I am beginning this editorial process on 9/28/2022. It has been four years since I have looked at this work. So I am expecting to be able to clean it up nicely. Begun in 2012 and then abandoned for lack of readers, as, at the time, not a single paying reader had purchased any of the nine volumes in the series, the researching of 1600s America did spawn as many history books on the little known subject of Euro-American slavery.
Eventually, three people would pay to read The Sunset Saga. That convinced me that the series was not entirely hopeless. So I completed Seven Moons Deep while recovering from a respiratory affliction that key me in fever and bed for weeks, in my host’s garage in Portland, Oregon. That kind host is one of the three Sunset Saga readers. I have also promised him that I would write WhiteSkyCanoe.
However, the fact that three years after completing this book, it has yet to be proofed or edited, due to some 80 other unpublished titles, most in categories that actually sell, has diverted me form writing the concluding volume of The Sunset Saga. Perhaps editing this book will impel me to write the conclusion of the series.
Here it goes, an attempt to clean up the work of a younger self.
James, Oakley, Utah, three hours after nightfall.
Page 1-2: delete portions of front matter concerning publication rights, all of which have devolved to Lynn Lockhart, who is the only person who has done the work necessary to put my work in print. For I am unable to navigate print On Demand publishing platforms.
Pages 3-6: eliminate story strand schemes
Page 7: delete table of context [this will have to be created by the publisher as I have not the ability to update this index]
Through page 26 I find myself deleting over-framed context, like the extensive chapter headings, breaking up the text and trying to recall the story that set this novel in motion, Thunder-Boy: The Transmogrification of Three-Rivers.
Through page 44, I find the forgotten story engaging and in need only of text breaks, sentence breaks and some clarifications. I framed Pendelton Shaw after myself and used my own angst at no finishing the novel to project as his torment for being unable to compose his memoir.
Page 45: For men of the British Empires from 1607 onward, the ability to produce written records of their explorations for and expansion of the lands claimed by their monarch, represented the greater part of their social and political currency. Men such as John Smith, George Alsop, Ebeneezer Cooke, Richard Burton and Lawrence of Arabia, are largely known to us through their own journals and correspondence and would otherwise by lost to Time.
Pendelton’s servant Hemstead was patterned after world heavyweight champion James J. Jefferies, who cured himself of pneumonia by drinking a case of whiskey.
Page 60: voce to voice
Page 82: boy’s to brave’s
Page 98: braded to braided
Page 103: This strand of the story, the Yule thread, was written first and published as the novelette By This Ax and God of War, and reissued as Astride the Chariot of Night. As the most dynamic and least thoughtful character of the large cast, Jay Bracken, actually a gen of the Yule Pod, manufactured by a corporation, caused a lot of ripples in the overall story line. This made him perfect for the first thread. It is hard to write and action hero one day and a contemplative zero the next. So these large stories were written in threads. This same setting was used for Organa and more recently Cube and Beyond the Pale.
Page 111: The Randy character is based on two half orphans I knew, my childhood friend Rick and Charlie who was raised in a South Korean TaeKwonDo school. The act of violence was based on something charlie did, with the very tool he showed me.
Page 124: I worked security at this venue and loved that sundial
Page 129: nation to national, the character Dentin is based on a Baltimore county cop I once worked with and is an exact patterned character
Page 144: briars to briers
Page 151: Nasty Ass E was an actual male stripper in the mid 1990s who black women at Big Ben Witten’s “Nekked people Night” did worship like a god as I was terrorized by the Williams sisters moonlighting as sweaty stripper…
Page 173: cruelly to cruelty
Page 177: here to hear
Page 190: soldiers to shoulders
Page 191: italicize No, I love her for it. She keeps me grounded.
Page 198: wooly to woolly
Page 206: forgivingly for approvingly, this scene is U.S. Route 40 through the Patapsco Sate Park where I used to walk from Edmondson Village on Sunday morning to train
Page 223: inkpot to ink pot
Page 224: hundred to a hundred
Page 226: descendent to descendant
Page 228: a peezal is a bull penis used by Moors to beat Christian slaves in the early modern period
Page 231: comeradry to comradery
Page 233: Scotts to Scots
Page 249: scalplocks to scalp locks
Page 259: Savanah to Savannah
Page 262: he’s to he
Page 267: the Wendy’s in Laurel Maryland was a place where I did security work
Page 269: imbedded to embedded
Page 271: remove a from before against
Page 272: oversized to over-sized
Page 292: hanged God to Hanged God
Page 309: rearview to rear view
Page 312: hangaround to hang around
Page 320: axe to ax
Page 328: frère to Frère
Page 329: king George’s to the King’s, pervue to purview
Page 337: bayside to bay-side
Page 340: Not until this mark, 60% into the narrative, have I used the research on Plantation Maryland for this time travel/alternate history novel that would result in now 15 history books. Reading this feels strange, like seeing a glimpse of the amateur historian in the text of a science-fiction yarn written by some other mind.
Page 343: Susquehannock to Susquehanna’s
Page 346: eldest if to eldest of
Page 350: at this point in the novel Pendelton Saw is revealed as the most well wrought character, perhaps as I was in poor health living with much bigger folk as I write it. Historically, I had discovered that the Susquehanna Indians were primarily European. I did not rewrite the narrative to reflect this as it is an alternate history with previous volume sin print, and not a historical novel. I originally changed the Amerindian Timeline in the very decade, the 1520s, when historically, de Varanzano’s arrival preceded the first appearance of the doomed Susquehanna tribe in the historical record.
Page 358: about to ‘bout, in dialect
Page 360: coifed to coiffed
Page 361: readymade to ready-made
Page 362: imbedded to embedded
Page 365: oversized to over-sized
Page 389: boney to bony, most of the violence set in 2013 was based on actual deeds committed by the real men I patterned the characters after
Page 390: sparring to sparing
Page 394: Montross to Wontross, constantly misspelled this ebonic name throughout the text. Some crackers have no respect
Page 405: machinegun to machine gun
Page 417: videogame to video game
Page 437: Kelly was based on a woman with a dragon tattooed on her arm I passed in the 7-11 on Harford Road and Clearview, across from Tom’s barber shop.
Page 446: the to their midst
Page 456: on this page I have Yule quote a line from a Robert E. Howard Kull story, from which derived the title of the novelette, By This Ax!
Ax is spelled axe throughout—what a dodo
Past this point the writing was sloppy co pared to the first courses of the novel, I think, because it was a first draft. Chapter heading formatting and indentations have been lost in this least fifth of the book
Page 466: enquiry to inquiry
Page 468: rarified to rarefied
Page 472: rain to train, passes to passed, I to in
Page 475: sous to souls
Page 478: s to his
Page 479: insert and between slowed he
Page 481: weakness of doubt to weakness or doubt, italicize Does he tough, ever hold doubt in is savage heart?
Page 482: now to snow
Page 483: yes to eyes
Page 484: italicize Thank God for my journal!
Page 485: italicize They come!
Page 486: this paragraph need five corrections: The hideous maw exploded so that he saw daylight briefly through the back of the skull and heard the savage scream of the other two heathens as they raised their war axes in starting anger and he took his other pistol into his left hand and leveled it coldly at the nearest, squeezing the trigger, hearing a deafening click as it misfired.
Page 487-8: a lot of sentence restructuring
Page 489: staling to stalking
Typos numerous from here on.
I had completely forgotten the last 100 pages of the book and am surprised I wrapped it up satisfactorily. After reading Seven Moons Deep like a stranger to The Sunset Saga, I am confident that I can write a concluding volume with the cast of this novel and Three-Rivers, Richard Francis Burton and Pozer Sensky.
Thank you. 10/2/2022, Utah
