This must be the decade of the Remake…from TV series to movies, the old is new again. Hawaii 5-0, Beverly Hills 90210, Battlestar Gallactica, Charlies Angels, The Bionic Woman…some made it and, unlike their originals, some didn’t…and some are yet to come…Dallas, The Munsters, Bewitched. In movies, it’s more obvious, King Kong, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street…the list goes on and on and on…

Not that I’m placing myself in the same category with the film moguls and those who sit in power at the television networks, but I’m been doing my own “remaking” lately, or as we, in the publishing biz call it..ahem…re-releasing. With enough changes and/or additions to make the second attempt different from the original (it seems there’s some type of minute legality that the second version must be deviate slightly from the first so there’s no copyright enfringement), three of my novels are being re-released this year. This also involves removing all mention of the original from any websites, blogs, and trailers produced…and that’s what this blog is about.

I made my first trailer four years ago. At that time, I had the MovieMaker app, knew nothing about jpgs, and was a total no-nothing as far as techniques such as the Ken Burns effect, zoom, cross-dissolves, fade-throughs, or wipe downs. Then I got my Mac Mini and with it, iMovie, and I went wild with trailers. I won’t say I’m an expert now but I’m a darned sights more proficient at it than I was back then.

What’s all this got to do with anything? Glad you asked, because that question is going to keep me to the subject and prevent me straying away completely. It’s mainly this: If you’re doing a re-release, and removing all publicity, then you have to do new promotion, and… You guessed it! A new trailer is included in that batch. So, while I was writing new scripts and gathering old jpgs and deciding if I needed new ones, I decided to re-make that very first trailer using all my newly-found knowledge.

It’s making its debut here, along with the old one, so you can see just how far I progressed. (Once again, I want to thank Linda Nightingale for her assistance with the old one--we did it on her computer in Houston--and say that the amateurish flavor to it is all my doing and not hers. Thanks, Linda!)

So here it is…TA-DAAA! The remake of the trailer for Three Moon Station, full of zooms, cross-dissolves, and plenty of Ken Burns… Watch both and marvel! (All this is said with tongue-in-cheek, in case you aren't aware.)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Three Moon Station isn't being re-released but is still with The Wild Rose Press, http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=89_126&products_id=1094

No matter how light--or dark--a romantic novel, if the hero isn't a little Byronic, it's not going to be very interesting. Who'll attract more attention: Sunny, cheerful Joe the Gardener, who goes to church every Sunday, greets everyone with a smile, and likes small animals and children--or reclusive Josef the Landscape Architect, who turns pale when confronted by a cross, smiles tightly and sadly when children are mentioned, and has a fear of anything canine? (A little exaggerated but...you see what I mean.)

First off, I suppose I should define the term "Byronic." I hope everyone's familiar with George Gordon, Lord Byron--poet, social rebel, member of the summer party at Lake Geneva where Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus was written. Byron was the living epitome of his own hero--he lived to shock society--and the first to categorize this particular literary character: generally a young man--sometimes melancholy, oftentimes rebellious--who carries some terrible secret from his past which affects his present life and prevents him from accepting the love of the heroine. Once he confesses his secret, though it may not go away, at least now he has someone to share it, and his life--and love--becomes more acceptable. The first "Byronic" hero was Childe Harold ("childe" being a title for the eldest son of a nobleman who hasn't yet been knighted), featured in Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." (Byron was also one of the first to feature a vampire in a poem and is credited with inventing the vampire protagonist who was later to gain literary immortality in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but that's a story for another day.) Probably the most well-known Byronic heroes are Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, both published in 1847. According to Wikipedia, the most famous of contemporary Byronic figures are Lestat de Lioncourt (Interview with the Vampire) and Batman (The Dark Knight).

I'm focusing today on my own Byronic heroes: Sinbad sh'en Singh (Sinbad's Last Voyage), Riven kan Ingan (Bloodseek), and Sarkin Trant (Three Moon Station), written by Icy Snow Blackstone. Each of these men has a secret which happened in his youth or childhood, and formed him into the person he is when the story opens.

Sinbad is a child of war. His human father was a gunner in the Federation fleet, shot down over the enemy planet Felida--where a feline-evolved race, foolish enough to challenge Terra, lived. As a prisoner of war, Allan MacAllister fell in love with his captor's daughter and married her. When Felida surrendered, Allan was arrested as a collaborator, his three-year-old son the chief witness against him. Allan is sentenced to the Toxic Zone, his son sent with him and when he dies there, the boy is raised by the other convicts until a nurse at the prison helps him escape. He becomes a smuggler, and that is his chosen profession until Andrea Talltrees walks into his life, asking for his help. Hating Terrans for what they did to his parents, Sin can't understand why he agrees--surely he can't be attracted to one of the enemy?--and he struggles with his growing desire for Andi and his confusion over his feelings until a violent night on the planet Serapis when he pours out his hatred and grief and can free himself to admit that he's fallen in love with one of the enemy species. Andi's love enables Sin to overcome his hatred and seek what he's always wanted--a mate, cubs, and a den of his own.

When he was five-years-old, Riven kan Ingan was taken to Francovia by his father who was the favorite sellsword of the Margrave of that country. When Trygare kan Ingan is killed in battle, the Margrave Leontilf raises Riven as his own child but because he is still treated as a foreigner, the young hothead schemes to become accepted by marrying Leontilf's daughter, Aleza. Spoiled and self-centered, he makes the mistake of denouncing the existence of the gods who promptly pay him back by allowing his betrothed to be abducted and himself so badly wounded he is told he'll never be able to sire a child. Since the Princess needs a husband who can provide heirs, Riven's wedding plans are now down the tubes--a not-too-bad prospect in view of his womanizing ways, but devastating in a time when procreation is equated with virility--but he still resolves to rescue her to salvage his wrecked reputation as a warrior. Having not-so-nobly given up the princess (mainly to keep a blackmailing doctor from broadcasting his shame to the entire Court) Riven falls in love with the girl who helps him rescue her--Barbara, a barbarian slave, and a woman more worthy than the Princess. Now he faces another dilemma--for once in his life, will he act unselfishly and give up Barbara, also, or will he think only of his own pleasure and force her to share his sterile existence? Can he confess to her of the disaster which has unmanned him and risk her scorn? Riven's choice causes the gods to make a decision of their own concerning his future--and the future of an entire galaxy.

Sarkin Trant is the owner of Three Moon Station on the planet Tritomis-2. He goes to the annual "auction of wives" to make certain his friend Abel--who has failed for three years running--finally can get himself a wife. He doesn't really want a woman of his own but seeing Katy about to be "bought" by Marsden, a rancher suspected of killing three previously purchased womenm makes him bid for her. Even after learning why Katy came to Tritomis, and that she had no idea the paper she signed is a marriage license, Sar's certain he can make her love him and stay with him. His secret isn't really a hidden one but it has ostracized him from his neighbors and is waiting for them at his station...his son, Chance. At the age of fourteen, Sar--an orhpan raised by his father's best friend--finds himself an unmarried father of a halfbreed infant, left on his foster parents' doorstep by its gypsy mother. Rebuffed by the woman he wishes to marry because of his son's half-blood, Sar isolates himself at Three Moon for the next twenty years, devoting himself to raising his son and tending his station--until the day he sees Katy and wants her in his life. Uncomfortably aware of the differences in their ages, and the fact that Katy is only two years older than his son, he struggles to make her love him. When Katy accepts not only Chance but the life at Three Moon, Sar is able to recapture the youth he never had, and when the hit men searching for his bride find her, he's willing to sacrifice himself to protect the woman who's given him a second reason to live.

Secrets, Sex, Lies, and Love...these are my interpretations--they may not be the best examples--but they worked for me! When writing a description of your own hero, just remember--a man without a past can be interesting, but if he has even the slightest dark blot of a secret, he's definitely going to be someone your heroine will want to know, whether she realizes it or not!

(Sinbad's last Voyage and Bloodseek are published by Double Dragon Publications; Three Moon Station will be released in December as an ebook from The Wild Rose Press and in print in March, 2009. Photo above is of vampire Christopher Landless from my trailer for Murder in Old Blood, courtesy of www.fotolia.com.)

This is the trailer for my futuristic novel Three Moon Station, which will be released as an ebook by The Wild Rose Press in December, 2008, in print in March, 2009.

(In Three Moon Station, Katy, a fugitive witness to a murder, hides out on Tritomis-2, a pioneer farming planet. Purchased by Sar Trant, a reclusive rancher, she believes she's going to be his housekeeper, and only later through an embarrassing series of events, discovers she's legally his wife. Upon arriving at his ranch, Three Moon Station, Katy, still unaware of her new relationship with Sar, meets the other member of the Trant household.)

A man stood in the doorway, younger than Trant, a little younger than she, about twenty, she thought. He was barefoot, wearing unbelted jeans, and an unbuttoned shirt that looked as it had been hastily thrown over the broad shoulders. His long black hair was tousled as if he'd been asleep, hanging about his swarthy face and down his back. He was as dark as Trant was fair but Katy was aware of a startling resemblance between the two.

"I was asleep." He answered Trant's question, though he didn't move his gaze from Katy's face. "Who's this?"

"Who wouldya think 'tis?" Trant replied in a slightly irritated tone, still rankling from her condemnation of his home.

The boy didn't answer and Trant said something absolutely surprising, "Hatch, this is Katy--Katy, this is m'son, Hatch!"

His son! She couldn't do anything but stare--gawk--mouth falling open. He was too young to have a child this age! Nevertheless, she knew it was true. In spite of Hatch's darkness, the aqua eyes and handsome features were Trant's own.

She managed to recover enough to stammer, "H-hello, Hatch," and take a step toward him, holding out her hand.

The scowl forming on the handsome face eased a little as he carefully took her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze and released it.

"Didna expect this," he muttered, looking at his father.

"Have you had supper?" Trant asked, sounding like a parent.

"Couple of apples."

"You need more than that."

A shrug. "'Twas enough." Like Trant, Hatch had an accent. He looked from Katy to his father and muttered, "I'll go back to the barn. Guess you two want to be alone."

He turned and walked out.

"I'll be out in a bit to stable the oxen," Trant called.

Hatch waved a hand over his shoulder to acknowledge that he'd heard but didn't look back.

"Why is he sleeping in the barn?" Katy asked. Trant had said most of the house was closed--and only one bed was in use. "Not because of me, I hope?"

"Hardly!" Trant gave a short laugh. "I've always had trouble ge'ing Hatch to sleep in a house. He'd sleep under the stars if I'd let him--in all seasons!"

"Doesn't he get cold in the winter?"

His father shrugged. "He says he doesn't, though I've made many a trip out there to make certain, when the snow is thick. Once, I found him sleeping in a stall, curled up next to one of the elos!"

"He certainly looked angry."

He closed the door and turned to look at her.

"Probably 'twas seeing how you reacted to learning I have a part-Gadja son." He shook his head, disappointment in the aqua eyes. "I'd na have expected that of you, Sunshine."

"What do you mean?" she demanded, not understanding his accusation. "What's a Gadja?"

"You dinna know?"

She shook her head, seeing the disappointment fade.

"I knew you couldna be that intolerant! The Gadjas are the original natives of Tritomis," he explained. "They're nomads, living off the land, and--like most places open to colonization--they've been made into a minority by the settlers. They're not treated kindly by us, I'm afraid."

"And Hatch thought that I--" She was angry--at Hatch for thinking that, at Trant for not explaining sooner. "You'll tell him, won't you? Explain that I-I was just surprised you have a son that old?"

He nodded, and she thought she saw a quick flushing of his cheeks, as if what she'd said embarrassed him.

"I'm surprised you'd want to have more children now, with Hatch the age he is--" she went on, determined to make him talk of his family, now that she'd met one member. "When do I get to meet his mother?"

He turned away from her, studying the table, picking up one of the books and staring at its cover before answering.

"You'll na meet her, Katy. I've na been married." The words came out with a long sigh.

THREE MOON STATION (release date TBA) will be published by The Wild Rose Press some time this summer. It is written under one of my pen names, Icy Snow Blackstone.

Katy Rawls was a witness to the brutal murder of Karel Andrews, her uncle Cyril's business partner. Realizing that the computer disk she was asked to copy is the reason, though as far as she can tell, the information it holds is completely useless, she runs for her life. Taking a shuttle from the nearby terminal, she decided to take the disk to the police but the gunmen are in pursuit.

Through a set of coincidental circumstances, Katy ends up on a ship headed for Tritomis-2 with a group of women being taken there to work off their prison sentences in the households of the settlers of that planet.

As each woman is auctioned off to the highest bidder, Katy's turn comes closer and closer. She's already seen a good man nearly lose his bid to one who just might be murdering the women he buys. But for the aid of a red-haired stranger, her friend Cilla would've gone to Alwin Marsten instead of shy, quiet-spoken Abel. Big, buxom Josie, a former cat burglar, finds herself purchased by Lars de Groot, a good-natured bear of a man who was once a thief himself. As for Katy--Marsten now has his eye on her...and it looks like he might get her...until the red-haired stranger again steps in....

The Excerpt:

The bidding reached five hundred. One of the two remaining bidders dropped out. Marsten and the other battled another hundred and fifty Credits higher. At five hundred and seventy-five, the other bidder gave up. With a triumphant smirk, Marsten started toward St. Clair.

"One pound of angelica and no more bids!"

St. Clair dropped his gavel. It spun around, rolling off the podium top, and he bent to retrieve it.

"Did I hear correctly? One pound of angelica?"

"And the bidding stops," the redhead answered.

St. Clair sighed. "Mr. Marsten--you heard? Your bid?"

Marsten looked at the redhead. "A pound of angelica? Prove you've got that much!"

The other man reached into his pocket and held up a second pouch. Untying the strings, he shook several white rocks onto his palm.

"Well?" St. Clair prompted.

"You know I don't have that kind of money!" Marsten snarled. "Let him have her!" He looked back at the redhead. "You'll be sorry for this! We're not finished!"

Flinging himself through the crowd toward the hitching post, he untied his horse, mounted it and rode away.

St. Clair's gavel sealed the bid.

The redhead led Katy toward the desk, placing the bag on it, waiting patiently as the Pastor asked her, "Do you understand and consent to abide by the rules set forth in this Agreement?" He looked at the redhead. "And you, too, sir?"

They both gave their answers.

Taking the pen handed him, the redhead signed his name in a bold scrawl, then offered it to Katy. She took it, signed, and gave it back to the official who folded the contract and presented it to her. He handed something to the redhead, who lifted Katy's left hand, slipping a gold bracelet over her wrist, tearing off the plastic band and dropping it on the table. They walked through the crowd toward the road into town, the same way Abel and Cilla had gone half an hour before.

Halfway there, Katy paused, looking up at him. "Thank you for saving me from Marsten."

A slight shrug. "I wouldna let a dog be sold to that bastard!"

"I'm flattered."

"Dinna be. I think you'll be knowing you're far prettier than any dog created."

His grip tightened, gently propelling her forward.

"Where's your farm?" She wanted to hear him say something else. She liked the Scottish-like lilt to his voice.

"Station," he corrected. "On the Plain. Near the Taheya."

"Near Abel Parker's station?"

"Farm." She wondered what the difference was. "A few miles beyond it."

"How'll we get there? Do you have a Drone?"

"I do but we'll na be using that. I've brought m'oxen and wagon."

"Wagon? You mean we're going to ride in an ox-drawn wagon?"

"That we are."

"Why? It'll take forever to get there!"

"Day and a half. Not long."

"Long enough! That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!" Not a good thing to say to one's employer, but it was true.

"Na necessarily," he disagreed. "Drones are fast, sure. We'd be home in a couple of hours but they also use fuel which costs Credits and since I just spent all my hard-won wealth on you, Sunshine, I canna be wasting any more on fuel, can I?"

He shrugged.

"Besides, this way will give us more time to get acquainted."

"Where did you get that angelica, anyway?"

"Won it in a poker game at Larkin's two months ago. Thought I'd save it for a rainy day. Guess it poured today." He stopped walking. "Here we are."

Katy looked at the wagon. "Why, it looks like an antique Conestoga!"

"Aye. Designed after them, in fact." He dropped her bag behind the seat. "Has to be big to hold three months of provisions, which is exactly what I have inside. If you'll just climb aboard--"

Hands went around her waist, lifting her to the seat. He swung up beside her, untying the reins. Without so much as a snort, the oxen roused themselves as he released the brake with one foot and called to them.

The animals started forward, throwing massive shoulders against the yoke, and the wagon rolled down the street, bearing Katy and the redheaded man out of town.

And away they go...Katy to a life far different from any she's ever known, and the redheaded man back to Three Moon Station, the place where he's hidden himself for nearly twenty years.

(Three Moon Station will be published by The Wild Rose Press, publication date yet to be announced. It is written by Icy Snow Blackstone, pseudonym of Toni V. Sweeney.)

An employer asks his secretary to stay late and copy some disks for him. It's not an unusual request so she complies. He goes into his office.... Five minutes later, the secretary is running for her life as she sees her boss murdered.

That's the beginning of my new novel, Three Moon Station. It's a straight romance, albeit a futuristic one, a departure from my other stories which border on fantasy/horror, so I employ a pseudonym--Icy Snow Blackstone. The origin of that name has a story all its own, but that's for another day. For now, Three Moon Station and the people who live there have the spotlight.

Katy Rawls is a shy, compliant orphan raised by a domineering uncle who's a successful business man because he plays dirty and has even dirtier friends. His partner, Karel Andrews, is his exact opposite, loved by everyone in the office. Katy's witnessing of Andrews' murder sets her feet on a path that sends her to another planet. With the disks containing the evidence that got her boss killed, she heads for the shuttle terminal, intending to go to the police. Because the killers are in hot pursuit, however, and she left purse and identification behind in the office, her destination turns out to be entirely different.

At first, Katy thinks this is the best idea. Getting included in a transportation of Domestics to the pioneering planet Tritomis-2--where females are at a minimum and each passenger will be bid for by a man who'll take her to his ranch--Katy figures she can tolerate being a housekeeper for a year, then when things on Earth cool down, she'll go to the local Federation Marshal and turn over the evidence and live Happily Ever After, as well as Safe from Harm.

Almost immediately, things don't go as she plans. She's noticed by Alwin Marsten, a rancher whose Domestics mysteriously die within a year of going to his ranch. A woman who befriends her on the voyage to Tritomis-2 gets caught in a bidding-duel between Marsten and Abel, a handsome, young farmer who desperately wants her. Only the intervention of a mysterious redheaded station owner enables Abel to win over Marsten, an event that erupts into a fist fight between the rancher and the redhead. When Marsten attempts to buy Katy, the stranger bids four times as much for her and again the rancher loses, leaving the auction with anger and threats.

Katy finds her new employer, Sarkin Trant, a gentle, humorous, and surprisingly shy man, the son of an Arcanian Exile and a schoolteacher from the Scottish colony on Mars. Though still in his thirties, he has a son two years younger than Katy, and she believes he'll be easy to work for--as well as easy to leave when the year's up. When they arrive at Three Moon Station, his ranch, only then does she learn the truth: the Contract she signed with Sar wasn't an Employment Agreement as she thought but a Marriage License, and she's now wed to a total stranger who expects to receive full marital benefits from his new wife!

Katy has exchanged one danger for another of a very, very different kind...and the Terran hit men are still on her trail!

(The release date for Three Moon Station is still to be announced by The Wild Rose Press. It is the second book written by Icy Snow Blackstone, the other being The Irish Lady's Spanish Lover, a paranormal romance.)