From My Fantasy Writing Desk
As I progress on the 3rd book in my Tesha series, I’m working on chapters focusing on one of the major “enemies”—the Paskans. There are many kinds of villains and foes in fiction, but sometimes the enemy is not as wrongheaded as the protagonist believes.
The Paskans are an ambiguous foe sometimes in this series. They do decidedly terrible things, for sure. As villains they endanger characters I (and my readers) care about. They bring war to the doorstep of my heroes. But they also have a cause that rings sympathetic in some ways, and that’s getting even clearer as I write.
The Paskans want their homeland back. They are made up of small, loosely associated tribal groups who are up against a world-dominating empire. Independence and freedom to live as one wants, ruled by one’s own laws or customs is a theme most readers rally behind.
So writing my Paskans up close, as I’m about to do in the upcoming chapters, is tricky. Even though my main characters, Tesha, Hattu, Daniti and Marak, screw up regularly, they are smart and capable of morally fair decisions, so they can’t be oblivious to this moral ambiguity. All of which makes these chapters intriguing and subtle to write. The Paskans remain existential enemies to them, but maybe the worst enemies are those we also admire or sympathize with. The trouble this will brew! Hopefully I can capture the complexity. We’ll see.
Updating History
Since I based my Paskans on a historical people known as the Kaskans, I have done some freshening up of my knowledge of them before starting this thread of the manuscript. Hittite studies is constantly expanding and shifting. I have to work at it to keep up. When I first wrote about these people, almost nothing was published/known. I worked largely from comparative nomadic/pastoral peoples of later date in the region.
Amongst many other articles analyzing the Kaskans, I read an interesting theory. Loosely put, the theory states that the Kaskans are not the “invading barbarians” they were characterized as in the only texts we have, written by Hittite officials. They didn’t arrive from somewhere else or arise as a new foe from some external source. Nope.
The theory suggests that the Hittite empire created them as foes through its own intrusive, overweening policies. That is, the Hittite empire, its rulers and officials, turned the peaceable people of a particular region into intractable enemies they had to fight continuously for the rest of the empire’s existence.
Imperialist policies, ancient and modern, have a way of doing this. It’s hard for a society to recognize that, as a collective culture or government, it might have made its worst enemy out of groups who never needed to be that. It’s also hard to sort this out for my historically-grounded but nonetheless fictional Tesha and crew. All of this is great food for thought as I write. Honestly, I’m not sure where I’m going with all this, but I’m going.
Archaeology I Enjoyed
Knock knock. Who’s behind Tut’s tomb?
Philip Pikart
The mystery continues. What lies behind Tutankhamun’s tomb? Radar survey and other tests have given tantalizing clues toward a guess. Nefertiti’s tomb may be hidden behind Tut’s. Or perhaps Tut’s wife or some other princess. There is great controversy over whether an empty chamber lies behind Tut’s tomb or just solid bedrock. A new radar survey is again pointing to a yes.
At some point, if the evidence persuades the right officials, there will be the big question, what next? Digging through Tut’s walls would destroy the paintings of his tomb, so getting to what’s behind will be a large technological challenge. The likelihood is high that the tomb, if it is there, would be untouched and magnificent. Click here for Nature “Is this Nefertiti’s tomb? Radar clues reignite debate over hidden chambers”
The Real Wonder Woman
Amazon women warriors on the Russian steppes? It seems so. These are Scythian warriors, part of a matriarchal culture that does serve as inspiration for many popular figures from Xena to Gal Godot’s Wonder Woman. “An archaeological dig in the Eastern region of Voronezh, Russia, has unearthed an incredible discovery: a group of ancient burial pits with four women entombed with spears, headdresses, and other objects pointing to the existence of real-life Amazon warriors.” The photos are impressive in this Artnet News post. Intriguing and great fun. Click here for Artnet News “Archaeologists Just Discovered the Bones, Weapons, and Headdresses of Four Real-Life Amazon Warriors in Russia”