Killer Eyes and Heart of a Zulu

So Killer Eyes is in the works to be published now, and I'm back to work on John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu. But I don't name my book for body parts. Like Eyes and Hearts. No. Just those two. It's weird that it happened that way for both of those books. I didn't plan it. Just happened.

So I am working on John Dunn, but it's my longest book. Even though it's historical fiction, based on the true story of John Dunn, it's like a fantasy in many ways. It's set in the nineteenth century, where muskets were the main weapons, but the new breach-loading rifles were just coming out. And it's set in Zululand, which the name Zululand in itself reeks of a fantasy setting.

The Zulus too are the stuff of fantasy, what with kings and witchdoctors, and an army of forty thousand blade wielding warriors ready to kill, and a lone white man making his life amongst them. A lone white man who became best friends with the Zulu king, I might add. A lone white man living amongst a nation of warlike black men, and accepted as one of them.

And a lone white man who marries fifty black women. Now that's something if you ask me. And over one hundred children. And here's the amazing part. It's true history. And John Dunn didn't just go around impregnating a bunch of black women, and then go his own way. No. Again, he married them, and he supported them, and raised his one hundred plus kids on his own land and cared for them, every one of them. He saw to their well being and made sure they were all cared for at the time of his death. It's a historical fact that when he died he mentioned in his will all of his wives and all of his children.

So this guy, John Dunn, was the real deal. A real husband and a real father. It's great if you think about it. These days, it's tough just to care for two kids, like I have. But these are different days. No doubting that. But no one's going to be writing a book about me and my two kids. Different days different times, and today is not the time of a fantasy-like life. Not with the rules, laws, and expectations of today. Such is life.