The Synopsis Treasury (25 page)
Read The Synopsis Treasury Online
Authors: Christopher Sirmons Haviland
Tags: #Reference, #Writing; Research & Publishing Guides, #Publishing & Books, #Authorship
Of this group of characters, there are three about whom the entire Game revolves and who are reincarnations of the original players of the Game in the Cretan Labyrinth (the Minotaur Asterion, Theseus, and Adriene): Asterion, the unloved monster; Brutus, Asterion’s implacable foe; and Adriene, lover of Brutus and half-sister to Asterion. Adriene is the pivotal character: Brutus loves her and wants to protect her, yet needs to use her powers to defeat Asterion and win the Game; Asterion loathes her for her loyalty and aid to Brutus (and for her original treachery in aiding Brutus’s ancestor Theseus), yet yearns for her as the one person capable of giving him love. It is the love-hate relationship between Asterion and Adriene that drives the Game and which will determine its outcome.
Each book is set in a different era.
Book One
is set at the end of the second millennium before Christ,
Book Two
in High Medieval London,
Book Three
in Restoration London, and the final book in Victorian London.
Book One: Bronze-Age Britain—1100 BC. The Foundation of London.
Brutus leads his Trojan settlers to Albion (Britain). There he establishes contact with the powerful Celtic community (the ‘giants’ of legend). The Celts, particularly their Druid leaders, are not particularly happy to see such a large group of settlers … but on the other hand the Trojans are legendary for both their cultural and battle skills. The Druids and Brutus arrive at a compromise: the Celts will allow the Trojans to settle the marshy lands about the Thames—a holy site for the Celts—and in return the Trojans will, firstly, provide protection for the Celts from pirates who raid up the Thames, and, secondly, share the power of the Troy Game with the Druids.
Initially all goes well. The Trojans establish a defensible town in the triangle of land formed by the magical confluence of three mounds: the White Mound (now called Tower Hill); the Llandin (now called Parliament Hill); and Tothill (Westminster). Here Brutus also builds the Troy Game—a system of mazes, canals and chambers that serve as both defense system and religious mystery and which lead the Game’s most powerful initiates into previously unheard of levels of knowledge and spiritual understanding. Brutus inducts the most senior of the Celtic Druids into its use … but he hesitates at unleashing the full power of the Game, fearing it could rope out of control. But the Druids, seduced by the knowledge and understanding they have achieved through playing the Game thus far, persuade Brutus to take the Game to its ultimate level.
When Brutus
does
loose the total power of the Troy Game he sets in motion a series of horrific events that unleash the monstrous power of the Minotaur Asterion. Brutus is appalled—he had not realized that when fully alive the Game would reach back to its original manifestation of the Cretan Labyrinth—and he and the Druids work to kill both the Game and the Monster at its heart. But others, a secret alliance of Celts and Trojans (including Brutus’s wife, Imogene), are just as determined to keep the Game alive, meaning to use it to control all Britain, and eventually, perhaps, all of Europe.
The Game has begun, its players divided between those who wish to use it and those who wish to destroy it.
Almost three thousand years will pass before the victor emerges.
Book Two: Gothic London—the thirteenth century.
Nominally Christian, England is in fact controlled by the members of a secret military and religious society who wield the power of the Troy Game. London’s maze of narrow streets, alleys, and underground passageways and chambers has become the Labyrinth used to conduct the rites needed to protect and feed the Game, and the altars of the city’s parish churches form the points on the magical system of lines and circles that give the Labyrinth its power. As he has for over two thousand years, the Minotaur Asterion roams the labyrinth, his strength increasing with every sacrificial victim, every unfortunate Londoner caught in the streets on those nights the Game is active.
Brutus reborn is cast once more into the Game, fighting both Asterion and the society dedicated to the Game’s welfare, while at the same time trying to protect Adriene against her brother’s vengeance. But the Troy Game is at its strongest and the society is powerful, stretching its lines of influence through Europe to the Game’s home in the eastern Mediterranean, and both Brutus and Adriene battle to survive both the Game and Asterion’s malevolence.
Book Three: Restoration London—the seventeenth century.
The Troy Game continues, but weaker after a century of Protestant Reformation and two decades of Puritan rule in England. Brutus knows this may be his best chance to destroy the Game … yet the Game suddenly surges in strength in the cultural, social and scientific explosion of the monarchy’s restoration in 1660.
In the medieval era the secret society devoted to the Troy Game had been of a religious and military orientation: now it is the new scientists and the Restoration courtiers who conduct the ancient rituals in the caverns under London. Imogene, Brutus’s wife, has become the High Priestess of the society. Using her ancient knowledge, Imogene now directs the Troy Game, taking it to new heights of horror in order to destroy Brutus, and to trap and use Adriene as a means of controlling Asterion.
But Imogene is not as skilled as she thinks herself, and she loses control both of the Game and of Asterion. As the Minotaur and the Game rage unchecked, a desperate Brutus does the only thing he can: burn London, and obliterate the Labyrinth once and for all.
But did the Great Fire of London truly destroy Asterion?
Book Four: Victorian London—the nineteenth century.
For two centuries since the Great Fire of 1666 Asterion has lain quiescent beneath London. Above him Victorian London is booming, and a new breed of men, the railway engineers, burrow beneath the crowded streets to build a new underground railway system.
Soon an intricate subterranean web of lines connect the sites of the ancient Celtic mounds. Power and movement,
life
, hums along these lines, reawakening the magic of the mounds and reforming the Labyrinth, propelling the Troy Game and Asterion into renewed life. A frightful murderer stalks the night streets of the city, terrifying Londoners as woman after woman is ripped apart.
It is Asterion, seeking his sister for his final vengeance.
Only Brutus reborn can stop him, but it seems the only way to do so is through the final sacrifice of the woman he loves.
The History of the Troy Game
There are two major instances of the Troy Game in classical myth/history. The first instance is that of Theseus, son of the Athenian king, who managed to murder the Minotaur Asterion within the Cretan Labyrinth. Theseus did this with the aid of Asterion’s half-sister Adriene, who gave him the key (immortalized as a ‘thread’) to besting both the Labyrinth (itself a magical entity) and the monster it contained. The Labyrinth was a ‘game’, a test of courage, intellect and magical ability in the face of certain death. Theseus won the Game, but only because of Adriene’s treachery against her half-brother.
The second instance of the Troy Game in history is that of the Trojan War itself (also won through treachery, a recurring theme in the Game). In
The Aeneid
Virgil speaks of the Troy Game as a military maneuver, learned by the Trojans from the Cretan Labyrinth (it is probable settlers from Crete founded Troy). The Game was a complex military strategy that awed all who saw it (and terrified all it was used against). In the
Iliad
Homer depicts the Trojan War itself as a literal ‘game’ in which the gods pit mortal against mortal and against the gods themselves. Other classical and medieval authors depicted the Troy Game in the Trojan War as the actual labyrinth-like defenses of the city—which eventually failed through treachery.
After Troy fell in c. 1200 BC, the Trojans scattered about the Mediterranean lands. After several generations, Aeneas’s great grandson, Brutus, gathered up many of the Trojan survivors and sailed to Britain and established London on a Celtic hallowed site of holy mounds, circles and lines: a maze laid upon a maze, a merging of Celtic and Cretan-Trojan power. London itself grew out of the Trojan-Celtic mazes, taking its name from the holiest of the mounds, the Llandin (Parliament hill), establishing the seat of government at another (Westminster sits on the mound Tothill) and a military base on the third (London Tower stands on the White Mound, or Tower hill). Until the nineteenth century the City of London (the ancient square mile) contained a disproportionate number of alleys, laneways and streets named on variations of the word ‘maze’.
The Troy Game became an important aspect of life up to the sixteenth century (not only in London, but around Europe). The ‘Game’ itself was played informally in Smithfield outside London at least once a year by young men; labyrinths were built inside cathedrals and churches, and in gardens and parks at Greenwich, Blackheath, Southwark and what is now Peckham Rye (these labyrinths were often called Troy Towns); while secret military and religious societies were formed about the ‘mystery’ contained at the heart of the labyrinth. Most medieval chronicles and histories mention various manifestations of the Troy Game. When the Protestant Reformation became a force during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Game metaphorically and literally went underground. The secret societies continued, the Game continued, but in London-under-London—the mass of tunnels, chambers, and sewers that date back to pre-Roman times (it used to be possible, as late as the early twentieth century, to walk from St. James Park to the Tower completely underground, using these ancient chambers and tunnels). The Troy Game is also remembered in children’s games like hopscotch (children negotiate a difficult maze using their cunning and strength), in a game played by Welsh shepherds called ‘Caerdroia’, or ‘Troy Town’, which recalls the ancient labyrinth about Troy itself, while Welsh herdsmen still cut maze-like symbols into the turf which they call ‘The Walls of Troy’.
The Labyrinth under London exists to this day, although it is closed to the general public and the extensive nineteenth-century maps of it have ‘disappeared’. The three magical Celtic points (or mounds) still exist, and are still sites of power (ancient London, the City, is encased within the magical triangle of those mounds). The modern road and subway system connects these three ancient sites with lines and circles.
For all we know, the Troy Game is still capable of being played.
***
Louise Marley
Louise Marley, a former concert and opera singer, has been publishing science fiction and fantasy since 1995. Her more recent work is historical fiction, written under the pseudonym Cate Campbell, and published by Kensington Books. She has twice won the Endeavour Award for excellence in science fiction, and has been short-listed for the Tiptree and Campbell Awards.
Her bibliography stretches to eighteen novels now, in 2014, including a young adult trilogy. The full list and other information can be found at www.louisemarley.com and www.catecampbell.com.
Below is the synopsis and outline for my novel
The Child Goddess
, which was published in hardcover of May of 2004 by Ace Books.
Since my very first sale, when I submitted a complete manuscript, I’ve sold all my novels by proposal. My pattern is to write about three chapters, or fifty pages, of a new project, and then create a synopsis and an outline in narrative form. I submit all of this material to my agent, who will usually suggest changes. When he and I are happy with the proposal, it goes to my editor. As I wait for her response, I continue work on the book, so that often by the time I have a contract, the project has matured, grown in depth and complexity. If the change is something essential, I discuss it with my editor. Minor changes I don’t worry about, because no one expects the book to follow the synopsis exactly. My synopses usually run about twenty pages.
The alterations for
The Child Goddess
, between conception and publication, were mostly details. The arc of the story remained essentially intact. I changed the spelling of a character’s name, as I had two main characters whose names began with the same two letters—Edwards and Edetti. Edetti became Adetti, a simple difference that helped eliminate confusion. Larger changes were occasioned by the ongoing research I did as I developed the story. For example, on the planet of Virimund the geoponics plant became a hydrogen retrieval facility, or a power park, which made a better scientific and dramatic background for the action. I also did a lot of work on the science of measuring age, which I hadn’t yet finished when the book was proposed. Perhaps the biggest difference between my proposal and the final product was that in the novel the children of Virimund were utterly abandoned and alone, all the adults of their population gone. The conflict became one that was not outright warfare, but a more insidious and subtle problem of misunderstanding, language barriers, and cultural ignorance.
Until this coming year, when I will have a young adult novel published by Viking, Ace has published all my novels. They bought my very first book,
Sing the Light
, when my agent held a two-week auction for the manuscript. It may seem a Cinderella story, but before my agent, Peter Rubie, put the book on the market, he and I worked for two years on rewrites! Since 1995, when the first book appeared in paperback, I have sold and published seven more novels, breaking into trade paper format with
The Terrorists of Irustan
, and then hardcover with
The Maquisarde
. I’ve enjoyed working with one editor and one publisher for the past ten years, because we’ve developed good relationships—friendships, in truth. When there are challenges or successes, we can meet them together, and I think better books result because I’m able to talk frankly with my editor or her assistants, and she’s able, I hope, to be open with me. This takes some courage, on both sides. In my first career, which was classical music, there was a saying I often quoted to my voice students: “A singer must have the voice of a nightingale, the brain of an Einstein, and the hide of a rhinoceros.” The hard part about that, of course, is developing the thick hide, but it’s necessary for the artist of any discipline. Accepting critiques and honestly considering suggestions means better work, and a higher chance of success. And, as in my musical life, in my literary life I am always a student. I read, I attend panels and lectures, and I study. It’s a journey, not an arrival!
—Louise Marley
The Child Goddess
Synopsis
Louise Marley
The Child Goddess
takes place in the same universe as
The Terrorists of Irustan
, with one crossover character. The ExtraSolar Corporation, as part of its expansionist policy, set up a Geoponics Division on the watery planet of Virimund, where three centuries before emigrés from a failing tribe in Africa had attempted to settle. Political upheavals among Earth governments had isolated the colony not long after its emigration. By the time Offworld Port France was established by the ExtraSolar Corporation, it was believed that the Sikassa had died out. ExtraSolar’s geoponics workers discovered, to their surprise, a remnant of the original colony, the Sikassa, living a primitive lifestyle on a handful of islands. Before the novel opens, a tragedy occurred. A few geos, curious about the Sikassa, visited the nearest inhabited island. They climbed its central mountain to investigate a curious monument they could see from shore, a crude pillar of decorated stones, but as they touched it, they were shocked to find themselves under attack by a horde of children hurling rocks, rusty knives, and stone-tipped spears. The geos defended themselves; one received serious injuries, and two children were also badly hurt. The geos carried their own wounded and the two children back to Port Force, but one child and the injured man died before they reach medical assistance. The remaining child, Oa, recovered from her injuries. The Port Force physician, Paolo Edetti, ran a routine medicator assessment on Oa and on the dead child. In violation of policy, Edetti transported Oa, in strict quarantine, from Virimund to the Port Force Multiplex on Earth. On Virimund, the Sikassa and the geos are on the brink of outright hostilities, with skirmishes and incidents occurring whenever the ESC workers get close to the islands inhabited by the Sikassa. The geos can’t understand why one island is apparently populated only by children.
The novel will be divided into three sections, Earth, Virimund, and Earth.
EARTH
Isabel Burke is a medical anthropologist, and a priest of the Order of Mary Magdalene. The order’s patroness, Mary of Magdala, was maligned for centuries as the prostitute forgiven and admonished by Jesus, when in fact she was the very first disciple, often called an apostle to the apostles, a preacher in her own right, whose Gospel was repressed and rejected by the Church. Accordingly, the Magdalenes are women priests whose charism, or gift, is ‘to shed light in dark places’—to uncover truths, expose falsehoods, solve mysteries. The Magdalenes are Enquirers—researchers, investigators, and scientists. In the hundred years of the order’s existence, they have become famous for their thoroughness, their dedication, and the confidentiality of their results. They practice the full tonsure, completely bald heads, as a sign of their community. And because of the two thousand years of their patroness’s false reputation, the celibacy of the order is particularly important. Isabel, a cultured and sensitive woman of thirty-six, with a talent for empathy and an impressive resumé, has violated her vow and is doing penance for it.
The Mother General of the Magdalenes, Marian Alexander, calls Isabel into her office in the Mother House in San Felice, in Tuscany, and tells her about Oa. One of the highest-ranking executives of the ExtraSolar Corporation has asked for a Magdalene to try to solve the mystery of this child and her people. Isabel asks a number of questions, but receives incomplete and evasive answers. Although the Sikassa, at the time of their emigration from Africa, spoke English and old French, no one seems to be able to understand what the child tells them. Isabel asks why the child was brought from Virimund, and Marian says only that there is a medical mystery to be solved, and that ESC hopes to have answers before the situation becomes public. Isabel is aware that the charter ESC holds from the World Government stipulates that any prior populations of a planet have priority, are automatically invested in any profits realized from its resources. She also understands that Marian is ambitious, and wishes to enhance the reputation of her order; and she suspects that ESC has a double purpose in requesting a Magdalene to conduct this investigation; that the company wants the confidentiality for which the Magdalenes are known, and also hopes that bringing in a Magdalene priest will help to offset the public relations disaster that Paolo Edetti has threatened by taking a defenseless child from her home. But Isabel, filled with remorse over her violation of the vow of celibacy, seizes upon this challenging assignment as her penance.
Isabel travels, escorted by the envoy Cole Markham, to the city of Seattle and the Port Force Multiplex. Cole Markham is smooth, eager, but clearly not privy to all information pertaining to Oa and the Sikassa. When Isabel meets Gretchen Boreson, the executive who authorized transporting the child to Earth, she knows that this woman, along with the Paolo Edetti, is at the center of the puzzle. Boreson is a woman of about seventy, whose appearance betrays her devotion of youth, whose manic, nervous demeanor speaks to her intense interest in the child Oa, and whose eyes, although she pretends otherwise, are failing. Isabel learns later that the woman suffers from macular degeneration, an age-related disorder which threatens her with blindness within a year.
Isabel finds that Oa is still in quarantine. She appears to be about ten, and by using a reader and discs on her long, lonely journey, her English has improved a great deal. Isabel can understand her words, but not her nature, and she is frustrated by Oa’s odd reactions to her questions. Outraged that the child has been kept in isolation for so long, seeing no one without a quarantine suit or through thick glass, Isabel goes into the little clinic where the child is living, ignoring the quarantine requirements. Paolo Edetti immediately puts Isabel in quarantine, too. She demands explanations, and at last, grudgingly, Edetti and Boreson let her see the medicator readouts. Isabel learns why they are so interested in Oa, and in her people; according to the medicator assessment, Oa is over a hundred years old. The child who died was also very, very old, although all the children appeared to be about ten years of age. Edetti and Boreson, subjecting Oa to medicator tests every day, planning a trip to Virimund to examine the other children and the adults of the Sikassa, believe they have happened upon the secret to endless life.
Isabel is appalled. It is evident that Boreson and Edetti will stop at no expense or sacrifice to obtain the secret, Boreson to save her sight and her life, Edetti to put his name on the discovery. Isabel excoriates them both for their selfishness, for the perversion of thinking they are entitled to live forever when others of their world and other worlds are hungry and suffering. She cries, “Who would want to stay forever in the womb? Death is the culmination of life. It’s as sacred a transition as birth!” Paolo Edetti responds that long life has always been the privilege of a very few, and that now, it will simply be even longer.
Knowing her objections to their plans, keeping Isabel in quarantine suits Edetti and Boreson. But Isabel has met one friendly face at the Multiplex, the longshoreman Jin-Li Chung, who with her usual curiosity has figured out where the child Oa is being kept, and accordingly, knows that Isabel is there also. Through Jin-Li, Isabel gets word to Simon Edwards, a research physician with the Earth Health and Welfare Coalition. Simon and Isabel did field work together in the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, studying a tribe of aborigines threatened by pollution and vanishing resources, developing strategies for their survival. The physician and the priest shared a passion for music, for literature, and for their work. They fell in love, and Isabel gave in to temptation. Shocked at her weakness and overcome by guilt, she fled back to her Mother House without even saying goodbye. But now, Simon’s expertise in medical research and his ties to powerful figures in the World Government make him the only person she can turn to for help. She has also learned the truth of what is happening on Virimund, although Boreson has tried to suppress it; the geos of ExtraSolar and the now-indigenous Sikassa are at each other’s throats. The survival of the lost colony is at stake.
Oa, the Sikassa child, spends the long solitary hours sifting through her century of memories. Although she is so old, she is still in most ways a child. She has a prodigious memory, as children do, recalling things in great detail, some that happened a very long time ago. But, like a child, she is often unable to synthesize diverse pieces of information. She speaks of herself only in the third person, because Oa, and the other old children, the anchens, know that they are not really persons. Their mythology teaches them that they, the children who never grow up, have no souls, and have no use in their culture. It is this that confuses Isabel when she tries to understand Oa. If the priest asks Oa how old she is, the child holds up her tattooed arms and hangs her head in a posture of submission. If Isabel tries to ask about the day Oa was injured, Oa speaks of the Child Goddess, but is unable to explain what that means. If Isabel asks about Oa’s parents, the child turns her head away and says she has none.