Gina Rae Mitchell

All We Leave Behind: Transits of Three by Benjamin X. Wretlind | Book Excerpt ~ Author Guest Post on Conlanging ~ $25 Gift Card 

A book blog tour from Goddess Fish Promotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Marianne & Judy at Goddess Fish for providing me with the information for this tour.

Book Details

All We Leave Behind: Transits of Three by Benjamin X Wretlind
Series: Transits #3
Published by Independent on December 20, 2022
Genres: Science Fiction, Space Exploration
Format: eBook, Hardcover, Paperback
Pages: 508

Not all of them made it out of the floods alive. Can those who remain survive on a planet turned deadly?

Miriam Page is guided by hope. With their people broken into three factions, the young leader of the decimated faithful is determined to find a new home by following an ancient map. But the infernal elements and unforgiving landscapes turn hellish when she contracts a debilitating disease.

As the other two communities fight their own dangers and setbacks, Miriam struggles against internal and external demons on a journey that feels cursed. But her battle turns ever more perilous as she faces betrayal and death…

Is she steering her flock to a promised haven or to their graves?

All We Leave Behind is the captivating third book in the Transit anthropological science fiction series. If you like personality-driven suspense, fascinating world-building, and questioning societal norms, then you’ll love Benjamin X. Wretlind’s gritty bid for survival.

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Excerpt from All We Leave Behind

How many?” Moran asked.

“Four. Just up ahead.” Tobias tightened his grip on his weapon.
“Bethany is waiting for us.”

Moran stopped and watched as the caravan slowly edged toward the right, away from immediate danger. “Wish we had more to spare.”

“So do I.” Tobias took in a calming breath and let it out slowly. The nervousness in his stomach eased up. Miriam had taught him several techniques for dealing with fear, for calming his anxiety and sharpening his mind. He would forever be grateful to be married to a counselor, a therapist, a wise wizard of the brain’s complications.

“Ready?” Moran asked.

They both walked slowly toward Bethany’s position, their eyes locked on the trees where Tobias saw the four animals.

“Eight,” Bethany whispered as they approached. “Four more in a cluster of trees to the right of the others.”

“Typical pack. Haven’t heard the growl, yet,” Moran said. “Maybe they didn’t see us.”

“Oh, they did.” Tobias pointed to the tree with the first rychat he spotted. “I swear I saw that one lick its lips.”

“Well, we’ll have to take care of that.”

Moran raised his crossbow and took aim at the one Tobias pointed out. In tandem, both Tobias and Bethany raised their own weapons.

“One on the trunk,” Tobias whispered.

Bethany responded. “The big one to the right.”

The three were silent as they steadied themselves.

Excerpt provided by the author/publisher for use in this post.

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Purchase Links for All We Leave Behind

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Guest Post from the author of All We Leave Behind

Conlanging for New Worlds

As writers, we get to create things, from worlds to creatures to whatever you can think of. As readers, we get to experience worlds we never imagined might exist. Even if you’re writing or reading a romance set in Italy, you’re still creating a world or reading about one that was created for you.

When world building, writers have a lot of fun creating animals or terrain that exists only in their imagination. But to embed the reader in that world, the writer needs to bring them into the culture itself. This is where anthropology can come into play.

When I attended a workshop at the 2022 Pikes Peak Writers Conference on using anthropology for world building, I was immediately intrigued by the eight elements which make up a culture, things that help define it as something different from something else. They are: language, religion, social groups, arts & crafts, history, government, economy, and daily life.

All We Leave Behind: Transits of Three is a part of what I consider anthropological science fiction, that is a forward look with a backward lens. While the first novel, Out of Due Season, was a set up to the rest of the story, the second and subsequent novels were intended to establish a new culture. I needed to get that new culture right.
As language is one of the key elements which separates cultures, I put a lot of thought and work into crafting a fictional one and ensuring names follow the right patterns of speech.

J.R.R. Tolkien did this in the Lord of the Rings. As one of the fathers of a practice called conlanging, Tolkien created many different languages. Conlanging, or constructed language, is the hobby of inventing a vocabulary, grammar, and phonology that is typically used in fiction.

Have you heard of Klingon? High Valyrian? Dothraki? Na’vi? Sindarin? These are all constructed languages used in fiction, and their very presence and use within a story further embeds the reader that author’s culture.

Here’s the neat thing: a conlang does not have to be complete to be used in fiction. While I can learn Klingon and Valerian on my Duolingo app, I don’t need to know the language in order to appreciate how and why another culture would use it. Knowing that another culture within the world I am reading about speaks another language can be just enough to bring me inside.

And alphabets can be different, too. There’s an excellent book by David J. Peterson called The Art of Language Invention. Peterson expanded upon George R.R. Martin’s Dothraki language for use in the television show Game of Thrones. Dothraki has no written elements. While Peterson created grammatical rules and linguistic patterns, you do not have to go into so much detail. You can create simple patterns and expand on them.

I’ve been working with generative artificial intelligence (AI) lately, and found that one of the neatest things ever: generative AI can help you, as a writer, create new languages. For example, you can use generative AI to create new words for your conlang by training it on existing words. From there, it’s no sweat to use AI to help generate new words that follow the same patterns and rules.

You can also use generative AI to create grammatical rules by training it on examples of grammar from other languages. I recently did this for the fourth book in the Transit series, which I am writing now. This was fun. For example, I told the AI what the verb “to exist” was (ra’ka) and added in some conjugation rules from other languages that I speak. From that, I now know that ka’y ra’ko means “I exist”, ka’a ra’kan means “he/she/it exists” and so on. I can then apply those rules to a variety of verbs.

When I was a kid, I invented an alien language wherein the aliens themselves changed their body to “speak.” A phrase might be a 3D box colored red and the response might be a pyramid colored blue. Geometric shapes and colors were the basis for the language itself, but I didn’t get too far. I have yet to use this language in a story, either (although that’s still not outside the realm of possibility).

Maybe I can go back to that language and see what AI can do for me. You can do it, too. If anything, there’s a story in there…and it may be in a new language.

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Purchase All We Leave Behind this book online from a local bookstore.

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Please send me a note if your country isn’t listed and you would like to purchase using my links. Using my link does not change the price you pay. Amazon pays me a minimal amount out of their share. 

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Giveaway!

Benjamin X. Wretlind will award a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Visit more stops on this Goddess Fish tour for extra chances to win!

Official Tour Page for All We Leave Behind

Full Tour Schedule:

December 28: All the Ups and Downs
January 4: Sandra’s Book Club
January 11: Literary Gold
January 18: Hope. Dreams. Life… Love
January 25: Kit ‘N Kabookle
February 1: Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews
February 8: Fabulous and Brunette
February 15: Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!
February 22: The Avid Reader
March 1: Gina Rae Mitchell
March 8: Beyond Romance – review
March 15: Lady Hawkeye – review
March 22: Author C.A.Milson
March 29: Author Deb Bailey
April 5: It’s Raining Books
April 12: Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – review only
April 19: Sybrina’s Book Blog
April 26: Westveil Publishing
May 3: fundinmental – review only
May 10: Long and Short Reviews

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