Artifact Discovery 1

3/10/15                                       Note on artifacts

Artifacts are the magic items that make Joan Darcy & the 27 Observer a story to investigate. It's interesting to see what inter-dimensional particles do to normal everyday items. But first I should instruct what inter-dimensional particles are.

Imagine what we know about the tiniest know particles in our universe. Giant machines called particle accelerators have been built to discover what is the smallest building blocks in our universe are. The first came when electrons, protons, and neutrons. These were discovered in 1897 by J.J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. He was credited with the first discovery but many scientists have worked on expanding that knowledge since.

Over time it became clear that these small particles were not the smallest building blocks. Based on detailed observations of these tiny particles, ideas formed the there had to be either other forces controlling these three main particles or they were actually shells of even smaller particles. There were to many inconsistencies to account for all the observations in different tests. So, more powerful machines were built to destroy the particles to find what lay hidden inside.

Over time scientist have discovered a whole host of other particles inside the three main particles that make up almost everything in the universe. But it is postulated that there are more still considered missing to create the unified theory of everything.

Recently the Higgs Boson particle was discovered at CERN, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. This particle was long postulated to give all other assemblies of particles mass. What does this mean? Well, it means that the particle that provides weights to everything in the universe is also responsible to allow gravity to take hold when enough material comes together in one place, such as planets and other heavenly bodies. We stand on our planet because of this particle. The sun holds all the planets in our solar system in orbit because of this particle and it also gives black holes the power to drive entire galaxies... I could go on and on here but I think you get the idea.

So here I am writing a novel about inter-dimensional particles. I postulated, in my novel, that there are still more undiscovered particles that allow multiple universes to exist. These particles only exist in the universe they show up in. With this idea in place, where particles that can only exist in one place at one time, these universes can lay themselves over another universe and not interact with their neighbors. Therefore, if you open a worm hole in one universe, you can literally walk into another one without having to travel billions of light years to get there. The planet Solicee is our inter-dimensional neighbor and where the aliens from my novel come from.

Enough about science. Let's now turn to artifacts. In my novel, artifacts are simple devices that have been inadvertently exposed to errant inter-dimensional particles. Over time these simple devices take on a different role compared to what they were designed for. To anyone not educated in inter-dimensional particles, these items would seem to have magical properties. But my novel is about science fiction, magic doesn't hold a place here.

In book one there are five artifacts that come to light. The first is the toy telescope. Its primary purpose is to magnify a distant image to allow the individual to better see that location, ie; Cowboy's and Indian's? Pirates invading your back yard? Even bird watching... In this novel its purpose has been altered to see beyond Earth's boundary. Looking through the lens allows one to see the planet Solicee and the wonder it holds.

The second artifact is the pocket watch. The hands in this device have been re-purposed to now act like a compass and point to the nearest artifact.

The third is the mirror. This reflective surface is an actual doorway to the corresponding planet in another dimension, Solicee, if you have the key.

These three make up a primary group of artifacts. A primary group follows this simple rule, there is ever only one of each of these items. When one is destroyed, another springs into being elsewhere in the world. These three focus on artifact discovery, primarily the mirror. Owning one of these is one third the way to discovering another world.

One of the artifacts described in the book is called the key, it isn't a normal kind of key, but it is an artifact, an important one. I will discuss this artifact in more detail in another installment of Artifact Discovery.

The last is a makeup compact, the kind that opens on a hinge with a mirror to gaze into and makeup on the bottom. This is a fun artifact and central to a particular chapter later in the book. We see it introduced as a device to hide the women in brown following Joan Darcy around. When the lid is open and the subject is looking in their reflection, their image disappears to anyone who might gaze at the subject. Anyone facing the mirror and could possibly see themselves in it can see the subject. It is a device that allows the holder of the device to disappear in three quadrants only.

To make this artifact more fun I wrote in another aspect to the magic of the compact. If no one can see you holding the compact, then you are more than invisible to the reflection of natural light. You are also able to move through solid objects.

The story revolves around Joan Darcy who is without a memory of her past. Through the chapters we see that her new friends, Miranda and Milton Caldwell, discover that she is actually older than the sixteen years she portrays to everyone around her. As the story progresses, they discover that she is over three hundred years old and her time in orphanages is a way to hide her from the world.

The artifacts we discussed earlier are the devices that make Joan's life more interesting and more dangerous. Clearly her hidden history is tied to the artifacts despite Joan's inability to remember why. Milton and Miranda are becoming obsessed to discover more about Joan's life and the reasoning behind her lost memory.

Joan Darcy & the 27th Observer, The Telescope of Elsewhere, is out on Amazon Kindle, iTunes, and Smashwords. 

Joan Darcy at Amazon Kindle

Joan Darcy at iTunes

Joan Darcy at Smashwords

Artifact Discovery 2 is on the horizon. 

The beginning

April 1st, 2015

The opening text for Joan Darcy & the 27th Observer, The Telescope of Elsewhere.

The Passage of time is marked by the living memory of those witnesses who made history. Woe is thee who sought to suppress the most important memories of all time…

At 373 years old, but appearing to the world as 16, Joan Darcy struggles to find her past. All hero’s beginnings are epic. Joan’s epic beginning doesn't start at fifteen, it starts when she can remember her passage through time. When those memories come back she will not just change the world… She will save it.

Hard descisions

10/16/14


Hurray! Book 2 Part 2 is now out. Now I can Breathe?

I've already set in motion chapters for book three. But I had to make some difficult decisions as to the outcome. The first is perhaps the most obvious. In book one, The Telescope of Elsewhere, I wrote the book as a mystery. I wanted Joan to learn who she was and about her fantastic history along with the reader.

In book two, In the Eye of the Beholder, the overall pace is as an adventure. We know who most all the villains are and we are foaming at the mouth to learn how the story plays out. So I wrote this one as an adventure.

My first hard decision of book three was to keep it as an adventure, or turn it back into a mystery. So I counted on my fingers and found that if I write five books, there are three left. I know the last will be an adventure, no question there. So that leaves books three and four. Should I make them all adventures? Where all the action in on going and fast paced, or do I set up the book five, clean up books one and two in a mystery format. There is so much more that Joan must learn and to that is must come from discovery. And discovery usually means mystery.

There you have it my first hard decision is done. Book three will be a mystery and books four and five will take place as an adventure. Now on to the next hard question I need to work out, will Joan want a baby?  At 374 years old, one might think she would want one. But I think the progression of the story wouldn't allow that to happen. I think it would be fun to turn on the rumor mill about a baby though.

Finally the next book is out.

07/02/2014


I am excited that the second title in the Joan Darcy series has made it to market, In the Eye of the Beholder. There so many aspects of the book that make it a grade above the first title.The intrigue and prospect of turning a dream into a memory are what made this story so exciting for me.

But what I though was the greatest invention to insert into the story were the two characters of Ernie and Diegle. They are of a Autistic mind and together possess the mind of a truth seer, or oracle of sorts. I love how I can use them as a vehicle to usher in a specific set of events and give it a meaning apart from the characters actually talking about what is coming. Their erratic speech, in conjunction with what they are watching on television at the time, creates a sporadic connection to time and space which is what science fiction is all about.

I'm already planning encounters between with Miranda and Milton to either help the foundation fight the coming war with Gatieth. But I think I just gave away to much since the second half of book 2 has not been released yet.

Well I'm off to write some more. Keep watching!

Observing the intricacies of writing.

12/11/13

In writing this blog I have learned so much about specific differentiation's between history and memories. In penning Joan Darcy and the 27th Observer I knew up front that memories (After a specific event.) were turned into history because someone, or a scribe, notated the event in detail. Afterwards it became history. As long as the historical tome didn't fall into the hands of the next overlord who conquered their kingdom, who might burn the historical account of his predecessor, the written history of the old king would continue. Historically speaking, it was not unusual to have a conquering army rewrite history to show themselves in a favorable light. Then they waited to have the people die off so their memories wouldn't interfere with the newly written account.

The Roman's conquered Europe then changed historical records specific to why the conquering needed to be done. Interestingly enough they, as a republic, revered history. It made their form of government important to the people with libraries filled with tomes of stories about world history.

In each and every instance historical accounting relied on current memories or what was written in a book somewhere. If the book managed to finally make to a huge library then it was safe to assume that whatever portion of history was accounted for would be preserved for all time. Sometimes that didn't workout well either We all heard of the massive library at Alexandria. The consensus is that not all of that information was preserved through time. What have we lost that can never be re-inked?

But we all know that there are huge gaps in the historical record in every civilization on every continent. American Indians preserved their account through memory. Someone in each and ever tribe was chosen to use their memory to preserve their tribes history. From the beginning of their time they would have the most important historical accounts committed to memory. That was their job, their only job. They didn't hunt, cook or take a political positions within the tribe. That individual was the walking library of the tribes most important events. They taught the children history and it was important.

When writing the Joan Darcy and the 27th Observer series, I wanted to convey that memories are equally important as history books. Sometimes more. To live through a long portion of history is to be able to understand a much larger picture of what is to come in the future. So my story is about what was forgotten and not recorded somewhere. If only Joan could remember all the important parts of her life, she could understand her role in life and its importance to the world.

Those people who changed the world sometimes didn't live long enough to see what those changes turned into. Luckily there are a few who did. Nelson Mandela was one of those few who over came his trials and became a beacon of light for his people and others around the world. I'm sure the memories of his past is now well documented enough for all of us to see and understand what sacrifice truly can accomplish. I'm also sure that the short life of Joan of Arc was not fully understood for anyone to see what might have become of her extraordinary life. The accounting of her remarkable life mostly covers her trial. The remainder was taken from memories of those who knew her many years later before they died. The church was to slow to record her life shortly after death. We can thank her mother's instance that the church do something before it was to late. As much as she despised what the church allowed to happen, she knew they were the right organization to compile her daughters history. They have the ability to keep memories for all time. And that was the most important part. For if no investigation was ever made, the accounting of her short life would only exit through the trial documents. A sad culmination of recorded deceit and control.

What kind of life would Joan of Arc revealed to the world if she lived to be as old as Nelson Mandela? We will never know.

"The Passage of time is marked by the living memory of those witnesses who made history. Woe is thee who sought to suppress the most important memories of all time…."

Quote from Joan Darcy and the 27 Observer, book one, The Telescope of Elsewhere.

The Initiate

"I am the first Observer" is the opening post to this new blog. I'm trying to create an idea that we are all observers in our own time and space. We may not record everything we see, formally to a notebook or to the internet, but we are responsible to see what is going around us. I wanted to convey this idea on a young adult series because it is the young who have the most power to change the future. And it is our responsibility to tell them that.

I remember watching old movie clips where young men stood in long lines to sign up for entrance into the great war, WW1. The general feeling was that they were going out to change the world. I try to place myself into the minds of those young men as they stood in lines discussing happy thoughts about a different future they would happily contribute to, unaware of the terribleness of war.

Joan Darcy & The 27th Observer is about a similar upheaval in history except that Joan is the unknown catalyst and the events were set in motion hundreds of years in the past. I crafted the manuscript to reflect the coming change as an allegory to human change that I believe is not to far ahead in our future.

I am the first Observer

Welcome to Joan Darcy and the 27th Observer Blog. this is my very post. Who am I you may ask? I am the author of the Joan Darcy series, Patrick Meservier. On this post I will try to give inside information about upcoming selling events, background information on characters, and tidbits about the next book being written.

The image to the left is the cover art to the first book currently out in the e-book world.

The Passage of time is marked by the living memory of those witnesses who made history. Woe is thee who sought to suppress the most important memories of all time….

This is how the first book opens. It is a self quote for the story. And it's the most important, for it intimates that Joan Darcy is older that any person should be and her memories hold the clue to humanities future. Something in our past has been set in motion and will culminate in our extinction if Joan could only remember why her memories keep getting wiped clean every two years.


I am open to all kinks of comments. I want this to be an open forum on the aspects of the story for those willing to offer them.