book details

Book: Tom and Emily's Incredible Adventure to the World of the Gossamerians by David J. Price

categories: Book, Science Fiction, Short Stories Collection, Dragons and Magic, Fairy People, Strange Flying Creatures, Time Traveller, Real Historical Events, Appendice of Photographs, Edwardian England, Spectacular Exhibition, Period Transport, Juvenile and Children's Fantasy

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David John Price

about this book: My book is a collection of three short stories written for different reasons. The first two stories are set in the same universe and fantasy world of the Gossamerians with the same characters. The first story should appeal to an 8-11 age range. It was submitted to The Writer's Guild in a competition and achieved a special merit. The second story was more complex and was written with the intention of submitting it to the L. Ron Hubbard 'Writers of the Future Contest'. But their restrictions on story length were so tight, as to be detrimental to the story. So I decided not to submit it. It was aimed at an 11-15 year age age.

The third story is completely unrelated, and was the first story I wrote in 1998, and was written for a Communications module in a BTEC Computer Studies course I did. It concentrated on a 1902 venture in my local town, when a spectacular Exhibition was staged in a local park and an innovative electrified tram system was laid on, at a time when horse drawn buses were common place. Hence, I had a theory to prove, that both forms of transport could co-exist on the opening day. And what better way to encapsulate my extensive research in the town archives, than use creative writing to travel back in time using an imaginary time machine, to experience the events on 1st May 1902, the opening day? I enjoyed the creative writing aspects of this assignment and it promoted my creative writing.

The first story took about 3 months to write, more in devising the World of Gossamer, the 'fairy people', their universe and the fantasy creatures they use as transport, in a rural community ruled by magic. I interwove real events into the second and longest story, which took about 6 months to write (the second story in the collection). The last story was part of a 2 year course and was only a small part of it and the hardest part was all the research. This latter story could appeal to juveniles or adults. The learning experience I gained in writing this collection is that I enjoy creative writing, so much so that in re-working it and the artwork for self publication. I have been motivated to write a science-fiction novel with a very broad landscape covering immense epochs of time and distances across constellations, before the plot plays out.