Tag: fiction

  • The Eleventh Interval Excerpt – Aurelio and Sakari at the crater

    The Eleventh Interval Excerpt – Aurelio and Sakari at the crater

    Shaking himself out of his reverie, Aurelio turned and walked out of the town hall, Sakari by his side; no telepathy was needed to agree that a walk was the next move. As they walked, Aurelio couldn’t help but mourn the damage the town had suffered; so many familiar places gone forever. Large chunks of the town had previously been houses and offices; transmutation bombs had warped them into strange materials and unnatural shapes.

    Read more: The Eleventh Interval Excerpt – Aurelio and Sakari at the crater

    With a pang, Aurelio saw a blank wall of stone where a corner shop had once stood. Diego had lived in a flat overhead, as his parents had owned the shop. The strange experience two weeks ago came back to him, and all of a sudden, the overwhelming weight of loss slammed into him. He averted his eyes, looking across the street, where scaffolding had grown up like vines, building new houses in vacant lots where the old ones had been dispersed into air. Pain clutched at Aurelio as he remembered how he and Diego and Sakari had run or cycled past those houses, growing up. Wiping his eyes, Aurelio kept walking. Sakari, looking concerned, kept pace. “Aurelio? Is everything OK?” she asked.

    Aurelio shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. “I miss Diego – haven’t heard from him since the war,” he signed, hating himself for the half-truth. I should tell her, he thought, But she’s happier now than I’ve seen her be in ages, and I don’t want to ruin that.

    “I miss him too,” Sakari signed. “Do you remember that time Diego rescued a baby pangolin?” she asked.

    Aurelio smiled. “And brought it to school, insisting that the nurse heal it,” he replied.

    “That’s when you reminded him that he could heal it,” Sakari signed, “And his face lit up, while we were cracking up that he’d forgotten about his powers.”

    He laughed. “Well, we were ten at the time, you can’t blame him,” Aurelio signed. “You know, I’ve always thought it was that basic compassion that attracted you to him in the first place,” he continued.

    Sakari swatted him. “I did not fancy him! I’m never gonna live this down, am I?” she signed emphatically.

    “Sakari, I caught you staring at him. Multiple times,” Aurelio signed back, laughing.

    She rolled her eyes dramatically. “I’m an artist, Aurelio, I appreciate the gods’ handiwork,” she retorted.

    “Mhm, yup,” Aurelio signed sarcastically. Sakari rolled her eyes again and muttered; Aurelio, however, was distracted by a familiar sight – one he’d dreamt about for many months. With a shock, he realised that he’d subconsciously guided them to the ruins of his old house. He walked towards the crater in a daze. The old grief surged up within him, like a wave crashing upon a familiar shore. He knelt at the rim of the crater, ignoring Sakari’s gasp of alarm, and drew in ambient energy, causing the world to go silent as his hearing aids glitched. Looking up, Aurelio saw two visions flickering in and out of existence – the crater and the house as it had been, low, squat, and comforting. With a barely repressed sob, he saw shadows flickering in one of the bedrooms. And…something else. A figure standing in the crater, examining something. And then the visions stopped with a sharp electric crack as someone pulled on his shoulder. Sakari was kneeling beside him, looking concerned. “Aurelio, this isn’t healthy. I know how much xxx hurts – I miss them too. But you can’t just bury yourself in the past,” she said, enclosing him in a hug.

    Aurelio nodded and stood up. “I…think I saw something. In the crater,” he said. Acting impulsively, he wriggled down the crater to the bottom. Sakari, yelling in alarm, followed him; he ignored her. To Aurelio’s disappointment, whoever had stood in the crater had done so quite some time ago; weather had long since eroded any footprints. Growing anxious, he spotted some cables poking out of the side of the crater, sheared off by the transmutation bomb.

    Sakari noticed at the same time and gasped, “Oh, no. You’re not going xxx,”

    Aurelio barely heard the rest of her protests; in desperation, he grabbed the cables and drew in electricity. It surged through his body, ripping along his nervous system like napalm; he screamed and blacked out.

    Aurelio woke abruptly a second later to Sakari slapping him back to consciousness – harder than necessary, he thought. “What was that for? You idiot, you could have died!” she shouted, tears in her eyes.

    Aurelio winced, guilt spiking in his stomach. Every muscle in his body ached like he’d run a marathon. “I’m sorry, I got desperate-” Sakari snorted disparagingly in reply, and he continued, “But I saw Tica. He’s alive, and he was here, in the crater, just two weeks ago!” he exclaimed. Two weeks ago…the day I saw him.

    Sakari looked doubtful. “But…if he’s OK, why not come back to us?” she asked.

    Aurelio shrugged again. “I don’t know. But we’ll have to find out, won’t we? We need to find him,” he said.

    Sakari frowned. “But the meeting will be over in a few hours, xxx parents will be worried,” she said.

    “Well, yeah. We can sit around and do nothing, maybe explore more of what used to be our home. Or we can do something. We can find Tica, we can help him,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

    She perked up but still looked hesitant. “Right, so what did you see?” she asked doubtfully.

    Aurelio frowned. “I’m…it’s strange. I saw him, very vividly – it was definitely Tica. But he seemed to be looking for something. He didn’t seem lost, or despondent, he looked determined,” he said, furrowing his brow in confusion.

    Sakari looked as confused as Aurelio felt. “Did you see what he was looking for?” she asked.

    Aurelio shook his head. “You know how it is; the visions don’t last long – especially when it’s someone I care about,” he said regretfully.

    Sakari grabbed his hand in her own. “Try again, then. Maybe xxx ground you,” she said, smiling.

    He shrugged. “Worth a shot,” he replied, closing his eyes. He felt the sunlight streaming into his body, a glowing warmth which electrified every nerve and every cell. A faint buzzing and crackling, more tangible than audible, hissed all around him; the abandoned cables hummed with vivid intensity. And…a shadow swam before him. Ticasuk, crouching in a muddy crater, scant feet from where Aurelio stood. He’d been here, barely two weeks ago. His expression confirmed Aurelio’s first impression; as he looked closer, however, he saw something else. As Aurelio realised this, however, the vision wavered. He screamed internally, pushing for more, pushing for Ticasuk’s location. The vision collapsed entirely, leaving Aurelio drained; he opened his eyes and swayed, Sakari supporting his weight. “Well? What did you see?” she asked apprehensively.

    “More or less just confirmed what we already knew: he was here, a couple of weeks ago, and he was looking for something. But he was…scared, Sakari. Scared and apprehensive,” Aurelio said.

    Sakari looked stunned. She said, “Wait. Two weeks ago? That’s when he left. So-”

    “-he left, and immediately came back here, looking for something,” Aurelio finished. A thought occurred to him. “I saw him, two weeks ago, here! He didn’t say why he was back home, but…”

    “It must’ve been to do with whatever he was looking for!” Sakari added. She raised her eyebrows. “Hang on, what were you doing here two weeks ago? And how come you didn’t mention it?”

    Aurelio winced, thinking of Diego. “I…needed to come back. Either way, I didn’t know he’d run off,” he said, and Sakari shrugged.

    Fun fact, I am writing a novel! It’s called The Eleventh Interval, and it’s a science-fiction/urban fantasy story. Set in the aftermath of a brutal war, the story sees the protagonists, Aurelio and Sakari, struggling to come to terms with the past, when they discover something even more terrifying than the previous war. This sequence is one of the first sequences I wrote, though it has undergone substantial changes since I first wrote it! It features Aurelio and Sakari coming back to the remains of his home, which was destroyed on the final day of the war, and it shows how the war has affected the two of them. The scene itself is an amalgamation of two scenes that were previously separate: one featuring Aurelio and Sakari bonding, and the other featuring Aurelio, desperate to find his siblings, exposing himself to high-voltage electricity. (This makes sense in context, I promise!)

    As can be seen, there is a magic system in play here (I love magic systems). Keeping it brief: Aurelio has the power to see the future and the power to magically locate people or objects. When he uses these powers at the crater, he sees glimpses of the past, first of the house before its destruction, and then of Ticasuk (Sakari’s brother) in the crater some time later. These powers are fuelled by different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, e.g. visible light, ultraviolet light, and so on. Aurelio’s powers are fuelled by x-ray radiation, though in a pinch, electric currents can be used as a substitute. (Hence, Aurelio exposing himself to the voltage – still risky, but not utterly insane.)

    One other thing: Aurelio, like his author, is deaf, and he wears hearing aids (also like his author). This is the reason for the random trios of x’s dotted around – they represent words or phrases that Aurelio misheard. Likewise, when text is in bold, this represents Aurelio and Sakari communicating via sign language. Figuring out how to highlight mishearing and sign language was an interesting process; I wanted it to be front-and-centre, as it were, because mishearing and sign language are both important elements of life as a deaf person. Making them obscure and out of the way would have been a misrepresentation of the way deafness impacts peoples’ lives. At the same time, I wanted it to not be confusing – and writing Aurelio mishearing in a way that’s clear for readers has certainly been challenging! (At one stage, a beta-reader said, without a hint of self-awareness, “What’s this noise Aurelio keeps hearing? It’s very annoying!”…)

    The solution was inspired by my MA, oddly enough. Part of the course involved analysing multiple copies of manuscripts and exploring the history of the creation of a manuscript. (History in the sense of planning, first draft, second draft, etc.) And when I was transcribing the manuscript, if there was a word or letter that was unclear, I would mark it with one x (for an individual letter) or three x’s (for a word). From there, I got the idea of using x’s to indicate words or phrases that were unclear to Aurelio.

  • Realm Breaker, by Victoria Aveyard – What happens when the epic quest to save the world fails?

    What happens when the heroes fail, and the realm’s last hope falls to a motley crew of warriors, civilians, and criminals? Such is the central conceit of Victoria Aveyard’s Realm Breaker, a high-fantasy novel set in the world of Allward, in which the prologue alone sees the protagonists dealt a crushing defeat. Following this defeat, Domacridhan of Iona, one of the sole survivors, gathers allies, starting with Corayne an-Amarat, the only person alive who can save the realm, in a last-ditch attempt to avert total catastrophe. What follows is a deeply thrilling book, with surprises around every corner, intricate and fascinating world-building, and complex, multi-faceted characters.

    Read more: Realm Breaker, by Victoria Aveyard – What happens when the epic quest to save the world fails?

    Befitting its tagline of “Save the world or end it”, Realm Breaker is a novel which explores the complexities of human nature and our paths in life. This complexity of character is most effectively reflected in Domacridhan and in Sorasa Sarn, an assassin of the infamous Amhara guild. Dom, a member of a race of immortals known as the Vedera, starts as emotionally distant and unfathomable, grieving for Corayne’s father, and for the failed quest, but unable to express this grief; over time, he becomes more open, more expressive, and less distant. Sorasa, likewise, starts as a callous and ruthless assassin, willing to betray Dom for money. Partway through the novel, however, she parts ways with Dom and Corayne, only to find herself reuniting with them immediately after to rescue them from a sudden betrayal by a seeming ally, saving all their lives in the process. A squire named Andry Trelland, a fellow survivor of the failed quest, is likewise complex, divided between his duty to his country, his devotion to his ailing mother, and his desire to save the world. Indeed, this complexity is most powerfully illustrated when he first meets up with Dom, Sorasa, and Corayne; after his queen betrays him and sides with Taristan, he is forced to betray his country in the name of the world and take up arms against fellow squires.

    The ally-turned-traitor herself reflects this complexity; she is at once both deeply sympathetic and clearly villainous. She is ruler of a land where many still believe only men should be monarchs, struggling to retain autonomy as a ruler, rather than allowing courtiers or potential suitors to seize her throne. At the same time, she is extremely ambitious, seeking to turn her kingdom into an empire and caring nothing for the lives that will be lost in the process. She is a viewpoint character as well, enabling readers to understand and sympathise with her perspective; indeed, this serves to make her, and by extension Taristan, effective, and thoroughly human, antagonists, as well as giving the reader a perspective separate from the main heroes. However, this complexity does not extend to everyone; for instance, several members of the Companions receive little in the way of characterisation in the first book, with much of this being reserved for the second and third books of the series.

    On the other hand, another positive of the book is the extensive world-building and the interweaving narratives. The viewpoint chapters in Realm Breaker are divided between numerous characters, including Dom, Sorasa, and Corayne. Just as the various characters are scattered across Allward, the transitions between the viewpoints takes the reader all across the continent. This allows the reader to experience a great deal of the land and allows the story to feel as if it is moving swiftly. Paradoxically, this use of many different viewpoints also allows for the plot to be slowed down in strategic places, such as the build-up to the traitor’s reveal, which happens across multiple chapters and viewpoints, creating tension and making the reader desperate to learn the reveal. However, the plot is relatively slow to get going, and it drags at places, such as when multiple consecutive chapters are detailing characters travelling. Other reviews have compared this to the occasionally slow style of J. R. R. Tolkien in Lord of the Rings, which makes a considerable amount of sense, as Aveyard has cited Tolkien as an inspiration in her works in the past. It is clear, however, that this implementation of Tolkien’s style has resulted in mixed criticism regarding the plot, with some enjoying it, and others feeling that it is too slow.

    Another advantage of the fast-flowing plot is that it powerfully encapsulates another of the story’s themes: that of home, belonging, and wanderlust. Corayne is the most explicit example of this; she begins the novel longing for new horizons, eager to see the world. This wanderlust forms a central part of Corayne’s character, with Corayne both eager to travel, but also feeling a desire to belong in a community. Additionally, this theme is reflected in other characters, including Dom. While Glorian Lost is his ancestral home, he was born and raised in Allward and so considers Allward a home of his own as well. In this, Aveyard very effectively captures the sensation of being caught between two worlds, inheriting varying and occasionally conflicting cultures, and in so doing, she creates protagonists who are relatable to many people around the world.

    In turn, this relatability is one of the greatest strengths of Realm Breaker; by creating these complex characters with divided loyalties, Aveyard makes them deeply human and relatable to audiences around the world. Additionally, this makes them interesting to read about and makes it easy to feel invested in the story. Moreover, while some characters are less fleshed out in the first book, it would not be inaccurate to say that they do receive some characterisation through their interactions with the more major characters. The plot, meanwhile, is overall fast-moving and engaging; while there are slower sections in the story, these sections do not adversely affect the novel as a whole. Worldbuilding is done effectively, in a way which – while occasionally frustrating – also inspires the reader to keep reading. All in all, this is an exceptionally good book, with deeply moving characters and themes, and a world which refuses to fade once the story is finished – a testament to Aveyard’s skill as a writer.