What You May Not Know about "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head"

       I just posted a piece on the Ruminations blog called What You May Not Know about The Termite Queen.  It occurred to me that most of the posts I wrote about my first novel happened way back in 2011 and weren't viewed extensively, so there may be people out there who needd a refresher course in what that book is all about.

       The same holds true for my "Labors" series.  The discussions of these books on this blog also haven't been heavily viewed.  So I thought it was about time for a recap.

 

       At the end of The Termite Queen, the Champion Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head and the Remembrancer (i.e., Bard) Di'fa'kro'mi announce their intention of setting out on an adventure.  Until Kaitrin and the other Star-Beings came, the Shshi didn't know the ocean existed -- it was only a Remembrancer's tale .  The concept of an endless body of water fascinates them and so they prepare to set out on an epic journey. 

       And how better to depict an epic quest than by having the questers relive Greek myths as well as certain other ancient heroic tales?  And who better to experience these adventures but a Hercules stand-in?  And which of my termites is a perfect fit to play Hercules?  Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head, of course!  The series title "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head" mirrors the Twelve Labors of Hercules, and several of these are re-enacted, although not all of them are suitable for termites culture.  But the primary myths that are re-experienced are the larger ones that are not really associated with Hercules, such as the topic of the first volume -- the Trojan War.

       How can one of the world's great love stories be retold within a termite culture where sex has no relevance except within the Holy Chamber of a fortress where the Mother and the King dwell?  Well, if I told you that, it would be a spoiler!  Suffice it to say that I came up with an ingenious way to make it happen!  And it should come as no surprise that a tale of war would fit well into the termite culture -- one-third of the citizens of a fortress are Warriors, after all.  And the themes of heroism and cowardice and betrayal, of friend turning against friend -- those are universal.
       The opening chapters of The War of the Stolen Mother establish the premise for the entire series.  We not only have to tie it to the end of "The Termite Queen" --  we must also dispatch Ki'shto'ba on a quest to accomplish Twelve Wonders.  And we need to identify Ki'shto'ba with Hercules by giving it the appropriate backstory.  Hercules was sired by Zeus who paid a clandestine visit to Hercules' mother in the guise of her husband.  Hercules had a twin and when they were both in the nursery, he wrestled with two serpents who were trying to kill the twin.   We can't skip those interesting facts, now can we?
       We also have to learn about certain prophecies regarding Ki'shto'ba that are spoken by one of the greatest Seers (a stand-in for the great Greek Seer Teiresias), and we have to provide the hero with its twelve  Companions for the quest.  By the time Ki'shto'ba leaves its home fortress of To'wak, it has acquired four of them.  The fifth soon appears -- one of the most important characters in the story -- Za'dut the trickster.  Terrific character -- I love it!
       Only then can we embark on the War of the Stolen Mother itself.  And how I accomplish that will not form a subject of this post.  Let me just say that even as in the Iliad itself, there is plenty of action, mass battles, heroic single combat, trickery, prophecy, betrayal, funeral games, and ultimately catastrophe -- everything you would want in an epic fantasy!  Any reader who enjoys a uniquely imaginative depiction of this sort of story would love reading this book!

       Now I'll quickly recap the rest of series, for those who never read my earlier posts.  Di'fa'kro'mi the Remembrancer, who is the narrator of these tales, originally wrote three volumes, but they turned out to be too long, so Kaitrin Oliva (and me, by proxy) converted them into six.  They divided well because they're episodic, and they have undergone a few changes of title:

Volume One: The War of the Stolen Mother  
Already published on Amazon and Smashwords.
Volume Two:  The Storm-Wing
Ki'shto'ba earns the new surname: Monster-Slayer.  It kills five monsters in this volume and meets a new Shshi people who will have a profound effect on our hero and all the Companions.  This volume is almost ready to publish; I've formatted the CreateSpace template, drawn the map, and am trying to complete the covers (having trouble with Gimp and those pesky text-boxes again).  Probably will be published sometime in January.
Volume Three: The Tale of the Valley of Thorns 
The Song of Roland and its disastrous aftermath.  Enough said.
Volume Four: Beneath the Mountain of Heavy Fear
Descent into the Underworld - oh, boy!
Volume Five and Six: The Quest for the Golden Fungus
This has to be split into two volumes -- just too long otherwise -- but I'm uncertain as to how to handle the individual volume titles.  This is how I would like to do them:
Volume Five: The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Companions Reach the Sea (tentative subtitle -- may change)
Volume Six: The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Revenge of the Dead Enemy
The problem here is the title length -- going to look horrible on Amazon and also on the title page.  If I drop the Quest part and use the subtitles as the main title, we lose the obvious reference to the Quest for Golden Fleece (I'm sure you guessed that was the reference!).  So I'll have to think about that some more.
And then I mean to write (someday) a seventh volume, because the end of v.6 leaves a lot of loose ends.  It will be entitled
Volume Seven: The Buried Ship at the End of the World.
Nothing to reveal on that one at the moment.

       Now all of this should make you quite eager to begin reading this series!  I promise you, if you like action and adventure, with great characters and some psychological angst thrown in as a bonus, you're going to love "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head"!
       I guarantee it! (as the gentleman on the Men's Warehouse commercials always says!)

AND REMEMBER: CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

 

GIVE A PAPERBACK OF "THE WAR OF THE STOLEN MOTHER,"

ALL NEATLY WRAPPED UP AND PLACED

PROMINENTLY UNDER THE TREE! 

 

THE RECIPIENT OF YOUR GIFT WILL HUG YOU!

       

How to Convert Greek Names into the Shshi Language

       First a word on my progress toward publishing The War of the Stolen Mother. Yesterday I finished the final pass-through of the text and now it's ready to insert into the CreateSpace template.  I've also been working on the cover art.  I think I have the front cover completed, although I'm vacillating between two different pictures, so I'll have to ponder some more.  I'm also considering several options for the back cover, and I'm doing a new line drawing to put on the title page.  And then I have to do the map!  So publishing is still a little way off.

       Today I want to talk about all those complex names that you're going to encounter in the book.  The original Greek names in the Iliad are every bit as complicated as those in my tale, but they are familiar in our culture -- Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Hector, Priam, Deiphobus, Laocoon, Cassandra, Odysseus  ... the list goes on and on.  It happens that in the index to Robert Graves' Greek Myths, a translation into English is given for all the names mentioned in the text.  I used that as a springboard for working out equivalent names for my characters.

       I'll remind everybody that Workers' names always have two syllables; Warriors, three; Alates, Four, and progenitors, five.  At least, that is true among the Shshi, whether Shum'za (Little Heads) or Da'no'no (Very Big).  It's not true among the Nasutes.

        Thus Menelaus, which is translated by Graves as "might of the people," becomes Shi'lo'na'sha'ma, Strength of the People, plus the designation for King (na'sha'ma|).  Agamemnon (called in the Iliad King of Men), translated as "very resolute" by Graves, becomes Pai’zeg’weil surnamed Tas Ut’zei (Warrior Who Never Loses, surnamed Rules All). 

       The name Achilles turned out to be hopeless.  Graves says it means "lipless" and was a common designation for "oracular heroes," but since termites have no lips, it would be difficult to make that work!  I suppose I could have used A'zid'wei or Zid'wei'a, which would have meant Palpless, or even A'wei'to or To'wei'a (Lacking a Mandible), but what kind of names are those for a heroic Warrior?  Therefore, I had to make up a name of my own for Achilles and he ended up being Nei'ga'bao (Fated to Conquer).  But I was able to do the surname; in the Iliad Achilles is continually referred to "swift-footed," hence Nei'ga'bao was given the surname Gli Mu'zi (Swift-Foot).

       Graves translates Hector as "prop, or stay."  Therefore we have Viz'ka'cha, which means Mainstay of the Fortress.  In the Iliad, Hector is continually described with the epithet "of the bright helmet," so Viz'ka'cha gets the surname Gri Um'zi (Bright Head).

       And then there is Paris, which means "wallet" in Greek.  Paris was one of those frequent cases in Greek tales where an infant is exposed in the wilderness to die because of some portent of evil connected to his birth.  They are subsequently nurtured by an animal and then discovered and rescued by some commoner.  When Paris was exposed in that way, he was suckled by a she-bear, then adopted by a herdsman, who brought him home in a wallet, from which he was named.  In my version, the egg which held "Paris" was doomed to be destroyed and was sent to the Charnel Hall, but when the Worker inserted the knife, it discovered a live nymph inside.  Panicking, he hid the egg in a dung bucket.  An Alate who happened to look in the bucket was astonished to see this little face waggling its antennae at him; hence the Namers called the nymph Roi'za'chu (Bucket Face).  Also not the most dignified name for a great Warrior, but suitable for the character who becomes the major villain of my version!

       In order to make the plot work, I take a lot of license with one particular character.  Deiphobus in the Greek version was one of the many siblings of Hector and Paris and plays only a small role in the tale.  But he does happen to be the one who helps betray Achilles to Paris on the battlefield and I built off that to create a significant and essential character.  Deiphobus means "scaring the spoiler," and the name of my character, Dai'wak'zei, means exactly the same thing -- One Who Scares the Despoiler.

       Graves gives the translation of Cassandra as "she who entangles men," so we have Ta'hat'a'pai (She Confuses a Warrior).

       The name of the Healer Ra'fa'kat'wei worked out beautifully; in the Greek camp was a physician named Podaleirius, which means according to Graves "without lilies where he treads, i.e., discouraging death."  Ra'fa'kat'wei means She Treads Not on a Flower, which quite captures the spirit of this expert and compassionate healer.

       Calchas was the name of the Trojan Seer who defected to the Greeks.  The name means "brazen."  In my rendition he becomes Ma'tei'ban'shli, meaning He Sees Bold Ends.

       And finally we have one "centaur."  Actually, Cheiron was such a ubiquitous figure in Greek myth that I was forced to divide it into two people.  In the Troy portion we see Cheiron as the one who trained all the famous Greek heroes.  Ju'mu is an old Warrior from a southern people called the Yo'sho'zei (Ancient Ones) who blends the characteristics of the Shi and the Nasute in quite a horrific way, having great downward-hooking mandibles and a cone-shaped gland on its head that sprays sticky, frothy acid.  There actually are termite species who possess those characteristics; I must draw a picture of Ju'mu sometime.  This Cheiron figure's name means Hard Claw.  In Greek Cheiron means simply "hand."  In fact, however, "Ju'mu" is not the character's "real" name (note that it lacks the requisite three syllables).  In the language of the Shshi a more accurate translation would be Ju'a'a'mu'a, which is as close as the Shshi can come to uttering Chu’te’e’nu’a, as it would be known among the Northern Nasutes.  However, in the language native to the Yo'sho'zei, Ju'mu carries the brain-twisting epithet of Chuh’de’myukh’ze’uh’tzi.  The names consistently mean Hard Claw.

       And for the first time you've become aware that the Termite Peoples have more than one language!

       One last thing:  Some of you may be aware that Achilles was the leader of a people called the Myrmidons.  That word means simply "ant" in Greek and here is what Graves has to say about the origins of that strange name: "Some say that Achilles's allies, the Myrmidons, were so named in honour of King Myrmidon, whose daughter Eurymedusa was seduced by Zeus in the form of an ant -- which is why ants are sacred in Thessaly." [Graves, Greek Myths (Penguin Books, c1955) v.1, p. 213]  I couldn't believe how well that fit in with Shshi culture, which cultivates formicidiforms (called shza'zei|, or Little Ones) for the honeydew they produce!  It played perfectly into the little myth that Za'dut tells to explain why Nei'ga'bao's people call themselves shein’zei| ki| shlo’lo’za’zei|, or Offspring of Little Ones.

       And in case your head is spinning, I'm making a list of characters to place at the beginning of the book.  They won't have translations, but they will have identifications!

The Legends of Troy

       First, I want to make an addendum to the previous post ("Characters and Elements Found in Myth and Folklore").  I thought of four more elements of epics that I've worked into "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head" series. 

       No. 1: funeral games.  That custon isn't practiced in Lo'ro'ra among the Little-Head Shshi, but there are certain other fortresses that have invented it.  In the Iliad a whole section is devoted to the funeral games for Hector.

       No. 2:  battle frenzy and, as an adjunct, the battle taunt, where two Warriors trash each other verbally before a combat. 

       No. 3:  the significance of returning the bodies of dead warriors to the enemy for proper disposition.  I've already made the point in "Termite Queen" that the Shshi practice necrophagia and therefore it is traditional and even obligatory that one side in a battle to return the opponent's dead bodies.  This fits right in with the Greek emphasis on retrieving their dead. 

       No. 4 (and not least):  the powerful, storied, perhaps enchanted weapon, like Excalibur.  You can't have a heroic tale without such a weapon of lore!  You'll find out how I managed that, since Shshi Warriors grow their own weapons upon their bodies.

 

       Now to the Troy legends.  Everybody (at least in the Western world) knows the story; it's engrained in our culture.  Even if you've never read the Iliad or the Odyssey, you know the tales from children's books or from movies like the latest one "Troy," or from reading other retellings or studying myths in school.  Everybody knows that Paris the Prince of Troy fell in love with Helen the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta  and carried her off during a visit to that place, upon which the Greeks set out with a huge fleet of ships to attack Troy and bring her back.  Everybody knows about Achilles and his one weak spot (which gave its name to the Achilles tendon), and about the nobility of Hector the Prince of Troy, and about the Trojan horse.  However, the fact is that Homer's Iliad ends with the death of Hector.  It contains nothing about the death of Achilles at Paris' hand, or the death of Paris, or the stealing of the Palladium (the statue of Pallas Athene that would keep Troy safe as long as it remained within the walls), or even the episode of the Trojan horse.  The valuable thing about Robert Graves' Greek Myths is that he gives the whole story in segments that draw on all kinds of original sources, not just the Iliad.  And he gives all the alternative versions.  This made it really valuable in helping me pick and choose which incidents or versions would be most adaptable to termite culture.   And you might be surprised how adaptable the story is. 

       Of course, it was impossible to include every one of the myriad characters or all the tortuous complexities of the plot twists, and there were times when I had to make serious adjustments to meet termite requirements.  An example is the episode of Briseis, the Trojan female who is abducted by the Greeks and over whom Achilles and Agamemnon are quarreling at the commencement of the Iliad.  Termite Warriors do not abduct female Alates for sexual purposes -- they have no sex drive or functioning organs.  So I had to find a different reason for a high-ranking Alate to be abducted and I think I did that successfully.  The important thing was to provoke the Achilles character so that it would be sulking in its "tent" at a crucial moment, causing the Patroclus character to respond to "Hector's" challenge in its place. 

       In Graves' interpretation of history, the Trojan War wasn't about the abduction of Helen at all but was really a trade war (see p. 302 or Graves' The Greek Myths, v.2 [Penguin Books, c1955])  Troy happened to be in a good location to control the entry to the Black Sea.   Obviously, in the landlocked home of the Northern Shshi, I couldn't create a contest for naval supremacy, so I made the conflict begin as a quarrel over a river ford.  Hence, my Troy gets the name "Thel'or'ei," meaning "Good Broad Ford."

       The mythical Hercules didn't take part in the Trojan War, but somewhere in his Greek Myths (and for the life of me I can't find the reference again, but I remember it), Graves mentions that Hercules is associated with fighting at Troy, probably in earlier conflicts over the city, so I felt justified in allowing my Hercules stand-in Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head to play a part in the War of the Stolen Mother.  Ki'shto'ba is not equivalent to any particular character in the Troy stories but is a kind of catalyst, voice of reason, and savior.  Di'fa'kro'mi obviously fills the role of Homer (albeit our Remembrancer is not blind).  And our little Worker/trickster is in this book -- who else? -- Odysseus, a trickster character in his own right -- responsible for both the stealing of the "Palladium" and for the building of the "Trojan Horse."
       And one word about Cassandra:  I was annoyed to say the least that she was omitted completely from the movie "Troy."  In that movie there was no Seer whom nobody would believe, and nobody ever said anything like "Beware Greeks bearing gifts" (unless I fell asleep at the wrong time -- it wasn't the greatest movie in the world).  "Cassandra" plays a big part in my interpretation.  And let's not forget Aeneas, who fled the burning city of Troy carrying his father on his back.  How does that work?  At some time in the near future, you'll be able to read "War of the Stolen Mother" and find out!