#3- Meagan’s father, Tom

“Tom would not have considered himself a horse-lover …. Still, he had come to appreciate the solemn tranquility the presence of a horse creates.” —excerpted from Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of ‘The Legend of the Great Horse’ trilogy (p. 1)

Tom would not have considered himself a horse-lover. In fact, most family arguments were over the time and money spent on horses. Still, he had come to appreciate the solemn tranquility the presence of a horse creates. He remembered a quote from one of Meagan’s horse books, a passage written more than two thousand years ago by an ancient Greek general: “If such a majestic beast is subordinate to our will, then surely man is master of the world.” Tom thought the old man had it exactly right.

He had become used to the old girl, watching Moose shadowbox on cold mornings, kicking and running from unseen enemies. He smiled to remember the mare’s contortions to snip a blade of grass beneath the fence while ignoring a full rack of hay; or of Meagan presenting Moose with a paperclip or other harmless object, and watching the massive horse back away in alarm, only to return curiously with neck outstretched, sniffing, a picture of foolishness. It impressed him that the immense, powerful animal possessed the gentlest of spirits.

Copyright © 2008 John Royce

The above excerpt is from “Home,” the 1st section of Eclipsed by Shadow, and is set in modern-day California. (p. 12 Hbk)

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is an adventure through history … each section is about a different time period.

Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of the trilogy) won national awards including the Eric Hoffer Award for best Young Adult Fiction, and the Mom’s Choice Award for best family-friendly Young Adult Fantasy.

__________

Quick Links:

» See All Excerpts from The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.

» Read the 1st Chapter online.

» Check out Book #2 of the trilogy: The Golden Spark.

» See the Media Kit for more information about the trilogy.

Check out the trilogy’s page on Facebook!

#2- Meagan’s first love, Moose

“Meagan had loved the huge mare since her second birthday, when she had been held up on Moose’s wide back, terrified and grabbing fistfuls of mane, crying to be taken off immediately and put back on forever.” —excerpted from Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of ‘The Legend of the Great Horse’ trilogy (p.1)

In modern-day California of 2001 …

The pregnant mare’s formal name was Bright Lights, but she was called Moose for her bay coat and rambling gait. Meagan had loved the huge mare since her second birthday, when she had been held up on Moose’s wide back, terrified and grabbing fistfuls of mane, crying to be taken off immediately and put back on forever.

“Moose?” Meagan turned on the barn’s dim lights. The cool morning air was silent. Of course, she did not really believe the foal had come in the night: the veterinarian said it was still too soon. As with all the other mornings, she expected to find Moose munching her hay contentedly, enormous and alone in her stall.

» Finish reading Chapter One of Eclipsed by Shadow

Copyright © 2008 John Royce

The above excerpt is from “Home,” the 1st section of Eclipsed by Shadow, and is set in modern-day California. (p. 1 Hbk)

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is an adventure through history … each section is about a different time period.

Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of the trilogy) won national awards including the Eric Hoffer Award for best Young Adult Fiction, and the Mom’s Choice Award for best family-friendly Young Adult Fantasy.

__________

Quick Links:

» See All Excerpts from The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.

» Read the 1st Chapter online.

» Check out Book #2 of the trilogy: The Golden Spark.

» See the Media Kit for more information about the trilogy.

Check out the trilogy’s page on Facebook!

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.

#1- The story begins, and we meet Meagan

“MEAGAN AWOKE WITH a start and sat upright in bed. The dream had come again. The dream of the flying horse.” —excerpted from Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of ‘The Legend of the Great Horse’ trilogy (p. 1)

In modern-day California of 2001 …

MEAGAN AWOKE WITH a start and sat upright in bed. The dream had come again. The dream of the flying horse.

Early light was outlining the window blinds. Meagan threw back her sheets and dressed quietly, as it was summer vacation and her parents preferred to sleep through dawn. She tiptoed out of her room and down the hardwood stairs to the kitchen. Closing the back door gently, she slipped though the pasture fence and raced into the backyard.

Auburn-haired and with a streak of tomboy, Meagan Roberts was not an unusual girl of twelve—except for the lucky fact that her family kept horses. (Actually, they only kept one horse, an aged mare, but very soon it would be two.) Hay and pine shavings greeted her at the backyard stable’s entrance, in her opinion the best smells in the world.

» Read Chapter One of Eclipsed by Shadow online

Copyright © 2008 John Royce

Next excerpt: “Meagan’s first love, Moose” »
The above excerpt is from “Home,” the 1st section of Eclipsed by Shadow, and is set in modern-day California. (p. 1 Hbk)

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is an adventure through history … each section is about a different time period.

Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of the trilogy) won national awards including the Eric Hoffer Award for best Young Adult Fiction, and the Mom’s Choice Award for best family-friendly Young Adult Fantasy.

__________

Quick Links:

» See All Excerpts from The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.

» Read the 1st Chapter online.

» Check out Book #2 of the trilogy: The Golden Spark.

» See the Media Kit for more information about the trilogy.

Check out the trilogy’s page on Facebook!

2010 BookExpo of America

The Book Expo of America (BEA) begins today at the Javits Center in New York City. This three day convention is the largest publishing event in North America.

Author John Royce will be participating in the event as a winner of the Mom’s Choice Award for best Young Adult Fantasy. His debut title, “Eclipsed by Shadow | The Legend of the Great Horse ~ Book I of III” also won the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.

“The Golden Spark,” the second book of “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy is to be published in October 2010.

Advance review copies will be made available at the Book Expo.

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.