Author's Commentary on Somewhere Else Entirely: Chapters 15 to 18

I'm now into the meat of the story (or so I innocently believed, anyway) and I am working my way through the preliminaries before the essential action takes place - the as yet completely undetermined journey to the north, which will resolve everything.

Well, it did and it didn't, but that is for another commentary. For now, Garia is still establishing her place in the palace structure.

Chapter 15, Fire and Ashes

Garia wants to train but she knows that it will be an uphill struggle. Nobody local seems to have the faintest clue what she is even talking about, let alone whether she should be doing it or not. In fact, that may be to her advantage. She wants to do something more or less completely new and that is probably why they let her do it.

Yolda

It is possible to see Yolda's point of view. Somebody who has barely been in the palace a week and already asking for apparently preposterous things. Climbing towers is one thing, but wearing clothing no decent woman would be seen dead in, well! Better to stop such nonsense before it even gets started...

Of course, Yolda does not know that the Queen is fully behind Garia's apparent whims. Terys has already seen that Garia can do things that no regular girl can and is curious to see what her limits might be. She will be astonished by the final result but it won't disappoint her.

For Garia's part, she just wants to continue exercising as Gary might have done on Earth but she doesn't want to antagonize those already in the palace structure if she can help it. She has ended up in a strange place with no real friends (yet) and knows that she doesn't need to make enemies if she can help it.

The Funeral

This sequence caused a sudden reality check. Up until now I had made a brief reference to "the temple" and the word "Maker" but I had limited religious references until I could fully work out something. Morlan's pyre dumped that into my lap and I had not only to work out some instant funeral rites but also a possible religious background to the whole thing.

The funeral itself seemed to be simple enough to establish but later on, when I wrote other funerals, I forgot what I had written for the first one and made some changes in the order of events. The later versions actually proved to be a better way of doing things and so I have reordered this one to correspond.

The problem is one of comfort and practicality: who wants to try and make themselves heard above a roaring fire, while standing with your back to it and trying hard not to get burned? Much better to do what I wrote later and get the eulogies for the deceased over before the pyre was lit.

Religion

I really, really, didn't want to get involved with religion in this story if I could manage it at all. It would just be a distraction and there was already enough going on to occupy my attention. I wanted something simple and low key and I think that is what I managed.

The religion - if it can even be called that - is simply an expression that something had to have made things the way they were and that obviously there was no way anybody was going to be able to find out whom or what. It was only later, at the Harvest Festival, that I invented the idea of the "Great Convocation" which proved a useful idea for ruling out not only most religions but the occult and magic as well.

Chapter 16, Wrath of the Queen

We all know places like the Palace Wardrobe. Often they are called "Stores" or "The Warehouse" or something like that. The person in charge often resembles a ptuvil. Yolda is no different in that respect, but her treatment of Garia goes beyond what she should be doing and the Queen is right to step in.

Chapter 17, On the Mat

I think the first section more or less explains itself. Garia now has a body with a completely different shape and, as she says, she has run on 'autopilot' since she arrived on Anmar. Once Keren points out to her just how different she is now she begins to understand that she has to do things differently - and that this might bring her advantages as well as limitations.

Keren also has a revelation, and that is how Garia's touch affects him. Now, presumably, there have been a number of eligible Princesses or others whom he has entertained, but it would seem that his response to Garia is different than that of anyone he has had dealings with before. In his position, it is natural for him to confide in his mother.

Paper making

This is the major step which is required before anything else gets done and it is fortunate for the author that the process is so simple. Garia proceeds to demonstrate that paper is indeed simple to make and she knows that once the guildsmen have seen how to do it they will experiment.

Tarvan

At this point in the story I didn't know whether Tarvan would become a major character or not. It occurred to me that he might be useful for the introduction of electricity to Anmar and so I had Garia ask him about making copper wire - in large quantities.

It never occurred to me that Tarvan would end up playing an entirely different part, but that was because I hadn't yet dreamed of the events which would take place in Dekarran, resulting in Milsy returning to the palace in Garia's place.

Chapter 18, Parrel Gets Busy

This chapter mostly concerns the meeting of the Council of the Two Worlds in the following evening. Much is spoken about here but the main item is the introduction of Float Glass. My own experience of such matters is about the same as that of Garia - I have seen it done on TV. That is why there is a certain amount of hand-waving, since Garia knows little more and the guildsmen will have to do their own experiments.

The other major point at the meeting is the exploration of printing, which will arrive shortly. Obviously, once paper is in production removeable type printing must follow.

The final part is Garia exploring her own response to Keren's touch. As a boy Gary would have had no experience of such a thing but her body reacts in a perfectly natural way. She tries to figure out if this means she is becoming more female mentally.