John Allen Royce, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by John Allen Royce
Through the Looking Glass of History 6/18/2009 5:21:50 AM
A tragedy sparked The Great Horse trilogy (of which Eclipsed by Shadow is the first volume). I came to know of this sad event because I lived in Cambridge, MA, where it occurred.
----
I’m going to start regular posting going forward, and I hope readers find something interesting. I plan to relate my experiences as a new author, as well as some of the history and themes from my trilogy about the history of horsemanship.
To start, I could explain what motivated me to write this story. It’s a strange book, quite peculiar if I do say so myself. The premise is a horse that takes her rider back into history to relive the experience … that’s a hard one to make normal. It’s fantasy, okay, and historical fiction too … and also a literary adventure, and okay something of a mystery and a bit of romance at the end. Oh and it’s also for Young Adults 15+ to adult. In fact, if I’d known of another book like it, I probably would never have written the story. It was just that odd.
WHAT STARTED IT
A tragedy sparked The Great Horse trilogy (of which Eclipsed by Shadow is the first volume). I came to know of this sad event because I lived in Cambridge, MA, where it occurred.
It happened in the 1990’s as a wave of corporatization washed over Harvard Square, which was at the time a vibrant, diverse, spirited bright spot of educational culture situated near the heart of Harvard Yard. Due to the end of rent control, incoming corporate chains and commercial development replaced the great old used bookstores in Harvard Square, which housed decades of professor libraries on their shelves and in high-piled boxes and book stacks.
A trove of civilization’s knowledge, irreplaceable in aggregate, telling the story of the decades of the twentieth century in first person. Walking along the crowded aisles and browsing historical works was like running your fingers through treasure that was never to be yours—or anyone’s. So “the Market” had decided.
It seemed strangely foreboding that such a record of human endeavor could not “compete” with blind commerce, as if humanity itself could not “compete” with its own opportunistic forces. I didn’t know the answers, but I did find out how little I really understood about history. As I learned I came to believe the lessons of history were imperative to remember, but this act of careless destruction seemed more like an act of forgetting. I wondered if our society was losing its own memories, and it began to worry me.
Not long after that, I read about a legend… (to be continued)
###
* I never realized how much the title “Eclipsed by Shadow” sounds like a romance bodice-ripper. Seems funny to me.
