The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls
Description
<p>Emerging from the long shadow cast by his formidable father, Harold Godwineson showed himself to be a worthy successor to the Earldom of Wessex. In the following twelve years, he became the King's most trusted advisor, practically taking the reins of government into his own hands. And on Edward the Confessor's death, Harold Godwineson mounted the throne—the first king of England not of royal blood. Yet Harold was only a man, and his rise in fortune was not blameless. Like any person aspiring to power, he made choices he wasn't particularly proud of. Unfortunately, those closest to him sometimes paid the price of his fame.<br /><br />This is a story of Godwine's family as told from the viewpoint of Harold and his younger brothers. Queen Editha, known for her Vita Ædwardi Regis, originally commissioned a work to memorialize the deeds of her family, but after the Conquest historians tell us she abandoned this project and concentrated on her husband, the less dangerous subject. In THE SONS OF GODWINE and FATAL RIVALRY, I am telling the story as it might have survived had she collected and passed on the memoirs of her tragic brothers.<br /><br />This book is part two of The Last Great Saxon Earls series. Book one, GODWINE KINGMAKER, depicted the rise and fall of the first Earl of Wessex who came to power under Canute and rose to preeminence at the beginning of Edward the Confessor's reign. Unfortunately, Godwine's misguided efforts to champion his eldest son Swegn recoiled on the whole family, contributing to their outlawry and Queen Editha's disgrace. Their exile only lasted one year and they returned victorious to London, though it was obvious that Harold's career was just beginning as his father's journey was coming to an end.<br /><br />Harold's siblings were all overshadowed by their famous brother; in their memoirs we see remarks tinged sometimes with admiration, sometimes with skepticism, and in Tostig's case, with jealousy. We see a Harold who is ambitious, self-assured, sometimes egocentric, imperfect, yet heroic. His own story is all about Harold, but his brothers see things a little differently. Throughout, their observations are purely subjective, and witnessing events through their eyes gives us an insider’s perspective.<br /><br />Harold was his mother's favorite, confident enough to rise above petty sibling rivalry but Tostig, next in line, was not so lucky. Harold would have been surprised by Tostig's vindictiveness, if he had ever given his brother a second thought. And that was the problem. Tostig's love/hate relationship with Harold would eventually destroy everything they worked for, leaving the country open to foreign conquest. This subplot comes to a crisis in book three of the series, FATAL RIVALRY.</p>
Story Behind The Book
I began the first novel Union of Renegades in 1997. At the time I wanted to explore with my hero, Dreibrand, the desire to break away from what you are supposed to do. Just stop following the rules and do what you want to please yourself. Refuse to accept the path that is presented to you by others. At the time in my personal life I was quitting a halfway decent job in Nevada because I was sick of it and moving to Northern California where I had no job and did not know anybody. Most people thought I was nuts, but I just checked myself out of the rat race. Fortune favors the bold you know. Of course, in my fiction things are much more interesting than my life. My hero gets to kill people, win vast treasures, be friends with the most powerful being in the world, and found a kingdom.
In my series, I also wanted to create a female fantasy character who was not just some young virginal princess. This is where Miranda came from. She is a woman who suffers the abuse of an exploitative society and snatches at every chance she gets to have power. She possesses no innocence, but, as a mother and a person who has known oppression, she is compassionate.
As my imagination continued to reveal the series, I wanted to write fantasy flavored by my American heritage with westward expansion, people seeking freedom, native civilizations resisting conquerors, slavery, rebellion against tyranny, and founding new societies.
Because I write fantasy I of course needed magic in my series. I did not want to just grab the concept of “elves” out of the toolbox, so I created my own race called the rys. Most of them have only limited common magic. They can cast heat spells and remote view over short distances, but a few rys have astounding powers. They can see across vast distances, read minds, influence thoughts, cast destructive attack spells, heal flesh, create elaborately enchanted physical objects, enslave souls, and more. These are the rys that battle for power, and the human characters basically always need to be allied with a rys champion in order to achieve anything. I construct my stories with a rys-level plot, a human-level plot, and a plot that joins the two levels.
