her gentleness and reveal the strength of spirit that underlies her nature, but for the most part she remains withdrawn from the goings-on around her.

The Lord of the Cliffs

If it were not for the fact that the Horsemen long ago defeated the Gypsies and took away their sovereignty, the Lord of the Cliffs would be the king of his people. As it is, he is known as their prince and bears the blood of royalty in his veins - and is very much aware of the fact. He is cool and cat-like and at first glance gives the impression of effeminacy, but he is a force to be reckoned with should any one be foolish enough to anger him. His mind is sharp enough to rival even Ethan's, and, driven on by a desire to see his people made a sovereign entity once more, that is exactly what the Lord of the Cliffs intends to do.


Marah [star of the horsepeople]

For centuries both the Horsemen and the Gypsies have been breeding the unicorns of Tera with the horses brought ages ago from Earth, and Marah, Ethan's mare, is the most beautiful of them all. She is what is known as "bloody-shouldered," having a white coat with rusty markings on her face and neck. With good reason she is called the Star of the Horsepeople and the Horsemen are more proud of her than of all their other horses combined; she is like a daughter to Ethan, who has raised her from a filly, and he rarely rides any other horse.



Ram

Ram, Marah's foal, is far more spirited than his mother and is a difficult horse to train. Like the other part-unicorn horses in the Horsemen's stables, he matures quickly, and when he reaches the age to be broken in Ethan gives him to Justin as his own. Unlike Marah, he is almost pure black except for his bleached hooves. The sight of Ethan on Marah and Justin on Ram is an extremely common one in the woods of Tera during a hunt.

[Threatening potential thieves seems to be The Thing to Do, so I shall follow in the footsteps of my predecessors. I own all of these characters and all things attached to said characters; their existence makes them copyrighted to me, and any use of them is against the law. If you would like to go read the copyright laws, please feel free to do so. Also, I'm part Sicilian. Enough said.]

A Bit O' The Classics - The Robe

I'm not quite sure whether or not The Robe counts as a classic, as it is no longer as popular as it once was; but it was a big hit when it was published in 1942 and had a movie made of it in 1953, so I suppose I can get away with stashing it in my Classics file. At any rate, the cloth-bound copy residing on my shelf certainly looks like a classic.

My feelings about The Robe are mixed, somewhat as though the "real" story was good, but Lloyd C. Douglas "messed it up" when transferring it into writing; as though the characters and events were real, but Douglas added things that muddied the waters. Naturally the entire novel is his intellectual property and there was no "real" story for him to ruin, but it is a credit to his writing that his characters are so real to me that they seem to exist separately from the author himself. On the other hand, of course, there is the disappointing fact that I wish I could separate them.

The line upon which my like and dislike are divided is that between the writing and the theme. Since I have already detailed what I disliked about the latter in my Goodreads review (which has spoilers) and on Squeaky Clean Reviews (which I strove to keep spoiler-free), and because I do not feel like going back through the shallow theology, I will simply stick with a discussion of Douglas' writing and the characteristics that made it stand out.

The characters were my first love of the novel, beginning right about at page three when Marcellus Gallio showed up and quadrupling on whatever page Demetrius appeared. Douglas did an excellent job of cementing the characters of both these main characters upon their arrival. We first see Marcellus through his sister Lucia's eyes as he relates to her an amusing (for him) anecdote about a banquet he attended the night before, and immediately the reader gets a picture of a carefree Roman Tribune; with this former-Marcellus as a comparison, the Marcellus who, after putting Jesus to death and winning His robe chapters later, is a broken man who cries out at intervals, "Were you there?" stands out in wonderful contrast.

Marcellus' Corinthian slave, Demetrius, is another sort of character entirely. He was bought by the Gallio family years ago to be Marcellus' manservant when the Romans brought him as a captive to Rome, and though the Gallio's good treatment of him has made him loyal to them, he privately longs for freedom and resents the army that made him a slave. He is taciturn and rigidly formal, as Douglas shows in Demetrius' first scene, with feelings displayed far more in action than words. His loyalty to Marcellus and his desire for freedom come to a wonderfully-written head after the crucifixion of Christ, when Demetrius is given the chance to escape and must decide between that and staying with a half-crazed master.

The history was very well presented, and I was especially interested by Douglas' portrayal of life in Palestine from a Roman's perspective. His depiction of Caligula was, perhaps, a little overdone, since it is thought that he was a fairly good emperor during his first two years, but it was refreshing to see how much research Douglas did on facets of Roman culture during that time.

Then there was the writing itself, the style of which was quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed Douglas' use of interesting verbs for dialogue tags; while he did not scorn "said," which such a lovely verb, he also speckled his conversations with words like "drawled." As the middle section of the novel is mostly made up of conversation, Douglas did well to employ other verbs so as not to beat the Said to death; these sorts of words (when not overdone, and also when used in conjunction with characters who would indeed speak like that) make dialogue pop.

(For a full review of The Robe with all its pros and cons, check either Goodreads or Squeaky Clean Reviews.)