Blog from Lubbock, Texas, Author Duane Simolke.
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah
Terry Tang with the Associated Press discusses an Indigenous Marvel Comics anthology. A tweet about Sons of Taldra is embedded in the article, which appears in The Grio.
Sons of Taldra: A Science Fiction Adventure.
“A major voice not only in American literature but also in the LGBTQ genre.”
We thought the aliens wouldn’t find us. We thought we could trust the Maintainers. We were wrong.
The Iroquois scientist Taldra became Leader of our world a year before the alien shapeshifters attacked. Her twin gay sons, Telius and Argen, will rally to her side.
Telius, a former time traveler, wants to marry his boyfriend, a former spy. Argen, a prodigy with a troubled past, modifies a handsome captain’s vessel for the battle.
Our world’s other protectors hold dark secrets that might pose an even greater threat than the invaders.
Taldra: Two Science Fiction Adventures at Amazon (print and eBook).
Taldra: Two Science Fiction Adventures at Smashwords.
Add Taldra to Your Goodreads Reading List.
Taldra Music Video Playlist:
Feed My Reads Interview with Taldra.
Taldra Discussion in Two Gay Geeks Webcast.
Instagram Book Promotion: Taldra.
Instagram @caty.books: Taldra.
BookPromotions BookTok: Taldra.
BookTok: My Meet Taldra Video.
“Creative and unique.” —R.L. Wood. Read this SciFi Book Review.
“I hope to see more by this author.” —Emily. Read this SciFi Book Review.
“The writing is imaginative and makes you think, adding depth to the tale.” —Rella B. Read this SciFi Book Review.
“Edge-of-your-seat action, scenes that detail the turmoil and terror of an alien attack and an inside look at love and acceptance for humanity’s differences.” —Dianne at Tome Tender. Read this SciFi Book Review.
“A highly-imaginative sci-fi adventure. Simolke’s alternate universe hits all the right notes between the fantastic and the believable. There is a dizzying and impressive array of ideas that permeate this novel. Taldra is a great sci-fi read, especially for those who enjoy history and religion mixed in with technology. This is one story where all three blend seamlessly into one.” Self-Publishing Review, ★★★★ Read this SciFi Book Review.
Set in an alternate reality, the Taldra novels focus on gays, people of color, and powerful women. Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure flings an Iroquois family into a battle across time and space.
Winner, StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Award.
“A thought provoking and fun sci-fi read.” —Blogger Girls
In Sons of Taldra: A Science Fiction Adventure, alien shapeshifters and dark secrets threaten humanity.
“The most intriguing aspect of the story is controlled by emotion as relatable characters grow and brave it all together, selflessly helping each other.” —Enas Reviews
Excerpt:
Lorfeltez stopped speaking. The audience grew still and quiet. The Maintainers had arrived. They filed through the crowd like a swarm of insects, freely pushing and shoving with all the authority their office granted them, elbowing several people, and pushing a few out the doorways.
Part of the crowd disappeared, as if the weight of the entering officers forced them outside. However, many of them failed to move away in time, and the Maintainers grabbed at their collars or even punched at them, before finding the sources of the disruption.
A female Maintainer yanked the holo-projectors away, knocking them to the floor, then used the handle of her sleep rifle to destroy them, sending hot metal parts and wires everywhere. One of the wires gashed a woman’s arm, sending out a small spurt of blood. Before even noticing her, the Maintainers handcuffed all five men, even while the crowd continued to shift madly about, trying to escape. One of the Maintainers assisted the injured woman, holding his hand over the cut on her arm.
Dr. Lorfeltez saw an elderly red woman in the audience, frail to the point that she had obviously lived beyond the virus’s benefits. One of the Maintainers waved his laser pistol around to scare away the remnants of the controversial gathering. He threw the metal cylinder up in the air and let it drop glove-like around his left hand.
(Excerpt from the revised, third edition of Degranon, Copyright 2016.)
Keywords: gay marriage, love is love, LGBT, queer, POC, People of Color, Native American, Iroquois, Navajo, African American, Black, Hispanic, Latino, Latina, Asian, Middle Eastern, religion, faith, atheism, cults, diversity, DiversityInSFF, strong females, powerful women, women, alternate reality, space epic, romance, free speech, individuality, scifi, SyFy.
In an alternate reality, an Iroquois woman and her twin gay sons battle shapeshifting aliens.
Keywords: Native American, African American, Middle Eastern, strong women, gay, lesbian, LGBT, queer, scifi, diversity, alternate reality, book club, book chat.
For the sequel, Sons of Taldra, I wanted to go back and explore that race. And why not make them shapeshifters who attack Valchondria? The idea of a past encounter with shapeshifting beings in the past sounded like Native American mythology, and I found that reading more of it helped me flesh out the invaders.
Though the spelling varies, yee naaldlooshii is a Navajo term for skinwalkers; it means “with it, he goes on all fours.” These creatures can take any animal form. They have glowing eyes and actually enter into people’s bodies by looking into their eyes. Some aspects of yee naaldlooshii stories appear in the book, though I can’t discuss that too much without spoilers.
I decided to go with the name Naadloosh, singular or plural, with Yee Naaldlooshii as the name of their home world. I limited them to just a few specific forms, but they can usually change at will, like in the Navajo stories. I also added some new twists to them, but again, spoilers.
Shapeshifter tales aren’t limited to the Navajo, but their version became a strong influence on my aliens. Native American storytelling offers rich, important looks at how various tribes explored their universe. Some links follow.
Please also see Why Taldra’s Family is Iroquois and the Degranon/Sons of Taldra glossary. Read about Sons of Taldra at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.
AmericanFolklore.Net: Native American Myths
FirstPeople.US: Native American Legends
Google: yee naaldlooshii images
Native American Shape-Shifters of Myth and Legend
Native American Werewolf Legends Presents: Yee Naaldlooshii
Skinwalker - Yee Naaldlooshii - He Who Walks on Four Legs
Warpaths2Peacepies: Skinwalker
The problem with no countries is that I couldn’t refer to them as American Indians or Native Americans. And even First Nation or First People seemed a little off, though I considered them. Many Native peoples use those terms, but many other people wouldn’t recognize them. I settled for calling Taldra’s family (and many other characters) red-skinned. It worked for most readers, but some asked “As in red paint”? I didn’t mean it as racist in any way, and it’s a term many Natives use, so that wasn’t a problem, but it still didn’t quite get the idea across.
For Sons of Taldra, I went more into Taldra’s background and decided she is Iroquois. That didn’t conflict with anything in the first book, since I had never identified her lineage. More on that choice in a moment.
When I wrote the fifteenth anniversary edition of Degranon, I added references to other Native nations as well. I decided Taldra’s spouse was mostly Iroquois but with a dash of Navajo. The Navajo provide some of the mythology for Sons of Taldra, as I discuss in the blog entry The Navajo Influences on the Aliens in Sons of Taldra.
Back to my choice. The tribes of the Iroquois federation (Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca) have lived in the New York area for centuries, so that works with Taldra being a member, and with her son Telius encountering Iroquois on the other side of the temporal doorway. My alternate reality might establish them even earlier than real life, though, and it has them consolidated into a single Iroquois tribe, instead of just sharing the Iroquois language.
The Iroquois are a largely matrilineal culture, while the Taldra novels feature strong women throughout, often in leadership roles. Those parallels helped me make the characters come alive.
Though it’s a long-running debate, many people believe the Iroquois Constitution influenced the US Constitution. Some links about that topic follow in the list of resources below. That appealed to me because the Taldra novels focus so much on the Valchondrian government, with Taldra becoming Leader and impacting its laws. So, even if readers might disagree over the historical accuracy of that influence, it still resonates as part of my world-building.
I won’t explore it until the upcoming novel Argen, but I imagine events took place that caused the varied Iroquois to unite as one people under a Constitution. Other people travelled there from lands they sometimes referred to as North and South Turtle (North and South America, adapted via Native terminology). As Valcine became a trade center, other people kept joining them out of necessity, until the world united as Valchondria. It all seemed ideal, until the Degrans and the Maintainers rose. Read Degranon and Sons of Taldra to find out what happens from there.
More importantly, please take the time to learn from and about the creative, amazing Native cultures that we so often ignore or mistreat in the real world. They’ve inspired my writing, and I can’t begin to acknowledge their struggles or their accomplishments.
Related reading:
Engines of our Ingenuity: The Iroquois and the US Government
First People of America and Canada - Turtle Island
Indigenous People: Constitution of the Iroquois Nations
TeachingHistory.Org: Iroquois and the Founding Fathers
UPenn Gazette: Franklin and the Iroquois Foundations of the Constitution
US History: The Iroquois Tribes
Please also see the Degranon/Sons of Taldra glossary.
“A thought provoking and fun sci-fi read.”—Blogger Girls.
“A must read.” – Joe Wright, StoneWall Society.
“I recommend DEGRANON for its exciting, well-constructed narrative, its often intriguing characters, and its wealth of ideas both political and philosophical.” –J. Clark.
#Degranon: #Diversity-Themed Science Fiction Adventure: gay marriage is legal, and everyone is a #PoC. @ScifiSelect http://t.co/dv6kixHNPC
— Degranon Author (@DuaneSimolke) October 31, 2014World history and #NativeAmerican mythology inspired this stand-alone sequel to #Degranon: A ScienceFiction Adventure http://t.co/xp8onx31s6
— DuaneSimolke (@DuaneSimolke) July 8, 2014
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne
"Science fiction loves a good paradox. Here's one for you: how can a genre that dreams up alien cultures and mythic races in such minute detail seemingly ignore the ethnic, religious, gender and sexual diversity right here on the home planet, here in the real world?"Read more: http://gu.com/p/3thdm/tw via @guardian. #Diversity #Scifi #Degranon #Race #Women #StrongWomen #PeopleOfColor #GayScienceFiction #Characters
Readers Against Prejudice and Racism describes itself as follows.
“Hello everyone! This is a group dedicated to people who want to see a more peaceful world and who enjoy learning about other cultures with respect and gratitude. Feel free to join this group if you believe in peace and harmony.
“The goal of this group is to understand about the dangers of prejudice and racism around the world and hatred can come in many different forms. Anyone who believes that prejudice against homosexuality, different cultures, different races, people with disabilities, or anyone who are different from society is wrong, are free to join this club to discuss about how we can prevent racism and prejudice from spreading across the world.”
