The Ride of Amalthea

I haven’t been posting much lately, as I’ve been taking a mental hiatus, a detour into the world of Aenya. Who needs DMT when you’ve got the writer’s disease? More to the point, I am finishing up on the last two chapters of The Princess of Aenya. 

During my sabbatical, I am reminded of something I have long known and advocated: social media can be a dangerous narcotic. It’s quite a high, getting an immediate response to something you’ve written. But the path to literary greatness is narrow and paved with seductions, and it is a path one must often travel alone. It takes a great deal of willpower to ignore the allure of fan-fiction and pop culture blogging and sensationalist click-baiting, to reach that higher plateau, to achieve something that will someday mean something. I imagine Tolkien had to deal with something similar, hammering away at the Silmarillion as fads came and went, the Beatles and Woodstock and the moon landing, and he alone at his desk with his pen and his elves.

This is why I can’t be bothered to write more naturist articles, or anything Star Wars related. Sure, I’ll get a thousand likes, but when all is said and done, what does it really amount to? Who will remember Gangnam Style for the great song it is?

And so, in the spirit of true art, I would like to share with you this work made by someone very special to me. It won’t get reblogged much, or published in any magazines, but I’d sooner move a single person with a meaningful story than win a thousand followers with something trite and inane.

Now, when it comes to unicorns, there is only one source one needs go to, and that is Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. For Beagle, the unicorn is an immortal creature, a divine animal among animals. It is also symbolic of innocence and purity, two things very dear to me.

In his novel, the unicorn is transformed through a mishap of magic into a human princess. She is called Amalthea. My latest book, The Princess of Aenya, pays homage to this fantasy masterpiece, calling Radia’s unicorn by the same name. And, just as in The Last Unicorn, my Amalthea is far more than simply a horned horse. Is she, maybe, the same character? Due to copyright reasons, I may never quite be able to answer that. However, in the book, I suggest that unicorns have the power to travel anywhere, through time and space and even multiple universes. When it comes to unicorns, anything is possible!

This is also, I am proud to say, my first novel/art collaboration, with a very special artist I know, who simply goes by J.A.A. Who is this person? I cannot say outright, but long-time readers should be able to figure it out!