Another Wonderful Review, This Time In German

Celebration Of The Arts

Come out for a reading of excerpts from The Three Feathers at Hasbrouck Park, New Paltz, NY. The reading will begin at 11AM. Be prepared to be transported into the world of Joshua Aylong and his companions on their quest to find the three feathers.

Joshua Made the Newspaper

Below is an interview with Lori Childers, owner of BlueStone Press - a local newspaper with global reach.

Lori: Stefan, congratulations on your book. From what you have told me so far it sounds very intriguing. I have to ask you… its main character is a rooster. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?

Stefan: Thanks, Lori. The story is about Joshua Aylong, a rooster, who lives a comfortable life in his pen doing what rooster do, protecting the hens, settling quarrels, and calling out each new day. One night while all the other chickens are asleep in the coop he realizes that there must be more to life than what’s in front of him each day. Something is missing and one day Joshua musters all his courage, pushes away his fear and doubt, flies up onto the highest perch inside the pen and, to the amazement of the other chickens, spreads his wings and flies out and into freedom. Little did he know that what he was about to encounter would change his life forever.

 Lori: Would you tell us why you chose a rooster as your main character. Why not any other animal or person?

Stefan: This might sound strange but I didn’t choose him to be the main character. I didn’t wake up one morning thinking that I had to finally write that story about a rooster I have been contemplating for so long. The story, and Joshua, came about in a most unlikely setting: a sand box.

Lori: A sandbox?

Please continue reading at http://www.bluestonepress.net/stories/Stefan-Bolzs-The-Three-Feathers,27

A Very Nice Recommendation by a 4th Grade Teacher

Last spring, I had the opportunity to read aloud Stefan Bolz’s book The Three Feathers prior to its official publication, thanks to the suggestion of one of my students.  Although it is not the type of book and genre that I typically choose for my own personal reading, I make it a point to read a variety of text types aloud in class, and we hadn't yet read and discussed a fable.  Throughout the reading of the story, I found it to be very well-written and engaging, and so did my class of fourth graders.  We all enjoyed getting to know the characters and reading about the friendship that develops between them, as well as making predictions about what the characters were going to encounter and how they were going to get out of dangerous and difficult situations. 

 In a class of students with mixed reading abilities, I found that all were able to enjoy hearing the story at their own level of understanding.  Some students were able to interpret and discuss the book’s message and theme, and others just enjoyed the humorous and suspenseful moments that occur throughout the text.  As an adult reader, I found that the book reminded me a lot of The Lord of the Rings stories, and I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys that series. 

Sincerely,

Maggie Kievit

"The Fourth Sage" - Prologue

Hi everyone, it's Aries. I have very little time. I'm hiding out in one of the secondary air ducts of my building. I'm being pursued by drones that have been ordered to eliminate an 'imminent threat to corporate security'. In short, it's me they are after. But I do have time to document everything so that none of this will ever happen again. I am uploading the first couple of entries. It is written by a dear friend of mine who has agreed to take what I have scribbled, from drawings and notes, decipher it and  convert it into a file most of you will hopefully be able to read on your computer. Stay tuned for updates. And watch your dreams. Always watch your dreams. My apologies but I need to go. They are coming.

* * *
Aries closes the book, holds it in her hands for a while longer. She feels the worn leather cover under her fingers, traces the remnants of the now undecipherable title. The outline of three feathers in its center is almost completely gone, so are the two eyes of the Lioness above it. Only slight indentations are left. But when Aries closes her eyes she can still see them. Sometimes she thinks she can almost feel her presence through the pages. But the reason for that might be a logical one: She had read the book close to a dozen times. Not that she is allowed to do that. If she were to be caught with it, there would be rather serious repercussions for her. The L.O.C.—the ‘Law of the Corporation’—demands house arrest and additional work hours for first-time offenders. But she isn't a first-time offender. She isn't even a second-time offender. For her it would be the third time. She would be in prison for up to a month.

For this kind of crime children under 16 years of age are punished more drastically than adults. Aries could never figure out the logic behind this but she assumed it was because children were still thought to be more open to ideas that were out of the ordinary and didn't fit into the ‘educational schedule’ of the Corporation. And to think that this book was considered part of the history of her people and was taught in what had been called ‘schools’ for the first 800 years after her civilization arose from the ashes when the beacon was activated on the other side of a worm hole, far across the space time continuum.

Her wrist watch begins to flash and vibrate slightly. 90 seconds. A touch on the screen of the watch changes the walls of her room from an image of a forest to a regular room with a large window showing the skyline of what looks like the high rises of a city in the distance.

83 seconds. In truth there are no windows in her room. She crouches down to the ground, moves her futon over what, right now, still looks like the forest floor. In one of the corners she lifts up a thin plate that covers a larger, rectangular opening. She crawls inside. She had wondered in the past, like she does now, how long she would still fit in there. She is slim for a fifteen-year-old but knows that one day the ducts will not allow her to roam the building any longer. 60 seconds. The high resolution display of her watch begins to pulsate in one second increments. About eight feet into the air duct she turns on her back looking up. The secondary air duct, perpendicular to this one, disappears into its self reflecting mirror image far up in the building.

Two hundred and twenty two stories high. Nearly sixty thousand souls. Aries lives in the first tier, the inner core of the cylindrically shaped building. Too warm in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. The sixth tier has natural light coming through small openings in the outer shell. No normal person can afford it. Her parents couldn’t. They lived in the fifth tier for five years. Aries often feels that natural light will always be out of reach for her. When her parents died two years ago—four days before her 12^th birthday—she became a ‘Ward of the State’. Of course this is an ancient expression long since abandoned as antiquated. There are no more states. For over 200 years now, this city, this country and the world she lives in, has been owned, managed, and run, by corporations.

36 seconds. She pries open a panel in the secondary air duct. Behind it sits the Raytheon, a digital conductor generating the power to sterilize the air duct every so often. It kills bacteria and any viruses that are in the air supply in four seconds. As a side effect it kills any life form that is still in the duct system when the random generator activates the conductor. It has been rumored that the primary function of the air duct sterilizers is to prevent the inhabitants of the 2900 foot high building from escaping to the outside world. But those are rumors and as such open to interpretation.

28 seconds. She pushes the book behind the conductor, closes the panel. After she had lived in tier one for nine months she had accomplished two things: first, she hacked into the main frame computer of her complex and, from the room cameras that records everyone’s life 24/7 (for security purposes, of course) she had found a way to create a loop each day for exactly one hour. For one hour per day she does not have to be in her room or in any of the parts of the building that are under constant surveillance. She can roam the air ducts. Secondly, she figured out how to calculate the intervals between the cleanings of the ducts and manage to be a few minutes ahead of it. Of course there is no guarantee. Her calculations are 99.7% accurate. The other 0.3% is a risk she is willing to take. In her estimation, there are six hours and 32 minutes to the next ‘cleaning’. But the video loop will hold only for 18 more seconds. She turns on her stomach slides backwards pushing off with her hands. The green screen of her watch pulsates in the semi darkness of the duct. Her feet reach the opening. Seven seconds. Her knees come out. She lifts up her stomach to not get caught on her belt lock.

Three seconds. Her head is out. She closes the panel, pushes the futon back into the corner and slumps down on it. Zero seconds. Her wrist watch goes dark. She is ‘live’. She grabs her pad. There is still homework to do. “The Moral Code” being one of the subjects. Even though she calls it “The Immoral Code” as it follows from the basic premise that there cannot be privacy (again for security purposes) and there cannot be choice when it comes to education, food, clothing, and social contacts. Those are things from the past, a past that approaches its 200^th year anniversary. That was the time when ‘freedom for all’ had lost its final battle with ‘power to a few’.

She had found ‘The Three Feathers’ in one of the black markets that began to establish themselves after the book ban about 175 years ago. In order to get it she needed to trade two AI/RSC-13 chips. They weren’t just any chips. They were Artificial Intelligence/Retina Scanner chips. Built into a small case of, let’s say, a wrist watch, you could reach places in the building normal people would never be able to go to. With a device that has the AI/RSC-13 chip in it, you could even reach the outer most tier. To be caught with the chips would mean death penalty. But she never actually was in possession of them. They were hidden away in one of the air ducts and she just provided the location to the book dealer in exchange for it.

Since she had read the book for the first time, Aries had felt something that she had never allowed herself to feel in the past. Since her parents’ death, she was on manage mode. ‘Do not show any weakness whatsoever’. The AI computer analyses each frame of video surveillance and decides what steps need to be taken. Weakness will not be tolerated. Especially in kids. Strength and pride are two of the pillars of the C.E.S., short for Corporate Education System. She gives them what they want. She never, ever, ever shows them her weakness. For 23 hours a day she is strong for them. But for one hour per day she allows herself to feel. And sometimes—mostly after reading—she cries. She cries for her mother and her father and she cries for her freedom and she cries for all the other children with her that are Wards of the State and that landed on the outskirts of a society that had gone too far in the wrong direction. She knows something needs to change. She can feel it in every fiber of her being.

How can the human spirit be captured? How can it be diminished almost to extinction? How can it be made so small and almost insignificant that the thought of fighting for it is nothing but an idea and easily dismissed as foolish? She had asked herself these questions many times over. She knows the answer. She knows that whoever, whatever stands behind the Corporations has perfected it and has made it their goal, pursuing it with any means necessary: To break the human spirit. To hold it prisoner. And eventually to extinguish it completely. And suddenly she knows she needs to do something about it.

Short synopsis

Hi everyone, it's Stefan,
first of all, I know for a fact that Joshua and his friends are preparing several great new entries in the blog. Wind will speak about her adventure, the prelude to Joshua's story, which happened 1000 years prior to the arrival of our heroes in Hollow's Gate. It will shed light on Wind's story and how she learned to let go of her limitations and learned to fly. Pegasus foals go through years of rigorous training before they can make the long pilgrimage up the dreaded and feared circular Path Of No Return, along the walls of Hollow's Gate, passing through the gate of time, to strengthen their resolve to eventually let go of their limitations and learn how to fly. This will be either book two or three, depending on which one is done first. Aries, our heroine from the sequel of Joshua's journey, which is set 1000 years after Joshua's adventure, will have some insights into what will be happening in her story. The entries will appear in the next couple of weeks.

On another note, it has been very busy here at "The Three Feathers" headquarters. There are many book stores to visit, book signings to set up, author's days to plan. No rest for scribes, right? I have been working on a letter to Barnes & Noble to see if Joshua's journey can be available in their stores. Would be awesome, don't you think? Here is what I came up with for a synopsis of the story, as part of the letter to them:

The hero of this magnificent story is Joshua Aylong, a rooster. Joshua lives a relatively comfortable life amongst the hens and chicks of his flock, protecting them from predators, settling their quarrels and calling out each new day at precisely 4:45 AM – until one night when he has a dream about three feathers somewhere deep inside a mountain. The dream stirs something inside him; something he can neither explain nor even fully grasp. He just knows that despite his fear and his sense of foreboding and of danger, he has to go out and find them.

And then one day, when the call to adventure becomes unbearable to him, when the bleakness of his existence grows to be too much to endure, he collects all his courage, pushes away his doubts, jumps up to the highest perch inside his pen and, to the amazement of the other chickens, spreads his wings and flies out. If Joshua would have known what awaited him, the magnitude of his leap into freedom, he might have stayed and therefore not endured all the hardships, the danger, the perilous quest and the overwhelming force of evil he was about to encounter. But he also would not have found the magnificent friends he made on his journey. And he certainly would not have found the one he was destined to meet all along.

More soon. Keep your fingers crossed and your mind open. And (I'm channeling Joshua now) watch your dreams. Always watch your dreams.

Very best wishes,

Stefan 

A Short But Sweet Review

Diane B. Silverberg about "The Three Feathers": "It is one of the most spell-binding, teeth grinding, holding your breath new books out there. A surprise read that should not be missed."