Archangel Press
Speakers and
Kings
Speakers and Kings is the first book by M. Keaton. Dedicated to the men and women of the United
States of America’s Armed Forces who put their lives on the line every day to protect
our freedoms, the nature of the book is best described its own back cover:
The definitions and origins of a culture inescapably mold the
future of a people. The seeds sown by
generations long buried grow to bear unexpected fruit in the present. What if a people, with no language and no
history, joined a world already in progress?
On the island of Mirabalpur, sheltered by Qaiyore's vast inland
sea, the magi of Mir struggle to find a future and escape the ghosts of their
past. Once a mighty empire now fallen
into civil disarray, Mir finds itself confronted with grim reminders of the
atrocities of its imperial history.
Beneath the floating city of Annaeyana, Sinari nomads amass in
the northern deserts. Believing the
city to be the prison home of their god Sin-Alb, they prepare for jyhad.
In the fertile lands to the south, rival kingdoms struggle for
dominance and survival. Located on the
Qaiyore's great rivers rich with trade and agriculture, would-be empire
builders are caught in a brutal maelstrom not of their own making.
Throughout Qaiyore drift the Eerith, spirit beings and living
history lessons. Once a race of slaves,
these normally passive ancients have begun to act—and neither race will ever be
the same again.
"These bones are not my children."
Hope, C.E. 1433
An epic fantasy tale of war and
cultural strife, while the book is heavily underscored with the themes of
military virtues of duty and honor, it is equally influenced by the concerns of
language and its influence on society and the individual. Speakers and Kings may well be the
first serious meeting of language and high fantasy since the works of
Tolkien. The Prologue and first section
of the book can be previewed below along with the full color map of Qaiyore
which could not be included in the book.
Ask your local bookstore or library
for a copy of Speakers and Kings by M. Keaton, ISBN 0-595-25825-5, or
order directly from the publisher at (Paperback) or (Hardback).
Contact AAP and the author directly for signed copies (great as
gifts). [Archangel
Press, Remote Office].
***
Presented for your consideration, excerpts from the book:
Canto of
Fire: The Canto of Fire, Opus One
The Map That Would Not Fit Within The Book:
***
An Interview With the Author of Speakers and Kings, M. Keaton
Q:
To start with, what is Speakers and Kings about?
A:
The short answer is: wartime epic fantasy in a medieval, quasi-Arabic
context. The long answer is, well,
longer. The “what if” premise is a race
of spirit beings (called the Eerith) that are telepathic, which means they have
no language, and are ex-slaves with no history; they joined the world ‘in
progress’ and were immediately enslaved.
With no history and no language, what kind of people are they? What do they do? That’s where it all starts.
How important is the past to the present? How important is history and a physical body to language and how
important is language to individuality?
Q:
So, pretty heavy philosophy?
A:
No, yes, a little. Those are the
underlying themes that drive the actions and the story is about the
actions. The book really covers the
decade or so of jyhad with these spirits being caught in the middle of the
war. There’s plenty of action. Let me try it again: the book is the story of a war and the focus
is the people caught in the middle of this war. The deeper themes come into play with the actions of the Eerith
on both sides. The story is on two
levels. There are some parts that can
get deep if the reader wants to really dwell on them but if the reader doesn’t
want to, they don’t have to, the action moves things along on its own.
Q:
You dedicated the book to the men and women of the armed forces. Why?
A:
First off, the fact that they are out there defending my country is
always sufficient reason to dedicate something to them. In this case, there was a little more to
it.
A lot of my ‘beta-readers’, the
folks I run my rough drafts past, are in the military and they were a lot of
help to begin with since this book is about a war. But, while I wrote it, there was the attack on the USS Cole and
the embassy bombings and then 9-11. I
was about halfway through the final version when the US was attacked and I just
froze. It just didn’t seem right to be writing
about a made up war when we were in the middle of the real one.
Now the humbling thing occurs. These guys out there, going off to fight and
die, start e-mailing me to see if I’m all right. That’s the kind of men and women we have in this country’s
military, that kind of selflessness.
They tell me, to paraphrase, “Write the book. We need it. Distract us
and tell us a story of honor and nobility, good versus evil.” The book became a lot deeper, a lot more
personal, and a lot more important then because it really became for them. I went to press right before we rolled into
Iraq.
As a nation, really as a culture,
we’ve lost the good wholesome stories.
Everything is about ‘sensitive cultural issues’ and angst and navel
gazing and shades of gray. Nobody’s
telling the good tales of men being men and fighting the good fight. I’ve always said that my writing was to
balance that kind of thing, that I’d tell the good pulp adventure and let other
people worry about writing the great novels.
I really hope that with SK I’ve done that, for them.
Q:
Did you do anything different in this book than you would have otherwise
because of that?
A:
Yes, but no one seems to have noticed it. I broke a lot of the so-called rules of writing to cater to the
real-world needs of my readers. I’ve
jokingly called myself the modern master of the serial because of the way I
structured the book. Every chapter is
like an episode in the old movie reel serials.
Each chapter begins and ends and the reader can put the book down at the
end of each chapter. Like the old
serials, there are cliff-hangers and the like but I break the rule that says
never give the reader a good stopping point.
Also I tried to keep each chapter under fourteen thousand words so that
it could be read in about an hour and I don’t slow down or repeat myself or
explain everything to death. The reason
is, these guy have a few hours a day of free time and then hours of duty at
station, much of which is watching and waiting. I tried to give them a book that they could read one chapter at a
time, in the time window that they had, with enough meat on the bones that they
could think and talk about it while they were on duty if it was a boring
day—and I pray that every day on duty is a boring day.
The
one thing that I couldn’t change that I wish I could is the price. I truly wish that the economics were such
that I could give the book to our soldiers for free. That’s part of why I’m such a proponent of the ASEs. We pay fat toad Senators a small fortune to
pass laws stealing our freedoms while we give the poor guys risking their lives
to protect our freedoms a shiny nickel and a pat on the head. Free books are the least we should do.
Q:
What about non-military people, is the book accessible to them?
A:
Oh yes. It’s a solid book no
matter where you come at it from. In
fact, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from teenagers and women who really like
it. That surprised me because I figured
that I was writing a very masculine book but I also have strong women as main
characters too. I think the, well,
moral clarity of the characters and the fact that they struggle with themselves
without selling out, angst without lapsing into self-pity; I think that’s
really refreshing to a lot of people, especially young readers.
Q:
A required interview question, why buy your book?
A:
I need to buy groceries.
Seriously though, it’s a good book, maybe a great one. That’s not me talking, I can’t judge my own
work. That’s what the readers are
telling me. They don’t just like it;
they’re blown away. I have a weird kind
of second-hand confidence. Enough
people have told me it’s good that I have to admit that it is.
Q:
Last question. What is Dog?
A:
(laughs) Nope. No way. I’m not telling.
(This interview originally appeared
in Kilimanjaro magazine, 2003)
***
Speakers and Kings was
originally released 1999-2002 by M. Keaton as a serialized novel by
e-mail. With minor changes, the
compilation contains the contents of the original series in their serialized
format. This version should be
considered the author's preferred version.
Celandra (and its general content) is a shared world
project, jointly owned by its contributors.
Celandra is used with permission.
Celandra (as a setting and shared world project) exists under an
unrestricted, non-exclusive copyright shared by its contributors. Celandra is used as a setting with
permission. It is a collaboration of a
large number of individual contributors and this author claims no exclusive rights
to Celandra or its general contents.
Though certainly not a complete list
of all the wonderful people who have contributed to the development of this
project, this author would like to acknowledge the following individuals for
specific contributions which have enriched the work presented here: Kenny Crowe (who first contemplated a people
without force or voice), Joel Elfman, Sam Gorton, Jason Heaps (a steadfast
source of support throughout the entire project), Aaron Nowack, Louis Pasztur,
Brennan "Mad Hatter" Taylor, and, of course, the god-fathers of it
all: Juha "Juuso" Vesanto,
Mike Harvey, and Dylan Martinez. The
author would like to apologize in advance to anyone who may have been missed in
the above listing. It is certainly not
a complete list and this author is deeply grateful to everyone who has
contributed to the Celandra project over the years.
The author would also like to acknowledge the gracious
internet hosting of the original series by the fine people of Phoenyx.net.
Finally, a heartfelt
personal thanks to The Mewses (the Archangel Press Beta readers).
Further Reading:
The author has drawn heavily from the non-fictional
research of great historians, linguistic scholars, and physiologist. If the reader finds himself drawn toward the
deep philosophical waters in which this work treads shallowly, the writings of
Dr. Rollo May, Sir Robert Graves, and Sir James G. Frazer are highly
recommended.
***
