Karen Hancock
The Shadow Within
	FAQS	LETTERS & REVIEWS					SCRAPBOOK
HOMe BIO MY BOOKS WHAT'S NeW WRITINGS LINKS E-MAIL Me	Drawing taken from the book Renaissance Swordsmanship by John Clements (Paladin Press) – a really cool resource for the use of rapiers and cut and thrust swords. Clements “combined exhaustive research with years of hands-on practice in fencing, contact-weapon sparring, and training with historically accurate replicas.				This is the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. For a really cool 360 degree pan view click here. HALL OF MIRRORS
					These are facsimile glandes, Roman sling bullets cast in lead. “Many wargamers see the bow as the ancient missile weapon, used by competent soldiers, whereas ignorant barbarian peasants use slings. In truth, the sling is an effective weapon, and has many distinct advantages over the bow.” -- From Lloyd’s pages on ancient weapons. For lots more, click below: THE SLING
						Le parterre du Midi The gardens at Versailles. I found this site (click above) several years ago when it was all available in both English and French. On the day I checked to make sure the link still worked, however, I could only get it to come up in French. Hmmm.
	It seems amazing that gardeners could have wars, but apparently they did when it came to Versailles, competing to see who could do the best garden. The styles evolved from very formal to informal. One gardener completely obliterated the work of the man who came before him and replaced it with his own garden.
	Breaking the Sound Barrier When an airplane flies, it makes waves in the air much like a boat makes waves in the water. As the water parts around a boat’s bow it sends waves out in all directions, though they spread out wider behind it than they do in front because the boat itself is moving. The air acts in a similar manner. As the plane approaches the speed of sound, the air waves build up in front of it closer and closer until they are very tight, like a wall. To push through that wall – and travel faster than the speed of sound—there has to be thrust enough to overcome all those waves.			This picture of an FA-18 Hornet was taken just as it was breaking the sound barrier Credit: Ensign John Gay, USS Constellation, US Navy
	Once the pilot breaks through, though, he is traveling faster than the waves he’s making, so there is no barrier and progress is actually easier. My friend Pastor Joseph Sugrue noted the analogy between the process of breaking the sound barrier and that of breaking the maturity barrier in the spiritual life. That is the point when we realize what our calling is and we run with it. Nothing is more important than that we fulfill it. We are focused, moving in a definite direction and gaining momentum as we go. The barriers that were there (self life, desires, hang ups) we’ve passed through and now we’re flying through clear skies. Sure, greater tests will come, but we’re flying fast now and we’re much tougher opponents. The analogy intrigued me so much I used a reflection of it at the end of The Shadow Within. Note: Numerous photographs have been taken showing the cloud of condensation around the plane at the moment it is blasting through the sound barrier, but scientists remain unsure what produces it.
				The Giant Squid In October 1873, off Portugal cove, Newfoundland, herring fishermen Daniel Squires and Theophilus Piccot rowed over to what they thought was a piece of wreckage, but when they tried to draw it near with a boat hook, it struck the gunwale of the dory with its beak and threw a tentacle around the boat. Twelve-year-old Tom Piccot hacked off the tentacle (undoubtedly saving his life and the
	lives of the other fishermen) and brought it to the Reverend Moses Harvey, an amateur naturalist in St. John’s. The tentacle, some 19 feet long, appears to have been the first conclusive evidence of the body of a giant squid. (From Monsters of the Sea: The Truth About the Loch Ness Monster, the Giant Squid, Sea Serpents, Mermaids, and Other Fantastic Creatures of the Deep by Richard Ellis The kraggin in The Shadow Within is based upon the giant squid (genus Architeuthus), a marine creature we still know little about despite our modern technology. Because they live in the open, deep, cold seas, giant squid are rarely seen unless dead or dying. Sailing legends refer variously to the kraken, polyp and sea monster as having attacked and pulled down the largest man of war. These were probably the giant squid, some individuals of which have been estimated to be one hundred feet long. At that length and weighing one or two tons it would not be hard for one to take down a small sailing ship of old (many early vessels measured much less than one hundred feet in length). Eyewitness accounts tell us that the squid feeds on whales. In 1965, a Soviet whaler watched a battle between a squid and a 40 ton sperm whale. Later the strangled whale was found floating in the sea with the squid’s tentacles wrapped around its throat. The squid’s severed head was in the whale’s stomach. There was also an incident in the 1930s when an oil tanker owned by the Royal Norwegian Navy was attacked at least three times by giant squid. In each case the attack was deliberate as the squid would pull along side of the ship, pace it, then suddenly turn, run into the ship and wrap its tentacles around the hull. Unable to get a good grip on the ship's steel surface, the animals slid off and fell into the ship's propellers. But the incidents indicate the squid as an aggressive and powerful animal.
	Music to write by:
	The Man in the Iron Mask Soundtrack		The Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack					Gladiator Soundtrack
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