Description

Winged contains two novelettes.

The Basics of Flight is a story, describing young Katherine Riley’s struggle to become an air-ship (called a ‘leo-fin’ in the story) pilot in a steampunk Victorian England. It depicts her learning journey at the Flight Academy, an institution established to train budding pilots and navigators. Along the journey, Katherine meets friends, allies and even enemies as she deals with her own inner self-development as a pilot and an individual. She has to deal with old psychological wounds and she realizes that she is only able to move forward if she lets go of the painful past.

The Basics of Flight is a part growing-up (young adult) story and part philosophical examination of a world rapidly changing to meet the new century.

Likewise, Phoenix With A Purpose details the development of Princess Min Feng, heir apparent to the Phoenix Court, set in a future where the Phoenix Court, a matriarchal Imperial Family, rules over an Alliance of Planets. Min Feng is impulsive, her inner phoenix flame (an ability to turn her from human to phoenix) out of control because of puberty. She yearns for freedom and meets a Navajo boy from Mesa, a colony home-world for the Navajo/Dine people. When her mother, the Empress, decides to send her on an apprentice-ship on a starship captained by her grandaunt, Min Feng rebels and runs away from home, triggering a pattern of consequences for her, the boy and the family. Will she find her purpose in life? Or is she a phoenix without a purpose, susceptible to the whims of an uncontrollable phoenix fire and puberty? Will she grow up and takes on the mantle of the Empress?

Phoenix With A Purpose takes a new twist to old mythology and gives a familiar angle, about a young girl finding her own identity and place. It also examines mother-and-daughter relationships and the boy-meets-girl scenario. Ultimately, the story is about purpose and the search for it.