📚 Blog Tour: A Bookish Chat with 'Home Rule: Book III of The Tribal Wars' Stella Atrium | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview #HomeRule
Stella Atrium is writing The Tribal Wars series. The first trilogy is available as ebooks and in print. BookLife has awarded the Editor’s Pick designation for each book upon its release.
Home Rule rounds out the first trilogy and received first place in the 2023 Artisan Book Review Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Book 4 titled Tribal Logic is scheduled for release in early 2024. Also be certain to pick up Atrium’s standalone novel Seven Beyond that won a 2014 Reader’s Favorites award in science fiction.
Website: https://stellaatrium.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/SAtriumWrites
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAtriumWrites
The Writer's Life: Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your latest book in the The Tribal Wars series, Home Rule, has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. How did you come up with the idea to write your series?
Stella Atrium: Hello, and thanks for this opportunity to greet your readers. HOME RULE is published broadly in August 2023, so we’re eager to get the word out. It’s science fiction and winds up the first trilogy of the series. Reading it as a standalone novel works too, since there’s a map and a glossary of characters.
Hershel Henry is a journalist and carries the narrative for reporting political conflicts on the distant mining planet of Dolvia. The tribes grow together into a nation-state, seeking regime change with pressures that reflect some struggles that we see in emerging countries in our own societies.
Reviewers tell me that the women carry the stories for character voice and driving the plot. One reviewer called the first book THE BUSH CLINIC “femme-led.” I really like that term since it’s not about romance or about dysfunctional families. Women can be heroes too.
That was my first principle, in fact. I wanted to foreground the women for how to shape community and work together. They fall in love and get married and have babies, but they also are instrumental in agitating for rights to clean water, pre-natal care, to own property, build education, and to fight in the militia. These trends are presented as personal stories for women who are cousins and friends and rivals – and enemies.
The male characters are not neglected, though. A female character is more interesting if an interesting man is interested in her. LOL
TWL: Can you give us a short excerpt from Home Rule?
Stella: Excerpt Home Rule – part 3
Narrator – Jessup Chandliss
I broke the surface and tore off my diving mask, inhaling with great gasps that ripped through my lungs like raw tearing. I floated with my arms out and my legs vertical until the spin in my head slowed and my vision cleared. Alright . . . breathing now.
Water bubbles streamed from below me, and I knew what that meant. I reached down, feeling for any handhold to grab Karry and pull him to the surface. His air hose was what I grabbed – not a good indication. He was already drifting. I pulled with all my might, tasting water as I submerged. I breathed out to flush my nostrils and dunked to see his form underwater and get a better hold. Up . . . up . . . just a moment more. We broke the surface, and I pulled away his mask and hood. Karry’s mouth was slack and his eyes unfocused.
“Live, you bastard!” I shouted. I slapped him and pounded his chest, my strokes weakened by the volume of water between us. I put my mouth on his and breathed out, grabbing a breath and forcing the air into his lungs.
Nothing. No response.
I grabbed him under the arm and paddled to the spit of sand that edged the pool. Once on my knees, I discarded the air tanks on my back and on his back and pulled off the hood of my wetsuit. I leaned over Karry’s form, checking for any movement. I pumped his chest and breathed into his mouth. Pump, pump, breathe. And again.
Karry coughed, spitting water and bile into my face. He leaned up and retched on the other side, mostly water from his lungs. I sat back, unzipping my wetsuit to breathe deeply and hiccupping against the pain.
Karry turned my way with tragic eyes. “We have to go back, Jessup.”
“We can collect the body, but with fresh tanks.”
“Kristos is not dead. We didn’t come this far together for a simple accident.”
“He cut the rope to save you. He’s gone.”
Karry’s look was fierce, his eyes flashing determination under the exhaustion. “We don’t know what’s in that chamber. He could find air pockets or another opening.”
I leaned back on an elbow, still catching my breath. “And will we find air pockets when we enter the aperture? He saved you. Be content with that.”
“My brother has saved me many times,” Karry said simply. “I won’t let this go, Jessup. Besides, I still have the guide line.” He showed me a reel at his waist with a line of waxed string that was mostly played out, taut and leading into the pool.
“Let’s get fresh tanks then, and a longer rope,” I said.
He tied the guideline to a stake we had there and slipped off his long flippers. He made for the opening while I kicked sand over the mess from his lungs and dragged the empty tanks forward.
When we poked our heads above ground, Yuri and Mica rushed forward. They were my former officers who had traveled with me through the wormhole. Karry walked to the spare tanks and began to assemble what he needed.
“You can’t go back,” Yuri said. “The tanks are only half full. The mix is wrong.”
Karry looked around briefly. “I’ll take two tanks and the spare blusterpack.” He grabbed the equipment, packing his belt pouch next to the big knife, and headed back to the pool entrance.
“You wanted adventure on Dolvia.” I shrugged. “You wanted to test yourself against the savannah, hey? Now we are.”
Yuri turned to Mica shaking his head. I caught up with Karry.
“Even if you make it to the opening . . .” I said while we dropped into the pool entrance. “Even if you have enough air . . . even if you can follow the guideline through . . . two men cannot make it back on this much air.”
“The second chamber,” Karry insisted as he pulled on his flippers, “is more like a grotto maybe. We tested that. Kristos can reach air. Discard his tanks and is swimming freely all under the savannah.”
“Then he doesn’t need a rescue.”
Karry barely grinned on one side of his face, the other side being stiff from a blow he received as a Gora captive. “Why should Kristos have all the fun?”
TWL: What part of the book was the most fun to write?
Stella: I really liked section three. Not too obscure, right? Teenage brothers are rescued from Gora abuse, and are managed by Earth adventurer Jessup Chandliss who is teaching them to scuba dive for silicide recovery. The older teen Kristos has a death wish and gets lost in the aquifer. His brother Karry takes big chances to find him. Chandliss despairs that they will not overcome the fears and self-hatred of their time as hostages.
This sequence talks about the difficulties of refugees from a conflict zone. We never hear about what happens in refugee camps or when a migrant reaches a final destination. How can damaged refugees find value in life and work and a reason to live within community? All these questions are wrapped up in an action scene.
That was my second principle, in fact. To tell a big story, worthy of a series, while exploring the results of forced migration. And to present how people cope through showing personal stories. I hope the example works for you.
TWL: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?
Stella: There’s a pantheon of characters, several from five tribes. Yet the integrated stories make for a tight plot, related by an offworlder with the perspective from Earth. Fighting and killing each other turns into tribal unity for home rule. Divisions are set aside, and rivals release personal grudges for a single purpose. That doesn’t mean they like each other, of course.
TWL: Can you tell us a little about your main characters?
Stella: Brianna Miller leaves Paris, France to jump back to Dolvia with ideas for better paths to home rule. The tribes aren’t ready for modern trends, however, and she is stymied at every turn.
Dulcinea el Uburu is a courted by several warriors, being a great beauty. She learns the art of diplomacy for turning them away, and is ready for new methods when approached by Brianna with her business and education ideas.
With Kelly Osborn, a young assistant and tribal poet, the two leaders form a bond that is protective and guiding in a conflict zone where laws aren’t enforced and ideas from women are discounted. Community grows around them as cousins and rivals join the fight for voice.
TWL: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?
Stella: I’m so glad you asked this question. HOME RULE climaxes with
regime change that impacts all characters. The next book titled TRIBAL
LOGIC, due out in January 2024, broadens the reader’s awareness of
neighboring duchies and how trade is managed by ruling personalities.
Our favorite characters become diplomats. We also see more magic from a
tribe with innate powers.
TWL: Finally, is there a message you’re trying to get across with your book?
Stella: Working within community can help a young person to find purpose in life, that’s my message. Young people in our world have become so isolated after the restrictions of Covid. Finding a friend is difficult, let alone one with similar core values for making better choices. I hope to inspire young people to reach out with a helping hand, and to seek unity over division.
Sarafina di Ramonicc In book 3 of the award-winning series, photojournalist Hershel Henry witnesses the loss by self-torching of tribal women. The Madquii and Gora tribes have laid siege to the city of Urbyd, and Brianna Miller must seek a peace treaty.
Kelly Osborn travels to Stargate Junction to set the wedding of ambassador Otieno. Hershel Henry opens a gazette to report on pending elections for home rule, but then shocking events upset their plans.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C44QT91N
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