Emerald Sea

Author’s Afterword

I’ve gotten into the habit of these; I really need to start breaking it. But I thought that a few items in this book needed attention.

I had too much fun writing this novel, in case it’s not clear. My normal “output” is something on the order of a thousand words a day, when I’m “cooking.” At times I was writing ten or, once, eighteen thousand a day on this novel. The underwater sequences, in particular, practically wrote themselves. Eight hundred hours of “down time” (last time I bothered to update my log, which was in the early ’90s) will do that for you; blood really is emerald green at about sixty feet and turns black as you go deeper. And the Blackbeard trip to the Bahamas last January certainly didn’t hurt. Indeed, it was on the deck of the sloop that the basic outline of the book came together. Then there are the dragons.

I’ve never really been interested in dragons; I’m certainly not one of those people who go around with an online persona of one. In fact, to the extent that I have an online persona it is “DaGiN” which stands for “Da Guy in Nomex.” I have to wear Nomex because I like to bait the online dragons. (And, yes, that’s what the rabbit was wearing. Asbestos, actually.)

But I’d evolved the idea of what was first called “The Caves of the Mer-folk” and as it developed in the back of my mind, dragons became more and more integral to the story. I’ve had many problems with fantasy dragons over the years and it gave me a chance to point out some of the unlikelihoods. At the same time, I’m of the opinion that almost nothing is unbuildable that mankind can envision. And, someday, someone is going to genegineer a dragon. Count on it. And it’ll probably be Disney. Take a close look at the pictures around their “Safari” attraction if you don’t believe me. Disney thinks big.

But they are still going to be constrained by the problems of aerodynamics and biology. Birds of prey are the closest current analogue to dragons (indeed, they will probably be the template for them when they are created, as they were for the wyverns in this book) and birds of prey have to eat an enormous amount of food, relative to their body weight. Given the much greater size of flying dragons, they are going to be a logistic nightmare if used militarily and I strongly doubt that they would be able to survive in the wild. Not to mention that muscle and bone will not permit the stresses involved in normal flight for such enormous wings. Build up the bone too much and the wing is too heavy. Etc. So they’ll have to have some very artificial materials involved, such as the “biologically extruded carbon nanotube.” And if you can figure out how that works, call Dupont and they’ll make you a billionaire.

Still, I had this image, glorious and terrible, of dragons fighting orcas (go watch Blue Planet: The Open Oceans to see where that came from) and I had to get them to where the book was based. The world did not permit a base in south Florida (yes, this all takes place on Earth in the far future) so they had to be transported there by ship. But… why not have it be a ship that they could take off and land upon?

You begin to see the ugly truth of how stories are created, at least by me. Kind of like legislation and sausage.

Thus was created the dragon-carrier. And that’s when I really got carried away.

I grew up on tales of naval aviation; my late uncle was a Navy fighter pilot in WWII. And while I’d never care to be a crewmember on one, much less a pilot (a bigger bunch of suicidal adrenaline junkies cannot be found), carriers are fascinating.

Carriers are the most complex system ever created by man and it is only with enormous difficulty that they function at all. (As the French, Chinese and Russians all have learned to their dismay.) Packing all the planes; people, fuel and parts to support the planes into a ship — much less having it all arrive where and when it is needed in a carefully choreographed dance — has taken the U.S. Navy generations to perfect. Just so that airplanes the size of WWII bombers can leap into the air and return to decks not much larger than WWII carriers with regularity. It’s an amazing feat and makes me proud of my country and my countrymen. Yes, even the Airedales. (Slang term for Navy pilots.)

So it is with the dragon-carrier that I have taken the greatest liberties. Many of the items in this book were not invented until late in the development of carriers. Yet all of them were imagined and then engineered by the bright characters in my book in the space of a few short weeks. I’d considered having the different groups of carrier operations personnel wear different colored uniforms, but I felt that was pushing it.

I also played fast and loose with many of the seascapes. There are no specific inlets as described, but there are places very like them in the Berry Islands. Big Greenie is real, but it’s by Bimini, not in the Berrys. Nor is the entrance to the Bahamas Banks on the east side exactly as described, but it is very close. And, who knows, in a few thousand years it might be exactly as described; hurricanes, erosion and the continuous build-up of the Bahamas Banks change things drastically in decades much less millennia. Whale Point Drop, however, is real, and much as I described, minus the spring and the cave. If you don’t believe me, go check. The lighthouse, however, is private property. I wish it was my private property, but I haven’t sold that many books yet.

So, permit me the liberties that I take, and I hope you enjoyed the book. That’s, really, all that matters.

As usual, I’d like to thank the people who aided me in this book, either through information or by providing the characters that make it so rich.

Evan Mayerle, who is indeed a very inventive aviation engineer.

Bast, who, while not quite the character in the book, can see it on a clear day.

Hank Reinhardt for chopping pork shoulders so artistically.

Chief Robin Brooks, the best damned chief in the Navy.

Elayna for heroic baby-sitting beyond the call of duty.

Pete Abrams for the rabbit. If you want to know where the rabbit came from, google “Bun-bun” and prepare to lose two weeks of productivity. Start at the beginning, read the first month, and then prepare to laugh yourself sick, probably at work with your boss watching.

And, most especially, I’d like to thank the crew of the Blackbeard Cruise Ship, Pirate’s Lady: Antja the Deck Wench, Jason the Divemaster, Jackson the engineer, Pete the cook, Bill the mate, and, yes, Bruce the captain, owner of Blackbeard Cruises. All of whom put up with such truly insane questions as “If you were a mer-man, where would you live?”

If you’re a diver and stout of spirit, I recommend the Blackbeard Cruises for the fun, price and the rum punch. Especially if my brother is directing the ratio of rum to punch. Although, sorry Bruce, not in January. Yes, the hypothermia was from experience. As was the seasickness. Including the thyme. On the other hand, if you’re a Canuck, go for it. Scopolamine patches are over-the-counter in Canada and sixty-four-degree water is, apparently, positively balmy to our northern neighbors.

Thanks for reading my books and I hope to bring you more adventures with Herzer, Edmund, Bast and Daneh in the near future.

Who knows, maybe even the homicidal rabbit.

John Ringo

Commerce, Georgia

July 2003

Abn1508@mindspring.com