How a Fever Leads to a New World

I love telling the story of what inspired Scent of Salvation because it shows how twisted my mind is. LOL

Both my sons were very ill with strep throat. Fever for days. When one was awake, the other was asleep, and vice versa. In other words, I had slept no more than a few hours in days. I felt like the Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and antibiotic dispensing machine.

About two in the morning, I had both boys in one bed so I could watch them together. My oldest’s fever was raging and I was waiting anxiously for the meds to kick in or I’d have to place him in a cool bath. Again. I was sitting on the floor and rested my head on the mattress and fell asleep.

In a matter of minutes, I dreamt of this whole world filled with vampires, shifters, dragons, incubi, etc. except no humans. I spent the next few months writing what I’d dreamed in over minutes.

Susan, a human tossed from our world to this one, is faced with Sorin’s sick wolf shifter pack. He offers her sanctuary within his small, poor den if she saves his people, but this world hasn’t developed technologically as ours has. There’s no Walgreens where Susan can get an antibiotic or supplies to create a vaccine. She has rock and fire and her knowledge as a prominent scientist to save this suffering pack.

I know how Susan felt as I watched my children suffer, waiting for the meds to take effect. I’m so thankful that I had those medicines in the first place. I doubt either of my boys would have survived without them. By the way, my boys were fine. Thank goodness for antibiotics. :D

Love blooms across species, culture, and time.

Chronicles of Eorthe, Book 1

Stranded in another dimension, on a primitive version of Earth, Dr. Susan Barlow needs to find a way to survive. There’s no electricity, no cities, and to her shock, no humans. Instead, she faces a population of werewolves, vampires and incubi. The people are vicious but she must find her place among them. And live.

An illness is killing Sorin’s pack. As alpha it’s his responsibility to save them, but it’s a battle this warrior doesn’t know how to fight. Then a blue light in the sky brings a creature he’s never seen. She calls herself human, but to him she smells like hope.

Sorin offers Susan a safe haven in return for a cure, but she’s not that kind of a doctor. She’s a doctor of physics, not a physician. Yet as they search for a cure to save a dying people, they find something special—each other.

But even with Sorin’s protection, Susan can’t help but wonder how long she can survive in a world without humans…

Warning: Feral shifters, power-hungry vampires, and a sole human female suffering culture shock.

EXCERPT

Annie Nicholas

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Healer Week -- Cure Heavy Wounds

Ah, healers. Anybody who’s ever played a Dungeons & Dragons or other roleplaying game can tell you how essential it is to have a healer in the adventure party along with a thief, some fighters, and a mage. D & D healers could usually fight a little, too, but their primary usefulness came from casting all those Cure Light Wounds and Cure Heavy Wounds spells on their fallen comrades. They were necessary, but I never felt the urge to play one. Perhaps because the healing spells always sounded so boring. Perhaps, because in codifying the rules for easy play and reducing life-threatening injuries to ‘hit points’, they sucked all the life-and-death drama away from healing.

D & D made healing too easy. A healer/cleric character simply called upon their deity and was instantly granted the ability to magically heal a certain number of times a day depending on the character’s level.

And yet, conversely, fantasy novels that relied only on medieval types of healing such a herbal medicine often frustrated me. They were too hard, too limited. I grew tired of willowbark tea. I craved the endless possibilities and sense of wonder that magic could bring.

So I combined the two: magical healing with a price.

 In my novels, Gate to Kandrith and Soul of Kandrith, Lance is a healer. Like a D & D cleric, his power derives from Loma, the Goddess of Mercy. His healing can do wondrous things, but his path is anything but easy. He pays a heavy price for the ability. The exact nature of the price he pays is a spoiler, but I will say the original title of book one was Sacrifice. :)

Having a healer character opened up a whole world of plot possibilities. Characters made different choices than they would have otherwise. 

 

When Lance regained his composure, he rejoined the others. They were arguing about how to free Sara—the key had been lost—and getting nowhere.

Sara listened, saying nothing. Wenda, Marcus and Esam talked over and around Sara as if she were a lump of rock. Unable to stand it, Lance interrupted Marcus’s speculation on where they might find blacksmith tools. “Sara, what do you think we should do?”

The others fell silent.

“You could leave me here,” Sara said, as if it were obvious.

Wenda flushed—the thought had obviously occurred to her.

“Never,” Lance swore vehemently.

“Then use a sword.” Sara’s expression was completely unperturbed, as if what she was suggesting was easy. Lance wished he could take it as a sign of faith in him, rather than indifference.

“Who has the sharpest blade? Marcus?” Lance asked.

Marcus handed Lance his sword.

Lance tested the edge. An axe would have been better for shearing bone, but this would have to do.

He raised the sword, then moved it down in a swift cut, severing Sara’s forearm just above the manacle.

Blood spurted everywhere, including—curse it!—into the stone mouth. Fortunately, the Dark God didn’t wake. It had lost two priests in quick succession and must be hurting. Sara watched the whole procedure calmly, neither flinching nor screaming.

“God of Death,” Marcus swore. The hardened legionnaire looked sickened as Lance handed him back his sword.

Grimly, Lance pulled Sara’s severed hand out of the shackle, then rejoined it to her wrist. “Goddess,” he prayed. Loma answered his prayer. The two pieces of flesh melted together into an arm once more.

What are some of your favourite healing scenes from fantasy novels?  

And don't forget, there's still time to enter the rafflecopter draw for a bundle of fantasy ebooks featuring healers!

Healer Week and One Thousand Kisses

Over the next week at HERE BE MAGIC, we're going to be talking about healers. Magical healers, technologically advanced healers, contemporary healers -- those who diagnose and treat our ailments and bind our wounds have a special place in many human cultures, be those cultures imaginary or real. From medicine men to surgeons to AIs with a medical bent, healers have also played many significant roles in the fiction we write at HERE BE MAGIC. We'll be hearing about healer characters from Angela Highland, Shawna Reppert, Nicole Luiken, and Annie Nicholas, among others -- and anyone is welcome to chime in in the comments.

We'll also be hearing about a healer character I wrote. Anisette, the heroine of One Thousand Kisses, a 2011 release (http://jodywallace.com/books/one-thousand-kisses/), is a fairy princess whose magical skills are honed in the area of medicine. One approach might have been, in a realm where most of the characters can use magic, to make everyone able to heal--devaluing the skill that my readers would be used to valuing. What kind of society would develop when everyone was able to heal him or herself?

While that's potentially interesting (maybe some day!), I chose the more common route of having in-depth healing skills be rare and prized. As an unusually powerful fairy, Anisette's skills in healing could assure her a comfortable lifestyle and fulfilling work. However, she found herself torn between the path she'd been raised to follow in the fairy government and her preference for healing, medical research, and...avoiding politics. Yep, I started Anisette as the stereotypical kind, pacifist, sweet-natured archetypal female healer character so prevalent in SF/F and SF/F romances.

Not a virgin, though. I didn't go that far!

Either way, she didn't get to stay in her comfortable stereotype. I paired her with a hero, Embor, who had a very involved role in fairy politics. The co-president, in fact. Embor, who never liked to admit that he was in need of a healer's touch, knew Anisette was likely his "bondmate" -- the fairy with whom one's magical power increases instead of decreases should one choose to have children -- but didn't know how to tell her. Especially considering Anisette didn't like him much.

A fey cat proceeded to nudge them into a desperate adventure to save both their lives and the fairy realm itself, but most of their journey took place in the human world, where Anisette's healing powers wouldn't work and Embor wasn't president.

What if your best talent, the ability for which you felt you were most useful, was suddenly taken away from you? How would you function? How could you save the day? Anisette had to delve into her true potential after her magic faded and her life seemed destined to end up anywhere but where she'd always thought it would.

Would she end up a healer? A politician? Or something else entirely?

Check back all through the week to read about the great variety of healers and approaches to medicine we'll be featuring on the blog. Make sure you show up Wednesday for a chance to win several of the books we'll be discussing!

Jody Wallace
Author, Cat Person, Amigurumist of the Apocalypse
http://www.jodywallace.com  * http://www.meankitty.com