books just slightly out of this world
A.J. Walker was kind enough to let me drop by and blog about the Red and White Springs of Glastonbury. In Beneath the Hallowed Hill, White Spring is failing. Anne and Michael must discover why and restore the flow. In this blog, I talk about why these two springs are so important.
Today I’m blogging at The Round Table on magical systems in fiction.
Today I’m guest blogging at Justine Graykin’s website about what going digital will bring to the publishing industry. Should you buy those eReaders now?
Read Stephen Mehler’s blog on his upcoming tour of Egypt in October.
Beneath the Hallowed Hill is set in Avalon, home of the Tor and the Twin Springs. One scene takes place in Avebury, the largest megalithic monument in the world. Medievalist and archaeologist A.J. Walker drops by to talk about ancient stone monuments in “Fertility, chastity, and ancient monuments.”
The landscape of Western Europe is dotted with megalithic ruins as well as strange natural rock formations. These enigmatic stones have created an entire mythology around them that’s probably only vaguely related to their original purpose.
Take this naturally cleft stone pictured above in this photo courtesy of Lisa Jarvis. It’s a naturally occurring rock on top of a Celtic hill fort at Traprain Law in Scotland. The little one is called the Maiden Stone, and the big one is the Mother Stone. If you pass naked between them you’ll get good luck and lots of kids. 
This is a common legend for both natural and artificial stones. In European folklore, it seems to be the women who are more interested in them, so it’s no surprise that many of the legends have to do with fertility and childbirth. A married woman had to have children to have status, yet childbirth was often fatal. A little help from the stones must have put many a worried mind to rest!
People were especially attracted to stone circles where one of the stones had a hole through it. Babies would be passed through the hole to give them health or luck, or women would crawl through to ensure fertility. At the Odin Stone in the Orkneys, men and women would join hands through the hole in order to get married. At the Mên-an-Tol in Cornwall, pictured here in a photo courtesy of Jane Osborne. Babies with rickets would be passed through naked to cure them. For some reason these folklore cures often required a person to be naked in public, something frowned on in a traditional society. This added a layer of danger and rebelliousness to the ritual.
The Bhacain in Scotland is different than other stones. It’s a monolith (what we archaeologists called a menhir) but it curves around like a P. In the 19th century, women leaving the Highlands to take jobs in the city would sit under the overhang to ensure they didn’t get pregnant while away from the stern protective gaze of their parents. Most menhirs look pretty phallic and were used for fertility rituals. Perhaps because The Bhacain is a bit droopy it was believed to have the opposite effect!
A.J. Walker is the author of Roots Run Deep, a fantasy novel published by Double Dragon. He works as a medievalist and archaeologist in England.
My novels explore the possibilities of human consciousness–how much can we know and how, is enlightenment a real possibility? Some of my favorite science fiction involves exploring the possibility of machines becoming conscious. Odyssey Five was one of my favorites, but I’m sure you can name many. Zvi Zaks, another Eternal Press author, explores artificial intelligence. The Turing test was designed to see if computers can ever approach consciousness. Here’s what he says about his novels:
With A VIRTUAL AFFAIR, the novel published by Eternal Press, the question of the Turing test (if an observer can’t tell whether questions are being answered by a machine or a person, is the machine ‘intelligent’?) is discussed. The main character, a computer program named Barbara, can pass this test with flying colors if she wants, and people keep seeing her as human. But, as she keeps reminding everyone, she isn’t. Her existence is dedicated to making people happy – but can a computer program know what’s best for humanity?
The second book, IMPLAC (published by e-star) takes place decades after a war against genocidal robots. The hero, Tommy McPherson, finds a lone surviving robot hidden in a tunnel on the moon. He manages to immobilize it, and interrogates it. It says that with the decades spent in hibernation, it’s circuits have mutated so that it no longer hates humans. Furthermore, it can tell Tommy where to find other hidden robots that presumably still do hate humans. The dilemma is obvious: if Tommy believes it, sets it free, and is wrong, it will multiply and resume the war. If Tommy disbelieves it and is wrong, the other hidden robots will eventually awaken and resume the war. An additional factor is that lying is more complicated than telling the truth, and the robots, vicious though they were, had never before shown any ability to lie.
Suddenly everything got busy. I just finished edits for the new edition of Under the Stone Paw, which will be published by Double Dragon in April.
I’m in the middle of finishing edits for Beneath the Hallowed Hill, also due out in April from Eternal Press. The cover art for Hill is just fantastic. I’ll show you as soon as I can. I’ve also written some promotional material for The Aether Age: Helios.
On top of all this writing stuff, I just found a second cousin who’s living in Denver and a friend is in from out of town. Then there’s work, full of papers and exams to grade and curriculum packets to read. Plus all the regular work of just life.
Not to mention all those revolutions to keep up with. Must be all those planets moving into Aries. Are you busy, too?
Under the Stone Paw has just been released by Double Dragon. It has a brand new scene.
