My Maloran imaginary friends are still bouncing around my mind, especially when I sleep. My narrators aren't typically my favorite characters in the books, but they certainly are the loudest. Four of the books are told in first person, one is mixed first and third because Isen is relating Bethel's side of the story in addition to her own, and the six perspectives in the Echoes of Oblivion trilogy are third person.
Mayfly Requiem
Lani -
Mayfly is Lani's journal, a confession of over 2,500 years of his history. He is a fallen Aulor, a biologically immortal Time Child who both observed and participated in the rises and falls of the continent of Malora over his lifetime. He is the twin brother of the Aulor Dia and the son of
Aucra and Eryagloris, Time and Stars. Lani is a romantic poet at heart and his narrative style reflects that.
Echoes of Oblivion trilogy
The Abyssal Night, Shards of Chaos, The Shattered Veil
Sevilen Achara - Sevilen is the younger brother of
Rastaban Eryaucra, the tyrannical King of Ganebra. He begins the trilogy as a bookish eighteen year old and soon finds himself in a position of apparent power he can't escape from. He is gifted in both linguistics and swordsmanship, is fiercely protective of the people he loves, and is still trying to figure out how to deal with his narcolepsy.
Rhodren Briarwind - Rhodren is also eighteen at the beginning of the trilogy. He grew up in the green city of Heren, Maritor, and is the only child of a baker named Sharo Briarwind. He is finicky and often self-centered, but he occasionally also manages to be charismatic and compassionate. He has auditory-tactile synesthesia, a sensory quirk that is strange to everyone else even though it is his normal.
Ember - Ember is a Geophorian fire priest from the temple city of Reedwater, Anor. She begins the trilogy at age twenty-three. Like most fire priests, she is impulsive and destructive, but her inferno soul is cooled and balanced by her wind priest husband,
Moth. She was found abandoned in the swamp as a newborn so has no knowledge of her parentage.
Lirit Narsimor - Lirit is the ten year old daughter of Lucienus Narsimor, a member of the King's Council. Her family belongs to Ganebra's privileged ruling class. She is an aspiring stage actress who, like all members of her social class, was taught to blindly revere and obey the King.
Tikaari Starsinger - Tikaari is a Tenjeri, the race of fox-like people who mostly live in the northern regions of the world. She is the mate of Seya and the mother of Miya, Theta, and Saruza. The Tenjeri were inspired by the Japanese kitsune.
Aridani Eryaucra - I won't give much away about Aridani since his perspective doesn't begin until Shards of Chaos. He's a scatterbrained dreamer with an interesting magical ability, and his point of view offers a new perspective on Rastaban.
Shadows of Absolution
Isen Layel - Isen is a ranger of the Baku, a post-cataclysmic community of mountain dwellers founded by the earth priests Thora Achara and Onyx. She is the daughter of ranger Lusa Layel and earthworker
Zoli Achara. At the onset of her story, Isen is drowning in a fathomless ocean of depression after losing the man she loved. She is a strong, intelligent young woman whose talent for wilderness survival piques the interest of the Aulor, Bethel.
Bethel Masiona - As far as Aulors go, Bethel is a young one, just over 100 years old. He survived the cataclysm sixty years prior and is now watching his children and his friends grow old and die while he remains physically around thirty. He has spent the years since the fall on a quest to find any remaining Tenjeri survivors and is now collecting a small group of people to take across the ocean and into the wilderness of a new continent in pursuit of the legendary Tenjeri city of Trieskel. Bethel's lingering regrets are busy trying to drag his sanity into the Abyss.
Sand into Glass
Arden Masiona - We meet Arden about 7,800 years after the Fall of Ganebra, when the humans of Malora (now called Melor) have split into
multiple races due to Aulor/
Elemental interference and isolation. The youngest child of the Aulor Bethel Masiona is a gifted materials scientist with an explosive rage that has now landed him in a Drey prison awaiting trial for a murder he isn't certain he committed. Arden's mother is an Efi, a member of the race of long-lived forest guardians who live mostly in the western wilderness of the continent, and Arden's Aulor blood gives him additional longevity, so he is 407 years old when his story begins.
The Crystal Lattice
Tesji Brier (Thula) -
Tesji is a young half-Efi elementalist mage who was raised by his eccentric, reclusive grandfather Janakei Brier in the Efilon Wilderness village of Tiponia. He is both charismatic and socially awkward, a combination that renders him an outcast as a child and eventually leads to a career as a bard as he travels across Melor in pursuit of the locations that haunt his dreams and nightmares. Tesji is the eldest of my novel-dwelling imaginary friends since I wrote his story first, so he's quite special to me despite his excessive alliteration and tendency to exaggerate.
Arrow of Entropy
Zella Thula - Shy, serious, analytical light mage Zella is a contrast to her often-flamboyant father, Tesji, and her outgoing siblings, Sora and Ellis. After Bethel refuses to take her on as an Emergent student, she ends up under the guidance of Rassa, an Aulor whose ancient curse was broken forty-two years earlier. Zella loves physics, reading, and music, and she's much stronger than she believes she is.
My short story narrators can be found
here.
...and, now here's a little teaser narrator from what will be my next book, which is set in Northeastern Michigan in the late 1990s. I don't have a title for this book yet, but it will come to me eventually. I'll let this narrator do their own introduction.
Casey Tallis - "I'm not one of the cool kids. I'm not a goth or a jock or one of the pretty ones. I'll never be popular. I'm the dork who plays trombone in the marching band and is two years ahead of everyone else in math. I have Science Olympiad medals on my bedroom wall, hanging off a hook I made in the blacksmithing shop at a Renaissance Festival. I watch The X-Files and Star Trek: Voyager instead of Friends and I still miss SeaQuest. I don't like pop music and I spend my weekends either reading or playing Dungeons & Dragons with the other dorks. I once fell out of a pine tree and sprained my ankle while pretending to be a halfling rogue. I don't want to be one of the cool kids. I want to be me. I won't apologize for being me."
