What exactly is a thunder egg?

 

My Pets in Space story, The Thunder Egg, started as an opening scene probably a year ago. I was doing the writer's equivalent of doodling, playing around with ideas. I started off with a female freighter captain walking back to her ship after making a delivery. She is regretting taking the short cut to the spaceport through the oldest, seediest section of Old Port as one of the frequent fogs descends. It's a haven for thugs and muggers and she's grateful for the pistol in her pocket. 

That looked promising, so I asked the Muse what happened next. "Ah," said the Muse, "As she walks, something hits her chest and clings, staring into her eyes."

And just like that, I had a snippet of a story.

But what hit her? What stared at her? I asked the Muse. "Let's see. It can fly. It isn't a bird or a bat. Something cute and alien."  

"But what is it?" I wailed. "Where does it come from?"

 The Muse wasn't happy. "Come on. Work it out for yourself. She's - I don't know - a cross between a Pern dragon and a pterodactyl." Then she flounced off for a Bex and a lie-down.

Both of those species hatch from eggs so after some deep and detailed navel-gazing I decided that little Neyru was hatched from an egg that looked an awful lot like a thunder egg.

Yes, thunder eggs are real. No, they're not fossilized, unhatched dinosaur eggs. But many of them have fascinating contents – if not quite so fascinating as Neyru. They are formed by volcanic activity, as described by Don, the owner of the Mt Hay gemstone tourist park, one of several places in Australia where thunder eggs can be found.

“Mt. Hay is the remains of an extinct ancient volcano, which was last active about 120 million years ago. When it was a rumbling volcano millions of gas bubbles were present in the molten rhyolite lava …. it is these gas ‘pockets’ that became thunder eggs. Thunder eggs or volcanic birthstones are the result of these “pockets” filling with siliceous liquids containing impurities and trace elements, which crystallize as they cool, and when cut in half, reveal many different colours and patterns.” 

A thunder egg my husband and I found at Mt Hay.

It's an interesting enough rock… but when you cut it open…

Neyru hatched from an egg that looked superficially like a thunder egg. Her protector, Professor Drew Torson, bought the rock during a visit to the famous markets at Laremenssa, which appear in several of my Dryden Universe stories. Drew was on his Sabbatical, touring some of the Empire's outer planets, and Neyru's egg attracted him because of certain iridescence in the stone. He was astonished when Neyru came out of a shell that looked like a rock. She wolfed down his steak dinner, too – clearly a committed carnivore. She's totally alien and Drew has no idea what she is or where she comes from.

The Thunder Egg is essentially a quest. Drew finds an artifact that turns out to be Neyru and he takes it upon himself to protect her and take her home. Wherever that may be. Just as well he bumps into freighter pilot Afra. He wouldn't be able to do it on his own.

Here's the blurb.

No ordinary rock…

History Professor Drew Torson’s purchase of a thunder egg at a market leads to an astonishing discovery when what should have been just a rock… hatches. He isn’t the only one who wants the unusual creature that emerges. When thieves attempt to capture his new friend, Neyru, Drew is left stunned and bleeding in an alley.

Freighter captain Afra Abrussen is shocked when a strange, but beautiful creature named Neyru seeks her help. She’s no heroine. She has cargo to haul and debts to pay. The last thing she needs to do right now is get drawn into Drew and Neyru's plight.

Drew insists that all they need to do is find out what Neyru is, where she comes from, and get her home without being caught by pursuers who will stop at nothing to get hold of the little creature. Afra thinks Drew forgot one important clause: They need to do all of the above without falling in love during their dangerous mission.

Can a freighter captain and an academic stay one step ahead of the thieves determined to capture Neyru, and if they do, what will happen when they discover they broke the all too important clause about not falling in love?

Pets in Space 6 is available for pre-order, with delivery on 5th October. Costing US$4.99, the anthology includes stories from eleven authors. But don’t forget to buy your copy while you can. The book will be taken off sale in November.

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DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB

I tried. I really tried. But my retired friend’s debut novel was so bad I just couldn’t get through it. I had to put it down after struggling through 56 percent of the thing and move on to something else.

Let me say right up front that this was NOT a science fiction romance novel, and the author was no one any of you faithful readers is likely to know. I generally have a rule about the books I read within this community—if I can’t say anything nice, I don’t say anything at all. Most of the pros in the SFR community have worked hard to get where they are; they seek out advice and critiques from each other; they deserve to be treated as the professionals they are.

But I’m sure you’ve all had this experience: the minute you mention you’re a writer, someone in your intimate circle says, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book! I’ve got this great idea!” And they proceed to tell you all about it. And pump you for information about publishing and agents and all the rest. Advice which they will then ignore.

Just remember the second part.

That’s what happened with this person. As soon as they retired from their job (I’m using the nongender pronouns deliberately), they started on a huge historical/adventure novel with romantic elements. And, to give them credit, they finished their book and self-published it. Bravo! It’s no mean feat to write a book, after all, and the skills needed to either format and design a cover for the thing (or find someone to do it) aren’t to be sneezed at, either.

So, appreciating all that, and thinking that the person is of above-average intelligence (and that I enjoy the occasional historical novel), I thought, well, I should buy a copy of their book. Authorly solidarity and all that, right? And, what’s more, I should read it with a thought toward, possibly, giving it a review.

But, yikes! The first thing I tell aspiring authors is this: every writer needs a good editor. The biggest mistake beginning writers make is thinking they can do without one, because, I don’t know, they passed eighth grade English. Or, because Spell-Check. No! Good editors will not only keep their clients from making dumb grammatical and spelling errors. They will keep them from boring their readers to death with info-dumping; or confusing them with head-hopping; or throwing them into plot holes big enough to swallow a truck.

In the case of my friend, an editor would have saved them from the huge mistake of choosing a quirky system of punctuation that somehow substituted ellipses (. . .) for commas in the weirdest places, eg: “Sir . . . you are a fool!”, as opposed to the proper, “Sir, you are a fool!”. I spent most of the first few chapters reading the dialogue in William Shatner’s voice, with pauses in all the wrong places! I know this was a deliberate choice because the writer is an educated person who went to the same college I did. Such things were never allowed at my alma mater, even in the History department.

Then there were the many sentence fragments, which can be used to great effect at times, but not all the time. Not to mention the long, detailed passages of historical detail, which amounted to info-dumping. And the fact that the hero and heroine, who are meant to be a couple not only in this book, but in a series, were still not together after half the book. *sigh*

Needless to say, I won’t be writing that review. Instead, I’ll be trying to find a nice way to tell my friend what they need to hear about improving their writing. In the meantime, I needed to cleanse my reading palate. I started in on Stephen King’s latest, Billy Summer, and heaved a great sigh of relief. Now, there’s a man who knows his way around a keyboard!

Cheers, Donna

 

Happy Birthday to Me

 August is my birthday month. And this year not just any birthday. I turned 50. A milestone for more than just the number. It means I've enjoyed seven more years of life than my mum. I have so far survived a pandemic. I should have been going to Iceland to celebrate but considering the circumstances am grateful to have been able to spend it in Edinburgh instead, in the country that I've been told is a large part of my ancestry. It's also the place where I've met the most of my Facebook friends for real. 

We drove from home to York first, then up to Edinburgh via Bamburgh Castle (used as a backdrop to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the series Robin of Sherwood, and the first two Harry Potter films). 

In Edinburgh, youngest and I took a tour of the underground vaults, hearing of the persecution of witches and viewing some of the lovely instruments of torture, then learning of the crimes and hauntings of Edinburgh's underground. Worth a trip if you ever go that way.

We ate lunch in the park, then wandered the shops until an awesome dinner at a local Italian restaurant.

Then it was back to York and the local Shambles Market, where my favourite fossil and mineral stall got a good chunk of my spending money. A quick stop at Amble for lunch, and another castle - Warkworth - before home again. Fun but exhausting!

Presents from the family included a space rocket handbag from hubs, and a massive treat box from eldest, plus a spacey themed new rucksack I bought myself. 

All in all, turning half a century doesn't seem so bad...