https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Storm-Robert-Edward-Graham/dp/1938143752/.
An earlier post examined Shadow of the Storm protagonist James Pleasant Wolfshadow, styled after cowriter Rob Graham—his rugged good looks, devotion to others, honesty, courage, and optimism. In essence, Wolfshadow became Rob in fictional form. But what about the other characters?
“I learned a lot on the street,” Rob told me. “When you’ve lost damn near everything but your life, you come face-to-face with what’s really important.”
After rehab, Rob became a student of religion—no, not a cultish, true-believer, controlling type. Rather, he studied religious doctrines and beliefs from cultures around the world, becoming well-versed in their mythologies while delving deep into quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. He thrilled in making connections between science and spirituality, and he wanted to share his enthusiasm and discoveries by marrying the two in an epic story about a Native Cheyenne American pitted against the most powerful negative force in the universe. He wanted to craft a story that celebrated his faith in humanity’s ability to overcome its self-destructive nature through a scientific spirituality that many scientists are now exploring. And he wanted that story populated with extraordinary but believable characters.
Sarah Little Bird Boone is Wolfshadow’s lifelong friend, the two having grown up together on their home reservation. After the death of his wife, Wolfshadow’s relationship with Sarah becomes more than friendship as Wolfshadow takes refuge in their deep and trusting emotional connection that occasionally culminates physically, but their strongest bond is and has always been spiritual, two parts of a whole.
I can only guess who Rob had in mind when he created Sarah, but I suspect she embodies many of the qualities of the women he loved and admired—strength, extreme intelligence, devotion, determination—qualities I enhanced in rewrites, based on the important women in my life. While other characters who’ve worked with both Boone and Wolfshadow view Wolfshadow as the primary hope for saving Earth and humankind, it is Sarah who is Wolfshadow’s strength, quietly and persistently moving events positively forward, the true shadow of the storm.
Mahu, the novel’s evil antagonist, is an amalgamation of bad actors from the various religions of the world, from Buddhism’s Mara and Islam’s Iblis to Christianity’s Satan and Gnosticism’s Yaldabaoth, as well as many others. He is the ultimate narcissist, hopelessly lost in delusion, believing himself the only true and infallible ruler of the universe despite his past and current failures and defeats. Yes, we utilized a few politicians and preachers as well in modeling Mahu.
Mahu’s daughter, Tanta, is everything you’d expect from an extremely beautiful, pampered, spoiled twat. But, unlike her father, Tanta has a saving grace—the ability to peer through her father’s delusions to accept reality with a sense of self-awareness and reluctant objectivity that provides the strength to change—even if change takes an excruciatingly long time with a lot of whining.
Old Charon, perhaps my favorite of the novel’s characters, is a cantankerous coot, literally rotting toward death when Wolfshadow encounters him on Mahu’s home world. He is a member of the planet’s indigenous species, which has been enslaved to serve Mahu’s vanity, constantly suffering the ruler’s cruelty with no recourse or hope of escaping the torture. Charon doesn’t have a high opinion of his lord and master, harboring a deep-seated hatred that he carefully conceals from fear of even worse torment. Wolfshadow, with food and kindness the gnarly gnome has never before experienced, not only earns Charon’s respect and friendship, he receives the creature’s devotion and help in confronting the evil master.
Then there’s Achates, perhaps the novel’s most enigmatic character, a shapeshifting, other-dimensional being that could be the basis of some people’s belief in angels, but I’m going to leave this entity for you to discover and interpret on your own. And when you do, I suspect you’ll reflect the character’s Cheshire grin.
The novel is populated with numerous other characters you’ll recognize in your own life—from the nerdy genius to the power-hungry corporate prick to the female scientist smarter and more clever than anyone else in any room. To detail these and other characters, we’d have to write a novel, which is exactly what we did.
Throughout plot and character development, especially after Rob passed and I began revisions, Wolfshadow increasingly took on Rob’s traits. One of Wolfshadow’s defining props is an impressive Bowie knife that goes with him on every adventure. Rob relished and respected the Bowie knife’s history and usefulness as a tool and weapon. During the first-draft writing, he sent me a 16-inch replica of the knife, and that’s when he became inseparable in my mind from the fictional man he’d created.
Shadow of the Storm is slated for publication 15 October from Foolscap & Quill and is now available for pre-order at the following links:
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781938143755
https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Storm-Robert-Edward-Graham/dp/1938143752/
Stop by Foolscap at https://www.foolscap-quill.com/ for an array of exceptional novels in various genres.
The next and final background post will detail the novel’s journey from completion to publication—quite a ride. Receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe via the RSS feed. For more information about my work, especially the latest novel, The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, cowritten with my late spouse, Bonnie Del Aguila, available from MX Publishing and most bookstores, please visit https://csfuqua.com.
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