Author's note on The Eye of the Stallion: The Face in Amber

   The Eye of the Stallion: The Face in Amber is a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Adventure daydream, a fairly long one, about a young woman named Sonoria who is great with horses and loves her fabulous stallion, Spiritus. She can also be a bit difficult, is not beautiful, is stunningly fearless, brash, thin, wild-haired and has amazing reflexes. When we meet her, she is in the final process of growing into her legs and arms (but never her hair), and about to find out that she is a genetic reject and a slave. She also learns she is a small god and responsible for the day-to-day condition of the world, and really should learn to control her temper. She doesn't, of course, and then she both falls in love with, and rejects, the wrong man, a man she has apparently loved since the beginning of time and, in fact, must always love if the universe is to unfold as it should. As you might expect, this leads her into all sorts of adventures, and causes all manner of problems.

There are other characters, too, that were interesting for me, as a writer, to meet. Like Scraps, the tall, gangly, chinless, bushy haired magic man (yes, I guess I do have a thing about hair), who wears multi-colored robes, recites bad limericks, and always seems to be riding either a camel, or a horse that is too small for his endless legs. But he makes up for all this with his wisdom and humor. As does Mar, the antique goddess-crone, who lives on a farm in a town called Eye 'O the Sea. Mar has apparently lived forever, grows wonderful things in her garden, has a kitchen to die for, understands both the use of herbs and spices, and the ways of the human heart.

I wrote this book on a laptop computer while sitting upright snug in the berth of our sailboat, with one of our two cats, usually the fat tiger, Miss Puss, sleeping at my feet. You might think it is nice writing on a sailboat with a cat nearby to act as your muse. It is, especially if it leads to such characters as Sonoria, Scraps, and Mar (I didn't mention Astral, the Ancient Boy, did I?)

What is it like writing on a sailboat? On the best days you start working at dawn. The water laps, the boat rocks, the early sunlight coming through the thick glass of the portholes dapples the dark-honey colored Burmese teak that surrounds you. Then the smell of coffee brewing in the galley finds your nose and maybe you have written enough for now and so you slip out of the berth trying not to disturb the cats or your wife. You take your coffee out into the cockpit to see what is going on outside, to read a little, to watch the morning breeze move the tops of the palm trees, and to daydream, too, for that is what writing is all about - weaving daydreams into words.

Most of all, The Eye of The Stallion: The Face in Amber is about adventure, and about how adventure - like living and writing on a sailboat and traveling all over the world - is out there waiting for all of us and need not remain just a daydream.

Aboard the sailing vessel "VATNA"
on the island of Guam, USA
December 1, 2005