Welcome back to Glass Half Full, and thanks for reading. Today, we’re continuing with the character profiles of the novels three main characters. But before we get into that, I wanted to let you know about a couple of ways to read Ada’s Children for less.
We’re now over 2/3 of the way through the novel, and it will wrap up in less than a month. That means you could subscribe today, read it over the next month, then cut off your subscription when you’re done, for a cost of only $5.
Request Ada’s Children from your local library. The ebook is now available through Palace Marketplace, which many public libraries have adopted. You can also request the print version. This is a great way to read novels for free while supporting your favorite indie authors.
Check back in a couple of weeks, when I’ll have more ways to read Ada’s Children for less.
And now, on with the character profile of Sila.
Sila is the co-main character in the far-future timeline of Ada’s Children. Since this timeline is also a romance, maybe I should call her the heroine, with Jun being the hero. But if we’re going to be gendered about it, then in some ways Sila is the hero of the story and Jun the heroine. In other ways, the pair are really one character split in two (more on that below). For now, let’s leave it non-gendered: she’s the co-main character or co-protagonist. (And don’t tell Jun I said this, but she’s my favorite.)
Biographical Details
Birthdate: An unknown year in the far future
Birthplace: The village of the People of the Bison, in a place known only as the Land
Age: 20
“Profession”: Hunter, though her parents have made sure she also has gathering and crafting skills. Has ambitions to one day become Chief of the Hunt
Relationship Status: Single but looking, attracted to both men and women, but wants a woman partner for… reasons
At the start of the novel, Sila’s main goal is to establish herself among the hunters of her people and to one day become Chief of the Hunt. She already has achieved a lot, becoming the first female hunter among any of the Five Peoples in two generations. The only things getting in her way are her occasional recklessness, which is on display in the opening scene, and her repressed attraction for her best friend, Jun.
The latter is a problem for two reasons. First, partnering with a member of the opposite sex from the same village violates the rules laid down by the Goddess, Ada. The punishment for such an infraction is exile from village life. Since the Land is located in what we call Minnesota, and climate change has been reversed, most couples who are shunned meet death from cold and starvation.
Opposite-sex partnering takes place at the annual Rendezvous of the Five Peoples, while same-sex partnering is less formal and is allowed between members of the same village. Under these rules, Jun should be off Sila’s list of romantic partners, while any of the girls she’s grown up with are possibilities, as are boys or men from other villages.
The second reason Sila represses her feelings for Jun (and other men) is that she knows bearing children will interfere with her ambitions as a hunter. Partnering with a woman will have many advantages, the lack of pregnancy and child-rearing duties chief among them. Another advantage is that she can choose from among the girls and women she already knows and has feelings for, rather than someone from another village she barely knows. Almost as important, a pairing of a hunter and a gatherer is the usual economic unit in this society, with the pair providing for the needs of themselves, their children, and their elderly relations. A pairing of two hunters or two gatherers, which does happen, raises a few practical difficulties, ones Sila would rather avoid.
So Sila thinks she has everything figured out, and even has her eye set on one particular girl.* But her feelings for Jun keep getting in the way. That’s the tension that will fuel the entire plot in this story line.
Another trait of Sila’s is her pride, verging on arrogance. As the first female hunter in anyone’s memory, she’s already gained a lot of status, especially among girls younger than she. So she’s a bit like a rock star in our time, or maybe the starting quarterback at a Midwest high school. It does go to her head. As the cliché has it, pride goes before the fall. Sila will definitely experience tribulations brought on by her own arrogance, and she’ll learn from them. I do worry it makes her a bit unsympathetic at points, but I hope readers will appreciate her growth as a character.
Two Characters from One
In “The Genesis of Ada’s Children,” I wrote about the influence of Horizon Zero Dawn on my novel. That influence extends to Sila and Jun, both of whom were inspired by that game’s protagonist, Aloy. This is what I meant when I said they’re two halves of the same character — I basically split Aloy’s character in two. Sila got the adventurous, kickass female hero half, while Jun got the inquisitive, smart-as-hell half. Is that something you can do as a writer? Heck if I know, I’m just making this up as I go along. (I’m encouraged by the writers of The Expanse TV series, who did the opposite. They took two or three characters from the books and combined them into Camina Drummer, one of the most revered characters in any fandom.)
Next week, I’ll profile Jun, Sila’s other half, character-wise, if not romantically, for now. Will Sila decide that love is more important than ambition? Or maybe she can have both? But what about Ada’s taboos? Will Sila risk being shunned and losing her position in this society? You’ll need to read the novel to find out. You can start at the beginning here. The Prologue and first three chapters are free.
*In this society, girls become women when they’ve mastered the gathering and crafting skills necessary to support a family. At that point, the Wise Women declare them ready to take mates. Similarly, boys become men when they are either accepted into the Hunt or have mastered other skills like trapping, and are declared ready to support a family and take a mate. But there’s always an awkward transition period, where everyone forgets that the young people are now women or men and call them girls or boys. There’s also a bit of superiority. The older hunters still call Jun “boy,” since he’s only 19 and just joined the Hunt in the last year. Sila herself will forget and call her friends girls even after they’ve been declared adults.
If you’re aware of recent anthropology that shows that gender-segregated hunter-gatherer societies are not the dominant form, and that women in many of these societies participated in hunting, you might be wondering why this one does follow the more stereotypical model. Why is it so gendered, when it’s open and tolerant in other ways? There is an explanation for this within the novel, but it comes later in the story. As to why I chose to make it this way, it was to give Sila something to struggle against (a struggle that many modern readers, especially women, should be able to relate to) and also a way to stand out.