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Description of Cargo of Bones
Devil bureaucrat Essie Darkenchyl and her friends barely survived the jungle, but now they’re going straight to Hell–AKA her hometown!
Read an Excerpt of Cargo of Bones
“You nicked me in the dance, remember? The council might be scandalized if we slept in the same tent.”
She laughed, remembering how embarrassed she’d been as the other girls gasped and the doctors swarmed him. Her dad said, ‘Essie, if you didn’t want Vashon to be eligible to marry you, you just had to poke him! You didn’t have to stab so deep!’ But she did like him. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t block. And it had been nice to think the one boy she liked couldn’t marry her. There had been more important things than boys. Like Gossen’s Guide to Shipping Law.
“Nicked you?” she asked as she stood and walked for the tent. “Sir, I stabbed so deep they had to use medical magic to get the knife out.”
Vashon touched his shoulder where the knife had been.
“Yeah, like I said, you nicked me. I’ll sleep outside.”
Essie put a hand on her hip.
“It’s too cold, Vashon.” She crouched and crawled into the tent. “It’s not like you’re proposing. If you keep your underwear on, I’m sure the council will forgive us.”
“I’m not wearing underwear,” he said.
“Oh.”
Vashon cleared his throat.
“It’s not part of the cossetter’s ritual outfit.”
Essie bit her lip and looked away.
“Of course.”
“The first cossetters practiced naked to be closer to essential—”
“Okay, I get it!”
“So—I should sleep out here?” he asked.
“Get in here,” she said, then blurted, “but stay on your side.”
Interview with Z. Lindsey
What inspired you to come up with the idea for your book?
The book trilogy was inspired by my wife. The main character is based on a character she created but never got to play for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Thematically, it was stuff I’d wanted to play around with anyway–the idea of a hero who is very much not interested in heroism is a big part of it. As this outsider to elven culture, Essie deals a lot with ideas of identity and the model minority concept, and part of the series is her forming an identity beyond her job and her species. There’s also this pressure from others–Essie’s a fairly powerful being by the standards of her world–and there’s a pressure to do something with that, while all she really wants to do is hang out in a hammock on a sailing ship.
Do you have a favorite scene? If so, what was it?
Yes, but I can’t talk about it because that’d be serious spoilers. Sorry!
How would you describe a perfect hero?
But where’s the fun in a perfect hero? I think heroes are at their greatest when they remind us that we, too, can stand up to injustice, even in small ways. In real life, every person who’s ever done something heroic was imperfect, because all people are imperfect.
I usually don’t like heroes who seek power or glory as goals, and I can’t stay with stories about those types of characters for too long. What I really like are people who are trying to live their normal lives until they see people in danger and immediately know they have to help. In the first book, that’s really what Essie was–she was a simple bureaucrat who got caught in a war. Her job didn’t require her to keep people safe, but she did it anyway, at great personal expense. This time, it’s a little different because her concern involves her own family, but I wanted the first book to have her save people who were strangers to her, simply because it was right. My favorite heroes don’t care if anyone remembers them for what they did–they don’t even think of that possibility. They just see people in need, roll up their sleeves, and get to work.
How would you describe a perfect heroine?
The last answer, but pink. Heh. Kidding. I took the last question to mean ‘what is heroic?’ but I think you were asking what makes a good male protagonist versus a good female protagonist.
Some writers say, “It’s about the human experience” to justify writing men and women the same. But women’s experiences are different than men’s because society treats men and women differently. Unless your fantasy world is free of gender bias, that should be reflected in characters.
Men often write heroic women who shun ‘girly’ things. The heroic princess is ‘one of the guys’; she can’t stand other girls. She may actively devalue culture traits she perceives as feminine to show how tough she is. This sucks, because it suggests that a heroine needs to devalue her own femininity. She never goes to sewing classes; she sneaks off to train in swordsmanship instead. But why not both? Why can’t she have a few friends who are girls and who are also into stabbing things? Why can’t she like gossiping, needlepoint, and stabbing?
Plenty of historical women enjoyed culture traits associated with femininity and also committed revolutionary acts–for example, the women in the Warsaw uprising during World War II. And plenty of female soldiers had friends who were mostly women, such as the women who served in the Easter Rising. Some survivors stayed in contact for the rest of their lives.
The human woman Two Rabbit in my book, is the main character’s bestie. She’s a decent shot with a bow and arrow, and she also likes wearing fancy earrings. Too many books insist on those traits being mutually exclusive in a woman. Two Rabbit values feminine things, and she can kill you, and that’s okay.
How do you go about choosing the names for your characters?
This is a fun topic and it’s surprisingly tricky in fantasy. Certain names are too common: Let’s face it, we’ve all read a book with a Lucius. But if you start getting too far from real names, you sound silly.
Luckily my series is pretty silly, so a few bonkers names are totally appropriate. The weirdest name in the whole series is Wobb LeTeaux, the famous buccaneer. What I tend to do is look at central characters as blank slates as far as names go, then I try to name additional characters from the same area with similar names. It’s also important to consider the culture of the region your character is from. For an easy example, people from the Pyrinnay Islands in my books are named after their day of birth in the holy calendar. The most famous is the former queen Two Rabbit, who was born on the day … 2 Rabbit. That makes it nice and easy. Elves all receive a first name and use a parent’s name as their last name. There’s not a lot of consistency on whether they take the male or the female name (basically you take the more famous parent for self-aggrandizing purposes), but an elf might be named, say, Kama ti-Taleth, that’s Kama, daughter of Taleth. Now that I’ve created this rule, it’s both a help and a hindrance. It helps me come up with names faster, but it also restricts me, because I can’t have an elf with a different type of name without explaining why.
What’s your writing routine?
As a parent, I don’t know the meaning of the word routine. I write when I can, where I can, how I can.
What would be a must-have for a romantic date?
In the context of the book, my devil bureaucrat’s perfect date would take place in one of the fanciest restaurants in Aro, where your chances of getting involved in a bar fight are low. Over a bowl of menudo made from some form of sentient being, Essie and her beau would have a friendly chat about the various methods of executing pirates–or perhaps a more energetic, robust conversation about the best sitting position for calligraphy. For dessert, coffee and pickled kidneys.
After getting steamed up by debates about acceptable use of abbreviations in holy documents, Essie and her beau would take a walk along the boardwalk to buy some pincher peppers–the strong kind, that explode in your mouth. Then, they’d head down to the beach, where they’d hold hands and nibble on the peppers as the sun went down.
Personally, my ideal romantic date would also include the beach, although we’d probably eat fewer sentient lifeforms.
About Author Zac Lindsey
Zac Lindsey is an anthropologist and a linguist who focuses on the Maya people of Quintana Roo. Since childhood, he’s had a not-so-secret love of weird, silly, and well-structured fantasy. When other people’s parents were reading them picture books, his mom was reading him Terry Brooks. He typically writes hopeful and character-driven fantasy.
Today, he lives in Quintana Roo, Mexico with his wife, daughter, and various stray cats.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z.lindsey_fiction/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550498257222
Amazon link to the first book: https://www.amazon.com/River-Against-Sea-Z-Lindsey-ebook/dp/B0CH3TW3YD/ref=sr_1_1
B&N link to the first book (for paperback): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-against-the-sea-z-lindsey/1144077772
Z. Lindsey will award a randomly drawn winner a $25 Amazon/BN gift card + a digital copy of the book via Rafflecopter.