Tampa (novel) Quotes

Part of the post-apocalyptic, dystopian trend is that it seems to go hand in hand with young adult novels. Maybe that's because it's not simply the adults who are aware of the current crisis. Teens are the ones who are being told, again and again, that their futures are in jeopardy. The teen years can feel dystopian even in the best of times. But I don't think we realize how much pressure and feeling of doom we're passing down to our teens.

To understand how the disappearance of Daniel Westcott bewildered the people of Tampa Bay you would have to know that the city was much smaller then. More like a sleepy town, Tampa sprawled out and yawned along the edge of the Hillsborough River. This is the opening of the novel King Danel: Gasparilla King of the Pirates. If you would like to read a sample chapter please go to Amazon.com or download it on your Kindle or Nook.

plans to meet for lunch the following Tuesday at Ulele in Tampa Heights right next to downtown on the Hillsborough River.

On May 30, 1539, Hernando De Soto landed his private army near Tampa Bay in Florida. De Soto was a novel figure: half warrior, half venture capitalist. He grew very rich very young in Spanish America by becoming a market leader in the nascent slave trade. The profits helped to fund the conquest of the Inka, which made De Soto wealthier still. He accompanied Pizarro to Tawantinsuyu (aka, The Inka Empire), burnishing his reputation for brutality - he personally tortured Challcochima (a leading Inka general of the north) before his execution. Literally looking for new worlds to conquer, De Soto returned to Spain soon after his exploits in Peru. In Charles V's court he persuaded the bored monarch to let him loose in North America with an expedition of his own. He sailed to Florida with six hundred soldiers, two hundred horses, and three hundred pigs. From today's perspective, it is difficult to imagine the ethical system that culd justify De Soto's subsequent actions. For four years his force wandered through what are now Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, looking for gold and wrecking most everything it touched. The inhabitants often fought back viorously, but they were baffled by the Spaniards' motives. De Soto and his soldiers managed to rape, torture, enslave, and kill countless Indians. But the worst thing he did, some researchers say, was entirely without malice - he brought pigs.