#blitz #TopTenList #snippet: 'Stenibelle' (League of Elder series) by Author Ren Garcia
The quest of Paymaster Stenstrom spans the planes, taking a bizarre turn in the 3rd universe, as there he is not an affluent man but a woman in desperate circumstances. Lady Stenibelle is imprisoned for her role in the Seeker Affair, is penniless, and her House of Belmont-South Tyrol is on the verge of extinction. Her spirit broken, Stenibelle is resigned to perform her sentence without fuss, do as she is told, and fade away in obscurity. However, fate is not yet finished with her. Stenibelle is in the gaze of hidden benefactors with ulterior motives. People claiming to be her dear friends come forward, yet she does not know them. The Quests of the Shadow tech Goddess proceed, and she must discover the hero that lies within or face total oblivion. The disgraced 30th daughter of the House of Belmont will either be the final stake driven into its dying heart, or the ray of light that comes to save it and all else that follows.
Ren Garcia is a Science
Fiction/Fantasy author and Texas native who grew up in western Ohio. He has
been writing since before he could write, often scribbling alien lingo on any
available wall or floor with assorted crayons. He attended The Ohio State
University and majored in English Literature. Ren has been an avid lover of
anything surreal since childhood, he also has a passion for caving, urban
archeology and architecture. His highly imaginative "League of Elder"
book series is published by Loconeal Publishing
Connect with the Author here:
Top Ten List
1)--Ren is the only member of his extended family with blue eyes--everybody else has brown. Ren once made his mother cry by announcing she couldn't possibly be his mother due to the color of her eyes.
2)--Ren was a JetMech (Aero-Propulsion Specialist) in the Ohio Air national Guard.
3)--Ren was once severely injured in the groin while playing ice hockey without an athletic protector.
4)--Ren is extremely allergic to cats.
5)--In his boyhood, Ren was diagnosed as being severely Mentally Impaired, with a functional IQ of 40-60. It was later determined that Ren was not Mentally Impaired, he simply required prescription eyeglasses.
6)--Ren often spent his summer afternoons at a movie theater where his older sister worked. After watching the film "Coma" about fifty times, he developed a life-long fear of hospitals.
7)--The works of Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber have heavily influenced Ren's books.
8)--Ren once heavily stuttered.
9)--Ren secretly loves the film Moulin Rouge!. He named the planet Bazz after its director, Baz Luhrman.
10)--A little girl dressed in a red robe with her face hidden behind a black sash on Halloween gave Ren the inspiration for his Black Hats.
Interesting facts about Stenibella
--Stenibelle is the 9th League of Elder book.
--It is, by far, the shortest book in the series, weighing in at around 55 thousand words. The usual word count in the other books is around 125k.
--Stenibelle is a satellite book of Book 8: The Shadow tech Goddess. The events in the book happen at the same time as the doings in Book 8, only they happen in a different universe (Universe 3). Book 8 could not have concluded without Stenibelle's contribution to the quest.
--Stenibelle is a female version of Paymaster Stenstrom, a man.
SNIPPET
It was like an icy wave had launched itself from across the room and hit Stenibelle full in the face. All her wit and puns regarding the professor’s husband dried up and wilted, replaced with shock and a touch of fear. It was like being stuck in a room with her old school master whom she was terrified of. “And, and if I . . .”
“Refuse?” the professor said. “I wouldn’t if I were you. Please consider that I have extensive information on not only you, but all of your twenty-nine sisters, and your father and your dead mother too. You must acknowledge by now that I am rather meticulous in my methods. I’ll have your sisters defrocked from whatever social circles they inhabit, I’ll have your father off his Fleet chair and inhabiting a prison cell at Hagthorpe as you did, and I’ll have your mother dug up and set into the stocks in Tyrol where ruffians may throw rotting fruits at her equally rotting skeleton. And, by the by, if it’s any interest to you, I could have you right back in Hagthorpe prison alongside your father should I choose to do so, but I think you would rather like that, wouldn’t you? Yes, to sit unobserved in a comfortable if Spartan cell where your disgrace can be hidden and forgotten right along with your tiny little carcass. Instead, I think I would go after what’s left of your House. I’d call in markers and demand margin calls. I’d bankrupt you and allow your creditors to dissect the worthless remains of your holdings while you watch the entire ordeal from a cricket shack or whatever seedy lodgings you can manage to afford. So, with that in mind, if you wish to be the stake that is hammered into your House’s tortured heart at last, then, by all means. . . refuse.”
--Professor Hannah-Ben Shurlamp to Lady Stenibelle
Comments