Welcome to another week of The Character Tour. December has been pretty exciting so far with some amazing characters, and I hope you’ll find today just as interesting. Today, Yvonne Anderson introduces us to her main character from her Gateway to Gannah series–this woman has been through quite a bit. Stay tuned for the giveaway as well as the winner from last Wednesday’s 4 ebook giveaway!

My name is Dassa, and I’m a book character.

When my biographer, Yvonne Anderson, told me about this gig, I groaned. She’s had me do interviews before, and once she dragged me into a debate with another character. But this is my first time for a guest spot.

“So what am I supposed to write about?” I asked.

“Whatever you feel like telling the readers,” was her unhelpful reply.

When she saw my baleful glare—which I’m quite good at, by the way. My bright, piercing green eyes tend to give people the creeps at the best of times. All I have to do is stare at a person with my eyes narrowed just a little, and he or she tends to do what I ask without arguing. It’s a handy skill.

But as I was saying, when she saw my baleful glare, she hastily added, “Tell them what it felt like to be an alien on earth. Or the only survivor of a global plague. Or about how, after you returned to resettle your home planet with a group of Earthers, you became separated from the others and were isolated from the rest of the world for several months.” She finished with a hopeful lift of the eyebrows. “Any of those ideas sound interesting?”

Pah! I’ve got a limit of 800 words here, lady! Those experiences you mentioned? I couldn’t adequately describe one of them in even 800 thousand words. There are some things you just can’t convey, you know? In order to truly get it, you’d have to experience it for yourself. Not that I’d want anyone to have to go through all that.

Except vicariously, of course. It’s kind of fun to read about other people’s problems, because when you close the book and walk away, your own world is still safe. But no one wants her real world turned upside-down.

Unless, that is, her situation is so untenable she’s desperate for escape. 

Which is sometimes the case. Take my great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-greats-grandfather, Hoseh. You can learn about him in the first book of the Gannah series. He had not just the world by the tail, but the whole galaxy. Despite his successes, though, he was driven by a desire he couldn’t explain. His emptiness was so deep, so fundamental, he couldn’t rest until he filled it, even to the point of wiping out whole populations in pursuit of it.

He thought sating his bloodlust would be enough, but that didn’t do it, of course. Like when you Earthers often look to solutions for your emptiness that turn out to be destructive. The further you go in your hedonism, the less satisfaction you find.

Sometimes you Terrestrials aren’t as different from us Gannahans as everyone assumes. The same things make us all tick.

Sure, you have different customs. Like table manners, for instance. On Gannah, it’s proper to dine with our elbows on the table. And we eat with our hands, or drink broth directly from the bowl, according to the type of meal served. If someone gave us a knife, fork, and spoon—or chopsticks, or whatever—and told us they were tools to eat with, we wouldn’t know what to do with them.

And I’m aware you folks tend to be put off by our habit of chewing a mintwood stick after a meal to clean our teeth and then putting the gob of chewed pulp on our plates. I get that. I feel the same about the way you get up from the table with food in your teeth (shudder), then try to clean them later with tiny brushes made of artificial fibers smeared with an unnatural chemical paste that makes you foam at the mouth. I mean, really. How is that better?

But all that stuff’s superficial. Deep down, we’re all pretty similar, despite the fact that I have awesome glowing eyes and you don’t. (I feel sorry for you.) I guess my point is this: I hope you never have the terrible experiences I’ve had, because it’s been truly awful at times. But you might enjoy reading about it from a safe distance. And you might even benefit from seeing how I managed to survive without spontaneously combusting over it all.

My biographer tells my story in the Gateway to Gannah series, which is comprised of four books. Only the first two are currently released: The Story in the Stars and Words in the Wind. The third, Ransom in the Rock, is in the publishing pipeline, and we’re currently drafting the last.

My biographer and I both hope you’ll take advantage of this site’s give-away and/or find another way to share in my riveting experiences. As long as you’re not going through it yourself, you won’t want it to end.

You know, Sci-Fi isn’t really my thing, but after reading this character post, I’m excited to check out Yvonne’s books. Dassa has been through so much that would just be so hard to imagine. If you found it as interesting as I did, leave a comment below! Yvonne is giving away the first TWO BOOKS in the Gateway to Gannah series to one lucky winner. These are print books (unless you live overseas, then they will be ebooks). Giveaway ends next Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST. This weeks winner of the 4 ebooks will be announced below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yvonne Anderson lives in rural Ohio with her husband of 37 years and one of her four grown kids. Her five grandchildren live in Virginia, which is entirely too far away.

Formerly a legal secretary, Yvonne works part time as a Virtual Assistant but spends most of her time on the planet Gannah researching her books. A member of ACFW, The Lost Genre Guild, and International Thriller Writers, she serves as contest administrator for Novel Rocket, named four times to Writer’s Digest list of the 101 Best Websites for Writers.

Yvonne is a regular contributor to the blog Speculative Faith and, beginning in 2013, The Borrowed Book. She also shares a few wise words on her personal site, Y’s Words. You can connect with her on Twitter; by email to yvonneanderson101 @ gmail.com; or, if you insist, on Facebook.

HEART’S HAVEN WINNER: BRENDA TALLEY