Monthly Archives: October 2015
SECRETS IN THE DESERT
SECRETS IN THE DESERT
Mount Manchester is the highest peak in the Dead Mountains of extreme northeastern San Bernardino County, California in the Mojave Desert. The Dead Mountains are 12 miles northwest of Needles, California. It is the highest point at 3,598 feet. The Dead Mountains border the Colorado River on the east, and the Piute Wash of the Piute Valley on the west. Piute wash drains south, then turns east for 8 miles at the south of the range to meet the Colorado River.
Tanis, the lead character of the book,”Egg of the Amphitere,” is shocked to find a massive artifact depot deep inside the Mojave Desert. He is even more shocked to discover he has inherited its contents. A secret kept from him since he became a Thaumaturgist/Machinist, Tanis is overwhelmed by the vastness of the icons and technology held within its walls.
Once there, he determines the artifact depot is under Mt. Manchester, accessible only from the Thaumaturgists headquarters located in Phoenix Arizona.
The technology found within its caverns becomes instrumental not only to Tanis, but to the inhabitants of Mt. Drago as they struggle to keep the Dark Lord at bay.
I’ve always looked at the artifact depot as a combination of Warehouse 13, and the alternate dimensional library of ancient antiquities.
To uncover the secrets hidden in the mountain you’ll need to check out my forthcoming book,
“Egg of the Amphitere” which will be available in November. To purchase the previous
Dragomeir Series books,
“The Emerald Dragon” and
“Flight of the Aguiva”
go to my website and you will find them at a variety of places –
Solitaire
Where is Caesarea Maritima?
In my forthcoming book of the Dragomeir Series, “ Egg of the Amphitere,” one of the key points is the location known as Caesarea Maritima. It was one of four Roman colonies for veterans in the Syria-Phoenicia region created by the Roman Empire. The ancient Caesarea Maritima city and harbor was built by Herod the Great about 25–13 B.C. It was named in honor of Caesar Augustus.
Caesarea was built like a model Greco-Roman city and laid out on a grid. There was a forum, theatre, temples, public baths, paved streets, and an elaborate villa that probably belonged to Herod himself. Giant twin aqueducts brought fresh water from Mt. Carmel, and formed part of an elaborate water and sewer system. But the focal point was a temple dedicated to Augustus.
Caesarea’s strategic location placed it at the juncture of important trade routes. In the harbor, Herod’s engineers constructed two huge breakwaters, lined with warehouses. At the end of the southern breakwater stood the lighthouse, whose fires burned 24 hours a day. Six enormous bronze statues marked treacherous sandbars. To ships coming in from sea, the sight must have been truly impressive. The city had been populated through the late Roman and Byzantine era. Its ruins lie on the Mediterrean coast of Israel, about halfway between the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, on the site of Pyrgos Stratonos (“Straton’s Tower”).
A hearth is discovered there and plays an important role in the near destruction of Mt. Drago, the mountain around which my story is based. (In general in ancient Greece, each state, city or village possessed its own central hearth and sacred fire, representing the unity and vitality of the community. The fire was kept alight continuously, tended by the king or members of his family.)
Tanis finds not only a hearth in the ruins, but also the remains of one of the original prytaneums. (A prytaneum was a public building or hall in an ancient Greek city containing the state hearth and serving as the place of meeting and dining for the prytanes or priests, and sometimes of official hospitality for distinguished citizens and visitors.) Further study shows him the convergence of multiple Ley Lines and a portal to Oblivion.
I chose the hearth at Caesarea Maritima because similar structures also show up in other parts of the world where Ley Lines are present. What better way for the book’s characters to travel on and off the Provinces?
In the real world, Caesarea Maritima is open to the public and is certainly one of the oldest settlements, dating back over two thousand years.
Want to find out more? Check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarea_Maritima
Solitaire
Top 10 Best-Selling Fiction Authors of All Time
“You can find a chart detailing the estimated sales figures of the top best selling authors on a number of different web pages and you’ll notice they all look eerily similar. But you’ll also notice that the estimated sales figures have large margins for error, this is because no matter how much research you do there is no one consensus on how many books any author has sold. It is hard to say with certainty who sold how many books since a lot of them, you might have noticed, were written a long time before computers, the internet and all the record keeping wonders of the modern world. (Then again I’m not so sure we can trust modern figures either.) But while there may be a few surprises for some people you will also find that it makes sense when you think about it. So instead of this list being a record of who sold more fiction novels, it is instead an attempt to explain why these authors have become the top 10 best sellers of all time.
So lean forward, dig in, and try to understand exactly what you have to do in order to follow them. Here is a list of the top 10 best-selling fiction authors of all time, and why.”
Check out the following site to find out who these authors are –
http://akorra.com/2010/03/04/top-10-best-selling-fiction-authors-of-all-time/
Know any more that should be added to this list?
To see the latest cover of my new Dragomeir Series book “Egg of the Amphitere” – due out very soon, go to my website –
Check you soon,
Solitaire
Forthcoming Dragomeir Series Book 3 – “Egg of the Amphitere”
The Forthcoming book, “Egg of the Amphitere“, is the third installment to the Dragomeir Series. The manuscript is finished and in the final editing stages, which is always very exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. In this book, Queen Mother manages to procure the third and final Crystal Key, which will keep the hordes from Hell locked on the Provinces forever. Tanis impresses with an Amphitere dragon and increases his family to four. You are introduced to a new group of people called the Savants at the mountain, and Tanis learns of a Gate system called the Hearths. This system could end the isolation of the Dark Lord and bring destruction to Mt. Drago. So Tanis and Queen Mother must find out how the Dark Lord plans to use these devices, and stop him before their world crashes down around them.
Find out if the Savants are friends or foes, and if the Hearths are the wave of the future or the end of mankind. Learn how the Amphiteres are the answer to the dragons’ past, and what they must do to survive.
“Egg of the Amphitere” finishes the original saga of Tanis Theatra and his quest to become a dragon rider, but there are many more stories yet untold. So keep following as the big picture unfolds.
See you soon . . .
Solitaire
Solitaire Parke - Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books 