This story, set in 1974, was inspired, improbably enough, by the 2002 film The Banger Sisters.
The film stars Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon as the legendary, eponymous groupies. It’s been twenty years since their glory days and Suzette (Goldie Hawn) is sleepwalking through her life as a bartender. On impulse, she looks up Lavinia (Sarandon) for the first time in two decades and discovers her BFF is now a button-down suburban mom. Hilarity ensues (not enough hilarity for me, alas) before both women end up getting a new lease on life.
As my mind runs on a fantasy track, I wondered what would happen if, instead of groupies, Lavinia and Suzette had adventured in a Narnia-like world as teens, then lost touch after returning to our world. The nickname “Sisters of Steel” came to me almost immediately but the story took longer to gel. Once again, putting it into the past juiced my imagination. Elizabeth, who grew up in a trailer park, is now a right-wing Republican backing Nixon despite Watergate. Molly, daughter of privilege, has become a notorious radical bomber (nobody killed, property damage only), determined to smash what she considers an unjust system. Oh, and I decided they really are sisters, or half-sisters at least; as Molly tells Elizabeth’s daughter, “My dad was a lech. Your grandma was gorgeous.”
The story still didn’t gel until I put it in first person alternating. Initially I had Molly, Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s daughter Diane but that proved cumbersome. Now it’s Elizabeth and Diane which isn’t perfect but it works. Like they say, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I had great fun imagining the Sisters’ foes in Hellas, the alt.Greece they adventured in. Scylla with her monstrous sea creatures. Medea. Cadmus with his army of warriors spawned by dragon’s teeth. The Big Bad, though, and the villain of this story, is Daedalus, nicknamed “Big Daddy” by the girls in their youth (he didn’t like it. They used it constantly). An engineering genius, ruthless enough to give his son Icarus a defective set of flying wings so he’d crash into the sea and distract their pursuers. Now, twenty years after exiling the Sisters of Steel back to our world, he’s coming for them … but why now?
Read it and find out.
#SFWApro. Cover by Kemp Ward rights to images remain with current holders. 19-Infinity is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook and also available as an ebook on other websites.
