The Story Behind the Story with Mandie Dufour of New Brunswick, Canada.

 

We have another new guest this week.

Mandie will be part of the 4^th GMRD Book Fair this Spring. 

The novel - Devour - is gaining lots of attention.

Read on, my friends.

  

Mandie Dufour is a sci-fi, fantasy and horror writer. They have a love of stories in all forms, going on to graduate with a degree in English literature from Saint Thomas in 2015. A love for people and a fascination with biology led them to receive valedictorian in their massage therapy program in 2018. The writing community both on and offline have provided them with joy and motivation. The Canadian Maritimes where they live with their wife and two ferrets serve as a source of great inspiration. They also draw from their experience as a Norse pagan as well as observations on life and human nature.

 

Title: “Devour” 

 Synopsis:

Valya is holding tight to a dying planet. When a mysterious organic ship appears outside the Sigurd System’s asteroid belt, she seizes an opportunity to join The Saegammr’s crew on a mission to recover technology that could save her planet.

What begins as a salvage operation quickly turns into a battle of wills and a test of survival as they face horror beyond their wildest imaginations.

Valya must discover what it means to make impossible choices when fate is cast in stone, and only the present moment is moveable.

 

The Story Behind the Story:

The initial spark for Devour came from a conversation I had with my wife about the wraith ships in Stargate Atlantis. For those unaware, the ships are organic and I thought it would be super creepy if there was an organic spaceship that also ate people, sort of like a pitcher plant.

I am actually terrified of space, so as a horror enthusiast, I thought why not write about something that scares the pants off me? I’ve always found the sheer concept of space to carry so much existential dread that I wanted to harness that in the story.

As a Norse pagan, I found representation to be lacking outside of the stereotypical depictions of Vikings that often end up being quite inaccurate. Often, when paganism is in a fantasy setting, it ends up exaggerated and leaned on for magic-systems.  Instead, I wanted to show it as a grounded aspect of the characters' lives and how they move through the world rather than be the fantasy center of the novel. Additionally, as I wrote, I thought it was interesting to explore how Norse paganism would develop on planets that aren’t earth. As a nature based religion, many of the concepts come from natural phenomena we encounter everyday, so it would end up developing quite differently on planets that look nothing like ours.

At the time, I was active on Wattpad where there’s a popular competition called the Open Novella Contest, or the ONC, where writers get to choose a prompt and have three months to write between 20,000 - 40, 000 word novellas. I used this as an opportunity to get started on Devour and ended up moving through the rounds where it eventually got shortlisted and made honourable mention.

The Devour that is out today has been expanded to include much more of the world and Valya’s space adventure.

 

Website: Please go HERE.

A question before you go, Mandie: 

Scribbler: Who was your favourite author, or story, growing up?

Mandie: Margarette Atwood is my favorite author, however, “Watership Down” by Richard Adams is my favorite novel.

An Excerpt from : Devour - Chapter Twenty-One “Hallucinations”

While the others bickered on what to do, Valya approached the wall of the ship to see if she could find the door. Her eyes scoured the slimy surface for a clue; a seam, a rip, a wrinkle, anything. Her heart throbbed in her throat, pounding blood into her ears... then there was something else... a murmuring cut through the incessant whooshing of her own pulse.

She extended her hand and touched it to the wall, surprised to find it was warm. Thick, slimy mucus stuck to her palm.

The murmuring grew louder.

A hundred people all talking at once, clambering over each other in desperation... crying, screaming... Valya put her ear to the wall to try to make out any words.

Straining to listen, she pressed in closer. Her ear stung. She pulled away from the wall. Mucus sucked her back in. Shock pinched her chest into a vice. Stuck flesh ripped itself raw as she yanked herself free. The skin on her ear, and side of her face burned. She touched her cheek, wincing.

"Valya!" Amira called.

Valya jumped and turned to look at the crew. They stared at her.

"Are you alright?" Amira placed a hand on her shoulder. "We called your name and you wouldn't answer." Getting a closer look at Valya in the light of her staff, she scrunched her brow in concern. "Your skin, it's scraped raw! What happened?"

"I - I dunno," she mumbled. "I heard these voices in the wall and I wanted to hear what they were saying."

"We didn't hear anything," said Ivan. "Are you sure?"

Valya nodded. "Pretty certain. I think the ship's wall burned me - or - or something."

"You haven't been sleeping well," said Ivan. "Are you sure you weren't -"

"Hallucinating?" Valya interrupted. "Yes, I'm sure. I'm not that tired. How could I hallucinate my skin raw?"

Banele approached her with concern. The harsh beam of his headlamp made her squint. She let him examine the right side of her face.

"This looks pretty real to me."

"They feel pretty real too.”

He rummaged around in his bag, drawing out the same short thick tube as before. Valya held still while he applied the RenewalCream to the damaged skin on her face, and ear. Pain subsided to a dull throb.

"Thank you," she said.

Amira kissed her healed forehead. "No more touching the walls, please. Stay close to me."

"We're going to search the ship for a way to contact Ren or get out, whichever comes first," said Ivan.

"I say we take the left hole," said Banele. "I got a good feeling about it."

"I don't have a good feeling about any of this," Valya muttered.

With no reason not to, they followed Banele through the left orifice. Amira led the way, her staff glowed in the dark. She tapped the sphere and it brightened, mingling with the light of their headlamps.

The hallway stretched onward in a shadowy tunnel. Valya could have sworn the walls pulsated, urging them onwards with their strange undulations.

After her previous attempt to investigate, she was hesitant to go near them again and Ivan’s accusations of hallucinations kept her from bringing up her observation.

They trudged onwards until the hallway deviated into another fork.

"Wanna take the right one this time?" Ivan suggested.

“Let’s check the floor plan.” Valya brought out her stone once more.

No… This can’t be right.

The twisting of the tunnel they were in did not match what she saw on the screen. According to the hologram, they should be able to go straight.

“We must have screwed up here somewhere,” she said.

They stopped for a moment. The floor was sticky, holding their boots in place. They lifted their feet, prying them away in sucking squelches.

What is this stuff?

“Let me see.” Ivan peered over her shoulder at the hologram.

“She’s right,” said Banele.

A cold pit settled into her stomach.

“There must be some mistake,” Amira said. “It can’t be that off.”

No matter how hard Valya looked at the floor plan, she could not reconcile it with reality.

This is the correct spot.

They should be able to continue and find themselves at an intersection further along. It also struck her how the halls and corners on the map were straight, bending at ninety-degree angles, while the hall they traversed was rounded like a hole or tunnel.

The longer they lingered, discussing the discrepancy, the harder it became to lift her feet from the sticky sludge on the ground.

“We have to keep moving,” said Valya. “Maybe we’ll figure it out as we go?”

The churning in her guts said otherwise.

What other choice do we have?

“We’ll take the right one,” Amira repeated Ivan’s previous decision.

The others agreed and they entered the hole. Rather than a continuation of the hallway, they found their way into a round chamber.

Fifty SlumberPods were arranged in five rows of ten. What Valya had first suspected to be veins extended from the walls of the ship and enveloped the pods. Their glass covers were hazy. A green film-like algae obscured their insides.

"Where did this ship come from?" Ivan gawked around the room in awe.

Valya wandered amongst the pods, taking note of the familiar technology. Panels on each pod meant to display the vitals of the occupants were cracked, or too obscured by the thin tendrils from the ship's filaments to read. The visible screens were completely blank except for the faint green light indicating they were occupied.

Five of the fifty pods flashed red.

Empty.

This ship was normal at one time… but what happened?

Amira raised her staff and smashed it against the surface of the nearest pod. It cracked but didn't break.

"Hey!" Banele cried. "What the hell are you doing?"

"We need to find out who's in here. The screens are useless." She raised her staff again.

"Busting someone out of hypersleep like that could kill them!"

Amira lowered her weapon. "Then how do we look inside?"

"You could try wiping the glass," said Ivan, already scrubbing at a pod with the sleeve of his boiler-suit.

Thick film came away easily enough. The contents became visible through the filthy glass.

They gathered around as Ivan continued to wipe. A soft yellow glow, a remnant of when the pod was still functional, illuminated what Valya assumed used to be a person.

They were certainly person shaped.

The ship's veins had infiltrated the pod and infested the occupant. Flesh, and most of the clothing, had dissolved, fusing with the foam mattress pad. It festered in a purple and black sludge. What remained of the skull leered in a grimace. A cavernous black hole where one of the eyes once was stared into Valya.
 

Buy the book HERE. 

Thanks for being our guest this week, Mandie. 

 

Thank you to all our visitors and readers.

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