The Named Are Being Twits Again...

For purposes of fun and silliness, I have given the Named clan cat characters the ability to temporarily teleport from their home in the California Miocene so that they can peek into the human world and remark upon what they see. This, of course is not to be regarded as 'canon', i.e. in the storyline of the actual books. Think of it as sort of an alternate universe version.

Of course, the main event recently, was of course, the election. I was and am, an unabashed (though some may yet wish to bash me) Obama supporter.

Please note that I have added one or two introductory Tweets. Also, the words prefaced by a '#' (pound sign) were used as Twitter search categories. For more (dis) orientation, see my earlier blog post, "Ratha on Twitter".

So, without more author blather, here are Ratha, Bira, Thakur, Cherfan, Thistle-chaser
and last, but certainly not least, the clan's fiesty Firekeeper leader Fessran. She would have the audacity to fall in love with the prez elect.

Cats don't tweet, but they do chirp. Let the Chirps begin:


Who is behind all this prehistoric cat stuff? http://bit.ly/2n88x4 5:17 PM Oct 24th from TwitWall

Trying Twitwall. The pic is what Ratha will be for Halloween... 5:21 PM Oct 24th from web

For #Halloween, Thakur wants to be ... Joe Biden! 5:34 PM Oct 31st from web

For #Halloween, Cherfan wants to be....Joe the Plumber! 5:44 PM Oct 31st from web

For #Halloween, Fessran says she doesn't know squat about the #First_Amendment and wants to be....#Sarah Palin! 5:57 PM Oct 31st from web

Now, back to our regularly scheduled (hah!) transtemporal broadcasting from the Miocene....Fessran says Obama is one hot cat! Prrrrr... 11:46 AM Nov 5th

ClanChirps - For the newbie whitetippers (nice followers), the Chirps are by characters in my Ratha series about big prehistoric cats. 12:05 PM Nov 5

ClanChirps - Ratha: "Fessran, get your tail back here! We have a story to finish. 11:48 AM Nov 5th from web

ClanChirps - Fessran: "I don't wanna come back yet. I'm in love with #Obama-cat. Quit pulling my tail, Ratha!" 1:20 PM Nov 5th from web

ClanChirps – Ratha: “C'mon, Fessran. #Obama-cat already has a mate. A good one. And cubs. The clan needs you back home.” 3:28 PM Nov 5th from web

Characters doing the ClanChirps reside in #Ratha's_Courage, my new #book about #prehistoric big #cats. http://www.rathascourage.com 12:28 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps- Fessran:“I know you're going to light fires under some deserving tails, Obama-cat. I gotta go back and light fires of my own...” ... 12:32 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps – Fessran “Farewell, love of my life! May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, you cool Obama-cat.” 3:58 PM Nov 6th from web

ClanChirps - Ratha and Bira together: "FESSRAN!" 12:14 PM Nov 7th from web

ClanChirps – Ratha: “Bira, you take Fessran's scruff and I'll grab her tail. All right, back to the Miocene!” * poof * 4:50 PM Nov 8th from web

OK guys, enough...

CB

Ratha's Courage - Good Stuff Happening

Alien pipe-cleaner critter steals brownies while oblivious author signs Ratha's Courage at Northern California Independent Booksellers Association conference, Oakland, CA, Nov 5, 2008
Picture by JC Simmonds of Beagle Bay


Ratha's Courage has been making various appearances at different events and online sites. Previous posts on this blog have followed Courage's torturous road to publication and final and welcomed refuge at Sheila Ruth's Imaginator Press.

Sheila kindly invited me to attend KitLitospshere08 in Portland Oregon. This was a conference for children's and young adult book bloggers, including book reviewers, librarians, writers, illustrators and other publishing professionals. Since other KidLit08 bloggers have described the conference in detail and with greater wit than I could here, I'll just hit some of the personal high points. I had to scramble a bit to get all the arrangements in place and without conference organizer partner Jone McCulloch's aid in getting registered, it would have been harder.

I went up on the Coast Starlight Amtrak train and enjoyed the ride, especially along some of the inland Oregon coast, where I watched bald eagles soaring out over the estuary. As soon as I figure out how to get the picture out of my cellphone, I'll post it here. My clunky old road-warrior of a Sony Mavica digital camera decided to take a vacation, so the phone was a backup. I hope I can fix the Mavica or get it fixed. It has been a real workhorse.

Being a compulsive note-taker at conferences, I filled up several pages with notes on the sessions. I decided not to post them here. Instead they are in the Yahoo KidLitosphere group files, and are available to anyone in that group.

Just for the heck of it, I took along some stuff for display, including a pipe-cleaner alien critter that I made. I thought it would be an eye-catcher during the Meet the Authors event. Actually my little friend got more attention at the hotel bar. I suppose folks decided that they could explain it as a booze- induced hallucination. Here's Betsy Bird mugging with the critter, and a bit from her SLJ Fuse#8 blog (scroll down her blog page).

After the conference, I stayed in Beaverton, OR, spending a delightful few days with the family of a young Ratha fan who is a writer, photographer, and an artist, then returned home on the southbound Coast Starlight.

More good things continued to happen once I got back. Joan Druett, a New Zealand literary blogger, wrote about Ratha's Courage and the rough road to publication in a post called “Fantasies and Miracles”

I had sent Imaginator Press an article of how science fiction writer Andre Norton helped get Ratha's Creature published. Sheila and I decided to use it as a press release, and she sent it out. The result, among other things, was another Joan Druett post, “An Inspiring Story of Sponsorship”. Thank you, Joan!

Since pipe-cleaner critters were part of the story, here is another pic of the little brownie raider in closeup. He's not a kitty, but a strange little beastie called a "chumat", which is sort of the alien equivalent.


I knew that since Courage appeared this year, the book was eligible for the kidlit blogging community's Cybil awards. Scarcely had nominations opened, and before I could wonder if Courage would be chosen, a devoted Ratha fan had dashed in (at a speed that would make Thakur the Named herding teacher dizzy), to nominate it in the Science Fiction category. I think more than one reader wanted to name it, but the Cybil rules say one nomination per book. Even if Courage just makes it to the Cybil short list, I will be very pleased, and if it gets a Cybil, I will be knocked over backwards and all the Named clan cats will have to lick my face to revive me. There are so many other deserving books out there, but one can always hope!


CB

Ratha's Courage E-Released on Baen!

This version is an electronic book, which means you purchase it, then download it into your laptop, Sony reader or other device. On sale now for $6.00.

To buy it from Baen Books, you need to get an account, which is free and easy.

Here's the link:

http://www.webscription.net/p-822-rathas-courage.aspx

Baen's homepage is:

http://www.baen.com

Baen will have an exclusive on the book during April, then Amazon and Fictionwise http://www.fictionwise.com will be carrying it.

If Courage does well as an E-book, the next step is print publication.

Eeeeyarooo!

The other books in the series are Firebird re-issues and are available through the net and at bookstores.

My deepest thanks to everyone who made this happen, including E-Reads, Baen, and my agent, Richard Curtis.

CB

A Taste of Ratha's Courage

Update 2: The book wasn't up as of 4/3. E-Reads has done the E-Book file, checked it and has sent it to Baen. As well as herding the book to E-publication, I am currently writing the kickoff announcement article that will appear on the E-Reads Blog (http://www.ereads.com).

Ratha's Courage to be released 4/1/08 on Baen Books (http://www.baen.com) along with E-Reads (http://www.ereads.com)

Ratha's Courage
by Clare Bell
Excerpt copyright 2007

Chapter One

A shiver of excitement went through Ratha. She began her stalk, belly fur brushing the ground. Grass whispered past her legs as she felt the slow controlled power of each muscle. Her tail-tip tingled with the urge to twitch, but she held it still.

The horse the Named called a striper tossed its head and flapped its tail, eyes widening. Ratha slowed her down-wind stalk so that she seemed nearly frozen, yet was still moving. The striper swung its neck around, jerking its head and ears back.

Ratha stilled until the herdbeast settled, then quickened her stalk, easing her weight from one foot to the next, placing each directly ahead of the one behind and moving so smoothly she felt as though she were flowing across and through the grass, a green-eyed river of tawny gold.

Nearing the striper’s dancing rear hooves, inhaling it’s sweat-sharpened scent, Ratha trembled with the impulse to dash, spring and wrestle her prey to the ground. She took a long slow breath, as the herding teacher, Thakur had taught her, mastered her urge and crept around the striper, circling in front of it.

Stripers were new to the Named herds. This horse was dun, with dark brown mane and tail. Ratha turned her head to bring her gaze down along its banded forelegs to the three-toed feet. These feet differed from those of the smaller dappleback horses that the clan had long tended. The striper’s center toe, sheathed in a single hoof, was larger, the side toes further off the ground. That hoof had far more power than the four and three-toed feet of the dapplebacks. Ratha had dodged it many times and other herders had been sent sprawling.

The striper grunted and whinnied, its nostrils flaring with her smell. From her crouch, Ratha lifted her chin and stared up at the horse, trying to catch and hold its gaze. As if sensing her purpose, the striper reared, its forefeet cutting the air, its tail whisking its flanks. She froze again; waited.

When the striper dropped down, she pounced on its stare with her own. Again it evaded her, closing its eyes and ducking its head, showing her only its bristling mane.

She knew the stripers were smarter than the dapplebacks; by now her stare would have a dappleback helplessly imprisoned.

Thakur had warned her that the stripers were clever; that the larger head held a more alert and cunning mind. Suppressing her frustrated growl, Ratha made several rasping snarls that were almost barks.

The sounds had the effect she wanted. The striper’s ears swiveled, the head came up, the eyes opened. Again her eyes sought the striper’s gaze and this time she captured it. The animal stiffened, as if about to fight, but snort and stamp as it would, the striper couldn’t break Ratha’s stare. It stilled to near-immobility, only its hide shivering.

Ratha felt triumph strengthen her heartbeat and deepen her breathing. She was so close; she could reach out and tap one of the horse’s forelegs with a front paw.

Again came the rush of desire that threatened to propel her up onto the horse’s shoulders, driving her teeth into its neck. In her imagination, she was already atop the striper, feeling the stiff upright mane bristle into the corners of her mouth. Part of her already felt the velvet-furred skin resist, stretch and then tear through beneath the points of her fangs, her neck muscles pulling and twisting in just the right way so that her fangs would slip between the neckbones and skillfully separate them while the prey’s blood flowed in pulses over her tongue. . .

Outwardly Ratha shuddered, yet kept her eyes fixed on those of the horse while inwardly she swiped the feelings aside. No, such a fevered attack was not the way of the Named. She had fought this internal battle many times before, when she trained as a cub under Thakur, and later when she began her duties as a herder. Even when she culled herd-beasts, she would not let instinct run wild.

Ratha used her frustration and desire, pouring them out savagely through her eyes. The horse was now as still as if it were already in her killing embrace. The muscles and tendons atop her forelegs quivered with the need to drive her claws out and deep into flesh.

She lifted out of her crouch, rearing up on her hind paws to lay one foreleg almost gently over the horse’s shoulders and up along the back of its neck. In spite of her care, the beast started, but before it could begin its escape flurry, Ratha slapped the other forepaw around the underside of its neck.

Now Ratha used her claws, but only enough to maintain her hold as she pushed backwards with her hind feet to unbalance the striper and pull it over. She was so close to the horse now that she couldn’t hold its gaze, but she no longer needed to. It was falling into the daze that doomed prey often assumed.

Instead of digging into the striper’s nape with claws and teeth, Ratha used the pressure and friction of her pads combined with her weight and her experience in knowing exactly how and where to push in order to topple the beast.

As if in a trance, the striper sank to its knees. Ratha climbed further onto it, using her weight to press the horse down onto its belly. She draped herself across the animal, one forepaw keeping the horse’s forelegs, with their dangerous hooves, at a distance. She wrapped the other forepaw around the top of the horse’s head, twisting it up so that the throat lay exposed.

Feeling the striper's heartbeat thudding through its ribs and into her own body, Ratha bent her head, jaws starting to open. The heart’s beat was strong in the creature’s neck, visibly jolting the skin over the great vessels and releasing a deep temptation in Ratha to bite deeply and hard.

Instead she opened her mouth to its full gape and set her teeth in position for the instinctive throat bite. With the horse’s sweat-smell hot in her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut with the effort not to bite, feeling the jaw-closing muscles beneath her eyes and on the sides of her forehead tremble with the strain.

The onlookers, Thakur and the young cubs learning herding from him, had grown quiet, as if they sensed the conflict within her.

Slowly, deliberately, she pulled her head up, feeling the skin of her muzzle slide
back over her teeth as her mouth closed. She swallowed the saliva that had flooded her mouth, staying atop the striper while the youngsters shrilled their praise and Thakur added his deeper note. Their cries sounded strangely muted to her, as if they were distant or her ears muffled...

(End of excerpt)

Ratha's Creatures - What is the Blubber-Tusker?

VOYA Review of Ratha's Courage! VOYA is Voice of Youth Advocates

Before our little heroine in Ratha and Thistle-chaser meets Splayfoot the seamare, Newt/Thistle encounters another sea-beast that puzzles her. This one actually helps Newt, although she doesn't realize it at first, and probably wouldn't admit it later. By stealing this animal's leavings of clams and other shellfish, Newt learns to eat seafood. So, what is this creature who unintentionally aids her survival?

Here's some description from the book (page 10):

It looked immense, whiskered and blubbery. Creases formed in the rolls of fat around its neck as it swung its head from side to side. Its muzzle was wide and pushed in. Short but massive tusks protruded from beneath a loose, slobbery upper lip.

In Newt's mind, the creature becomes the “blubber-tusker”. Here's a bit more from pp. 10-12 of Ratha and Thistle-chaser:

With a startled grunt, the blubber-tusker heaved itself upright and stared at her with eyes spaced so far apart they seemed about to fall off the sides of its pug-nosed face.

She had almost reached the shell-bed when the creature bellowed and wriggled toward her, its heaving motion sending ripples through its blubber.

An elephant seal? That description could fit the huge California pinniped. However, recall from the previous installment that most seals and sea-lions were still pretty small. Enaliarctos, the “barking raider” and a very early sea-lion, was still in the otter-like stage. However, one branch of the family rapidly achieved heavyweight status, namely the walruses.

Paleontologists now think that sea-lions and walruses descended from a canid (dog/wolf) ancestor and seals from a mustelid (weasel/otter) ancestor. Sea-lions and walruses evolved in the Pacific Ocean while seals originated in the Atlantic and migrated to the Pacific. Walruses made the trip the other way, from Pacific to Atlantic. Then they became extinct in their original home and a branch migrated back to the Pacific to fill the walrus vacancy there.

Is Thistle-chaser's blubber-tusker the long-tusked whiskered gentleman we know from Lewis Carrol's poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, namely a modern species? No. Thistle's animal is a very early walrus which still has some of the characteristics of its sea-lion ancestry. It's canine teeth have developed into tusks for raking shellfish, but they have not attained the length of the modern species. Certain aspects of its skull are very sea-lion-like. Paleontologists who study this creature's fossilized bones have named it Aivukis, and it really was grunting and and wriggling around on the beaches of the California Miocene.

I made one semi-deliberate goof when I portrayed Aivukis as being contemporary with the early sea-lion, Enaliarctos. In truth, Aivukis appeared later. Walruses (family Odobenidae) developed from the early sea-lions (family Enaliarctidae). The first walrus was an animal that was larger than the early sea-lions, but still had sea-lion teeth, a creature called Neotherium. I used Aivukis since it looked and behaved differently from Enaliarctos. One might call this a bit of poetic license, although the fossil record isn't exactly a time machine. No one knows exactly happened back then, which makes it a fun playground for a series.

Below is artist M. R. Long's interpretation of Aivukis (from Savage and Long, Mammal Evolution: An Illustrated Guide - 1986). This book was a real source of inspiration for the beach setting of Ratha and Thistle-chaser. It deserves to come back into print.)

Whether or not Aivukis ever involuntarily shared its dinner with a limping little feline can't be told from fossils, but it might have happened!

This artist's re-creation of the creature helped inspire my description (“eyes so wide apart, etc.”)

Next up – Ratha's Challenge and the face-tails.


Clare

Ratha's Creatures - What are the "barking raiders"

In Ratha and Thistle-chaser, Book 3 of the Named, Newt (later called Thistle-chaser), fights a brief but intense battle with a pack of "barking raiders" who attack Splayfoot, the seamare (Paleoparadoxia - see previous post.) What are these creatures? Are they also based on fossil animals or is the author making things up?

Like all the other creatures that appear in Ratha's world, these yelping raiders also existed in the early Miocene. Those readers who put things together quickly, i.e. a beach dwelling animal, bulging eyes, a swimmer, barks, has flippers, etc. have already guessed that these animals are seals or sea-lions. Good call, except that seals and sea-lions as we know them today hadn't yet evolved 20-25 million years ago. However, their precursors did exist. When Newt rushes down onto the beach to defend Splayfoot, she encounters Enaliarctos, the early ancestor of the present California and Pacific Coast sea-lions.

Here is the begining of the scene from the book (pp. 36-37):

On the beach in the cove below, she saw Splayfoot
with her two seafoals huddling at her sides. Five
small animals with sleek, wet pelts and sinuous
shapes surrounded and menaced the family. These
small sea-lions reminded Newt of the otters she
had seen in the ocean, lolling in wave troughs.
The otters swam with webbed toes and long, powerful
tails, whereas these animals had clawed flippers
and much shorter tails. Their ears were small and
lay close to their heads, and their eyes bulged.
Their muzzles were tapered, with powerfuljaws
and teeth.

Of course, sounds don't fossilize, but being a sea-lion ancestor, Enaliarctos probably made the unique (and loud) sea-lion bark that echoes from many Pacific beaches and sea-washed rocks.

"Newt's opponent barked at her with a blast of fishy breath, then scooted free to bite her on the tail."

Ouch! She's lucky she didn't get an infection in the wound, since seal and sea-lion teeth can carry some nasty bacteria. Pinniped hunters and handlers, if not careful, often develop a stubborn inflammation called "seal hand".

From careful study of Enaliarctos fossils, paleontologists have developed a description of a creature that looks and lives a lot like an otter, although probably a descendent of the amphocyanid "bear-dogs" (see Ratha's Creatures - Bristlemanes). Serum albumin (protein) studies have placed sea-lions slightly closer to the bear Ursus, and seals slightly closer to the California sea-otter, Enhydra. Other studies indicate that the pinnipeds (seals, sea-lions and walruses) are more closely related to each other than any non-pinniped carnivore family. One depiction of pinniped family relationships shows seals descending from otter-like mustelids (weasels) while sea-lions arose from dog- and bear-like ancestors.

Below is an artist's interpretation of the animal (painting by M.R. Long in Mammal Evolution, by Savage and Long. This is an excellent book, though hard to find. It deserves reprinting.) This image influenced my description of the "barking raider" in the book; another instance of how art and writing interact.



The study of pinniped evolution also shows a split by location, with each side dominating their own ocean. Sea-lions, and their close relatives, the walruses, took the Pacific, while the seals made the Atlantic their own swimming pool. Later, some walruses crossed over to the Atlantic and some seals entered the Pacific.

Eniliarctos' head in particular, resembles a modern-day sea-lion's, with large eyes and enlarged nasal passages (to enhance inhaling and breath-holding for diving). Although external ears don't fossilize (although evidence of ear-moving muscle attachment points might be found on fossil skulls), Enaliarctos may have had small sea-lion-like ears. It also shows a modification of the cerebral circulatory system to impove drainage of blood from the brain while diving. This is also found in present-day sea-lions.

Enaliarctos had an otter-like body, with a reduced tail, as the creature was starting to shift from an otter-like swimming mode (using the tail) to a sea-lion mode (using the rear feet as sculls and the forefeet as flippers).

It still had rear legs that were more otterlike, so that it could bound along on land. Like the short-legged otter, it probably increased its stride by arching and flexing its back.

Next on stage - the blubber-tusker!