Return of the Sky People

Chronicles of the Alliance Book XI

The Last Flight of the Howler I

Novel 11: Return of the Sky People

History

I think I wrote the front end at least three or four times over a period of several years. When I sat down to pull it all together, I had segments dating all the way back to the writing of the original story Waken.

I didn't write the love interest between Nikki and Stancer until I got serious about writing the story. At that time, I had also figured out that the two would get married to each other, something that had been in the back of both of their minds way back when they first started working together on the ADF Waken. While their love interest does not show through in the written down version of that story, the sequence still exists and will appear when I write the full story version.

Titles

Walker
The Last Flight of the Howler
The Last Flight of the Howler Part 1: Return of the Sky People

As I was writing the original story, I realized that it was going to take more than one novel to reach the end (which had been written as a tribute to George R. Stewart (Earth Abides) many years earlier. I wanted to keep the theme of a post apocalypitc story that Last Flight represented but did not want to sacrifice the adaptation story of taking a society advanced past even ours, and forcing them to adapt without adversely affecting the existing society on the planet.

It is the adaptation element of the story that forced me into recognizing that I had multiple stories to tell and left me with the one area where there may be as many Cleric's World stories as there are Star Spawn Saga stories (dealing with Julie).

Notes

Old Pawsierene calls Jon a prophet several times early in Return of the Sky People. The term is used here as a title, meaning one who reveals the word of God. It suggests an open venue between man and god, which is something that holds true with Jon and is something that has bothered him, since it goes against the teachings of his order. While he does not like to be called by that title, he does not deny it, either. There have been too many instances, especially around Julie, where it seemed to fit.

Life in Medieval Times
In researching materials for the Cleric's World stories, I have come to the conclusion that we know pitifully little about what life was truly like. While the books I list in the Bibliography are well-written, they are the work of writers who have spent untold hours pouring through whatever they could obtain. The conclusion that the authors draw (more than once) is that earlier "experts" were postulating theories and concepts based upon their own guesswork and what little remains from before 1500 (the beginning of the "modern" era), when record keeping generally became more prevalent.

It gets worse, the farther back one goes in history.

And so what I've written, while admittedly fiction, is based upon my own ideas garnered from reading those books listed. Most of it is guesswork - call them theories if you want to - and sometimes, not very good guesswork at that. The bottom line of the matter is that we simply do not know how people lived or, for that matter, what constituted a family, a villiage (as opposed to a city).

Somehow, I get the strong feeling that most of us would fumble about, trying to adapt and, lilke the sky people in the stories, eventually give up in favor of our own ways.

So, I suspect the question arises about what era I actually used as a basis for the civilization in these stories - the answer is that I didn't. The Cleric's World stories are based upon a society on a planet whose long-term weather patterns forced large-scale human migrations, something that we really haven't done, except later in life when we follow, more or less, less severe weather to southern climes (United States) in the winter and northern climes in the summer.

Cleric's World Stories

The Cleric
Clerics World
Elvnisle
Return of the Sky People
Carrollton
The Order of the Knife
The End of the Matter

People, Places, and Things

People

ADF Howler Crew
I'm using a singular page for all characters within the later Cleric's World Novels. Carrollton Spoliers Page contains a lot of information, including the character list. Once you have started reading Return of the Sky People, then it will be okay to go to the spoiler page.

Places

FerrisPort
Al-zed
[Sentious]
Cleric One

Ships

ADF Howler
ADF Quantum
ADF Eclipse
ADF Blazer
Blasting Comets
Shuttle XV-1

Timeline

I had to put together a time line of sorts in order to keep things straight. This happened with the first novel and once I had it down and as part of the novel, I'm not sure what I did with those original notes. For those of you who may be interested, the Last Flight of the Howler Timeline contains enough details about the story to spoil it for anyone who reads and doesn't want to know what comes next. So, if you don't want to know what comes next, don't follow the link to the timeline.

Keeping track of where my characters are and at what time becomes important if I want to maintain consistency within a story. While most folks lose track of time when watching a film or reading a book, others have a built-in clock that instinctively tells them something is not quite right. The other element is that folks who don't have the innate ability to detect a time-relationship-flow problem will have a "feel" that pulls them away from the suspension of disbelief (something we do when we read a story or watch one being played out). This suspension of disbelief is what allows you, as the reader, to feel like you are there, in the middle of the story. It gives the story more of a sense of really happening to real people.

If the suspenstion of disbelief is broken, then the reader is hauled back to reality just as quickly and jarringly as the Christopher Reeve character in the film "Somewhere in Time." For those of you who haven't seen the film, it is one of the great time-travel romance/love story films of all time.

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