S.B.K. Burns Author of Entangled – Ages of Invention
When I was in high school, my science teacher gave me tickets to do my lab research at the Franklin Institute of Science. Back then I knew there was something historic about the place, was in awe of the size of the building, the stairways, and the exhibits, but never investigated further. FLY LIKE AN EAGLE was born at the opening of the Franklin Institute. Growing up in historic Philadelphia, I knew stories were there to be discovered; I just didn’t realize the intrigue of the time.
While Jane Austin wrote PRIDE AND PREDJUDICE under the regent for “crazy” George III, industrialists and government officials, members of the Philadelphia Philosophical Society (including Thomas Jefferson), wanted to honor Benjamin Franklin by opening the Institute. I made my characters in FLY LIKE AN EAGLE, hero and heroine, children of those industrialists: lucky Samantha, daughter of Proper Philadelphia Society and Migizi, treated like a servant, his industrialist father having fallen in love and married a Native American woman, the leader of her Delaware doodem.
The Delaware Native Americans, like other Algonquin speakers, had a word for the power of human consciousness—bimijiwan (The Flow). It just seems that the resurrected future queen of Scotland, Ireland, and Britain, Electress Sophia of the House of Hanover (the ancestor to today’s British Royalty), oversaw the building of a quantum computer all out of crystal lenses. Long Live The Q! With the quantum computer serves as a time machine that focused The Flow of Life into both past and future.
Do you see yourself in your characters?
I always admire writers of memoirs. They have to be gutsy to write all the experiences they had, depending on the way they looked at their lives, their perspectives, and the intimate details they’re willing to reveal. I never found a single thread that I was comfortable with in my own life. I was different than others in that with my scientific curiosity, I was always experimenting. But, I am more the sort to step into the bodies of my characters and playact their parts, rather than exposing all the famous people I was lucky enough to know (and that includes my parents). I always felt uncomfortable about speaking of those who have passed on, because I’ll never know what their true motives were. And that’s what it’s about for my characters. If we don’t know their motives, it’s hard to judge them. And I don’t want to put myself in a place to judge others, or to put those judgments out there. END OF SOAPBOX!
What do you want your readers to take away from your books?
In my life, I have fallen in and out of love. TAKE THAT BACK! I don’t think I’ve ever fallen out of love with anyone I was in love with. But I did learn to move on. As to the themes I enjoy sharing with my books: most deal with diversity. My characters are challenged because of the society they’re born into. Their relationships are taboo. Dawn, in ENTANGLED, is born into the lower class, and Taylor, into the upper class. Samantha, in FLY LIKE AN EAGLE, is forbidden from marrying Native born, Eagle, but encouraged to marry his white industrialist father, many years older than she is.
I like my sci-fi heroes to be artificial intelligence androids that look and operate like humans (maybe even super humans). They’re considered one step down in society and, so, romantically forbidden. In my NANOWRIMO performance this year, I wrote a story I’m excited about: a contemporary romance between a “white” woman, a physician, and a black man, a Navy SEAL and firefighter. He rejects her because she’s white. Though she passes for white, she’s a dark-phase African albino from Tanzania, both her parents black (The albino race introduced in LEGENDS OF THE GOLDENS SERIES.
If writing is your first passion, what is your second?
I’m a scientific generalist with several advanced degrees and lots of courses out the whazoo! On my philosophy website (www.TheUnionOfOpposites.com) I extend the things I’ve learned (about conscious awareness) in my published research and use them to seed the themes in my novels. Sometimes the ideas can be difficult for those not into sci-fi, suspense, thrillers, or adventure (or those who just don’t want too many surprises). For those readers, I take my cue from some of my reviewers who just skip over those few geeky sentences. I don’t write formulaic, meaning that I don’t read another author to find out how their characters make love, how their worlds are run, things like that. In that way, I guess my novels are all my own kind of memoir, pieces of my nerdy life shared with my characters.
finished the second suggestive sentence of her self-regression, she was here in
the misty Lowlands of Scotland, not far outside Edinburgh. As on her previous
trips, she was literally in Lily’s body, experiencing all the woman’s senses
and emotions, but none of her thoughts. So frustrating.
Fly Like An Eagle:
most probably escaped to the house. Migizi (Eagle) would return her shawl,
hoping by the time he caught up to her, she would have put on something a
little less fetching.
been wrong about him. Leaving me alone with Ronaldson’s nubile daughter? Look
at her as a sister? He’d have more success taking flight by jumping off a cliff
and flapping his arms.
Visits: 218
Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Paranormal Romance, Sci-Fi, steampunk, Time travel by Tena Stetler with 1 comment.
Thanks, Tena.
Susan (S.B.K. Burns)