Bill Hiatt [Spell Weaver 01] Living

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.ContentsTitle PageCopyright and Legal InformationDedication and AcknowledgmentsA Note on the GeographyA Note on Welsh Folklore and Other MattersChapter 1: Unwitting BetrayalChapter 2: Coming StormChapter 3: The TheftChapter 4: Unexpected SalvationChapter 5: Life ChangesChapter 6: Practice ImperfectChapter 7: Founder's Day SurpriseChapter 8: Meeting an Old "Friend"Chapter 9: Desperate TimesChapter 10: TrianglesChapter 11: RescueChapter 12: Near HomecomingChapter 13: Making PlansChapter 14: HomecomingChapter 15: The LakeChapter 16: The Lake AgainChapter 17: Computer HackingChapter 18: The Science of MagicChapter 19: SamhainChapter 20: The Final ShowdownChapter 21: Back to the BeginningChapter 22: The End?About the AuthorLIVING WITH YOUR PAST SELVESby Bill HiattAll text is copyrighted by William A.Hiatt, 2012.All rights are reserved.The cover photograph is copyrighted by Losevsky Photo and Video and licensed from Shutterstock.com.http://www.shutterstock.comThe cover fonts are Net Night Show (by Shopwell) and Hidden Dreams (by Digital Juice), both variations on Moonlight Magic and both licensed from Digital Juice.http://www.digitaljuice.comThis is a work of fiction.Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.DEDICATIONThis novel is dedicated to the many students I have had the pleasure of working with during my 33 years of teaching.None of you are exactly like Taliesin Weaver, but each of you, like him, is capable of greatness.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSAs John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” My students over the years have provided much of the inspiration for this novel, and my colleagues have made its creation possible, because without them, I would be a very different person now, and probably not one with the desire to write—or teach.They have kept me sane during good times and bad.A NOTE ON THE GEOGRAPHYThe story is set in Santa Brígida, an imaginary coastal town between Summerland and Coast Village, just a little east of Santa Barbara.There wouldn’t really be enough room for such a place to fit, so you have to imagine a somewhat longer coastline that what exists in reality, with inland territory to match.A NOTE ON WELSH FOLKLORE AND OTHER MATTERSI began this novel with the intent of being true to the Welsh folk tradition.In other words, though this is fantasy, not a factual work on Welsh mythology or folklore, I wanted to draw the details for material such as the nature of monsters and the way magic works as much as possible from early Welsh sources.I suppose my teaching background pulled me in that direction; in the classroom one of my goals has always been to get students to learn as much as they can about other cultures.Unfortunately, modern readers have different expectations than those of early medieval audiences and are certainly curious about different things, with the result that relying on unaltered medieval material as the basis for a modern novel leaves gaps a modern reader would find unsatisfying, particularly since I was not creating a retelling of Welsh myths but a story set in modern times.In addition, with regard to the Arthurian materials, modern readers are used to later versions that draw on the early Welsh tradition but include many other elements as well.Finally, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was writing fiction, not a factual study of the early Welsh tradition.In the interest of the story I wanted to develop, I ended up keeping as much Welsh material as I could but also used some non-Welsh sources and a considerable dose of imagination.I hope if any lovers of the early Welsh literary tradition honor me by reading my work, that they will not be too offended by my deviations from that tradition.I take comfort from the fact that early Welsh writers handled the sources before them in much the same eclectic way.Since the novel presupposes that figures like Arthur are historical, I had to wrestle a little with differing theories of chronology and location, as I have had to do with issues regarding the original Taliesin.Inevitably, I had to make choices.These choices do not necessarily reflect my judgment of the best reconstruction of whatever history may lie behind the original stories, but rather my attempt to create the best framework for the story I was telling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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