Plumbing the Depths of Lory Kaufman’s World of History Camp

I have reviewed two of Lory Kaufman’s World of History Camp books.

The Lens and the Looker and The Bronze and the Brimstone.   In addition I have interviewed Lory.   I enjoyed his books and I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that he is making history palatable to young people.   Lory and I have emailed back and forth and he has been kind enough to allow me to “plumb the depths” of how he created his World of History Camp.    Please note that I have no financial relationship with Lory, nor do I reap any benefits from posting his back story.   I am making these posts because as a reader and an author I find the novel building process interesting and informative and I hope you will too.   Plus you have the opportunity to garner a FREE book.  (more on that later)

Serialization was something I grew up with in both comics and the movies.   The cliff hanger ending set you up to plunk down your quarter for the movie or your dime for the comic to find out what happened next.   This serialization isn’t populated with cliff hanging endings.   It is however a plunge into the mind and world of Lory Kaufman, author of the History Camp series. 

I have read and reviewed The Lens and the Looker and The Bronze and the Brimstone, two of Lory’s books.   The premise that we should learn from history permeates the entertaining values of the books.   Having once taught history and having been mystified why so many students found something so exciting boring, I laud Lory for his efforts. 

Authoring several children’s books of my own, I am currently working diligently at trying to write a longer novel for an older age group.   I am discovering that there is a need for a back story or a “history” to properly frame my thoughts as I write.   Lory has been kind enough to share his back story of the History Camp and I will be posting it’s entirety over 6 different posts.  

In addition there will be a giveaway for each and every post.  That’s a FREE book for each section of Lory Kaufman’s back story.   Did I mention it is a FREE book?

How do you qualify for a FREE book?

Fine Print

Simply read the post and fill out the form below.   Each entry will be assigned a number and those numbers will be input into a random number generator to choose the winner.  I will email the winner.  The winner’s address will be sent to Lory Kaufman who will be sending out the autographed books.   If you have a specific name or nickname you wish the autograph to mention, please submit it with the form.   Each winner will be announced at the posting of the next segment of Lory Kaufman’s back story.   No purchases necessary and your email address will not be given to anyone else.

Let us begin… 

The World of History Camp

The background behind the futuristic worlds you’ll find in the History Camp stories.

      Most alternative history or futuristic novels don’t give you the back story of their civilizations. They just plop the reader into the middle of a characters lives and start writing, with a minimum of background. The writer lets the reader infer much of how that civilization works from what happens around the character. I do pretty much the same thing.   After all, it’s the story of the character that’s important, and the quality of its telling. But, behind the scenes, I, like all writers of future fiction, had to work out a general history for this world, to rationalize why things are the way they are. But then I thought, with the ability for a writer to now easily communicate with his readers through the internet, why not share the back story? Some readers might find it interesting. That’s what follows here.

      When finished, I see this section at around 20,000 words.  Right now, as my site opens, there are about 2,500 words. I’m hoping to add a couple of thousand words every month, after the first book is released, so come on back once and a while and see what’s new.

     So, here we go.  The History Camp novels take place, generally, in three time periods; the 24th and 31st-centuries, when the characters are in the future, and in the Verona Trilogy, they go back to 14th-century Italy. I’ve therefore broken the back story information into these three time periods and, for clarity, made title headers with subjects I think are of interest. 

The next post will be tomorrow rather than a month away.   That is because this actual portion of Lory’s back story is truncated due to my verbosity in its introduction.   Therefore you will have double the opportunity to win a book in the first month by commenting on the first two posts.   As an additional incentive for those of you who are actually reading the entire post, if you comment on any of my blog posts throughout the month I will input an additional entry to the contest.  


 

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