Aenya Newsletter: Welcome to the Aenya-verse!

I sometimes feel like Eldin, the time-traveling historian, hopping between ages. The world of Aenya has been brewing in my skull for almost twenty years now. I remember advertising that the The Dark Age of Enya would soon be released in 2000! Sadly, these vast time periods tend to alienate fans, because after nearly two decades, I’ve managed to release just TWO books, the second being a rewrite of the first. My mind, however, exists in a constant state of creativity, from my blog articles to my art to an ever expanding encyclopedia of all things Aenya. But it’s all been frustrating, because work and family have constantly gotten in the way of my true passion: telling stories. But maybe the delays have been a blessing. Quite honestly, I do not think it possible for any writer to build a fully realized universe in one, two, or even five years. It may be that I needed twenty years to build Aenya, a world-building feat like we’ve seen only a few times in the past.

Twenty-twenty will be the year of the Aenya Big Bang, as I will be quitting my day job to work full time on my novels. Don’t worry, my business is self-sufficient, so I will still have a roof over my head even if I don’t become the next JK Rowling. That being said, I have no interest in treading where other writers have gone before. Even A Game of Thrones hems too closely to The Lord of the Rings, with its medieval, Anglo-European setting. What fantasy needs now is storytelling as grand in scope as what Tolkien and Martin have put out, but in a different sub-genre. As much as I love elves, dwarves and dragons, they won’t be appearing anywhere on Aenya. You also won’t be seeing vampires, zombies (ice or otherwise), emo-rogues, or villainous, world-shattering wizards. Been there, done that, thanks. The books in the Aenya series belong to the sword and planet genre, with a mix of Homeric myth-making added in. Sword and planet, specifically, dates back to 1912, with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. A revival gathered steam in the 60’s and 70’s, but most of those books were amateurish pulp, with little to offer but hack n’ slash violence and titillation for adolescent boys. Looking for meaning in something with a half-naked barbarian on the cover is often a lost cause, but this isn’t to say that the genre cannot be held to a higher literary standard.

But the Aenya-verse will be different in another way. Taking a page from Marvel, the books of Aenya will be interconnected without being direct sequels to one another. This will give me the freedom to focus on traditional storytelling, without having to force old characters into unwarranted situations, which can sometimes have poor results. Think of the negativity surrounding the Star Wars sequel trilogy, or the Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts spinoff. Sometimes, it’s better to leave well enough alone. Tolkien seems to have understood this, having been unwilling to bow to pressure from his publisher to write “more on hobbits”—giving us, instead, The Lord of the Rings, which was only tenuously connected to The Hobbit. Of course, if fans are clamoring for more Xandr and Thelana, I may be inclined to create something new, if a good idea presents itself. But there are just so many more aspects to Aenya’s history and geography that would make for great fiction. In the upcoming The Princess of Aenya, for example, a minor character from Ages of Aenya becomes a main character. In The Children of Aenya, characters from PoA will also make an appearance. This is somewhat like A Song of Ice and Fire, except here the story threads remain separate, rather than running concurrently.

The Reviews are In!

In the April edition of H&E Magazine, Tim Forcer gave Ages of Aenya a four out of five stars! While I would have preferred a solid five, I think I can live with four. You can check out the review below:

It’s ironic how Tim points out the number of nude Thelana pics I have had commissioned, when his own magazine sports a beautiful nude “centerfold” very reminiscent of Playboy. Nudist or textile, we just need to accept that pretty young girls attract readers.

Announcing Tales from Aenya

I am officially announcing my jumping into the YouTube arena with Tales from Aenya. Now I do not expect a ton of traffic, knowing how YouTube’s search engine works. People look for popular subjects like Star Wars, Marvel, SJW or atheism, mostly to criticize those things, which is why the site has lately become a cesspool of negativity. In every other video someone is frothing at the mouth about how much such and such movie/game/TV show sucks, and why it sucks, and how they, in their wisdom, would “fix” the failures of said thing. Nobody has an opinion regarding Aenya, good or ill, so I am bound to get very few clicks. When YouTubers start spitting at their monitors over how awful my latest book is, I know I will have succeeded. Still, for my devoted fans and soon-to-be fans, I will be showcasing some original artwork, while reading excerpts from published works, and short pieces that expand the world of Aenya, like The Ballad of Titian and Midiana and The Nude Equestrian. 

Coming Soon (Honest!): The Princess of Aenya

Waiting for me to release a new book is worse than waiting for Winds of Winter, but Princess is definitely on its way! I have been working closely with my editor, Ava, to hammer the story into shape, and we’re currently on the last two chapters. Also, the finalized cover (below), courtesy of my go-to artist, Alexey Lipatov, is done and ready to be sent to the publisher. Look for The Princess of Aenya on Amazon and www.nickalimonos.com by fourth quarter 2019!