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Book II: The Golden Spark – Adventure Finds Young Horsewoman Lost in History

A fun and unique “creative non-fiction” story for adults and teens, The Golden Spark follows the struggles of a young woman carried unwillingly through the Renaissance, who uses her knowledge of modern horsemanship to survive.

Here is the final publication Media Release for The Golden Spark – Book II of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy … being issued this Tuesday! [PDF]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robert Hall
Email: R_Hall@MicronPress.com

ADVENTURE FINDS HORSEWOMAN LOST IN HISTORY

Book Two continues ‘The Legend of the Great Horse’

BOSTON, MA April 5, 2011 | Micron Press is pleased to announce publication of The Golden Spark, the 2nd book of the award-winning time-travel trilogy, The Legend of the Great Horse by John Royce. The book continues the journey of a modern-day teenager lost in history, delivering an entertaining adventure for horse-lovers … and those who don’t know a saddle from a bridle!

A fun and unique “creative non-fiction” story for adults and teens (Ages 14+), The Golden Spark follows the struggles of a young woman carried unwillingly through the time of the Renaissance through early 1800’s, who uses her knowledge of modern horsemanship to survive.

Book II: The Golden Spark is the sequel to Eclipsed by Shadow, John Royce’s debut title which won the Eric Hoffer Award and a top recommendation by Library Journal. This well-informed, wholesome series illustrates the importance of horsemanship in our past and offers a positive message for today.

Available through bookstores and major online booksellers. For more information, please visit TheGreatHorse.com.

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The Golden Spark and other books of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy offer an exciting adult-level “horse story” for the kid in all of us!

“History teaching curriculum failing pupils”

One reason “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy is a worthwhile read is its exploration of history in chronological order — with time lines before each new era — as it traces the development in horsemanship in civilization.

A new report from the UK has found students are being ill-served by ‘a curriculum which does not give them a “chronological understanding” of the subject.’

History teaching fails to give pupils proper view of the past, says watchdog:

The Ofsted report said many primary and secondary pupils are being let down by a curriculum which does not give them a “chronological understanding” of the subject …

Schoolchildren fail to grasp how events in history are linked because the subject is taught in “episodes”, an official report has warned….

A “fundamental weakness” in primary schools was that some teachers “did not teach to establish a clear mental map of the past for pupils”.

One reason “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy is a worthwhile read is its exploration of history in chronological order — with time lines before each new era — as it traces the development in horsemanship in civilization.

The books of the trilogy convey accurate history in a fun and engaging story …  the books give readers solid overview of history as they ride along with an exceptionally well-written and intelligent literary tale. (For ages 14 and up)

The 3 Rules of “The Great Horse”

The Three (3) Rules of The Great Horse (aka “3 Great Rules”) are derived from legends and (possibly apocryphal) history associated with the supernatural equine manifestation herein and heretofore described as “The Great Horse.”

These guidelines have been issued by The Bridgestone Institute in the interest of protecting generally innocent but unwary victims, by assisting in the identification of any suspected “Great Horse” (or “Horses”) … and specifically to rescue one such individual, Meagan Roberts, who vanished from a suburb of California in June of 2001 and is currently considered quite hopelessly lost.

The Three (3) Rules of The Great Horse (aka “3 Great Rules”) are derived from legends and (possibly apocryphal) history associated with the supernatural equine manifestation herein and heretofore described as “The Great Horse.”

Rule #1
(alternative labeling: The Great Horse Rule Numero Uno)

The Great Horse is born at dawn.

Rule #2
(aka the Bucephalus Rule, or bronco-loco-mojo-juju)

No one may ride a Great Horse
without the owner’s permission.

Rule #3
(otherwise known as “the Bummer Clause”)

No one but the owner of the Great Horse
will believe the legend.

–

* Available information is admittedly scant, being virtually (and actually) limited to words the above, and no ascertainment of its validity or usefulness will be described. – The Bridgestone Institute Law Office

The BookExpo America (BEA) Experience

There aren’t many venues in which authors are the main attraction, and participating as the winner of the 2010 Mom’s Choice Award for YA Fantasy (for “Eclipsed by Shadow”) gave me a place to be and experienced veterans to learn from.

The recent BookExpo America (BEA) convention in New York City was the year’s largest book and publishing convention. This was my first time attending the frantic blur of 1500 exhibits and 30,000 people, and I have a few impressions to share.

First, the BEA was a networking dream/nightmare, a drinking-from-a-firehose experience of shaking hands and fumbling out “pitches” while exchanging business cards with smiling strangers. It took me several days to recover from the shock of being serially nice and cheerful, and will take me several weeks to follow up with everyone I met. I never thought being a writer would be such a social calling. I’m learning.

Second, it was fun! There aren’t many venues in which authors are the main attraction, and participating as the winner of the 2010 Mom’s Choice Award for YA Fantasy (for “Eclipsed by Shadow”) gave me a place to be and experienced veterans to learn from.

Third, and what surprised me most, was that the BEA was a readers’ event. The excitement coming from the public crowding the author signings and book giveaways gave the event an almost rock-concert atmosphere. It was not the usual thing for the book events I’ve been to, and a sign that perhaps the reports of the decline of reading might not be, if not greatly exaggerated, at least illumined with hope for the future.

That is what we’re after, isn’t it?

I’m very much in the hope business myself, though I lose sight of it. The BEA gave me a valuable reminder that reading is still a love – and alive! – for so many.

Equestrian Sport and the Next Generation

My 5-year-old niece watched the Rolex Kentucky 3-Day Event this weekend, and she was full of questions:

“Why are they jumping that?”

“Is that a boy or a girl horse?”

“Why do they go one at a time?”

“What’s on the horse’s legs?”

As intensely as she watched, my niece didn’t care about the teams or the scoring. She just loved seeing the horses.

We humans have had a long fascination with watching horses. Chariot racing, dressage, jousting, polo, flat racing are spectacles of past ages, and today newer sports like show jumping, reining and eventing reflect the athletic and humane partnership we’ve developed with the horse.

(This sport with cross-country jumps is still figuring out what to name itself, having been called the Military, horse trials, 3-Day, combined training, and — the name that seems to be winning — Eventing.)

Of course, horses are not part of our everyday lives as in the past. The challenge for equestrian sport today is to explain itself, to welcome the public to enjoy the beauty and excitement of horsemanship.

Probably few people could have guessed 100 years ago, as the horse was being released from the plow and carriage, that a future generation would be still be watching horses — on a box of moving pictures, no less — asking the same questions they had once asked.

Horses and the Dark Ages of Man

Horses may have pulled and carried humanity up the long ascent from primitive cultures, but it wasn’t a straight line. Human societies have been subject to cycles of  falling away from civilized life.

“Dark age” describes the lack of historical records from these periods, such as during the Bronze Age collapse about 1200 BC, which ended the Mycenaean culture and extinguished literacy for several centuries.

The most recent “dark age” of Western culture was the approximately 1000 years after the collapse of ancient Rome, or the Middle Ages. The wonders of ancient Rome included heated public Baths,  running water and vast entertainments — the Middle Ages were marked with mud roads, illiteracy, poverty and disease.

What does this have to do with horses?

Horsemanship has been a slow road of progress from brutal subjugation to humane partnership. Understanding the horse, an excitable prey animal, has been a major exercise in empathy for human culture.

A new idea of riding was discovered by the ancient Greeks we now call dressage, which emphasizes the cooperation of the horse rather than forced submission. Dressage develops a harmonious partnership with the horse and provides greater control, balance and athleticism.

This civilized form of riding was lost during the Middle Ages; as humans reverted to illiteracy and brutality their riding became brutal as well.

It’s interesting to note that dressage was one of the earliest classical arts to be reborn in the European Renaissance. The return of humane horsemanship to the world coincided with the birth of the modern era in about the 17th century — not so long ago.

In a sense, good horsemanship is a celebration of empathy, and perhaps a barometer of its presence. Our relationship with the horse started before recorded history, but the goal of humane partnership as practiced today is only a few centuries old!

“The horse hijacked the novel…”

It seems to me the world belongs to those who have time to think … will the texting, tweeting future allow us commoners that luxury?

A fine and well-established writer, Robert Olmstead, spoke in Nantucket, MA this past January about his novel “Coal Black Horse.” Two things struck me about his work.

I related to the “excessive” time it took him to write. “For 10 years my mother and my brother would ask me what I was doing and I would say ‘writing.’ They would ask if I was working on the same book and I would say yes. I felt pathetic.”

My own work, The Legend of the Great Horse took that much time, and yes I felt embarrassed about it after the first few years. (Years! How many tweets could I have done?) I was doing quite of bit of research, since the Great Horse deals with history, but it was the writing — or more the re-writing — that filled every moment I could give it.

Is book-writing becoming impractical?

More importantly, is book reading becoming an anachronism? Life seems to have sped up into a facebook news stream, blurbs and tweets and advertising  combining into a time-consuming torrent of steadily less meaning.

A happier thought was something else Olmstead said: “The horse started out as a way for the boy to get where he needed to go, and the horse hijacked the novel…”

Now, I could have warned him ’bout that.

“The Legend of the Great Horse” is not about horses

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is filled with horses galloping through history — but the story is not about horses. It is about us: for it is ourselves we find in horses, for better or worse.

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is filled with horses galloping through history — but the story is not only about horses. It is about us.

Horses are strange and fascinating creatures, but it their adaptation to our endeavors that bring them into our world. And of course, it is humans who take the prize for strangeness.

It is humanity that put armies of thundering, gleaming chariots in the service of ancient empires … and we ourselves who built the Circuses of Rome to race those chariots in the madness of the world’s first major spectator sport. We were the ones who decked our mounts with leather, armor and gold, charged them into battle, elevated our partnership into art and were inspired by their beauty and power.

We have been entertained and healed and recreated by the horse … we have shared in his speed and strength. Yet Nature remains Nature, brought higher by our good works or brought to destruction by our brutality; the horse remains a horse, always. It is ourselves we find in horses, for better or worse.

History may be seen as a record of bad ideas improved upon, then forgotten, and relearned again. Mankind has suffered countless dark ages, and it is ourselves who slowly reclaim the good ideas of the past; and then forget why. The horse has been only our silent witness, an innocent participant in man’s follies, waiting patiently for us to learn and remember once more.

The Wonderful Strangeness of Horses

Book II of my fiction trilogy about horses and history is being published soon. So why did I write about horses?

The main reason is they teach us about the world, and they’re lots of fun. Here are some reasons I think horses are an interesting subject:

Horses have always been with us

Since Stone Age man first put paint to rock, horses have fascinated and assisted mankind in some capacity: for food, weight-bearing, load-pulling, travel, status, inspiration, therapy, sports, recreation, gambling, war … it’s amazing how many roles the horse has taken.

The horse and our partnership is filled with paradoxes

So much of life isn’t what it seems and horses are no exception. For example:

– A timid prey animal, the horse was history’s most feared engine of war.

– A humble servant, the horse ennobles mankind.

– A century after engines made the horse “obsolete,” there are more horses than ever before.

– Horses can gallop miles with a human on its back and pull tons of weight, but can perish of a missed feeding.

(And they let people ride them!)

Horses haven’t much changed since the Olden Days

Horses have been tamed, but they retain their basic character and instincts. Prehistoric man could have raised a prehistoric colt, put a saddle on him and trained him to gallop and jump. What is the difference between then and now?

It took thousands of years to learn to ride horses (and we seem to have forgotten several times). I wonder why it took so long to figure out … unless we had to change…