Roland Yeomans - The Not-So-Innocents Abroad Novel - A Review

Steampunk, Floating Airships, and new inventions, oh my, with an entourage of characters who are invited for a one-of-a-kind cruise. Wouldn't you like to come along?

The Not So Innocents Abroad -Cover. by Roland Yeomans

The Journey begins

Sam McCord, Meilori, Meilori's henchmen, Ada, Abigail, and a young Tesla cross paths with vampire politicians, Captain Nemo, and other assorted villains in this adventure set in a time of exploration and new inventions. The original stated purpose is to take the guests to the great world exposition in Paris, with a few side trips.

However. . .

All is not what it seems. The airship is powered by new technology and Meilori's control. Sam McCord does what a Texas Ranger is hired to do, keep the peace or control the mayhem. Somewhat. This is a cruise meant to impress and to explore, but at the same time, it is a venue where Sam McCord and Meilori can rein-in certain revenants-the undead-and others who plan their demise.

Will the tour survive? Will Captain Nemo get his way? Will Sam McCord and Meilori be able to deter the plots set in motion by those who have gone to the Dark side? This is a book which makes you want to look over your shoulder for those souls lurking in your own past. . .

In Not So Innocents Abroad, Roland Yeomans has crafted another tale of a world we can only imagine, yet one which mirrors the real world in some aspects - one in which good and evil battle for control against known and unknown enemies. Plots and sub-plots entangle our hero and his heroine, but the demon alien goddess (Meilori) paired with her solid Texas lawman with a deadly right hand manage to survive, so far. . .This tale continues in Roland's next novel, The Not So Innocents at Large.

Underneath the tension of the adventure runs the never-ending, time-spanning romance of McCord and Meilori. I recommend this novel for those who like steampunk, adventure, history and the magical world which the author has created. This is a book which will transport you to those realms where anything is possible.

To learn more about Roland Yeomans, the prolific author, please visit his website, Writing in the Crosshairs, where you can view some of his other titles. 

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Are you a fan of steampunk tales? Have you read Roland Yeomans novels? Do you like adventure with a fantasy twist?

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here and I'll respond. Thanks for dropping by! Hope 2017 will bring us better news and events than the past year! 

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Reference:

Roland's website http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.ca/ 

More info on Roland Yeomans as Author (from the A-Z authors list)
https://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.ca/2016/04/y-yeomans-roland-author-z-blog.html

New! THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE from R. Yeomans

“Paris was an old city, the very moonbeams seeming but ghosts of sad lovers wandering the night in search of their lost soulmate.”

Mark Twain

Welcome to my DON’T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour.  This stop graciously provided by the ever kind D.G. Hudson.

Pixabay Image of the Louvre Museum

D.G. loves the Louvre … and since part of my Steampunk occurs in that fabled museum, I thought to speak of it.

But before approaching its awe-inspiring galleries, let me tell you why I named my tour: DON’T BUY MY BOOK!

R. Yeomans, for The Not-So-Innocents at Large

Like life in Paris, the craft of writing is never simple, for it embraces not just the “How” but the “Why” and the “What” as well.

I don’t wish for you to buy my book; I wish for you to WANT my book.

Most people have given up the hope of ever finding a book that so completely draws them in that they totally forget about their own lives and actually live the exploits of characters who have become more real than many of the people with whom they work.

How do you write a book like that?

Understand that there are no heroes … only ordinary folks who must step up to the challenges facing them and do more than what they feel they are capable of.

Cora Pearl’s Image above Paris

Tap into the primal fears we all have, the inner needs that comprise the human heart, and pull your reader into the turbulent lives of your characters by making him or her care if they win or lose.

How to do that?

You craft your characters so that the reader sees herself in them and her enemies in the antagonists your characters face.

When I wrote of visiting the Louvre, your mind filled with the magnificent items that the famous museum contains. I did that as a magician distracts the audience with a false flourish. You see, Paris of 1867 was an all too real city, filled with heartbreak and despair.  Those with seeing eyes found the rot beneath the gilded façade disturbing.

View the early morning streets of Paris through the eyes of Texican, Samuel McCord, and his Apache blood-brother, Elu:

Considering its many gardens, you might think Paris fragrant.  You would be right … and wrong.  Story of the human race I guess.  The streets of Paris reeked of decay both literally and figuratively.  Its idea of sanitation was to throw everything unwanted out into the street: dish water, feces … people. 

The stench of Paris made me long for the clear, clean mountain air of home.  It wasn’t the soot that layered every building I passed, but the soot that stained this city’s soul.  Six thousand children a year were delivered like so much refuse to the orphanage run by the Catholic Sisters of Charity.

In various parts of the city, there were places with small boxes in which tiny babies could be “deposited” like unwanted clothes.  I sighed.  In winter one child in three of those children died of exposure.

Elu flicked hard eyes to me as we walked the awakening streets of Paris.  “Have I told you lately how much I hate the White Man’s cities?”

My steps picked up as I thought I spotted one of those accursed boxes.  Elu growled low under his breath and walked at my side like an angry panther.  I got to the damn box and bent down, dreading what I would find.

It was empty.

Still standing tall, Elu grunted, “What would you have done, Dyami, if you had found an infant there?”

I looked up at him puzzled, “Why take care of the child, of course.”

“Of course,” he laughed without a trace of humor.  “Dyami, even you cannot take care of the whole world.”

I nodded.  “Don’t mean to.  I just take care of those lost souls whose trails cross mine.”

Elu’s face became flint as he kneeled beside me, looking with disgust at the tiny box.  I had the terrible notion that his mystic nature was having him feel all the deaths that had happened to small crying babies who died of exposure or thirst in this wooden coffin.  He flicked harder eyes to me. 

“Have I told you how much I hate the White Man’s cities?”

Image DRAGONS ABOVE PARIS!

See how I put in juxtaposition your expectations of beauty with the confrontation of stark reality?  That is how you draw your reader in. Do not worry: a mysterious tour of the Louvre does take place at the end of my Steampunk novel …

Along with an aerial battle atop the Thunderbird against attacking dragons above the Eiffel Tower. And, there is much more:

The Sidhe kidnapping Princess Victoria; a deadly “Red Wedding” in the catacombs beneath the ancient Rouen Cathedral; the passengers of the first Air/Steamship, Xanadu, being attacked by the Fae Spell of St. Vitus Dance; Samuel McCord being cornered by the Rougarou, the werewolves of France. 

What are you waiting for?  

Disregard the title of my tour.  BUY MY BOOK! 

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DG:

Any comments about the covers and images? Have you been to the Louvre Museum? If not, would you like to? 

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here AND to welcome Roland to the Rainforest Writing Blog. Each comment will receive a reply. . .Thanks for dropping by! Please check out Roland's blog when you have time at Writing in the Crosshairs.

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References:

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.ca/  Roland Yeomans Blog

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.ca/2016/10/do-you-trust-your-doctor.html Reference to this post

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THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD by Roland Yeomans

Not-So-Innocents Abroad is Not-so-much-a-Blog-Tour. . .as a change of pace


WHERE IS THE PUNK IN STEAMPUNK?

Image of the Air/Steamship, Xanadu

Roland Yeomans, here: reader, writer, dreamer.

Ah, the “punk” would be me.  I’ve taken history, sprinkled in bad girls, airships, and villainous former presidents/Civil War Generals – and tossed them like a salad. All done with a strong punkish attitude toward socio-political injustices like V FOR VENDETTA. 

Have you read a bit of history and gone: “That was just wrong!”

Me, too.

Take Sherman’s Bloody March through Georgia.  Read this actual excerpt from Sherman’s telegram to General Grant:

“Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources.”

Or read Sherman’s actual orders to his officers:

“If a torpedo (mine) is suspected on any part of the road, order the point to be tested by a carload of prisoners, or by citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope."

“We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies.”

“The entire populace must be ground to the dust.  Gentlemen, no consideration must be paid to the fact these homes are occupied by families, but all of Atlanta must be cannonaded.”

Or read this excerpt of Sherman’s letter to Secretary of War Stanton:

“There is a class of people, men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before we can hope for peace and order.”

Or consider President Lincoln ordering the most people hung in a mass execution (38 Dakota Indians). 

Their crime?  Fighting to keep their lands promised them by a prior treaty.  They were tried by an illegal tribunal.  Though they did not understand English and thus could not defend themselves or even understand the charges against them, they did not receive defence counsel.

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The punk in Steampunk springs from anarchy and a rebellion against society’s injustice to those who cannot defend themselves.

THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD full cover design

So just what is my first Steampunk novel about?

Here’s the back cover copy:

Come aboard the XANADU, the first air-steamship!

Experience 1867 in a way history says never existed!

Sherman’s bloody march through Georgia never happened.

Lincoln was never assassinated.

The Great Sioux Nation still exists.

The Reason?

Great-souled Samuel McCord, cursed Texas Ranger.

Join him and his alien empress wife, Meilori Shinseen, on their honeymoon

Above the stormy Atlantic ocean

With their friends:

Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greely, Ada Byron, the immortal Lucanus, Margaret Fuller, 11 year old Nikola Tesla.

With their enemies:

General Sherman, former President Abraham Lincoln, revenant Benjamin Franklin, crafty Thomas Edison,  Captain Nemo, Revenant Empress Theodora;

And the twin sister of Meilori Shinseen – Maija Shinseen.

Steampunk Disasters were never so much fun!

When I write, I often think of my novel as a movie.  Here is the tune I imagine playing over the opening credits as the Xanadu sails across a brooding sky towards adventure and mayhem.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Roland Yeoman's Blog: Writing in the Crosshairs 

Check out the blog and you'll see how prolific Roland is, and learn about the haunted jazz club, Meilori's, in old New Orleans on a certain corner. It's a nightclub of changing dimensions and clientelle. Be sure to look for Sam McCord, former Texas Ranger. 

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Have you read any of Roland's novels? Do you have a favorite? Do you like Steampunk tales? Airships? Time travelling characters?

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here and either Roland or I will respond.

Thanks for dropping by!

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