THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT HORSE trilogy | Blog
Eclipsed by Shadow • The Golden Spark • Into the Dark
Check out the Excerpt Series from The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy!
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New excerpts are published each Thursday for Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1) … and also appear on the trilogy’s Facebook Page.
Beginning in October 2011, a new series of excerpts from The Golden Spark (Book #2) will begin.
John Allen Royce’s debut title, Eclipsed by Shadow, has been nominated for a Global eBook Award in the Young Adult Fiction category.
John Allen Royce’s debut title, Eclipsed by Shadow, has been nominated for a Global eBook Award in the Young Adult Fiction category. (see Press Release [PDF])
Eclipsed by Shadow is Book I of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy, a literary adventure about the colorful role of horses in civilization. The story begins the adventures of a modern rider carried back into history. The title has previously won national honors including the 2009 Eric Hoffer Book Award for best Young Adult Fiction.
The author, John Allen Royce, has lived “from sea to shining sea” in his native America, and now resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Over 20 years experience in competitive riding combined with the author’s passion for historical research to spark the idea for The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.
“Everyone is talking about eBooks!” says the founder of the Global eBook Awards, Dan Poynter. “eBooks have reached the tipping point and are outselling books on paper in several categories. eBooks are not replacing paper books; they are in addition to.”
The Awards have 79 categories in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, illustration, and multimedia. The Global eBook Award winners will be honored at a star-studded ceremony on August 20 in Santa Barbara, California.
The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is an award-winning adventure about horsemanship in civilization … history comes alive as a teenager travels back in time and experiences how horses were used in the past.
Book I: Eclipsed by Shadow, begins the tale as young Meagan Roberts discovers her new foal is a Great Horse of legend … and is carried into an incredible adventure in history.
The story travels through prehistoric times when man’s interest in the horse was strictly culinary…
… and follows Meagan as she struggles to survive the harrowing thrills of Roman chariot racing, 
the hordes of Genghis Khan, and a season of chivalry among castles, Tournaments and knights.
In this installment, our heroine finds herself an unwitting stowaway aboard a Spanish conquistador’s ship, rides among nobility at the Court of Versailles, and joins the struggles of a farming family in Merry Old England of the 1800’s.
A new review by Mara Dabrishus of the blog Whitebrook Farm mentions Incitatus, a famed Roman chariot-racing stallion favored by the third Emperor Caligula (24-41 AD) to the point of obsession.
The book passage mentioning Incitatus comes during a visit to the strange library of Mrs. Bridgestone, an eccentric woman who has made a collection of evidence about the “Legend of the Great Horse.”
Meagan was stopped before a crumbling box mounted on a low pedestal. The object was corroded and gray from age.
“It doesn’t look it, I know, but that is said to be the remains of the manger of the Roman Emperor Caligula’s favorite race horse, Incitatus. Caligula had a stable of marble and gold built for the stallion, complete with furnishings and servants. Though horses are strict vegetarians, Incitatus was fed mice dipped in butter and marinated squid.” Mrs. Bridgestone added more quietly, “Of course, the man was considered dangerously insane.” [pg 48, Eclipsed by Shadow (pbk)]
Incitatus was said to have never lost a race, and was showered with gifts and honors by the Supreme Leader of Rome. The stallion was given a stable of marble and a manger of ivory, and is said to have been been fed an extreme diet of delicacies (though he reputedly ate only from his bowl of barley mixed with gold flakes.) Dignitaries were “invited” to dine with Incitatus, whose palatial home was furnished with fine art.
Troops were stationed in the neighborhood of Incitatus‘ marble stables before a race to ensure the stallion’s rest, and the Emperor was said to have conducted a long household debate as to whether to marry the horse to secure his dynasty. In a final insult to the Senate, Caligula planned to make Incitatus a consul of Rome.
After Caligula’s timely death from assassination, Incitatus was reportedly down-graded to a stall in a regular stable without complaint (and probably much relief). Unfortunately Caligula’s corruption was an omen. Rome was able to rid itself of the megalomaniac leader, but never could return to the citizen government of the Republic and escape the insanity of absolute rule.
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.
Happily, people haven’t stopped reading or buying books, and a few of the old stores do still survive around Harvard. You can still stoop and step down to get inside often cave-like entrances, to the honeycomb of ceiling-tall smooth-worn wooden shelves completely filled with reams of books, multi-varied colors in a celebration of thought.
History books can be the most colorful of all, and they noticeably contain horses. In all of human history, since prehistoric times of cave paintings, some successful part of mankind has had horses. Horses have adapted to human needs in every era throughout history, from pack animals to chariot teams–and yet have not essentially changed at all.
Horses are not domesticated in the sense of cats and dogs, but still retain full basic instincts. That inner permanence has made the horse a cultural barometer of sorts: flourishing horsemanship is very often associated with successful society. The reverse is also true, and horsemanship can be lost to barbarism. (ie, Eclipsed by Shadow, Bk 1)
The idea of The Legend of the Great Horse came from the ancient belief that horses were a gift from the supernatural. The time-traveling ability of the Great Horse is inspired and informed by the ancient legends. Flight, mobility and transcendent transportation are symbolized in the horse: time-travel is a development of that role.
The story of human history is one of many worlds, and the horse has galloped through them with us. The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is a celebration of the adventures our horses have shared with us.
It has been an exciting ride!
I recently wrote that the spark to my writing “Eclipsed by Shadow” was triggered by the corporatization of Harvard Square and the loss of its venerable old bookstores. It was alarmingly easy to relate ancient nomadic destruction of religious settlements to the commercial invasion of these hallowed shelves. Both invaders had as their object mere material gain, and neither saw worth in the defenseless.
My fascination with history was fueled by the doomed abundance of the historical record preserved in those sleepy bookstores. I was learning that history not only repeated but it echoed. As Faulkner said, the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past. It seems more evident today, twelve years later, as we watch world events take stunning turns that defy logic or intent. Reality does not correspond to our wishes or beliefs: it is necessary for humanity to correspond to the reality of human nature and social dynamics.
I began to see the trial and error component of human society, and discovered that civilization’s progress was not so much a smooth path upward as a broken one with pits and valleys. Societies grew as they learned, and as they grew they corrupted and lost their lessons and finally perished. Over and over again.
So what made the Harvard bookstore demolition so tragic in my view was not just the loss of the threads of our historical conversation, but that the act itself was already evidence of the process of forgetting. Unfortunately, what makes the 21st Century truly different from other times is the penalty for this kind of forgetting. Crowded humanity has come to a place when it can effectively destroy itself; our technology is too advanced for us to revert to failed ideas and patterns.
How will we avoid the old pitfalls if we cannot remember them? That was the problem that intrigued me: the answers are in the pages of history, if we can only be persuaded to look.
I wanted a way to thread history together, and looked for clues in the gilded pages of those ill-fated history books. A cohesive clue must be discoverable in all those old books, something nearly universal to all humanity. Perhaps an invention like the wheel, maybe music, or clothing, or food … if there were only some common link somehow obscured and hidden within all these colorful pages with their images of countless horses…
This is my third “Mirror” post in a row, and where I finally explain the use of the metaphor and close the barn door after it.
In the first post of this Mirror trilogy, I mentioned becoming interested in reading about history while browsing the shelves of the doomed used bookstores in Harvard.
I didn’t and don’t have answers about what history people should remember, or what conclusions should be drawn. I am simply interested in knowing about factual history and discussing it. That interest led to the idea of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.
Horses were a common factor in almost every time from primitive man and antiquity to the Renaissance and the American West. The animal has literally been with mankind every step of the way. As someone who competed in equestrian sports and worked in the horse industry, I found this to be an example of common knowledge not commonly explored.
Horsemanship was not an obvious process to humanity: it took thousands of years for mankind to learn to control a horse as a rider. While the first uses of horses are misty and inconclusive, truth be told early horsemanship was a dog’s breakfast of nose-rings, superstition and brutality. So poor were the prospects of the first mounted riders ending up where (and how) they wished to arrive, that as a practical matter driving appears to have been the main use for horses in the early days of civilization.
This changed in the last millenia B.C. with a new kind of horsemanship based on working with the horse in an empathetic and humane way. The horse responded to empathetic methods so well that the new art, today called “dressage,” led to a revolution in mounted riding. As the human consciousness arced up our horsemanship advanced to new levels of cooperation and partnership.
However, when Rome fell into centuries of brutalized Dark Ages, dressage was lost to Western Civilization. In fact, dressage was one of the “rediscovered” Classical arts that sparked the new age of the European Renaissance. Riding schools were set up and Riding Masters emerged as students in the laboratory of the ménage. Horsemanship recovered its humane component and advanced to unprecedented heights of sport and art.
The history of horsemanship seems to highlight the relationship between empathy and human progress. It is fascinating to see how horses have adapted to the different stages of human development; horses are not only a true link with our past but a reflection of their times. Progress in horsemanship has mirrored the progress of mankind itself.
It makes for a fascinating study–and the greatest canvas on which to tell a story.
The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy takes place across many historical eras, from pre-history to modern times, and research was fundamental to telling the most accurate story I could. I followed a method I found enjoyable and fascinating, and it’s one I believe brought authenticity to the work.
Basically, I gathered writings from each era visited in the book, and spent significant time immersing myself in that culture. The thoughts and emotions of a literate society are reflected in its writing, and I found that by experiencing (reading) a variety of preserved texts a picture of the society could surface. I found a lot of surprises.
For example, one of the historical periods visited in Eclipsed by Shadow is ancient Rome. There’s no shortage of writing from our Roman ancestors, but there is a profusion of literary works of quality during the late Republic and early days of Empire. The first “novel,” Satyricon, was written then, and also the historical works of the great chronicler Tacitus. Reading facts about Rome along with works of Romans themselves reveals their world in a new and authentic way—through the eyes of our ancestors.
I learned how Rome grew as a new idea in the hearts of man: one of shared citizenship and the power of harmony. This early melting pot of foreign peoples was gradually corrupted by ongoing appeal to military virtues and primacy of commerce. Well, that’s a bit foreboding.
Tacitus was a former Consul who lived through nine emperors; he wrote bravely as his world was descending into debased madness that eventually ended in annihilation. Western civilization—the one I live in—literally died once before. If I’d been taught this history, I didn’t fully appreciate it in those terms.
I hope that my research provides the reader with something valuable and different in their knowledge of the world. The experience changed me. History is not always what it seems, and it is certainly not a closed book.
Eclipsed by Shadow begins a horseback ride from pre-historic times back to modern day. This first volume of the trilogy The Legend of the Great Horse starts a journey through civilization.
If you enjoy horses this will be a fun book because horses are the hero. The main character is a young, enthusiastic rider. The story follows Meagan as she visits different historical cultures and experiences how horses were a part of the day.
If you like learning while you read something fun, this is a book you should enjoy. Whether or not you have interest in horses, consider taking a journey across cultures from prehistoric man to present day. You will become immersed in the development of humankind from a bestial brute to modern man.
If you like historical fiction, this book was written for you! Each of the fourteen time periods traveled are well-researched and detailed. The characters are lively and accurate to period, creating a worthwhile and page-turning journey through history. Please check out the book’s website for more information and reviews.
If you enjoy literary works, you may especially wish to explore this title. The First Chapter gives a sample of the story. Reading time is precious and books must be selected carefully, so please do check out the book’s website for awards, reviews and other information to help you decide!
LIBRARY JOURNAL RECOMMENDS “ECLIPSED BY SHADOW”
MAY 15, 2008 | The following is a pre-publication review of Eclipsed by Shadow from Library Journal.
» See full Review
Publishing Date: Summer 2008
Reviewer: Jackie Cassada | Library Journal
“Belongs in most libraries’ adult and YA collections”
Veteran horseman Royce combines history and myth with action and adventure to create a fast-paced, well-informed tale of a flying horse and the young girl who loves her.
Following the birth of a palomino foal, 12-year-old Meagan names the young horse Promise, and an uncommon bond forms between the two. Told by an elderly woman that Promise is one of the legendary Great Horses, Meagan flees with Promise through time after she discovers that others want Promise for themselves.
This series opener should appeal to fans of equestrian novels as well as historic fantasy and belongs in most libraries’ adult and YA collections.
Established in 1876, Library Journal is the largest trade publication for American libraries, and gives selected pre-publication reviews of upcoming books published each month.
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Eclipsed by Shadow is the first book of the new trilogy, The Legend of the Great Horse, arriving this Summer 2008 with a fresh and original look at the colorful role of horses in civilization.
Further information about this entertaining and educational novel can be found at www.TheGreatHorse.com. For questions or other requests, please contact:
Robert Hall
R_Hall@MicronPress.com
Micron Press | Marketing Director
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