Comments? Questions? Discussion?

[alfreda89]

Yes, right now this post is at the top, because the Nuala books are out as e-books. We are post-dated to try and keep this up at the top of the blog.

This is the place to discuss all things about Nuala -- pull up a chair. I'll check in from time to time.

Yes! We can talk about Alfreda, too. But there currently is no e-book for Alfreda scheduled. I'm trying to sell the back list with a new book. So, no Alfreda icon.

Comments

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

I like your touch with religion. You never spell out what the specifics of belief on Nuala are - let alone exactly what the schisms are, but it feels real. Mendulay does make my brain skip to Kipling though - the Road to Mandulay. What inspired the name?

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Took some long thinking, around other commitments, to piece this together! I think it came from a couple of areas. One thing was, I did not want the religion to be too specific. That allowed me to play with it, depending on where I was in the timeline. I did want a mixture of concepts -- elements that might have grown out of both western and eastern religions, but made sense to the scientists/colonists in a totally new place. I agree with Campbell that religions generally have a place they are rooted and grow. When you transplant them, they don't always continue to make sense.

The other thing I loved to play with was language. There is both the exotic city, and the word for the mandala. It's an image that repeats -- the Atares use Celtic knots in their crests -- yet I wanted it to change slightly. The Germanic "u" plays its part in a lot of Nualan words, so having the word change in the vowel seemed a logical shift.