Welcome to day 4 of the Worlds of Wonder Author Hop! For today's installment, I was asked to write about the world of my Fires in Eden Series. I hope today's post gives you a good introduction to Ave, and I invite you to explore this world extensively in my novels and short stories!
-Stephen
Welcome to Ave, a World Like No Other
Ave is the world that the Fires in Eden Series is set
within. It is pronounced “ah-vay”, just
like the Latin term it is derived from.
The word itself means “hail”, and in the world of ancient Rome one would
use it to greet someone of great distinction, such as an Emperor.
In the context of my series, the idea the name is getting at
is a dignified greeting of life itself.
Not life in the way that most of us know it, with death, disease, and
all of the brutality inherent in nature.
Rather, it is a hailing of existence over non-existence, the uniqueness
of each individual spirit (whether animal, human, or other), and an unsullied
state of nature like one that we humans on earth have not experienced. It is life in its most vibrant state, a
transcendent one that bears no corruption.
Obviously, in the series Ave is under assault from the same
things that we are in our own world, and this is discovered by the small group
from Earth who go into Ave during the first sections of Crown of Vengeance. Aside from the struggles inherent in nature
itself, such as famine, drought, disease, earthquakes, and other calamities, it
is filled with cultures both human and non-human that are part of a lengthy
history covering several thousand years.
There are immortal races within Ave(But not eternal, there
is a distinction between the two. An
immortal does not age or get sick, but they can be killed by violence). They include the Wizards, who are a race of
beings imbued with a variety of incredible powers. There are also the Elves, who are quite
different in outlook from those in other series like Lord of the Rings. The Elder, a race of titanic dragons whose
impact in Ave was something to behold in its first era, are another.
Beyond the immortal races there are a great variety of mortal
beings and creatures populating Ave. When
it comes to the humans, many of their realms reflect cultures that we might
know from our own history. In Crown of
Vengeance alone, the reader encounters and learns about cultures existing in
Ave based upon the Normans, Saxons, Iroquois, Byzantines, medieval Russians, medieval
Islamic world (from the Moors to the Fatimids), Vikings, and more. As the series grows, many more are revealed. The short story series set in Ave, the
Chronicles of Ave, has also introduced the reader to other parts of Ave that
resemble medieval China, sub-Saharan Africa, Ireland, and others.
Just like earth, Ave is comprehensive in its range of
cultures and ethnicities. Book Three,
Spirit of Fire, finally gave the reader a map of the lands involved in the
series to that point, but it is by no means a complete map of the entire world. There is much more ahead.
In addition to human cultures inspired by ones from our own
world, there are many non-human cultures that readers are encountering for the
very first time in this world. The
underground-dwelling Unguhur, with their mushroom forests and dwellings carved
out of rock are one example. The
Trogens, a brawny race of creatures with short, thick muzzles that give them a
pit bull-like countenance, are perhaps my favorite. The rat-like Atagar, the huge Gigans, the
desert-dwelling, long-limbed Khala (revealed in a Chronicles of Ave short story
called Land of Shadow), the bull-headed Burujin, and many, many more strange
and exciting non-human cultures populate Ave and come into the story told in
the Fires in Eden Series.
There are aspects of Ave beneath the waters and in the skies
that come into play, but I won’t comment much on these due to the major spoiler
factor. I will say that the Fires in
Eden Series is able to take the action into unexpected environments, as there
are supernatural factors, as well as races of flying creatures that many realms
have trained as steeds, and other things that enable characters to engage
environments that are not often encountered in other epic fantasy series. The wars in Ave truly take place on land,
sea, AND air!
I have been developing Ave ever since the series began in
the mid-90’s, and I can assure the reader there is a lot more ahead than what
they’ve already seen in the novels and short stories released so far. In terms of content, I have yet to find or
hear of another fantasy world with the richness and depth that Ave contains, or
the sheer variety of cultures. In this
sense, I am very confident when I tell new readers who enjoy epic fantasy that they
have a world like no other to explore and adventure in. So I welcome you to Ave, a world like no
other!
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