Patrick S. Tomlinson is joining us today to talk about his novel Trident’s Forge. Here’s the publisher’s description:
They’ve made it this far. If only that increased humanity’s chances on this new planet…
Against all odds, the Ark and her thirty-thousand survivors have reached Tau Ceti G to begin the long, arduous task of rebuilding human civilization. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world,
Tau Ceti G’s natives, the G’tel, are coming to grips with the sudden appearance of what many believe are their long-lost Gods.But first contact between humans and g’tel goes catastrophically wrong, visiting death on both sides. Rumors swirl that the massacre was no accident. The Ark’s greatest hero, Bryan Benson, takes on the mystery.
Partnered with native ‘truth-digger’ Kexx, against both of their better judgment, Benson is thrust into the heart of an alien culture with no idea how to tell who wants to worship him from who wants him dead.
Together, Benson and Kexx will have to find enough common ground and trust to uncover a plot that threatens to plunge both of their peoples into an apocalyptic war that neither side can afford to fight.
What’s Patrick’s favorite bit?
PATRICK S. TOMLINSON
TRIDENT’S FORGE came as a surprise. I’d written the first book in the series, THE ARK, as a stand-alone, self-contained novel. There had been no plans at the time for a sequel, much less a series. But when your agent emails you and says “I need a précis for the next two book by Friday so we can pitch it as a trilogy,” well, you don’t argue. A hurried rewrite of the closing chapters of the THE ARK and some furious brainstorming later, and boom, we have a trilogy. Or more, depending on how many copies y’all buy.
So my favorite bit about TRIDENT’S FORGE might be the fact I was given the opportunity to write it at all. But, that’s not a very compelling blog post, so if you’re really going to twist my arm about it, my favorite bit about the book has definitely got to be designing and writing the Atlantians.
For me as a reader, one of the most satisfying experiences I have while digging through a new book is discovering a new alien species. And not just “Nose-job of the week,” type of aliens like we used to get in Star Trek, but realistic, fully-realized aliens who work not only from an evolutionary standpoint and fit into their environment, but live within a culture and system of morality that is equally alien, yet believable.
Some of my favorites over the years have included the Pierson’s Puppeteers of Larry Niven’s RINGWORLD series, the Pequeninos of Orson Scott Card’s SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, the Tines of Vernor Vinges A FIRE UPON THE DEEP and CHILDREN OF THE SKY, and, most recently and perhaps most impressively, the double whammy of the Ilmatarans and Sholen in James L. Cambias’s excellent debut, A DARKLING SEA.
So, when the time came for me to build my own alien race from the ground up, I jumped in with both feet. The Atlantians, and their civilization, are a product of the world on which they developed. Tau Ceti G, their fictional homeworld set in a very real star system, is an old planet of rolling hills, prairies, an deep canyons carved from an extra billion and a half years of erosion. It’s also located in the middle of a shooting gallery. In the real world, the Tau Ceti system has ten times the planetary dust density of our own solar system. Ten times the leftover protoplanetary matter means ten times the comets, asteroids, and meteorites flying around the system looking for a nice juicy planet to impact.
It was assumed by the human colonists that, with a dinosaur-ending-impact happening every six or eight million years on average, that nothing much more complex than plankton would be floating around the planet, to say nothing about an entire stone-aged civilization. So to make them plausible, I had to find ways to make the Atlantians tough, smart, and immensely resilient, without crossing into hand-waving territory.
As a result, I picked cuttlefish as the model for their ancient ancestors, instead of bony fish. Smarter than most any fish, and with impressive regenerative powers, they seemed an ideal starting point for the sort of rugged and adaptable creatures that could plausibly flourish on such a violent planet. Being of cooler blood than their human counterparts meant they burned fewer calories and could survive on the scraps of food to be found in between periods of bombardment.
However, it was a further realization of what an old, worn down world would really look like that really cemented not only their physiology, but their culture and myths for me. Tau Ceti G has few mountains. They’ve all been worn down by many hundreds of millions of years of wind, rain, and freeze/thaw cycles. But what it lacks in vertical spectacles is more than made up for in its river valleys, canyons, and most especially, cave systems. The limestone areas of the planet’s crust are simply lousy with cave networks which themselves sport complex ecosystems fueled by fungus and anaerobic bacterial colonies feeding on vented gasses, hot springs, and even on the rocks themselves.
A whole separate underground biome existed, ready made for the Atlantians to retreat into during the worst periods of nuclear winter on the surface. Here, in the dark and damp caves, their society could limp along, hibernating in the safety of the deep, until things returned to normal above ground.
This thought informed much about them, from their bioluminescence, to their inverted spiritual views of the sky being home to fire and death, and salvation awaiting far below. I had an immense amount of fun building not only their bodies, but their minds. And while I’m not going to claim that the Atlantians are destined for inclusion in future conversations among sci-fi fans alongside the great examples listed above, I do hope readers enjoy my first shot at crafting a race. Hopefully enough to keep reading. I have big plans for the Atlantians and their human partners in the coming years.
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BIO:
Patrick S. Tomlinson lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a menagerie of houseplants in varying levels of health, a Mustang, and a Triumph motorcycle bought specifically to embarrass and infuriate Harley riders. When not writing sci-fi and fantasy novels and short stories, Patrick is busy developing his other passion for writing and performing stand-up comedy in the Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago scenes.
Hey, copy sold! 🙂