A New Dark Fantasy Author is Born

Hello everybody!

This is my first-ever blog post about my first-ever novel and I struggled more with the blog post than I did the book. It’s a lot easier to say what you want to say when you get 100,000 words to do it. That being said, let’s talk about the new book!

About the Book:
My Dark Fantasy novel, The Price of Immortality, is currently in its first stage of developmental editing and hopefully will be available to the world come June.

The book is the beginning of my series centered around three protagonists; Brin, Saeris, and Blanchessa. The story is experienced through Brin’s eyes and thoughts as he navigates life-shattering crises with the help of his friends and family. The world they live in was once home to humanity at its peak. A near-utopia that collapsed when the leading scientists at the time, called Ethereals, tried to solve humanity’s last great barrier; death. Using the magical metal, Runite (which can be found throughout the world as abundantly as iron), they had found a way to cure people of their ailments, reattach limbs, even keep somebody from aging. This was seen as an afront to the gods and the sanctity of nature and as a result, a lone Ethereal named Phoebe would rise to challenge her colleagues. For her efforts, she would be granted godhood and be declared the Goddess of humanity, the sole god to be worshipped by humans. Brin would grow up in the world worshipping her and following her teachings of not digging too deep, and not asking questions that may upset the balance of nature. Live a pious life according to Her will, do your part in life, and you will be rewarded after death.

Phoebe left behind her weapons of destruction in order to keep humanity in check and remind them to respect the world as it was, not as they wished it to be. These weapons are known as Horg and they are monsters of a grotesque nature. Using the Runite to animate corpses, the Horg are patchworks of flesh and bone grafted together as unfeeling machines that wander the wilds and destroy any who dare to step foot outside their respective towns and villages. Anybody, or anything, found dead outside the protection of the Rune Guards’ barriers is fair game for the Horg to collect and add to their undead ranks. This is seen as the way of the world by the peoples of Orin. If you die to the Horg, it is by Phoebe’s will and not to be questioned. Instead of burials or cremation, the world’s dead are offered up to the Horg as a form of funeral, and symbolically as a transition from life to death.

All of this collapses for Brin when tragedy hits and his understanding of the world is thrown into chaos. He must grapple with what he has been taught about the world and what he can see with his own eyes and make sense of with his own mind. He will be forced to make morally grey decisions when choosing between faith, family, community, duty, friends, and his own free will.

My Journey so Far, and What’s to Come!:

The book took nearly three years to complete and was inspired by a lot of different things. Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Brian Jacques’ Redwall, and Rowling’s Harry Potter are all the most influential books/series that had the most influence on me as a writer. Whether it be the setting/inner monologue of Eragon, or just the scrumptious descriptions of food in Martin the Warrior, there are reflections of these fiction juggernauts in how and why I write. Media such as Castlevania, and Final Fantasy X, also played a big role in motivating me to create my own story. Add in my very unusual relationship with religion and my unique childhood upbringing, and we get to The Price of Immortality.

Since completing my first draft back in December, 2024, I have had to make the hardest decision a new fantasy author can make; Do I go self-published or traditional? I chose self, which I will go into more in detail in another post, but I felt it had more long-term benefits than the traditional route, despite upfront cost. So, I allocated myself $10,000 to start this business and that money has gone a long way after doing my due diligence and ensuring that I research everything I want to achieve. I found an amazing editor of fantasy that is currently doing the developmental edits, as I said earlier, and will also do the copy editing in May. I am currently building this website out and filling it with content to have a place to find everything related to my worlds and stories, and I hired an artist that has never worked in the industry before but has a deep love of my stories and is talented at creating scenes and images that should give my books a unique feel outside the mainstream cover art that can be found in the marketplace today. Hopefully it also gives her an avenue to grow her art business and showcase her talents to the world. Finally, I had the fortune of meeting a fantastic marketing designer that is helping me build a brand that can last my business throughout its lifetime. Everything left over will go to spending on ads for as long as the funds will last.

My goal is to make this a career that I can live and retire by. I have already accomplished my first goal of just finishing a book, but now it’s time to go the distance. I want to tell as many quality stories as I can, and I hope they bring imagination and emotion to the people that go on these adventures with my characters. I want stories that can inspire others to do things they didn’t know they could do or to try new things, flavors, places, or to challenge themselves in ways they did not know they could. It’s a lot to want, but as far as I can tell, we only get one shot at this life thing no matter what you believe we’re here for or where we go when we’re done. Even reincarnation has memory wipes.

So, this is my promise to any future fans or readers of my stories that enjoy my work; I will settle for nothing less than high quality storytelling, editing, and art in my worlds and I will continue to learn and improve as I go. There are millions of books out there, and I’d like mine in the top 1% of fiction stories. This is not a hobby for enjoyment or a mental exercise to organize my thoughts. This is my livelihood and I treat it with the respect and vigor it demands. I hope with all my heart that translates to amazing stories that people can escape to for a little bit.

By Her Light!