A-to-Z Challenge Day 12: The Letter L

Helen Larkin

The Fateful Lightning

Space Corps Book 2

In the original structure of the Space Corps saga, I was modeling the stories off of the Star Trek approach insofar as they were based around starship crews with many of the same character archetypes.  The archetype I drifted away from mostly clearly was the first officer.  One of the most significant developments from The Dark Side of Space is the death of the first officer.  In The Fateful Lightning, the first officer again leaves the side of the captain (Robert Drummond, who you met on D Day).  We're talking, of course, about Helen Larkin, who leaves because she becomes a captain herself, much as we have Kirk and Hikaru Sulu helming their own ships in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  Very famously, Sulu actor George Takei was angered that a scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that would have seen his promotion a full four movies earlier was cut because William Shatner didn't find it interesting or relevant or something like that.  (To hear the actors who portrayed the minor characters in the original ensemble tell it, this was typical behavior.  They ended up hating him.)  Anyway, Sulu's eventual command, the Excelsior, is introduced in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (I've long wanted to write a whole book about Sulu's career, and it would be named after that ship).  Having Larkin suddenly in play as another captain introduced a lot of new possibilities into the Fateful Lightning narrative, and she becomes an increasingly memorable element of the story.  Part of this is interesting to me because as I've said, the original notes for Dark Side of Space included multiple captains, and this is something that ended up happening of its own accord in the notes for the next book in the sequence.  I didn't consciously make this decision.  It just happened.

Lies

Yoshimi Trilogy

This is not a name or a place but rather a concept you are no doubt familiar with yourself.  It's the idea of not telling the truth.  That's something warrior orphan Yoshimi discovers is more prevalent in the world than she might have first believed, and the lies she discovers are big ones.  When I referenced Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before, this is exactly what I meant.  Lies play a big part in J.K. Rowling's overall story about the boy wizard, including the establishment Ministry of Magic wanting to hide the return of Voldemort because words of his continuing existence would damage its credibility.  (You can quibble whether or not the Ministry was lying to itself if you'd like, but you don't just ignore Albus Dumbledore.  And for whatever reason, that's exactly what the Ministry chose to do.  It would be like telling Merlin to shut up.  Anyway, I could write a whole book about that, too.)  If you know the lies and their significance in Prisoner of Azkaban, the sense of family and betrayal and depth they add, then you know most of the reason I wrote about Yoshimi at all.

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Weather happened yesterday.  So the Red Sox didn't.  What's up with the weather, folks?  Some of you may know about this relapse of winter that struck recently.  It sucks.

The Angels lost.  The A's won.  (They're doing awesome!  9-2!)

The Cardinals won!