Some of you remember I wrote a science-fiction novel a while back called Discarded Faces. It was a dystopian novel about a futuristic fascist police state that was racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. The protagonist was a teenage Lesbian who, together with some friends, stole some ray guns from a factory where she worked, and took part in an urban guerrilla uprising. Discarded Faces will have a sequel. However, I just published another novel, and it is not that sequel. Instead, it’s a fantasy, but a fantasy with no dragons, no wizards, no wands, no cauldrons, no elves, no dwarves, no trolls and no orcs. Meet me on the flip side for more information.
My second published novel, Mistress of the Topaz, is available as an ebook at Double Dragon Ebooks.
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A paperback edition will soon follow. In writing it, I drew inspiration from the research I did into Muslim history and culture in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
It isn't about terrorism, however. It's an epic fantasy set in an imaginary world inspired by the Arabian Nights, the Shahnameh, and the Pseudo-Callisthenes.
The story is set in an imaginary world called Malga. The people there worship a god they refer to mostly as the Creator. The religion is the social cement of their culture and resembles Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism to various degrees. The language is made up from Indo-European roots and looks vaguely Greek-like, representing the influence of Greek culture on the Middle East. The “houses of worship” resemble mosques, complete with minarets. Their holy book, the Sacred Verses, is entirely in poetry and has about 7000 verses, like the Qur’an. Nobody has an Arabic name, thereby proving the religion isn't really Islam. There are slaves, and this institution plays an important role in the plot. Many kings have married freed slaves – Plâkî was one – and there is no taint attached to having a slave ancestor. Also, nobody looks askance if a woman assumes an important political role.
An anachronism stew is a good way to summarize the setting, but I’m not pretending it’s real history.
The book is the first volume of a two-part narrative of the Restoration of the Hegemony. The Hegemony and Nobalos are contenders for global power. Nobalos, the name of a large island kingdom whose navy dominates the sea, dominates the world. The Hegemony is the remnant of a former global empire, but because Nobalos is having difficulty holding its possessions together, the Hegemony strikes back from its stronghold in Western Lands.
There are four main characters.
(1) Promono-Dei is the World-Queen, ruler of the Hegemony. At the start of the book she acquires the Oracular Topaz and sets out on her campaign of re-conquest.
(2) Kordo-Strî is a rising young member of the Council of Forty-Two of Nobalos. The Lords and Ladies of the Council are the real rulers of Nobalos, their King being a figurehead. Their country overthrew the Hegemony except for its stronghold in the west, and now they are fighting to hold their acquisitions together.
(3) Plâkî is the Queen (in the sense of being the King’s wife) of Roude-Kî. Her husband is a somewhat unreliable ally of Nobalos, since as Promono-Dei’s second cousin he has a claim to the throne of the Hegemony.
(4) Weintî is a young slave who was given to the World-Queen as a court musician and other more intimate services, since Promono-Dei is a Lesbian.
There is magic of a sort in this world, although the term magic is not used. Some of the users of magic powers have been thoroughly integrated into the society. The psychic healers and “transmitters” (who send and receive psychic messages) are respected professionals found in every country. But there are also some wild talents found only in certain individuals.
The Oracular Topaz is a large gem which the World-Queen wears around her neck. By holding it to her head and asking a question, she hears the answer to any question about the present and past in her thoughts. But there are limitations. The Topaz can tell her nothing about the future, and gives her crippling migraines if she exceeds her quota of questions per day.
Kordo-Strî can plant ideas in people’s heads. She can’t make people do things, however, so she has to be content with mentally nudging people in her direction. This works best with people who are indecisive. She also uses it to augment or undermine the morale of an army while they’re passing in review.
Plâkî can saddle up a great predatory bird called a soin and control its flight telepathically. She can even see through the soin’s eyes, taking advantage of the monstrous creature’s powerful eyesight. A soin has a forty-foot wingspread. It’s similar to the roc of the Arabian Nights, which is in turn modeled on the simurgh of Persian folklore. She uses the bird to do reconnaissance on the conduct of the war between the Hegemony and the Nobalans, but she eschews the obvious military applications of her skill because she hates war.
Weintî doesn’t have a psychic power, but she does use her daily access to the Queen to bring her royal mistress around to the point of emancipating the slaves. Weintî herself is set free in the course of the book, but she has ambitions of getting the Queen to abolish chattel slavery itself, by degrees.
Mistress of the Topaz will also have a sequel, as I mentioned earlier. It has a very different purpose from Discarded Faces. Discarded Faces has obvious political relevance in the present. By contrast, what I set out to do in this book is to write the story of a woman of vast power and even vaster ambition (the World-Queen) who, instead of being corrupted by power, becomes a liberator and a humane ruler, thanks to the influence of her court favorite and lover Weintî, the lowly musician.
So, that’s all I’m going to tell you about Mistress of the Topaz. For the rest, you’ll have to buy the download and read it.