2021 - 12/2021 Meeting

Page Created: 07/17/21. Last Updated: 12/12/21.

DAVID HARTEN WATSON

CHRISTMAS CAFE

Meeting Date: December 11, 2021.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. .

Attendance: 15 + 6.

Meeting Program: Christmas Cafe.

Website: https://www.davidhartenwatson.com/

Books:

.....Magic Teacher's Son (Magicians Gold # 1)

.....Fortress of Gold (Magician's Gold # 2)

Millenium Bomber (Novelette)

Notes:

Kathy Cannarozzi coordinated the zoom group.

Newsletter Account:

The December 11, 2021 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. This was our last in-person event before we repositioned all club activities as zoom sessions due to the spread of the Omicron Corona Virus. Fantasy writer / editor David Harten Watson was our speaker.

Our December meetings are normally unprogrammed affairs and consist of a Pot Luck Dinner. We felt that the aftermath of the first and second waves of corona made that inadvisable. So we went with a pre-meeting Christmas Cafe of beverages and desserts and scheduled a speaker.

The Christmas Cafe worked well. Phil supplied coffee, tea, milk, and cookies. Pam added Hershey Kisses and Marshmallow-and-Fruit Kabob. Jerri and Klaus brought cheese & crackers (a welcome break from all the sweets). Bobbi brought ice cream sandwiches; Kathy, cupcakes; and Claire, brownies. Steve contributed cheese cake; Greg, apple pie; and John cinnamon rolls (store-bought, not home-made, due to lack of time). Moshe brought creme-filled pastries; Bill, home-made chocolate chip cookies baked baked by his wife; Randie also brought home-made cookies. Apologies to anyone overlooked. Overall, this was a lot less work than the Pot Luck and people enjoyed it, so we will have to work this into another meeting at a later date.

We were very glad to avoid a repeat of last month's AV difficulties, though reports of how our streaming feed worked varied.

Association member David Harten Watson was our speaker. David is the author of two Young Adult fantasy novels, MAGIC TEACHER'S SON and FORTRESS OF GOLD by Pen-L Publishing, the novelette Millennium Bomber, and an upcoming original cli-fi (climate fiction) theme anthology, EXTINCTION NOTICE: TALES OF A WARMING EARTH.

The Magicians Gold series was begun in 1993. It was supposed to be a single volume but grew in the writing. The hero's name is Pran, named in honor of the Cambodian journalist of THE KILLING FIELDS.

The first book is set in that other world and relates the conquest of Pran's nation. The conquest is made possible when the bad guys cast a spell to neutralize the virtue of the kingdom's gold. Book one ends with Pran and companions leaping through a portal to a legendary world whose gold is uncorrupted: Earth. The adventure continues in THE FORTRESS OF GOLD, wherein our young heroes must pull off a gold heist from Fort Knox, no easy matter even with the aid of magic.

David is the Organizer of the Woodbridge Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Meetup, He had mentioned plans to create a charitable anthology based around climate change, but had not taken any steps to make it happen until one of the writers in the group submitted a story for the volume. Our speaker put aside the concluding volume of the trilogy to make the anthology happen.

EXTINCTION NOTICE is scheduled for publication by Outskirts Press in March 2022, Outskirts is a leading press for self-publishers. There are 41 stories and poems with contributors from 8 nations. Authors receive a token payment of $ 20.00 for a story, $ 10.00 for a poem.

This was David's first time as an editor and he had to educate himself about contracts, US vs UK spelling, cover artwork, and other matters. Once the book is put to bed he will conclude Magician's Gold. The final volume will be a riff on THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER focusing on the young prince sent to live among the commoners to keep him safe and deals with the resistance movement.

More information can be found at 2021 - 12/2021 Meeting on our website.

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Additional Meeting Notes:

Favorite authors growing up included Piers Anthony, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven, JRR Tollkien, and Roger Zelazny.

Went to a small K - 12 Catholic school outside Buffalo, New York run by Hungarian priests and nuns.

One year in school his Secret Santa got him two Best Science Fiction of the Year. He never did learn who to thank.

Applied to US Coast Guard after High School but was turned down due to allergies and hay fever.

Went to Princeton where he twice bumped into Brooke Shields. She struck a pose for him once but he felt it would be unethical to sell the picture. Michelle Obama was also in school during his time, but he never ran into her.

Took ROTC at Princeton and wound up in the United States Armored Corps (despite motion sickness). Became a Trainer and a Platoon Leader and was assigned to the training center at Fort Knox. His second book was dedicated to an Army friend who committed suicide at 21.

If you are writing a story about a military man, get a military advisor. They're very cheap. Go to a VFW hall and find someone who will help you in return for a couple of beers. Then you won't get things like gun recoils wrong.

The series is set in a fantasy world whose technology roughly corresponds to the 18th Century (he felt Medieval settings were overdone), but with two differences: magic works and gunpowder was never discovered.

There are two types of enchantment. The good guys use Magic which is powered by (and transmutes) gold and silver. The bad guys use Sorcery, which is powered by the bones of specially prepared animals and people. The capital of the good guy's nation is Eldorado.

He wanted to use non-Western names. The lead character, Pran, was named after the Cambodian journalist in The Killing Fields. As fate would have it, both Pran and David lived in Woodbridge, New Jersey, but David did not learn of his until after Pran's death.

For years he kept a spreadsheet of interesting non-European names, name meaning, and country of origin.

David didn't realize Pran was bi-sexual until a reviewer commented on Pran's relationship with a male character and he realized that portraying a non-Platonic friendship was the best reading of the character.

Likes to show some scenes from the villains POV because villains don't see themselves as evil.

David finally completed the book in 2010 and landed an agent. This proved to be a mistake because the manuscript still needed work and the agent was not a good fit for the project. She retired due to health reasons after a perfunctory submission to all the major houses.

Our speaker continued to rewrite and polish the work until he got to the point where he said to himself, NOW this is done. Small press Pen-L Publishing accepted Magic Teacher's Son in 2013, putting it into print the following year. They were the first publisher David tried after he felt that the book was truly done.

Advice: Don't quit until you've had 100 rejections.

Pen-L acceded to David's idea for a cover, using a photograph of his son as Pran, and photoshopping it into a castle tower background. Bad idea. The black hat (worn because his son's hair was a buzz-cut) and clothing suggested that the book was some sort of Western.

Our speaker commissioned a fantasy artist to paint a new fantasy-themed cover (he had to pay for this himself as Pen-L had paid for the original cover). The same artist handled Fortress of Gold.

Book two is a heist novel set around Fort Knox. Pran recruits a couple of Americans to assist him. One of them, Oliver, is a stand-in for David.

There was a lot of discussion about the weight of gold and the mechanics of pulling off a heist, even with the assistance of magic. He attended an Army reunion in Fort Knox (the city, not the installation) and used the opportunity to take reference photographs. He observed that it is no longer possible to get as close to the facility as it was in the past. When David stated that he is sure there is now a government File on him, Phil reassured him, stating that he was in the SFABC and that EVERYONE in the group has a File.

After the break David talked up his upcoming Cli-Fi Anthology. It usually, though not always, includes elements of speculative fiction. It represents an optimistic and ecologic viewpoint in dealing with climate change, global warming, and associated environmental problems.

David recently adopted a cat. Fun fact: The number one book on cat training is How to Train Your Cat to Use Guns.