I've finished listening to you and you wife read the Nican Mopohua, and enjoyed it very much. I'm going to recommend it to my son's family in Kansas. But I couldn’t leave a comment on that page so I had to came back to this one. And, seeing the text about Odonata and my novel, I realized that I should let you know that the heroine of a "Tale of Two Times", Rhoda Knox, not only has an in with dragonflies, but she speaks Nahuatl, and she and her betrothed spontaneously compose a war lament in Nahuatl. Rhoda's mother is a mestiza whose ancestry goes back to Aztec and Spanish royalty. And more than that, Rhoda has a special devotion to Juan Diego and has a first class relic of him. Her family tradition says that as a youth Juan Diego was present at the bloody dedication of the Temple of Tenochtitlan. In fact, that event gets into the story. These are more great reasons to get into "A Tale of Two Times", but I must warn you it is a saga (980,000 words) of a half dozen intertwined story lines and it does things with the intertwined times of the cosmos and the gods, (I’m afraid Tim Powers doesn’t have the time thing right.) which it takes Goth physics, explained along the way for geeky readers, to fully understand. Two and a half volumes remain for my editor (my wife) to finish. And, then, the ninth and final volume, "War in Heaven", in which the Odonata stand forth, will be published next year in time for the Presidential election.
Thank you for listening! I’m happy to hear you enjoyed it. I really need to read your books. I think they sound right up my alley. As for Powers, he plays around with different theories of time in various books. Newtonian, Relativity, etc
Thanks for opening up for comments. Okay, I'll fill you in a bit about the role of the Odonata in A Tale of Two Times, all because you identified yourself to the perfect reader for A Tale with your self description in your About Substack post.
The story circles around a group of university biologists who are associated with New City University, a large well-endowed (fictional) university in Southern California in the mid 1960s. I'm sure you'd appreciate the characters and the passions of some of the biologists for shore birds (Evelyn), fish (Leo) and junipers and yucca trees which survive in the desert and high mountains (Victor). There are three other biologists, Het an ecological theorist, Hans a crossover from physics who is Het's student as the story begins, and Esther, a phycologist, but she doesn’t really love her phytoplankton like a good biologist should. Closely associated with this group is Isabel, a mathematical genus, and Scott, an expert mathematician, who works for Het to develop Het's theory of biological meta time. Isabel, the genius, consults informally with Scot. The whole subculture of biologists, those named and those in the background other circle socially about Het, Dr. Het Kerrigan, who recently obtained a professorship at New City University and is the senior biologist of the group.
These characters and others in the Circle of the Foe could all be characters developed in a role playing game, like Amboria, played with a bunch of converted biologists, physicists and mathematicians who have all read or lived through A Tale of Two Times.
All of this more of less agnostic band would have stayed in their university cosmos, except for their recent association with two young women, Yohanna Okubo and Rhoda Knox. The two friends are among the most beautiful women who have ever troubled the world (Earth's Province), and, unknown to the biologists, Yohanna and Rhoda are the foremost of the rising generation of the Clan of Thiuderieks in the Self Signs of Word Wise (Yohanna) and Keen Maker (Rhoda). The Clan is the guardian of Earth's Province against the Circle of the Foe, and, in its Keen Makers has access to and personal involvement with the gods the Commons of the gods. The Clan's guardian role is founded in a Pact made between the first Keen Maker, Thiuderieks, and the god Sunderer. But this Pact differs in some major points between the pact Dr. Faustus made with Satan. How it differs is part of the story, the details of which are the reader's to discover.
Anyway, I can say without dropping too big a spoiler, that Makers fabricate Devices, the workings of which bring the functionality of the god's Commons into Earth's Province. Run-of-the-mill Maker's use Old Goth Chants to communicate with their Workshop gods to secure their cooperation in order to fabricate Devices, but Keen Makers have some ability to communicate "face to face" with gods in Old Goth, and in this regard, Rhoda, the supreme Keen Maker of all, can go toe-to-toe with gods, exceeding even the skill of Ottilie Krüger, whose story is also told in some detail, because Ottilie's War Thing precedes what comes to be Rhoda's War Thing in a weird political way. But again, to say more is to drop spoilers.
But I'll have to drop one spoiler. After 15 chapters in the first volume of A Tale of Two Times, the biologists suddenly find themselves hurled into the deep narrative by Rhoda's hubris. The setting in which this occurs is one of the frequent biologists' parties, this one takes place in an old stone cabin in the mountains above Los Angeles, the City. The turn to be the party's organizer has fallen to Het, the meta time theorist. The party organizer has to be wealthy enough to buy a keg of beer and pay the rundown cabin's rental, Het has also selected the theme of a costume party (it’s nearly Halloween) and has chosen the party game. The game is to inquire of the I Ching random questions posed by the biologists and answered by casting its bones and interpreting the answers from the cast. Rhoda has agreed to help Het with the I Ching and comes clad as Athena. She is not in a good party mood, because many issues, romantic, godly, and political are pressing upon her. Het's edition of the oracle is in English, but, moved by her hubris, Rhoda reads it aloud in the ancient Mandarin. Her reading, of course, has the power to call down the Ancient Foe in person. He and Rhoda are both offended at suddenly meeting each other and they exchange taunts as befits opposing warrior chieftains. Both know that their altercation has launched the final War Thing between the Clan of Thiuderieks and the Circle of the Friend. (To Sunderer’s minions, both gods and humans, he is known as the Friend, but to the Clan Sunderer is known as the Foe.) And, of course, their standoff discomforts the biologists' party. Rhoda departs in haste. She has brought about the very thing she was bent on avoiding at all costs, and has very little time to set the final War Thing right in the dire straights she has wrought. And she has left Yohanna to do damage control.
So where do the dragonflies fit in? Rhoda, when Het and Victor discover her in Bishop, California, is at her hangar in her stylish flight suit directing her crew who are all Makers, but the reader doesn’t know it. Het and Victor where planning to drive out in the desert to search for study plots of yucca tress and junipers for Victor's ecological research. Het had the bright idea to check the small and little used airport. Maybe they could rent a plane cheap and save a lot of hot dusty road work. Rhoda’s strange Bush Hopper aircraft is paired with a drone called Bug Eye. The optics of her system is based on that of dragonflies. Her Bush Hopper and Drone are Goth Devices which she has fabricated. Rhoda strikes a deal with the two biologists to help them find study sites using her beyond-the-state-of-the-art system, and this encounter is how she becomes associated with the biologists of New City University. This scene is one of many references to dragonflies throughout the tale. In the seventh volume, which has not yet been published, the whole love affair of Rhoda with dragonflies comes out in apocalyptic proportions in the greatest biological field expedition ever undertaken. And, in the final climatic moment of the whole Tale in volume nine, the Odonata play a definitive role in Rhoda's hands and at her feet, to resolve in one stroke the romantic, godly and political issues that pressed upon her and upon Earth's Province, when in her voice, the I Ching answered Het's inquiry to the Oracle.
Well, that's the Odonatan enticement. It only remains to read the Tale. I've just released the first of free weekly audio episodes of A Tale of Two Times from my Substack site of the same name. The episodes are performed by a professional actress (my sister-in-law) and are about ten minutes long. I just checked, and the first explicit mention of dragonflies and Rhoda's knowledge of them is in Episode 32 where we find Rhoda and Yohanna approaching the Netherworld on foot. You can read your way there much faster. (-;]
Finally, I mention that I don’t think of A Tale of Two Times as phantasy or as alternative reality. I think Earth's Province and its relationship with the Commons of the gods depicts fictionally the actual metaphysical dimensions of our reality, and this dimensionally is baked into the narrative. In principle, Keen Makers and Word Wise are possible human beings whom you could pass on the street. But that's at least a 100,000 thousand word discussion, and this comment is already over a 1000.
But not with Goth physics' time.
Arron
I've finished listening to you and you wife read the Nican Mopohua, and enjoyed it very much. I'm going to recommend it to my son's family in Kansas. But I couldn’t leave a comment on that page so I had to came back to this one. And, seeing the text about Odonata and my novel, I realized that I should let you know that the heroine of a "Tale of Two Times", Rhoda Knox, not only has an in with dragonflies, but she speaks Nahuatl, and she and her betrothed spontaneously compose a war lament in Nahuatl. Rhoda's mother is a mestiza whose ancestry goes back to Aztec and Spanish royalty. And more than that, Rhoda has a special devotion to Juan Diego and has a first class relic of him. Her family tradition says that as a youth Juan Diego was present at the bloody dedication of the Temple of Tenochtitlan. In fact, that event gets into the story. These are more great reasons to get into "A Tale of Two Times", but I must warn you it is a saga (980,000 words) of a half dozen intertwined story lines and it does things with the intertwined times of the cosmos and the gods, (I’m afraid Tim Powers doesn’t have the time thing right.) which it takes Goth physics, explained along the way for geeky readers, to fully understand. Two and a half volumes remain for my editor (my wife) to finish. And, then, the ninth and final volume, "War in Heaven", in which the Odonata stand forth, will be published next year in time for the Presidential election.
JBSP
Thank you for listening! I’m happy to hear you enjoyed it. I really need to read your books. I think they sound right up my alley. As for Powers, he plays around with different theories of time in various books. Newtonian, Relativity, etc
Arron,
Thanks for opening up for comments. Okay, I'll fill you in a bit about the role of the Odonata in A Tale of Two Times, all because you identified yourself to the perfect reader for A Tale with your self description in your About Substack post.
The story circles around a group of university biologists who are associated with New City University, a large well-endowed (fictional) university in Southern California in the mid 1960s. I'm sure you'd appreciate the characters and the passions of some of the biologists for shore birds (Evelyn), fish (Leo) and junipers and yucca trees which survive in the desert and high mountains (Victor). There are three other biologists, Het an ecological theorist, Hans a crossover from physics who is Het's student as the story begins, and Esther, a phycologist, but she doesn’t really love her phytoplankton like a good biologist should. Closely associated with this group is Isabel, a mathematical genus, and Scott, an expert mathematician, who works for Het to develop Het's theory of biological meta time. Isabel, the genius, consults informally with Scot. The whole subculture of biologists, those named and those in the background other circle socially about Het, Dr. Het Kerrigan, who recently obtained a professorship at New City University and is the senior biologist of the group.
These characters and others in the Circle of the Foe could all be characters developed in a role playing game, like Amboria, played with a bunch of converted biologists, physicists and mathematicians who have all read or lived through A Tale of Two Times.
All of this more of less agnostic band would have stayed in their university cosmos, except for their recent association with two young women, Yohanna Okubo and Rhoda Knox. The two friends are among the most beautiful women who have ever troubled the world (Earth's Province), and, unknown to the biologists, Yohanna and Rhoda are the foremost of the rising generation of the Clan of Thiuderieks in the Self Signs of Word Wise (Yohanna) and Keen Maker (Rhoda). The Clan is the guardian of Earth's Province against the Circle of the Foe, and, in its Keen Makers has access to and personal involvement with the gods the Commons of the gods. The Clan's guardian role is founded in a Pact made between the first Keen Maker, Thiuderieks, and the god Sunderer. But this Pact differs in some major points between the pact Dr. Faustus made with Satan. How it differs is part of the story, the details of which are the reader's to discover.
Anyway, I can say without dropping too big a spoiler, that Makers fabricate Devices, the workings of which bring the functionality of the god's Commons into Earth's Province. Run-of-the-mill Maker's use Old Goth Chants to communicate with their Workshop gods to secure their cooperation in order to fabricate Devices, but Keen Makers have some ability to communicate "face to face" with gods in Old Goth, and in this regard, Rhoda, the supreme Keen Maker of all, can go toe-to-toe with gods, exceeding even the skill of Ottilie Krüger, whose story is also told in some detail, because Ottilie's War Thing precedes what comes to be Rhoda's War Thing in a weird political way. But again, to say more is to drop spoilers.
But I'll have to drop one spoiler. After 15 chapters in the first volume of A Tale of Two Times, the biologists suddenly find themselves hurled into the deep narrative by Rhoda's hubris. The setting in which this occurs is one of the frequent biologists' parties, this one takes place in an old stone cabin in the mountains above Los Angeles, the City. The turn to be the party's organizer has fallen to Het, the meta time theorist. The party organizer has to be wealthy enough to buy a keg of beer and pay the rundown cabin's rental, Het has also selected the theme of a costume party (it’s nearly Halloween) and has chosen the party game. The game is to inquire of the I Ching random questions posed by the biologists and answered by casting its bones and interpreting the answers from the cast. Rhoda has agreed to help Het with the I Ching and comes clad as Athena. She is not in a good party mood, because many issues, romantic, godly, and political are pressing upon her. Het's edition of the oracle is in English, but, moved by her hubris, Rhoda reads it aloud in the ancient Mandarin. Her reading, of course, has the power to call down the Ancient Foe in person. He and Rhoda are both offended at suddenly meeting each other and they exchange taunts as befits opposing warrior chieftains. Both know that their altercation has launched the final War Thing between the Clan of Thiuderieks and the Circle of the Friend. (To Sunderer’s minions, both gods and humans, he is known as the Friend, but to the Clan Sunderer is known as the Foe.) And, of course, their standoff discomforts the biologists' party. Rhoda departs in haste. She has brought about the very thing she was bent on avoiding at all costs, and has very little time to set the final War Thing right in the dire straights she has wrought. And she has left Yohanna to do damage control.
So where do the dragonflies fit in? Rhoda, when Het and Victor discover her in Bishop, California, is at her hangar in her stylish flight suit directing her crew who are all Makers, but the reader doesn’t know it. Het and Victor where planning to drive out in the desert to search for study plots of yucca tress and junipers for Victor's ecological research. Het had the bright idea to check the small and little used airport. Maybe they could rent a plane cheap and save a lot of hot dusty road work. Rhoda’s strange Bush Hopper aircraft is paired with a drone called Bug Eye. The optics of her system is based on that of dragonflies. Her Bush Hopper and Drone are Goth Devices which she has fabricated. Rhoda strikes a deal with the two biologists to help them find study sites using her beyond-the-state-of-the-art system, and this encounter is how she becomes associated with the biologists of New City University. This scene is one of many references to dragonflies throughout the tale. In the seventh volume, which has not yet been published, the whole love affair of Rhoda with dragonflies comes out in apocalyptic proportions in the greatest biological field expedition ever undertaken. And, in the final climatic moment of the whole Tale in volume nine, the Odonata play a definitive role in Rhoda's hands and at her feet, to resolve in one stroke the romantic, godly and political issues that pressed upon her and upon Earth's Province, when in her voice, the I Ching answered Het's inquiry to the Oracle.
Well, that's the Odonatan enticement. It only remains to read the Tale. I've just released the first of free weekly audio episodes of A Tale of Two Times from my Substack site of the same name. The episodes are performed by a professional actress (my sister-in-law) and are about ten minutes long. I just checked, and the first explicit mention of dragonflies and Rhoda's knowledge of them is in Episode 32 where we find Rhoda and Yohanna approaching the Netherworld on foot. You can read your way there much faster. (-;]
Finally, I mention that I don’t think of A Tale of Two Times as phantasy or as alternative reality. I think Earth's Province and its relationship with the Commons of the gods depicts fictionally the actual metaphysical dimensions of our reality, and this dimensionally is baked into the narrative. In principle, Keen Makers and Word Wise are possible human beings whom you could pass on the street. But that's at least a 100,000 thousand word discussion, and this comment is already over a 1000.