Power Stabilized

Missed Metaphor

Imagine this photo depicts the protagonist of the Power Rising Trilogy, Shannon Kendricks, being rushed--again--through the hospital corridors. She spends a great deal of time in the trilogy in a hospital bed due to her various dangerous and injury-inducing obligations to her beluga and alien friends and enemies. I meant these frequent hospital visits to, first, become a black comedy-like running joke. But second and more importantly, I meant them to be a metaphor for the psychic injuries Shannon was incurring over and over by her exposure as an everyday person to nightmarish, other worldly dangers. One of these days, I was trying to convey, she wouldn't recover from such psychological injuries. An editorial reviewer for my third book missed the metaphor completely. A reader perusing the book for pleasure could certainly miss the double meaning. But a professional reviewer whose job is to think thoughtfully about a book? It bothered me that she griped about the hospital scenes as literal events without, apparently, giving a second thought to the deeper meaning intended. Ah well. Such is the fate of the author. Now, at least, YOU know the running hospital occurrences hold a deeper significance. So long as somebody knows, I can live with [or without] the griping reviewer.