Carter – Meet the Cast

The Characters of The Chronicles of Samuel Carter

Greetings, dear reader and a warm welcome to all new subscribers. I hope you’re having a great week!

Today, Elodie isn’t hunting for Serial Killers, Bee isn’t going after the Unmaker, and Jamie isn’t fighting soul-eating demons in The Between, not yet anyway.

I spent days tweaking elaborate text prompts to create images for The Chronicles of Samuel Carter using DALL·E 3. If you haven’t read the novella, don’t worry. There are no spoilers here.

Why create character portraits?

Readers will always have an image in mind, and providing visual reference after the fact can be tricky. I recall watching The Lord of the Rings in the cinema when it came out in 2001. The atmosphere was incredible, and when I saw Gandalf arrive at the Shire, I thought, “Yep, that’s exactly how I imagined it,” in no small part due to Alan Lee’s and John Howe’s fantastic artwork, which served as a reference for the movie. There was Hobbiton, there was Bag End, and it was pure magic.

Now, I don’t pretend to aim to achieve the same effect by providing AI-generated images from text prompts. That would be silly. Still, it was a fun exercise, and I’m curious to hear whether the results match, more or less, what you imagined and what you think of the whole exercise. Maybe it’s better to leave everything up to the reader’s imagination. Let me know in the comments below.

Without further ramblings from this AI, here’s the cast from CARTER.

The Cast

Doctor Samuel Cornelius Carter, bachelor of thirty-three years and expert in Egyptology, lives in an apartment in London he inherited from his late mother. Hieroglyphs and ancient relics are his whole world, and one rainy Sunday morning, while working on his essay, he receives a call that will change his life.

Jackie Rogers, treasure hunter extraordinaire, mystery caller and woman of many secrets, baits Samuel into joining her on an expedition to discover the fabled Staff of Amun Ra.

Adrian Beaumont, son of George Beaumont III, brother of Jacqueline Beaumont and person of interest in the hunt for the Staff.

George Beaumont III, philanthropist and businessman, collector of ancient artefacts, obsessed with finding the secret to Transference, the ascension of the human mind, no matter the cost.

Bertrand, the Beaumont butler, like his father before him, takes pride in his profession, which he excels at, with the uncanny gift of appearing precisely when needed.

Mrs Saganaki, Samuel’s nosy neighbour, astrology enthusiast and self-appointed building supervisor, disapproves of Samuel’s lifestyle.

Mr Bates and his schizophrenic Chihuahua Rooster, Samuel’s downstairs neighbour, a retired accountant and widower, avid pipe smoker and perpetual sourpuss.

Thomas von Traunstein, Professor of Egyptology, button enthusiast, connoisseur of Brezn & Weissbier, and Samuel’s contact person in Germany.

Bartleby, a former MI6 agent disillusioned by the system, is tasked with sabotaging the evil plans of his unscrupulous employers.

Erich von Göhrlichen, Custodian of Hellstone Lake in Germany and Beaumont’s main competitor. He gets increasingly irate without his cigars, sometimes even with—one could say his irateness is more of an innate state—and he likes to hear himself talk. Don’t judge a book by its cover… his pug Bazi loves him.

One of Seven, priest of The Circle, dedicated to keeping the powers that be in balance and neutralising anything that might threaten it, considered by some to a certain degree fanatic or chaotic neutral.

Nadine, Four of Seven, acolyte of The Circle, massage therapist by day, ritual tattooist and assassin when duty calls, separated at birth from her twin brother Nade, who makes no appearance in this story.

Theodore Thorne, adventurer, treasure hunter and thief, well-travelled and well-read, hates guns, loves sushi and can kill a man in nine ways, pacifist, collector of shiny things, and convinced he is cursed, the harbinger of bad luck, the jinx.

Ready for an adventure? Join Carter now!

The Chronicles of Samuel Carter

The Chronicles of Samuel Carter – Part Three is coming this May.