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Today I have an author post by Rowena Cory Daniells :) Oh and many reviews of her books can be found in my archive ;)
The Rabbit Hole of Research
Research is a slippery slope. Can you ever do too much research? And how much research is procrastination?
Back in the days before the internet opened the world to us, confirming a fact or discovering what an obscure piece of medieval armour actually looked like was very challenging. Now you can put a word into google and find anything. If, like me, you are fascinated by the world in all its complexity, it is very easy to disappear down the rabbit hole of research.
For instance in the King Rolen’s Kin series there are things called seeps, places where power seeps up from deep inside the earth. They attract beasts with affinity for power and they can ‘infect’ people, triggering Affinity in them.
To control these seeps, the abbeys use sorbt stones. One type of stone absorbs Affinity and by gathering many of these stones you can drain a seep. But then you have the problem of power (think radiation) seeping out of the stones and infecting those around it. So the abbeys also have a second type of sorbt stone which is called a sealer stone. When placed with the first stone it seals in the power (a bit like a battery) so that the two stones can be carried around and the power used when it is needed.
Sometimes you can even kill a power-worker with innate Affinity, by placing a large sorbt stone close to them while they sleep and their guard is down. It will absorb their power and if they don’t wake in time, they will end up in a coma leading to death.
I rather like the idea of these stones but I had to describe them so I needed to know what they looked like.
This is where the research starts. I find no matter how inventive I have been in my stories, the real world is even richer.
Since there are a lot of extinct and not so extinct volcanoes in the KRK world, I thought the stones should have a basis in real world geology so I researched volcanic stone and came across Pele’s Tears.
Named after the Hawaiian fire goddess of volcanoes, these stones made of volcanic glass also come in fine strands that are called Pele’s hair.
Beautiful and amazing. Honestly, you could not make this up.
Apache Tears have a touching creation story. According to the myth, Apache warriors facing certain death fighting the US cavalry, chose to ride their horses off a mountain rather than be killed. The stones were formed when the wives and families of the dead warriors wept for them.
Just by googling for information on volcanic stones I now have beautiful visuals and a story that inspires me.
So these were my inspiration for the sorbt stones.
But there are also sorbt stones which are very rare and can be used to focus Affinity power. I chose jade because it is an interesting stone, coming in different colours and qualities. Naturally, if you have something so rare and valuable, people will try to create fakes. Since we are talking about storing power or using a variety of sorbt stone to control Affinity beasts, slipping in a fake could lead to death.
At one point the mage’s agent has to check what appears to be a sorbt stone, but turns out to be a soap stone. You can test jade by wrapping a hair around then set fire to the hair. If the hair burns it is not jade, as real jade absorbs heat. So this is the test the character uses to determine if unscrupulous traders have tried to replace rare sorbt stones with fakes.
It is little details like this that I find fascinating in real life and in books. So I like to include these details, adapted to fit the narrative in my own stories.
Rowena’s King Rolen’s Kin series is being re-released to launch the Solaris Classics line with lovely upgraded covers. The four books come out a month apart, and The King’s Bastard is already out. As a bonus, the e-book novella, The King’s Man, has been printed in the back of books two.
