Violence Experts for Alex: Nunchaku vs. Katana

Any book about Alex O'Donnell is going to involve fighting--and the fifth Fairy Tale Novel, Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyberthieves is no exception!  In fact, this book has more (and more elaborate) fight scenes than any I've done thus far.

Of course, being a rather wimpy and terrified person myself, I still don't know much about any kind of fighting, so that's where I depend on the two friends I've termed my "violence experts."

They've helped choreograph the fight scenes for my last three books, and they always make those sessions so fun to work on.  This time I finally thought to bring a camera to one of our sessions, which was helpful not just for creating memories but for referencing various stances in the book text itself.

In the left-hand picture, they're demonstrating how to use nunchucks (or Japanese: nunchaku) to neutralize a sword by locking the blade in the chains. One scene in Alex O'Donnell involves the Japanese katana sword and the flail weapons.  It's very interesting to see these two very different weapons interacting with each other.

In the right-hand picture, they've switched weapons to show me how someone with nunchucks would attack someone with a sword. (I think that if you click these photos, you can see the larger versions.)

So as you can see, work on Alex O'Donnell and the Forty CyberThieves is proceeding at a pretty good rate!  I hope to bring you more news of the book soon.  In the meantime, check out the new Alex section on the Fairy Tale Novels website, and if you think you're the biggest fan of the Fairy Tale Novels, prove it to the world by entering our contest and winning a free hardcover of the new book!

Enjoy the pictures, and stay tuned for more news on Alex!