In book one of the Red Slaves series, Natasha tells the group about her flight of dragons. In book two, protagonist Anne has to learn to deal with the reality of that grouping.
And she gets to learn about flying.
One of the fun bits of research I did for a particular scene in the book was to find out how high up you have to be into the atmosphere to see the curvature of the earth. (For those who are curious, I found a beautiful picture of what Anne could have seen at 45,000 feet and posted it and another few pics to my Red Slaves Pinterest board.)
I suspect my fascination for that very high altitude experience was fueled by watching Felix Baumgartner’s freefall from the edge of space last October. Watching the picture live, as he leaned forward into nothingness, was enough to make my stomach fall in sympathy. Those were some compelling, emotional video moments, and are worth revisiting periodically.
Anne is certainly no dare-devil, but she is no less transformed by her experience in the air than Baumgartner was.
You do some amazing research for your books and yes, I’d say Anne was transformed – even before the flight 😉
LOL – subtle…
😉
I think research is one of the best parts of writing. It’s totally kewl to see how far you can stretch reality by using it as your take-off point.
I’d kind of forgotten about Felix Baumgarten. I watched it on TV. So boring watching the ascent, so jaw clenching watching the fall.
JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE
Being up that high would scare me to death (unless in a plane). Seriously afraid of heights!
Ruby recently posted http://rubywilbur.com/the-frog-prince/ for #atozchallenge
That sounds like fun research.
I didn’t get to see that stunt, but I did see the video after. OMG, how did that guy do it? I would have fainted.
That fall from the edge of space was something else, right?
It was one of the craziest stunts I’ve seen!