A Visit With Kim Headlee--and Mark Twain!

Thank you, Diana, for hosting Mark Twain and me on your blog today!

The dear boy turns—can you believe it??—180 years old on November 30th, and to celebrate, I am releasing the print edition of King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court! Retail links for the hardcover and paperback aren't available yet, but please sign up for my monthly newsletter The Dawnflier to be among the first to learn how to preorder a personalized, specially discounted copy of one of the most important novels to be published in the last 126 years.

Like the original 1889 edition of Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, #KASIWC features more than 100 original pen-and-ink illustrations to complement my satiric sequel. 

Here's a peek at what readers may expect in both print editions:

Art c2014 by Tom Doneske.
The time on the pocket watch represents
Mark Twain's time of death
(6:21 p.m. April 10, 1910).

PREFACE.

M GIVEN TO understand some of my posthumous critics have intimated that I was jealous of Jules Verne—that maybe I even felt threatened by him. I have never heard such cocky popping beetle dung in my entire death.

Verne was a hack of the First Order whose publisher (engaged after he had inflicted two decades of the most unengaging whining and pleading, pining and wheedling upon all the other High Lords of Bookdom) viewed it necessary to transform his dyspeptic drivel into something within shouting distance of palatability for the reading public. Jules Verne didn’t invent science fiction; his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, did,—and I’m sorry I wasn’t born a couple of decades sooner to save everyone the time, trouble, and confusion.

As for this book, here I confess it’s long past overdue. I buried one clue in the joined opposites of Hank Morgan, Technology-Wielder, and Morgan le Fay, Magic-Wielder. Furthermore, Mrs. le Fay was the only important character in A Connecticut Yankee whom I didn’t kill off, of the thousands I did lasso, hang, shoot, electrocute, explode, drown, torpedo, and otherwise murder. Unfortunately, certain Weightier Matters contravened my intent, and I never put pen to parchment to commence the duologue’s conclusion within my lifetime. That nobody acted upon my clues in the hundred years since my sadly unexaggerated demise, speaks to the fact that I’ve been waiting till I’m well and truly dead before whispering my words into the quick and able ear of my chosen Ghost-Writer. For the matters depicted herein, of course, are things which ought to be settled. I don’t have anything else in particular to do in eternity anyway.

 

Written upon the occasion of my
175th birthday,  

November 30th, 2010

Wytheville, Virginia.

P.S. by K.I.H. For decades I’ve admired Verne’s ability in Michael Strogoff to transport the reader to nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia, especially considering the author never stepped on the steppes. Yet Twain/Clemens still selected me for this project. Go figure.

BUY LINKS (Digital edition)

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TITLE – King Arthur’s Sister in Washington’s Court (#KASIWC)

AUTHOR – Kim Iverson Headlee

GENRE – Science Fiction/Fantasy Time-Travel Romance

PUBLICATION DATE – 1 November 2014 (e-book); 30 November 2015 (hardcover and paperback)

LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 350 pages/70K words

PUBLISHER – Lucky Bat Books

COVER ARTIST – Jennifer Doneske

INTERIOR ARTISTS – Jennifer Doneske and Tom Doneske

FEATURE-LENGTH SCRIPTS – Registered trilogy: adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, adaptation of KASIWC, and original script The Once and Future Queen; all available upon request.

SYNOPSIS

Morgan le Fay, 6th-century Queen of Gore and the only major character not killed off by Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, vows revenge upon the Yankee Hank Morgan. She casts a spell to take her to 1879 Connecticut so she may waylay Sir Boss before he can travel back in time to destroy her world. But the spell misses by 300 miles and 200 years, landing her in the Washington, DC, of 2079, replete with flying limousines, hovering office buildings, virtual-reality television, and sundry other technological marvels.

Whatever is a time-displaced queen of magic and minions to do? Why, rebuild her kingdom, of course—two kingdoms, in fact: as Campaign Boss for the reelection of American President Malory Beckham Hinton, and as owner of the London Knights world-champion baseball franchise.

Written as though by the old master himself, King Arthur’s Sister in Washington’s Court by Mark Twain as channeled by Kim Iverson Headlee offers laughs, love, and a candid look at American society, popular culture, politics, baseball... and the human heart.

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