Ystem Aver, one of my favorite characters from the "Over the Edge" series is featured here in a short story that also appears on InkDreams.com. He has a distinctively "pirate" voice, made familiar in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series. Many readers who've been critiquing the "Over the Edge, On the Brink" manuscript don't like his pirate voice. And, over time, I've come to agree with them. I could change his voice here and on InkDreams, but I think I'll leave him in his original state in both these locations.
A little trivia regarding the name "Ystem Aver:"
Long ago, when I first began to take my pleasure writing seriously (that is, I said to myself, "What's the point of putting all this time into this science fiction novel series if nobody is ever going to read it? Maybe I should try to get this published...), I was given an Apple II GS computer for writing. This computer sat on a desk near a sliding glass door opening out onto a small porch where an outside electrical outlet is available.
As I was contemplating the character now known as "Ystem Aver," lightning struck. It seemed to me, the lightning pinpointed that outdoor outlet. Fortunately, I had a "System Saver" protecting my computer. When my eyes adjusted to normal light once again and the smoke cleared, my System Saver was dead, burnt. But my computer was fine. In honor of this device which gave its life to save my work, I named the new character "Ystem Aver," a name created by simply removing the first letters from each word in (S)Ystem (S)Aver.
Here's to all the Apple II GS's out there. Some of you know how awesome those computers were. Why did Apple have to abandon that line? And here's to System Savers of all stripes that save our work from harm.
photo credit: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/apple2/index.htm
