Welcome to Amassia

Rainaya by Alayna on DeviantArt

Welcome to my world of Amassia...

I'm AK Wilder, officially joining the Sup authors in our endeavour to share books that make the heart beat faster. Let's have some fun in the world of Amassia!

The Release Date

Some of you have been waiting for this story world, found in Crown of Bones, to hit the shelves and I thank you for your patience! We have a solid release date now, August 4, 2020, the warm and sparkling time of Leo. Yay!

And now, on to Amassia...

In a World on the Brink of the Next Great Dying

The Journey by lp ysg on artstation.com

From familiar everyday life, farms and crops and fish and seas, to the fantastic beings of Mar, Bone Throwers and Phantoms, Amassia has the entire range. You'll find elements so ordinary you feel right at home, until wham! You don't. For example, you'll come across...

A green-robe level savant
with raised Phantom (the owl).

Savants and Non-Savants

Savants and non-savants make up the 'human' population of Amassia. They look just like you or I would in a diverse-race, pre-industrial culture, but Savants have one big difference. They can raise their phantoms from the ground and direct them in various ways to serve the realms.

Phantoms

Phantoms fall into five classes, ranging from warriors to healers and take the shape of anything from plant to animal to elementals. They remain dormant in the Savant's soul unless raised from the ground and held to form. Children who show potential to become savant are trained in sanctuaries by high ranking masters. There they learn to control their phantoms, hopefully, to serve and protect the realms.

Bone Throwers

The black-robed Bone Throwers decide
the fate of every child on Amassia.

The black-robed Bone Throwers are savants who devote their lives to divination. They keep to themselves in underground temples near each sanctuary, carrying out their work – predicting times for planting, harvest, hunting and war.

The Bone Throwers also carry out the endless task of carving new whistle bones used in their oracles, including the casts that determine the fate of every child on Amassia. Which sounds ominous, because it is.

If a throw of the bones finds a child marred, those infants must be sacrificed to the sea.  

Mar

Are the Mar real or do they only
live in children's stories?

Most regard the Mar as they would water-dragons and voracious river nymphs—fodder for children’s stories or to strike fear into the hearts of seafaring voyagers.

Are they real?

If so, they dwell beneath the sea and are said to eat the children the black-robe send to them.

One thing is sure, if you met a Mar, you'll never know it. As legends have it, they look just like us, though are near-immortal and have little use for land or air.

* * * 

About AK Wilder

I write YA Lit for young adults, and the young at heart.

Meet me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or check out my site, akwilder.com where you can read the Bare Bones Scopes, throw the bones and discover the latest news and giveaways.

My alter ego on the Sup is Kim Falconer...

Remember, when in doubt... Raise. Your. Phantom!

People of the Sea

Salila, a Mar of uncanny beauty and brutality - image: pen and collage by Anna Campbel

When Helen Lowe blogged this month on Supernatural Beings in Fantasy: The Fey, I thought, what a wonderful idea. Inspired by her exploration of the Fey, this post focuses on another class of supernatural beings - The Merpeople, or people of the sea.

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann's havfruen has much in common with the likes of Salila, the race of sea people appearing in my current novels.

Known through history as mermaids or mermen, melusines, sirens, Ved-Ava, water nymphs, nereids, these creatures are half human-half fish or dolphin/whale and live in the oceans, rivers, lakes and waterways. The symbolism is rich and fantastic, the subject of art, film and literature.

One of the earliest images of the merpeople is Ea, the Babylonian god of the sea. From him came the Greek god Posiden and later the Roman god Neptune, all male, powerful and half man-half fish or sea serpent. The first female image is the Syrian goddess Atargatis whose temple had large pools full of sacred fish. These ancient deities are linked to fertility, upheaval, the wealth of the Sea.


But Hans Christian Andersen brought the merpeople to the modern world with his tragic book about the young mermaid who falls for the human lad. It doesn't end well for either of them, though the Disney interpretation would have us think so.

Contemporary books featuring people of the sea, mermaid or otherwise, weigh in strong with hundreds of reads to choose from. Here are a few that I've enjoyed.

The 2017 film adapted from the novel by the same name - provocative, violent, horrific and alluring, a fitting interpretation of this being of land and water.

This book is a YA fantasy, powerfully written with provocative themes.

DS Murphy's enchanting story is the beginning of a series and probably could have been a longer more comprehensive read, but it's wonderful YA paranormal romance/urban fantasy none the less.

Urban Fantasy terrain both above and below the surface of the sea, my Ava Sykes series features Mar and human relationships, including the vivacious and hungry Salila and her unsuspecting love interests. The first book follows Ava's journey to discover the secrets of her past and the nature of the mysterious men in her life.

In my upcoming series, The Bone Throwers, the Mar play a vital role in the survival of the planet, on the brink of the next Great Dying. 

Here is a brief conversation between Ash, a young wordsmith and Kaylin, the sailor taking her to the Isle of Aku:

“What of your people, Ash? What stories do they tell in Baiseen?” 

I take a breath. “There is the idea that the Mar catch the sacrificed babies and free them from their chains. There have been sightings.”

“I’ve heard that too.” His fingers lift to play across my hand. 

I follow the movement, trying unsuccessfully to swallow a lump in my throat. 

“And what would a Mar do with the child?” Kaylin asks. “Once freed?”

“Some stories say they eat them.”

Do you have a favorite 'merpeople' story? I'd love to hear it in the comments!

***

Kim Falconer's latest release comes out in 2019 - The Bone Throwers, book one in the Amassia series, writing as A K Wilder. Find her new page on Facebook - AKWilder Author and on Twitter as AKWilder.

Her latest novel is out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel.

Learn more about Kim on Facebook and chat with her on Twitter. Check out her pen name, @a.k.wilder on Instagram, or visitAKWilder on FB and website.

Kim also runs GoodVibeAstrology.com where she teaches the law of attraction and astrology. 

Kim posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month, hosts Save the Day Writer's Community on FB and posts a daily astrology weather report on Facebook. 

How to Know the Unknowable

Man or Mar?

The adage write what you know works well for how-to manuals, cookbooks, auto repair guides or medical text. With such topics, writers need a certain level of expertise. When it comes to speculative fiction, however, it’s another story.

No one on Earth can know what a newly risen Mar, a Silver Metal Lover, a sympathetic, crazy hot zombi or a post apocalyptic witch is really like until the author creates them, from scratch.

Sometimes that process can be a challenge so I’ve put together some thoughts for writing what you don’t know.

Stefan, Elena, Damon

Tip #1: Research

This is totally fun. If you have a world that is primarily desert, you don’t have to live in the Sahara to write it convincingly. You do have to ‘know’ what it is like to have half and inch of rain a year and dust storms so blinding you can get lost between your camel and your tent. In other words, research the ecology of desert life.

You can’t have bright green grass and furry platypuses, unless you explain a turf that goes eleven and a half months without water and a river mammal that swims in sand. And what about that supernatural man or woman? How to characterize them?

Suggested research includes: Buffy, Angel, Spike, Drusilla, Eric, Sookie, Damon, Stefan, Elena, Klaus, Caroline . . . who else?

Tip #2: Savvy proofreaders

Klaus & Caroline

Research can take the place of direct experience, especially in world building, but there are exceptions. Horses are one. If you don’t know horses, you can learn about them, but if they are going to do more than graze in the paddock, you’ll need a proof-reader with horse sense to check your work. Readers who are also riders will spot ineptitude a mile away. Jolt! If it’s going to be a feature in your novel, get an expert to proof and/or offer technical advice. Same goes for quantum computers, wolves and witches.

Tip #3: Hands on

If you’re going to give a piece of art, animal, dance, ritual, music or machine a big role in your script, immerse in it, fully. As a bonus, your life will become richer for the experience. In my first two series, I researched quantum computing, physics theory, geo-engineering, bio-engineering and were-animal mythologies. I joined a local dojo and learned to wield a samurai sword. I can't tell you how much 'hands on' enhances the writing experience. :)

Tip #4: Start with a grain of truth

No matter how wild and farfetched your story becomes, that grain of truth (from history, mythology and lore) is what you build on and what will give your prose more weight. In my Quantum Encryption series, a main character takes my love of the Gray Wolf, an endangered species, and comes up with a solution to their looming extinction. I also look at possible results from geo-engineering projects that might do more harm than good (solar shields anyone?). It’s all about the speculation, but begin with something real. A truth.

Sookie & Eric

Add these tips together and you'll find your story not only rings true, it becomes a contribution to the future, what is possibly, probably or only ever to be imagined.

Happy reading, writing, dreaming and storytelling, everyone and let me know who your favorite original supernatural character is, from book or film. Right now, I'm leaning toward Orphan Black's Sarah Manning.  Yep, clone club. :)

xxKim

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

Syked! What's New for Kim Falconer

Girl Warrior by Shurjo

Thank you everyone for jumping in with your comments and posts! The WINNER of the draw is Michelle! Congratulations and please email me (enchantment AT kimfalconer DOT com) your postal address so I can pop your book in the mail (if you want a different book in the series, that's fine too). Let me know! xKim

I'm amped sky high! So excited about a new series I'm writing. SYKED, you might say, and that isn't because the main character's name is Ava Sykes. This is all pure and natural adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, keeping me up late at night and launching me out of bed at dawn. What a kick! This is the kind of thing that happens when a story takes hold, and won't let go. Who needs coffee? I'm already out of this freaking world, over the moon!

I'm not supposed to say much. Right, like that's going to happen. Here is the blurb for book one, and my working titles.

Series Title: Eyes of a Demon  (Ava Sykes Novel)

Book #1 The Blood in the Beginning
Book #2 The Saint in the Sacrifice
Book #3 The Savior in the Sea

When a girl with unexplained powers uncovers her past, she falls head first into a world darker than any imagined.  

* * *

Book #1 The Blood in the Beginning (Ava Sykes Novel)

Some things are better left buried . . .

When a tall man dressed in Armani, smelling of cologne and faintly of blood, tells Ava Sykes, twenty-four, student by day, bouncer by night, they’re hiring at a new club, she’s glad for the tip. The job looks promising, until the place turns into an underworld so dark it’s all she can do to keep from screaming. Ava runs like hell, killing the muscle they send to stop her. But when his body disappears before her eyes, Ava’s sure she’s losing her mind. The stalkers don't give up, and she finds herself in the hospital, under the care of Dr Miguel Rossi, a man who reveals her origins - Ava Sykes is the half-blood child of a Shen Mar, the vampiric race entombed beneath the sea. Shocked to the core, Ava searches for her birth mother, and the truth, but time’s running out.

The police want to arrest her, the Shen want to kill her and Miguel wants to awaken her powers. Ava used to dream of knowing where she came from; now she’d give anything to forget . . .

* * *

To celebrate this new vision, I'm giving away a signed copy of The Spell of Rosette, for all you science fantasy lovers out there.

Just pop in a comment about the last thing that had you SYKED and your name will go in the hat.

Tweet and FB comments get double the chance, so let me know if you do that too! This is worldwide, so don't hold back!

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels. She also co-directs Good Vibe Astrology, an astrology and law of attraction school.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.