The Prodigal Band Trilogy

Snippets-to-Spinoffs (Part Five): The Murder Rule Part One Meets Part Two

When novels are divided into parts or sequels or series, there always have to be connections from one part to another part, or the next part, or the sequel, or series or trilogy novels. And there must be connections to any novels of which they are ‘spun-off.’

The previous post entitled Proof that my new novel, The Murder Rule, is derived from my Prodigal Band Trilogy (Episode One), shows how the new novel is based on the trilogy. In this post, using characters that narrate Parts One and Two of The Murder Rule, there, too, are references to parts of The Prodigal Band Trilogy. The narrator of Part One of The Murder Rule is pop culture pundit Lloyd Denholm, who is the narrator of The Prodigal Band, and the narrator of Part Two is Bobby Jones, a prodigal band roadie minor character of both Battle of the Band and The Prodigal Band. Within a chapter for Part One of The Murder Rule, Bobby meets with Lloyd at Denholm’s apartment in the fictitious city of Richmont, California, in 2002, so he can reveal what he learned about the ‘suicided’ and murdered rocker, Denny Spradlin, that proves Denny was indeed murdered. The proof comes to Bobby from a prominent support character working for ‘the Good,’ the so-called ‘witch,’ Morwenna, who, along with God’s angels, the Tooters, guides the prodigal band Sound Unltd in their ‘missions of God.’ And a reminder: The Murder Rule is copyright by Deborah Lagarde and will be registered with the Library of Congress when officially published, hopefully, this year. Below is the snippet:

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The Foreword to The Prodigal Band, Self-Published by OmegaBooks in 2018, the Original Version of the Third Novel of The Prodigal Band Trilogy

Below is the original Foreword to the original, copyright 2018 by Deborah Lagarde, version of the third novel of The Prodigal Band Trilogy, The Prodigal Band, which is available as a FREE PDF download at the link in the menu above. It turns out, however, that calling this a ‘Foreword’ was a mistake since I wrote it; Forewords are usually written by another person; a Publisher, an Editor, or a Beta Reader. It should have been called an ‘Introduction.’

Further, Foreword or Introduction, the words below do state the ultimate purpose of the novel and the trilogy as a whole. Cheers!

A new post will arrive next week.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Biblical References Series, Episode One—“The Outer Darkness, Where There Will Be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth.”

Of all the Bible verses spoken by Jesus Christ Himself I have been aware of for many years, this and other verses in Matthew and Luke speaking of “the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” has stuck with me for many, many years. I figured the “outer darkness” referred to Hell and this “weeping” by those who were in Hell made sense. Who wanted to die and go to Hell? It was the “gnashing of teeth” part I had no idea about.

The word “gnashing” in the dictionary means this: to bite or chew by grinding the teeth together, striking the teeth together by grinding.

A similar word I used often in The Prodigal Band Trilogy, “gnaw,” has this meaning: to bite, chew on, or erode with the teeth. The word “gnaw” usually refers to rodents chewing or “gnawing” on wood, nuts, plants, or whatever rodents gnaw on for food or shelter, prominently with large and long upper front teeth. I use “gnaw” mostly referencing the devil character, Corion, as well as his Demons, warning his evil minions to do what he asks, “…or I will gnaw your bones forever.” In Hell, or the Abyss in which he resides (on God’s or The Creator’s orders), which is where Corion’s evil minions will find themselves after judgment.

Note: Since those who do the will of the devil character will find themselves in Hell anyway unless they repent of their evil, and Corion would gnaw on them anyway, why is Corion even threatening these folks if they do not do his will? Because these folks worship Corion and believe this evil devil is in fact god! So they force themselves to do these evil deeds not realizing he is only deceiving them. Corion, the Satan of this trilogy, is in fact the father of lies and deception within the trilogy.

This post is on the “gnashing of teeth” reference; the “gnawing” on bones forever reference will appear next week. But the themes and context are similar though the words are somewhat different. Gnaw and gnawing are used once each in the Bible, in the Old Testament Book of Zephaniah and the New Testament Book of Revelation.

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The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Keith, the Bassist

Next up is in The Prodigal Band Trilogy character snippets is Keith, the bassist. As told here, he had a steamy sexual relationship with a pop singer while he was also married to a super-model-cosmetics mogul, Jarris, a woman he began dating as a teen and a woman he vowed to protect from her abusive father. He is also described as a “skuz addicted womanizer” in Chapter Four of The Prophesied Band. Skuz is a fictional opioid-cocaine laced designer drug that is used by the band and various other wealthy rockers living in the world of ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’

His physical description? From Chapter One of Battle of the Band: ‘The dark, strapping bass player with bushy black curls and coal-dark eyes walked without his trademark gold chains.’ He is ‘dark’ because his grandmother is from Nigeria, on his mother’s side.

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The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Tom, the Drummer

Sorry this post is late…no internet for 24 hours, went up about 1 p.m. today…

Now that the holidays are about over, next up is Tom, the drummer. Of all the band members, Tom was the most difficult to characterize and has that ‘walking contradiction’ feel. On the one hand he grew up extremely poor, son of indentured servants, in a true slum section called the Hovels; on the other hand, he surrounded himself with jet-setting celebrities and sons and daughters of aristocracy. On the one hand he was a loner of sorts and tended to show up at gigs and band meetings late; on the other hand he could only be himself surrounded by his band mates, their women, or roadies. On the one hand he loved to argue–with his antagonist Mick, but also with his band manager, his woman, a princess, and other friends among the jet-setters; on the other hand he has no truly discordant agenda with the group and seeks no attention within the group. And, when he is bored with his jet-set entourages, he travels the world meeting ‘real’ people (such as Sherpas in Nepal, African tribesmen in Tanzania, and Muslims in Morocco), and loves mountain climbing (but not skiing). One minute he’s an arrogant pretender among those he considers phonies, and the next minute he’s as humble as a celebrity could get. He pretends to ‘channel’ the so-called ‘god’ Corion using one form of ‘persona’ and then meets ‘real’ people and becomes an activist of sorts, and even converses with good spirits. He even paid off all indentured debt in his hometown of Walltown.

Here is his description: “A short, curly-blond percussionist once angered by lost love approached with the others to an unknown destination, glad with a full life behind him.” He is five-foot-six and tends to wear cotton clothing.

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The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Jack, the Guitarist-Band Leader

Next up is band-founder, song-writer, and leader, guitarist Jack.

Before forming the band Sound Unltd, he led the street gang that some of those band members helped him lead as well. While both he and singer Erik lived in great poverty as children, Jack’s own father was abusive, beating his young son over the head with a Bible! Of all the band members, Jack thus hated religion the most. In a snippet also revealing the abuse, he himself dishes out another form of abuse, but not with a Bible. Yet, having to be the leader of the band and make sure any disagreements within the band are solved, Jack does manage to keep his wits about himself for the most part. He does occasionally take part in ‘verbal judo’ with is adoptive father, Billy, the band’s original manager. As with the singer and others in the group, he, too, is a sex hound of sorts, and does over-do on opium-laced drugs at times.

His description?

“The tall, angular-faced guitarist possessed dirty-blond hair now growing on once-shaved sides of his head. Now without the screaming instrument he fired into immortality.”

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Tragedy

Since this “snippet” series began with the genre category of Comedy, it is fitting that it ends with the category of Tragedy. Both are the hallmarks of theater that began in ancient Greece and are historically headlined by the immortal William Shakespeare.

When it comes to plays, NOBODY rivals Shakespeare! Tragedies IMHO are his magnum opus (especially MacBeth and Hamlet) but my favorite comedy character, theatrical or otherwise, is the ‘buffoon’ known as Falstaff, who appears in several of Shakespeare’s plays about various kings named Richard. Then there is Romeo and Juliet, which has inspired any number of spinoffs, one of my favorites being Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, where an Israeli special ops agent takes on his main rival, The Phantom, a Palestinian “terrorist” leader with Hezbollah ties. But Zohan gets tired of that job and wants to be a hair-dresser. So he secretly moves to the US (after failing to take down Phantom) and becomes a hair-dresser. At a salon owned by Palestinian Dahlia, who turns out to be sister to the Phantom! They fall in love and marry–the Israeli-Palestinian “Romeo and Juliet”!

The greatest tragedy? When Hamlet ponders his existence using the immortal line, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And then the rest of the soliloquy.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Comedy

Everyone has their definition of “comedy” because everyone has their own sense of humor and everyone has their own idea of what is “funny” and what isn’t, which could also include satire (which I will deal with later…in my opinion there is more satire than comedy in these three books that make up the trilogy.)

The first example also includes some slapstick…well, that’s my opinion anyway. This example is found in the final chapter of Battle of the Band and comes right before another category I just added to the series, Tragedy.

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Starting This Week: Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy by Category

I cannot think of a better way to nudge folks into buying any of my books that comprise The Prodigal Band Trilogy than to provide snippets from the books, mostly snippets from the ‘three-books-in-one’ but also from the original printed novels and free PDF.

The categories include: Comedy, Conspiracy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Occult, Romance, Satire, Spiritual and Suspense. Some of these categories are also fiction genres, but my novels do not conform to one or two particular genres, thus the genre I chose for the Lulu-published The Prodigal Band Trilogy was Adult, General.

When a snippet from the novel is presented I will provide some background information regarding characters, setting, sub-plot, etc.

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The Prodigal Band Trilogy: The Why (Originally Posted on Blog in 2018 in Five Parts)

Read the rest here

For the original blog posts, they are here at the Blog.

Since Lulu.com is now in production mode of my “three-e-books-in-one” The Prodigal Band Trilogy, now is a good time to rehash “the why” I created these books beginning years ago.