Magical worlds, adventures and extraterrestrials stream through author Gayle Noble’s mind faster than she can type them out.
Battling dyslexia with her trusty spell-checker and a pair of headphones, the Boulder Creek resident recently published her first novel, a science fiction-fantasy work titled “Three on a Match.”
“If I put on a pair of headphones, the music would take me,” Noble said of her yearlong journey to describe her fantasy world.
But Noble, 62, who listens to the tunes of Sawyer Brown to induce her creativity, had no trouble figuring out what her characters’ next step would be.
Her story follows three pilots — two top-notch U.S. Air Force pilots, Angel and Hawk, and an alien pilot, Dervish — who become friends and share pranks and adventures throughout the galaxy.
A particularly fun scene in the novel pits Hawk, a human, against an alien race that plans to kill another pilot’s future bride and unborn baby. Using his “bird’s” advanced technology, he learns through a communicator implanted in his head where the girl is hidden and rescues her before helping deliver the baby.
As a youngster, Noble would drift into fantasy worlds when she was sitting in class or enjoying time to herself.
“If I had been a boy, I probably would have been a pilot and joined the Air Force,” she said.
It’s all but impossible to see Noble without smiling. The band around her brown hat is stuffed full of feathers from peacocks, jays and robins, and the braids on each side of her face support miniature teddy bears.
Her rosy smile is reflected in her twinkling eyes as she talks about her first published work.
“I don’t spend much time with evil characters, because they bother me,” she said.
“I guess it’s their goals. Everybody has different goals. If they are honorable, honest and genuine, you have to sort of respect that. There are people who are just really greedy, and I don’t respect that.”
The book is the first in a planned series, titled “Don’t Let Out the Magic Smoke.” Noble has written the second book and is working on the third.
The author, who writes firmware for a computer company in Scotts Valley, hopes people will read her book and enjoy it as much as she enjoyed writing it.
“I hope everybody likes it,” Noble said. “It’s bluegrass with drums, because it’s science fiction-fantasy. Purists won’t like it, because it has drums. It has magic in it and science.”
At a glance
• WHAT: “Three on a Match,” the first book in a planned science fiction-fantasy series, “Don’t Let Out the Magic Smoke”
• AUTHOR: G.L. Noble of Boulder Creek
• PRICE: $16.95
• INFO: http://www.magicsmoke.info
