CUSTODIANS OF MAGIC

 

 

 

Cold air misted above the surface of the water. Translucent shapes clinging to the black pool. Frost hardened grass crunched under the boots of the traveller as he approached the glass-calm lake. White wraiths stirred and hovered over the dark waiting for him. Calling to him, beckoning him, needing him. He could taste the cold on his tongue, feel the ice in his blood. He turned away then, unwilling to face the ghosts of his ancestors.

Ever wonder where myths come from? There’s a road near where I live, and the maddest thing happens there quite regularly. A column of mist forms over the road in just this one spot, it’s the weirdest looking thing. Just a small section of road for about ten yards is shrouded in mist. Now, what’s not immediately noticeable is that a stream runs under the road, and every now and then when hot air and cold air interact they make magic. But how would this have looked to the ancients? Is it possible a ghost could be inhabiting the stream? Or a bridge spanning the water could be a portal to another world? Or what about a burning red sunset? I googled this to see why it occurs, because I could, I won’t bore you with the details, but I know for sure if I was sitting on the side of a mountain two thousand years ago herding my sheep, that red sunset would be a portent of doom.

And that’s before we get into hallucinogenic consumption. How many myths were created by people ingesting mushrooms and other substances? I remember this funny story from school. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it was told to me and the rest of the class by a teacher. An area close to me was famous for sightings of ghosts, (I know, I live in a crazy place). Dozens of people all saw the same apparitions on the road, and legends grew out of it. Well it turned out some ingredient in the local bread had them all tripping out, and they were all having hallucinations. Like I said I don’t know if that is true. I hope so it makes a funny story. That is unless you were one of the unfortunates seeing a headless horseman on his way home from work every evening.

And dragons! There is actual proof that they lived. At least to an ancient digging up a dinosaur fossil there is, imagine how they tried to reason that. Which brings me around nicely to, well, me. I write fantasy books. A lot of my inspiration comes from mythology, Celtic mythology in particular, being Irish and all. I have a character in my book, she is the war god of the northern clans, I loosely based her on a figure from Celtic mythology, The Morrigan, a dark god if ever there was one. The old tales were deliciously dark. Take The Children of Lír for example. Lír’s wife bore him four children, three boys and a girl. Alas for poor Lír and the children, his wife died, so he married her sister. The sister didn’t fancy having the four children around so she turned them into swans and cursed them to live for periods of 300 years on different lakes. When eventually a monk breaks the curse and turns them back into humans, they are nine hundred year old men and woman, and they die. No kiss from a prince and live happily ever after here.

So much fantasy written today is heavily influenced by ancient mythology, Lord of the Rings for example is laden with references to Norse and Celtic myth. There would have been no Gimli or Legolas without Viking lore, no dwarves, no elves, no ring. And what better place to find a source for our stories. It is our heritage, the dreams and fears of our ancestors come to life. In a lot of ways we are the new myth makers. Modern technology has dispelled the magic, myth and rumour. It is in our hands, in the worlds we create. It is up to the fantasy writers to bring the magic to life. To create spaces where readers can immerse themselves, and believe in the unbelievable. We are the custodians of the magic now.

We need magic, just as we need larger than life heroes. Who wants everything explained away by science? I want to believe in a time of legend when heroes came to life.

Long may the magic live.

 

 

A little while ago I was invited to write a guest blog for my good friend Jane Alexander, blogger extraordinaire, and fantastic writer. So now I'm sharing it with you. You can find Jane's book Walker here

 



Author Spotlight

 

 

 

 

In the spotlight today is Sharon Van Orman. Sharon's debut novel, Lykaia is available now!

“We are the terrors that hunt the night. And we have never been human”

In Greek mythology there’s a story of King Lykaonas of Arcadia and his fifty sons who were cursed by the father of the gods, Zeus, to become wolves. The very first Lycanthropes. 



Forensic pathologist, Sophia Katsaros, receives a cryptic phone call from Greece telling her that her brothers are missing and leaves to search for them. With the help of Illyanna, her brother’s girlfriend, Sophia examines the evidence but cannot accept a bizarre possibility: Has one or both of her brothers been transformed during the Lykaia, the ceremony where Man is said to become Wolf?

Who is Marcus, a dark stranger that both repels and excites her? And what is the real story behind the 5000 year old curse of King Lykaonas?

 

 

Sharon Van Orman

 

 

 

1. Your book, Lykaia was launched recently, a pretty big moment for any author. How did you feel when you opened your eyes on the morning and realised today was the big day?

 

It was surreal. I happened to have Amazon up when it went live. I may have squealed like a girl, but there wasn’t any one around, so you can’t prove that.

 

2. Lykaia is a wonderful mix of werewolves and Greek Mythology, where did the idea come from?

 

I was researching another story set in Ancient Greece when I came upon the myth of King Lykaonas. I was fascinated by it, but at the time I had no way to use it. 

 

In October of 2011 I entered a flash fiction contest that was Halloween themed. I finally had the chance to use the story. The prologue of Lykaia is actually that flash fiction entry.

 

That following month I took that idea and entered Nanowrimo.  I knew I wanted to make it about more than werewolves and that I wanted a great female character. Sophia Katsaros showed up almost fully formed. So I just went with it.

 

 

3. Writing a great story is not always just about just pouring words from your imagination onto a page. Very often hours of research are required to bring a story to life and make it authentic. Do you enjoy doing research or is it a chore to you?

 

Oh, I love the research. Let me rephrase that…I really love research.  When I first found the myth I was doing research. And when I wrote Lykaia I spent countless hours researching lycanthropy, and the sons of Lykaonas. And then Sophia is a forensic pathologist. Clearly, I am not. So that took a lot of time and effort to make her credible. In the book Sophia finds  Dimitri’s notebooks. Those are actually my notebooks and they read just as she described them.

 

4. Lykaia is the first book in a series of three. Have you written other books before this or is Lykaia your first?

 

Lykaia is my third complete novel. The first, while I was happy with it at the time, is clearly a first effort and shall remain in the drawer. The second is Eve and is book one in the Eden’s Exiles Series. I am hoping to publish that. Oh, and I collaborated on a book called Season of the Dead which is about the zombie apocalypse. I had great fun with that and it was my first chance to write true horror.

 

5. Have you always wanted to be a writer? Or were you content to just scribble away for fun?

 

No, to be honest. I wrote when I was a child, and then for some reason put it away. It wasn’t until my children were a bit older that I came back to it. And then, yes, it was just for fun.

 

 

6. You’ve signed with a new press. Does it worry you that they don’t have the same resources or reach as the bigger publishers?

 

I heard once that creativity and worry were different sides of the same coin. So to say that I don’t worry about things would be untrue. However, I had the good fortune of being able to talk to several publishers on the phone when I was querying Lykaia. I spoke with Keith Henning from Spore Press.  From that first conversation it was evident that he was every bit as passionate about the project as I was. A larger publisher my have a greater reach, but would they believe in me as strongly or put as much effort into my work? I can’t say for sure, but I felt incredibly comfortable with Spore from the beginning. They have been great throughout the entire process. From the cover artwork to the line edits I have a lot of say. I couldn’t be happier with my choice of publisher.

 

 

7. Your book cover is stunning. Who designed it and did you have much input into it?

 

It’s great isn’t it?  Chris Paradis designed it. He took the idea of an ancient Greek urn that currently resides in the Louvre. On that urn there is a man wearing a wolf skin in the hopes of becoming a werewolf. In Lykaia, the werewolves are wolves that become men. So, Chris took that idea and created a wolf wearing human skin. The result is brilliant. I love it.

 

 

8. Do you have writing routine or do you just snatch a few hours whenever you can?

 

I am terribly undisciplined. I write when I feel I have something to write. And the times and duration that I do that for, vary. I really should make more of an effort but that implies that I have more control over my characters than I do.

 

 

9. Have you ever considered self-publishing? Do you think it is an option at some stage in the future?

 

I have. I think every writer does, once the rejections start rolling in. I want to get the Eden’s Exiles series out there. I may go the self-publishing route for them. But I want to make sure I have top notch editor and a stellar cover artist. I’m a bit compulsive, so if I’m going to do something I like to have it well planned out.

 

 

10. Finally, days after your book is published, where would you like to be in five years time?

 

To be a full time writer that is able to support me and my children off of what I make.

 

 

 

Thanks so much, Sharon. It's been a real pleasure to have you on the blog today. Below is my reveiw of Lykaia on Amazon.

******

To expect this book to be a quaint werewolf tale - man gets bitten by mysterious creature, at the full moon man transforms into a werewolf and terrorises a small community in an isolated village of central Europe – is like expecting the Sistine Chapel to be a cute sketch on a church ceiling. Sure this book is about werewolves, but so much more. For a start, these werewolves are steeped in Greek mythology, there is a history directly linking an ancient Greek king, married to a mysterious forest girl, daughter of a dryad, to the modern story. These werewolves are not men transformed into beasts. But wolves made man by earth magic gone wrong.

 At the heart of the story is a mystery. An American pathologist, a pragmatic, logical scientist, receives a call from a Greek landlord to inform her that her brothers who had been renting an apartment from him had not been seen for nearly two months. Her two brothers had returned to the land of their forefathers for the summer and had not been heard from since.

 Sophie travels to Greece, to the town of Arcadia and slowly unravels a story completely at odds with her scientific background, she discovers the existence of an ancient ritual which takes place every nine years. She is confronted with the possibility that one or both of her brothers have been transformed into wolves during the ceremony. Without giving the story away, the author takes us through the enchanted forest of her imagination, down magical pathways that twist and turn through darkness and light. At times the descriptions are purely magical, ‘The moon horded her light like a miser with his gold.’

 I absolutely loved this book, and look forward to many more magical, mythical, magnificent tales from Sharon Van Orman.

 

 

You can download Sharon's wonderful book here.

 

 

Lykaia:  US

 

Lykaia: UK