DO: Thanks Sean C Sousa, for joining us today on Authors Curtilage Novel Profile-Raising.
SCS: Thanks for having me - let's do this!
DO: "Prince Ahya laid eyes upon his kingdom for the first time - and was desperate to escape it". Mmm. From my understanding kingdom is a territory or country subject to a king or queen. It's a place of a monarch, the place in which there is so much wealth and riches! What could make a prince want to flee from such a domain?
SCS: As the reader will find out, Ahya's master is Grigori Geist - an ancient tyrant who ruled over the Earth long ago, now returned to reestablish his rule. To him, Ahya is less of a prince, and more of a conquering general who will lead Geist's armies against the nations. However, Ahya understands the value of human life, and would rather defend mankind than conquer it. That's what drives him to leave the realm of Regnum Aeturnum, where Geist resides.
DO: The Forever Saga: Flash is the title of the novel we're featuring today. Was that title inspired by Prince Ahya, or by something from your own life?
SCS: From my own observations, mainly. The word "forever" gets thrown around when it comes to love, or friendship, or diamonds, or boredom, etc. But what if this life is our trial run for an eternity of purpose and peace? What can we, as human beings, accomplish that will last after we pass away? The Forever Saga is a contrast of today's innovations with wisdom of an older nature. Which kind of wisdom, ultimately, will endure our lifetime and beyond?
DO: I read that Prince Ahya is not made of flesh and blood, but of metal and circuitry. Can you throw more light on that?
SCS: Ahya is the the last and greatest of the Vaucan race - colossal robots constructed by Dr. Dietrich Schmidt, meant to aid him and Geist in building Regnum Aeturnum as a utopia for human and vaucan alike. Geist has perverted the vaucans to become blunt instruments for his purposes, but Dietrich has always intended for Ahya and the others to be much more.
DO: Is Prince Ahya our protagonist?
SCS: For the first chapter of Flash, Ahya gives us a window into the fantastical world of Regnum Aeturnum. On the whole, though, he acts as a pupil for Brian Renney, and as mentor for Brian's son, Jason. Both Brian and Jason are the protagonists in Flash.
DO: What's the story goal and what are the physical things your protagonists did to achieve it or he didn't accomplished it at all?
SCS: Flash is what I call a father-son redemption story. That term is used for the Star Wars saga - the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, aided by his son, Luke - but The Forever Saga takes a different path. Brian Renney is a Vietnam War veteran who carries physical and emotional scars from his last days in combat, and it drives a wedge between he and his wife and sons. In Flash, Brian is thrown into a new conflict that both terrifies him, and offers him a chance to redeem himself. On the flipside, his son Jason struggles to understand just who his father really is - is he the hero he's only heard of, or the grumpy recluse Jason's known all his life? How the Renney family responds to the threat of Grigori Geist is what drives The Forever Saga as a whole.
DO: Would you describe the protagonists as well-rounded characters?
SCS: Brian definitely is not - at least not at first. He's rough around the edges, not very sociable, and avoids situations he can't handle well. On the other hand, Jason is generally likeable, but he can't shake his father's demanding opinions, and it causes a great deal of confusion. Both Brian and Jason are flawed, to be sure...but as the novel progresses, they find similarities in each other that they appreciate - and eventually take pride in.
DO: What is the status
quo for The Forever Saga: Flash, and when does it take place?
SCS: Flash place in present day, in the world we all know and live in. Regnum Aeturnum is hidden beneath the continent of Antarctica, shielded from the outside world, but that will soon change. As for the status quo, we have Geist using Dietrich's vaucan creations to regain his lost empire, and that thirst for conquest gives Brian a new cause to rally behind, and a chance to again become the hero he once was.
DO: In what ways did you generate a clear moral in the The Forever Saga: Flash, to entertain, instruct, inform and improve your readership?
SCS: Today's world is technology-driven, and it's a double-edged sword: thanks to the Internet and smartphones, we can have the accumulated wisdom of mankind in our pockets...but we mostly use it to play Angry Birds. That flood of information often distracts us. It's ironic that I touch upon this in a book, during a time where books seem increasingly overlooked in favor of TV/movie/computer/phone/tablet screens. The real question is this: is it mankind's technology or its capacity for faith and devotion, that determines how advanced we really are? I look forward to entertaining and challenging readers with Flash, and the upcoming installments of The Forever Saga that will follow!
DO: Hello Audience, Friends and Writers, it's Novel Profile Raising on Authors' Curtilage and my other blog I AM Darmie Orem. When I read the novel The Forever Saga: Flash, I was wowed! But, my lips are sealed. These are just two reviews of many for this intriguing book.
"Great Promise, inventiveness, and creativity" - Jasper de Joode, Fantasy Book Review.
"It's an impressive bit of world building... The shining secret is world fits perfectly with the real Earth." - Kirkus Reviews.
DO: This book has a very captivating plot, and all you could ask for in a science fiction adventure. You must check out this novel - it's a great read and I recommend it. Enjoy the first chapter in this section of book feature; and click the link below to read the first five chapters.
Book Chapter One
Prince Ahya laid eyes upon his kingdom for
the first time – and was desperate to escape it.
He observed his people – blissful yet
enslaved, with no will of their own – and refused to let the same fate befall
the Earth. That was why, despite the grandeur of the kingdom before him, the
prince could not obey his king, Grigori Geist. It was Dietrich Schmidt, the
prince’s only ally, who had convinced him that he could be more than an
instrument of destruction; but rather, a freer of the enslaved. It would begin
with an escape from the city, the exposure of Geist to the outside world, and
the rallying of allies to their cause.
The prince surveyed the city of Regnum
Aeturnum, a megalopolis of over one hundred million people, built from a round,
basin-shaped cavern excavated beneath the continent of Antarctica. Gleaming
towers, temples, ramparts, and terraces sprang from the city floor, while
Aether, a second city, hung from the cavern ceiling above. This suspended
series of towers comprised a glowing ceiling of blue-white light – imitating
the true sky, far above, that Prince Ahya had never witnessed.
Ahya…the meaning of the prince’s name was
never given to him, nor could he discern it. Frustrated, the prince stood on an
open air balcony on the lower levels of the Great Spire, an hourglass-shaped
fortress of gleaming white quartz that lay in the center of Regnum Aeturnum,
and the only structure that reached both cavern floor and ceiling. The Great
Spire had been the prince’s home for the entirety of his young life.
In the solitude of the balcony, the prince
watched and waited for his opportunity. Ahead of him, the Jupiter Terrace – the
primary road of the city – stretched out from the base of the Great Spire
toward the castle-like Gate of Ishtar, twenty-eight miles away. It was a
dangerous gauntlet to run. In his youth and inexperience, the prince was not at
the height of his power, nor did he expect Geist to simply let him leave.
Despite the peculiar sensation of doubt creeping from his chest to the ends of
his limbs, the prince had to try. Until he succeeded, millions of citizens
would remain Geist’s puppets.
The prince spoke aloud with resolve in his
voice. “Is it time?”
A quiet, slightly hoarse voice answered,
heard only by the prince. “It is.”
At this, the prince leapt over the railing
of the terrace, falling hundreds of feet below and sliding along the base of
the Great Spire as it leveled off toward the ground. Such a fall did not faze
the prince, for he was not made of flesh and blood, but of metal and circuitry
– his sixty-foot body adorned in shining plates of gray armor, sculpted as like
broad human muscles. As the prince sprinted from the Great Spire to the Jupiter
Terrace, his glowing red eyes burned with determination – like Dietrich, he
wished not only to escape Geist, but to one day defeat him.
***
Within the prince’s chest, in lieu of a
heart, were human quarters, where Dietrich Schmidt sat uneasily in a leather
armchair. A ponderous, kind, gentle man on the verge of his seventies, Dietrich
appeared the slightly mad scientist at first glance: disheveled white hair and
wrinkles spanned a pale face of sagging brown eyes, ears, and nose, his tired
body draped with a white coat over a black shirt and slacks. His meager
appearance belied the fact that he, not Grigori Geist, was the true architect
of Regnum Aeturnum.
Around Dietrich, the room’s sparse
furniture and shelving remained still, even as the prince darted amongst
shining towers, hoping to avoid the armies now searching for them. In front of
Dietrich was a three dimensional image, a map of Regnum Aeturnum; a miniature
model of the prince appeared in white upon the display, and Dietrich nervously
watched as hundreds of gray dots lit up around their position.
“How many has he sent?” the prince
asked anxiously.
“Nearly every Protector-class division.”
Dietrich activated a switch on the chair’s
armrest, and as the 3D display dissolved, every surface in his quarters became
a projection of the view outside the prince. He disliked the Vigil display – it
had always given him motion sickness – and nausea now gripped him at the sight
of Regnum Aeturnum.
Unable to watch the rapid passing of
scenery, Dietrich focused straight ahead on the Gate of Ishtar, which now
seemed even farther away than it was from the Great Spire. He wondered where
Geist was at that moment; the tyrant had no doubt waited for the prince to
reveal himself, and now he unleashed an army of vaucans upon them.
It was this vaucan race that had been
Dietrich’s greatest creation, and although the prince was intended to be the
seventh and final of the archvaucans, leaders of the vaucan race and generals
in war, the newly created prince’s powers had barely developed. Dietrich’s
treachery had been exposed, however, leading to this desperate gambit.
Within seconds, the first wave of five
hundred vaucans took flight from all directions to chase the prince as he
dashed across the silver Jupiter Terrace, between the colossal towers of
Invidia to his left and the amusement region of Promenade to the right. The
silver-clad, thirty-foot vaucans split into squadrons of twenty, fell into
phalanx formations resembling massive arrowheads and closed in on the prince.
These sentient, humanoid assassins were both numerous and dangerous, the thick
armor of their carbon nanofiber bodies, like the prince’s, mimicking powerful
human musculature.
The vaucan squadrons flew above the prince
as he dashed forward, each footfall far more agile than the pursuers half his
size. As vaucans descended upon them, Dietrich observed the distinct insignia
upon their shoulders, denoting their Protector class, Geist’s homeland
infantry.
Powerful, short bursts of laser fire opened
up above the prince, who deftly anticipated and dodged past the flashes of
deadly light. Dietrich tried to remain calm, though the gate ahead seemed
unreachable. Yet still, the prince advanced.
Far ahead, dark shapes amassed on the
terrace, and more still rallied at the Ishtar Gate, fifteen miles away. All of
them trained their weaponry on the prince and prepared to open fire.
“I can make it to the gate,” the prince
said, dodging laser fire from behind, “but I fear it is too well defended to
pass through.”
“Not if you’re at your best,” Dietrich
countered, deactivating the Vigil and queuing up a wireframe hologram of the
city that emitted from his chair. He was no pilot or war hero, but only he knew
what the prince was capable of. The tactical display in front of Dietrich
registered the prince as one white dot amidst a sea of gray; in Dietrich’s
wildest dreams, the prince could eventually overcome even these odds, but every
fiber in his being told him that it was too soon, that the prince wasn’t ready.
Before Dietrich could offer any course of
action, a cold, authoritative voice filled the quarters around Dietrich.
“My lord,” said Dyne, the Protector
Supreme, “I have held back my division’s artillery at the gate out of respect.
This is your last chance to relent without punishment.”
The prince halted as Dyne blocked his path.
Clad in gray, with large white paulders upon his shoulders, and nearly as
impressive as the prince in stature, Dyne held his powerful arm up, ready to
call forth the gathered legion of vaucans that grew with each passing moment.
“Prince Ahya,” Dyne declared
formally, “Dr. Schmidt has sabotaged you and your six archvaucan lieutenants.
Surrender him to us now, and all shall be forgiven.”
The prince said nothing, and Dietrich
sighed through gritted teeth. Around him, human faces now stared up at the
prince and the vaucan assault force both on and above the Jupiter Terrace. Do
they even want to be set free? Dietrich considered.
“Ahya! You must decide where your
allegiances lie,” Dyne asserted.
Dietrich opened a communication channel on
his chair’s command panel and spoke aloud to Dyne. “Would you destroy me, Dyne?
Your own creator?”
“As my creator, you know my allegiance is
always to Regnum Aeturnum.”
“So is mine, but to its people,” Dietrich
answered. “Not to a tyrant. What lies has Geist told you?”
Dyne’s face lowered to a glare. “You are a
traitor and a saboteur.”
Dietrich chose his parting words carefully.
“Our fight is not with you,” he reasoned. “I made you to be more than just an
enforcer for the wicked.”
Dietrich closed communications and fixed
his eyes again upon the Ishtar Gate. As vaucans continued to swarm around them
a ray of hope dawned upon him; the more their attackers used their powers to
stop the prince, the quicker he adapted to and acquired those abilities. Could
it save us now?
“Fly,” Dietrich urged the prince.
“Doctor, I cannot yet—”
“You know as well as I that Geist will not
stop at ruling over one continent,” Dietrich warned. “If we have any chance of
stopping him, you have to try.”
The prince hesitated. “Understood.”
Dyne waited as the prince stepped forward
slowly, anticipating his prince’s surrender. But the prince broke into a run,
and just as he closed in on Dyne, he suddenly leapt upward and stayed aloft, as
budding wings extended upon his back, soaring in the open air for the first
time.
“Well done,” Dietrich said, astonished and
relieved.
Dyne signaled the withering assault upon
his general. Around the prince’s body, laser light again danced through the
air, but it was sparse; the vaucans hadn’t expected such an audacious act.
“Your Prometheus system is providing enough
energy for sustained flight,” Dietrich said, studying the prince’s power
levels. “Now, let’s test your Taxis ability.”
“It grieves me to strike my own brethren,”
the prince admitted.
“And I, as well. When Geist is defeated, I
will restore them.”
Over a hundred yards away, a platoon of
fifty aerial vaucans crossed the prince’s path, flying at him in close
V-formation. Holding out his outstretched right hand toward them, the prince
activated Taxis, exerting an invisible, kinetic force upon the squadron and
forcing their formation into a single file column. The prince then seized a
nearby vaucan with his left hand, and plunged his fist through the vaucan’s
midsection.
Readying himself, the prince used the
fallen vaucan as a battering ram and launched forward at the others, still
constricted into a thin column. With a deafening series of collisions, the
prince slammed into the line of vaucans, who each fell one by one like dominos
onto the terrace below, and he resumed course for the gate.
Behind them, more vaucan forces rose from
the depths of the fortress region of Arx, on the far side of the Great Spire,
and rapidly closed in. Although he had successfully tested his Taxis ability,
the prince’s chances of escape were rapidly deteriorating in the face of
Geist’s strength in numbers.
Dietrich faced the heavy fortifications
upon the Gate of Ishtar in despair. The prince could not hope to fend off the
forces surrounding them now. In spite of all his intellect, Dietrich’s haste to
escape had put them both in mortal danger.
“I’m afraid I’ve set you up to fail,”
Dietrich admitted, as the prince was grazed by a laser blast from the gate
ahead.
“I am here of my own volition, Doctor,” the
prince replied, and despite their dire situation, Dietrich appreciated the
resolve of his greatest creation.
Encouraged by his expanding array of
abilities, the prince increased his speed, outmaneuvering the squadrons behind
him while he careened straight toward the cannons upon the gate.
“What is so important about Geist’s target,
the man called Brian Renney?” asked the prince, deflecting the incoming laser
volley from the gate into a hapless vaucan.
“I do not know, but Geist and his Camarilla
must fear him, if they ordered you to carry out his murder. We’ve got to find
Renney at any cost.”
The prince sped toward the Ishtar Gate,
evading lasers and explosions from all directions. He could feel himself growing
stronger with each passing moment, leaving his pursuers behind, and Dietrich
gazed urgently at the open gate ahead, so close now—
Without warning, artillery shells erupted
from the gate’s cannons, exploding in front of the prince before he could evade
them, and they dispersed a shimmering cloud that enveloped him. Within moments,
the effect became clear. The nanites that Dietrich used to construct the vaucan
race had been weaponized, now a poisonous vapor that began to eat at the
prince’s armor. The power he drew from Regnum Aeturnum was fading, leeched from
his body by the mist, and his body grew numb.
Dietrich could see the end coming before
the prince did. But there was still a glimmer of hope; to their right,
Promenade’s borders had little vaucan presence, for they saw no tactical
advantage for the prince there. Dietrich did, however: Promenade’s dense tree
canopy and lush foliage – a sharp contrast from the city’s gleaming terraces
and towers – would provide ample cover, if only for a precious few seconds, for
him to form a plan. They just had to make it there.
Struggling to stay aloft, the prince was
struck in the back by a laser blast, and for the first time he felt a sensation
akin to human pain, as the nanite mist crippled him. Dietrich could see on the
display that the prince’s internal functions were turning against each other.
For a moment, Dietrich resigned himself to the prince’s likely fate – his free
will would be erased just as the citizens below, forced to obey Geist and
commit unparalleled atrocities. As the prince’s descent quickened, the
Protector-class vaucans crept around him, encircling him like vultures.
Dietrich left his chair with great
difficulty, as the prince’s weakening functions destabilized the quarters
around him, which shook violently. Reaching a small control console hidden on
the front wall of the room, Dietrich hurriedly input a series of commands upon
it, enacting a safeguard he had built into every archvaucan. With enough time,
Dietrich could protect the prince’s sentience even if captured, but he had only
seconds…
“What are you doing?” the prince asked
weakly, plummeting further.
“Trying to protect you from Geist,”
Dietrich answered. “There are ducts by the terrace that lead to Lupercal, under
the city. I can hide there and devise a plan.”
“But I must protect you, Doctor.”
“You’ve done more than enough, my friend,”
Dietrich assured, as a red light blinked upon the console; he need only input a
voice-activated trigger.
Before Dietrich could speak, a cry from the
prince warned him to brace himself, and Dietrich clamored for his chair and
activated the emergency harness, causing cushioned braces to extend from the
seat around his waist and chest. The crash came sooner, and harder, than
Dietrich anticipated. His harness had not fully deployed, and though it took
the brunt of the impact, Dietrich was still flung across the room, slamming
into the front wall by the console and crumpling to the floor.
How long he lay there, Dietrich couldn’t
guess. Thoughts swam in his mind, about his first days in that doomed place,
about Grigori Geist and his grand promises that had deceived Dietrich. All of
his achievements had since been shaped for evil purposes, and only too late did
he decide to act – the regret needling him as he lay there.
Dietrich tried to move, even as pain shot
through his head and blood gurgled in his mouth, but it was nothing compared to
Geist’s wrath. From the awful silence, a quiet voice dispelled his fears: This
is not how you are supposed to die, it said to him, in the voice of his wife,
Helen, whom Dietrich had left behind to chase achievement and fame with Geist.
It was her memory that had compelled Dietrich to escape with the prince, and
her voice offered him comfort. Voice…
Willing himself to stand, Dietrich swayed
clumsily back to the hidden panel where he had been working, and he uttered
into the panel’s sensors one simple code, a saying of Helen’s that honored her
memory and insulted Geist’s pride in his own power:
“He gives strength to the weary and
increases the power of the weak.”
With the encryption finished, he prepared
to depart—
“Doctor…you must go. You must not be
captured,” Dietrich heard suddenly, and he froze with compassion; there was
fear in the prince’s voice.
“I will come back for you,” Dietrich
promised with wet eyes.
As Dietrich sealed the hidden panel upon
the wall, he felt the prince crawling forward on his hands and knees. Reaching
the escape hatch upon the Prince’s chest, Dietrich grasped its latch and
pulled. Amazingly, the mechanical hatch still opened, revealing that the prince
had indeed reached Promenade, not far from the hundred-foot steel wall that led
up to the Jupiter Terrace. At its base, only several yards away, was a
vaucan-sized service entrance.
Lowering himself down carefully from the
prince’s chest to the forest floor, wincing with every step, Dietrich heard
vaucans closing in from above, his view obscured by the towering trees around
him. Hurriedly, Dietrich hobbled toward the open passageway, passing through it
without looking back, too anguished to watch the prince’s capture. As the
service entrance door slid closed behind him, explosions met his ears, along
with shouts of surprise and blows being landed – the prince was making his last
stand, buying him time to flee. Immensely thankful, Dietrich limped down the
dark passage, following a track of red lights along the floor to a service
hatch and ladder, which descended into a larger cavern meant for the ten-foot
Proletariat-class vaucans that maintained the city.
Struggling upon ladder rungs and through
cold passages for what seemed like hours, Dietrich descended further, glancing
over his shoulder and listening for any sign of pursuit. A little further, and
he would reach Lupercal – a series of interconnected tunnels carved into the
Earth’s mantle that snaked through the foundations of Regnum Aeturnum. The
technological paradise of above did not reach Lupercal; it was nearly
inhospitable for humans and lower vaucan classes due to its unforgiving heat.
When he had at last passed from metal
passages to warm, jagged rock, Dietrich collapsed in the recess of an infernal
tunnel, devoid of strength. If any vaucans had hunted him this far, he had
nothing left to give. Yet Dietrich could hardly afford to recover. He had to
reach the one place where the prince would be held: the Genesis Chamber, the
lowest level of the Great Spire, where the archvaucans and all their brethren
had been created. If Dietrich could get there in time, he could still rescue
the prince.
Dietrich laid his head upon the crude,
earthen floor, utterly miserable. The outside world did not know that its
freedom now hung by the thinnest of threads. They had to be warned, but rest
was now most important. Strength had left Dietrich as he lay upon unforgiving
ground, exhausted and in despair, and he thought of the only man whom Geist
feared.
“If he can save us,” he prayed feebly into
the dark, “please protect Brian Renney.”
Dietrich drifted into fitful sleep,
uncertain about his survival and the outcome of his actions. Yet his act of
rebellion would lead to a lasting freedom even greater than he could imagine –
one that would last forever. Book Three Pages
The Author's Bio:
"SEAN C. SOUSA never planned on
writing a novel – that is, until the idea for The Forever Saga came along. He
first conceived it as a video game design concept, then a screenplay, and
finally a written work of fiction. His debut novel, The Forever Saga: Flash,
marks the end of one six-year journey toward publication, and also the
beginning of another: to bring his stories to a worldwide audience.
His dream is to see fiction inspire
positive social change in the world, calling attention to issues of social
justice and mobilizing his readership to meet the needs of those afflicted.
Sousa resides in Southern California
with his wife, Shelley, and when he is not writing further adventures about the
Renney family, he is usually up to socially acceptable mischief with his friends
and family."
Author Social Media Links:
Buy Links:
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