Why Aurora Springer Wrote the Grand Master’s Trilogy

This year, I am celebrating completion of the Grand Master’s Trilogy. The story has been fun to write and involved the creation of several worlds and complex characters.

My initial concept, dating three decades ago, was to combine several short adventure stories under the unifying theme of a Pawn’s travels to different planets on missions for her Grand Master. Two short stories and fragments of a third went into book 1 and the rest was created recently. A romance evolves between the Pawn, Violet, and her mysterious Grand Master. They are worlds apart in many senses. Violet has few credits or possessions. She has lived on Terra or terraformed planets. The Grand Master resides on his isolated planet, situated above the plane of the galaxy. He is one of the twelve Grand Masters, an elite and powerful group ruling much of the galaxy behind a curtain of secrecy. They are a contentious group of humans and aliens, who are not above murdering their rivals.

Over the course of the trilogy, Violet and her Grand Master visit at least a dozen planets and two moons. Some planets were terraformed ages ago in the era of human expansion. Unfortunately, this vast colonization gave humans a bad reputation among many alien sentients. Other planets are unsuitable for humans. Sythos is too hot and volcanic vents spew flames. Erebus is covered in a layer of ice and sentients live deep underground.

When I began to plan the story about eighteen months ago, I had a revelation. I decided that teleporting to another planet was just as probable in current physics as traveling through a wormhole or hyperspace. Modern physics states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This poses a problem since the Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter. However, quantum entanglement allows quantum objects to exchange information instantly even at a distance. If we can solve that problem we may be able to reach the stars.

I have always liked the idea of stepping into another world and my teleportal cylinders accomplish this dream. It is like Alice jumping over a brook in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and of course I borrowed the chess theme in the Grand Master’s Trilogy from Lewis Carroll. Another analogy in children’s literature would be the pools leading to other worlds in the Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis. You may recognize ideas gleaned from other authors in my books. The dragon lords of Sythos share some characteristics with the Dragons of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, although my dragons communicate in hisses and high pitched squeals. Although they despise humans and Grand Masters, the dragons have a pivotal role in each book of the trilogy.

Finally, to celebrate this holiday season, the first books in my two Science Fiction Romance series will be 99c from Dec 26 through the first week of January.

Buy links:
Grand Master’s Pawn  Only 99c
Grand Master’s Game
Grand Master’s Mate
FREE short story Gifts of Jangalore

The Lady is Blue:  Only 99c

About Aurora: Aurora Springer is a scientist morphing into a novelist. She has a PhD in molecular biophysics and discovers science facts in her day job. She has invented adventures in weird worlds for as long as she can remember. In 2014, Aurora achieved her life-long ambition to publish her stories. Her works are character-driven romances set in weird worlds described with a sprinkle of humor. Some of the stories were composed thirty years ago. She was born in the UK and lives in Atlanta with her husband, a dog and two cats to sit on the keyboard. Her hobbies, besides reading and writing, include outdoor activities like gardening, watching wildlife, hiking and canoeing.

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Dragons and teleportation, oh my! I love them both! What about you? Would you like to talk to dragons? Teleport to somewhere else? I love comments so much that I pick a favorite to receive my monthly AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value).  Recipient is announced the first blog post of the new month.

Many thanks to Aurora for visiting the blog!

Perilously yours,

Pauline