Creating Dark Realms - A Rampaging Author of Dark Fantasy

By Tristan Dineen 

I am an independent author of dark fantasy with a complete two novel series to my name and a second series in production. While my original muse was a boring job with too many office hours, I am happy to say that my writing has grown beyond those humble beginnings and has taken on a new and rampaging life.

I was drawn to the genre of darker, grittier fantasy because it more closely mirrored the medieval European history I’d been interested in while growing up. The more you learn about history, the less you believe in fairy tales about simple morality and clear divisions between good and evil. I wanted my fantasy world to be just as complex and believable as Medieval Europe or the Ancient Mediterranean. Good guys and bad guys still exist, but they live in a world governed by overarching political and economic forces that shape behavior and are far more complicated characters than a writer like Tolkien would allow. It follows that dark fantasy allows an author to explore real world themes to a greater extent than traditional fantasy.

The Falhorne series (begun with Falhorne: The World is Burning and concluded with Falhorne: Dark Dawn) follows the quest of Tagus, who is among the last of the Falhorne: an ancient order of warriors dedicated to the Elder Gods and to the protection of the persecuted Old Believers. The Old Believers, along with their Falhorne protectors, are pariahs in the eyes of Church and State. When catastrophe engulfs his community, Tagus must risk all in order to save the people he loves from destruction. His journey will take him far from home and into the darkness of his own past, as he confronts an evil deeper than his wildest fears.

Vinos, Tagus’s homeland, is much like Renaissance Italy, and, like Italy, was born out of a fallen empire similar to Rome. It has a largely feudal economy but that is beginning to change due to the demand for “satincane” in the textile mills of Tarn, a rising empire to the north. The profits from this trade have allowed the reigning Prince of Vinos to centralize political power and the crackdown on the Old Believers is not only due to their refusal to follow the established state religion but also because the prince wants slaves for the plantations producing satincane for export. There are very real parallels to actual history here and I believe it makes the fantasy world I’ve created, and the struggles of its people, more believable.

In the real world, people who challenge oppressive systems of power do not have access to secret arsenals of space-age weapons technology or magic so powerful that it negates any advantages their enemies have. Real world heroes are almost always outgunned and lack anything close to the resources their powerful enemies possess. Real world heroes die. Real world heroes experience loss. While fantasy worlds will always offer advantages that the real world does not give, I wanted to emphasize the challenges that someone resisting entrenched power structures must face. It makes the hero’s eventual triumph, or their mere survival, all the more heroic.

What little stability Tagus enjoys in his life collapses very early in the story, and, for the first time, he must determine his own path with the help of unexpected friends and allies. While he struggles to uphold his honor as one of the Falhorne warriors and defend the Old Believers, he is confronted by situations that force him to confront the very core of who he is. The political and economic forces of Vinos were not made to benefit someone like Tagus and he must struggle to make his way in the world; striving toward his goals against crushing odds. It could not be any other way for someone in his circumstances.

Vinos resembles 16^th Century Europe. Early Modern Europe was full of religious persecution as states like Spain, France and England centralized royal authority and defined themselves in political and religious terms. Vinos and the wider region are undergoing a similar process with similarly bloody results: whole groups are politically marginalized, religiously persecuted and economically exploited because they do not fit into the new order of things. Old Believers are killed, enslaved, forced into slums or driven into exile. Tagus (and the various characters aiding him on his quest) is resisting this brutality while at the same time trying to save the world from destruction at the hands of a much deeper evil.

This element of my world building was inspired by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who set his anti-war play Mother Courage and Her Children in the 17^th Century, although he was really trying to warn people about the coming outbreak of World War II. He did this because he knew that his audience would be biased if he set his story in the 20^th Century and that he would be more likely to get his message across if he placed his characters in a different time period. Fantasy worlds are similar in that they allow us to communicate real world themes in a setting removed from the real world, making them easier for people of different backgrounds and politics to accept.

Overall, I believe I’ve found my niche in merging elements of fantasy, horror and historical fiction. I have started work on a new series (two novels planned) that will be set in a very different part of the same fantasy world as the Falhorne books. Instead of Renaissance Italy, this region is more like Medieval South Asia, but the main character is similarly confronted by a nightmare power that is not of this world – and which may devour it if not stopped.

Please follow my author blog for more details and release dates.

 

CRAFTING DARK REALMS (Tristan Dineen Author Interview)

Hello everyone, I realize it's been awhile. But I present to you my latest interview in which I get into the dark fantasy genre in general, the writing of the Falhorne series, as well as my future writing projects as a rampaging author of dark fantasy!

BOOKIMOV - TRISTAN DINEEN - CRAFTING DARK REALMS

 

Now Available at The Bookshelf in Guelph!

I'm happy to announce that the Falhorne series is now available in paperback at The Bookshelf! Come check it out if you're in the area!

Photo Credit: guelphtoday.com
 

To Those Beyond the Crossing (A Poem)

 I exist in a time of monsters,

Where to speak of one’s own loneliness is utter blasphemy amidst a world of wreckage and cruelty.

A world where tracing the patterns of reality reveals a picture so grotesque it makes the blood run cold.

And so we dwell and take comfort in simulations,

Hiding behind our numb black screens as we seek to shield ourselves from the inevitable.

But it will find you.

The harshness of it all will find you,

Even as we all search for the same fleeting tenderness and beg in vain for it to stay.

For you are history, we are history,

And history shows no mercy,

The brutal world into which we are thrown screaming at our births is without pity.

From the inevitable and normalized cries of children in no-fly zones,

To the inevitable and normalized knock of the landlord posting that eviction notice,

From profitable work schedules broken down into ten-thousandths of a second,

To those abandoned as “surplus” humanity.

There are those who would cross the threshold, leave this twilight existence,

Bid the gates of a new world open,

Enter the uncertain darkness in search of a new dawn,

Enter the void that exists between the strangulation of the old world and the promise of the new.

But the journey is so far,

And it is hard to live between worlds,

So easy to fall into spaces without air on this alien journey into the unknown.

To have one foot in the old and another in the new and to be torn across that jagged line,

Like an ox on a fence, one struggles forward but at the same time is dragged backward.

Strong enough to survive,

But unable to escape the crushing horrors that drove them to take this painful step into the unknown.

The kind and just future we long for appears sickly and muted by this tortured present tense.

We are all mired in filth.

The filth of a sick society clings and pollutes us, like mercury poisoning the waters,

Even as we strive to cast down that which sickens us, emerge from the cancer, and find the redemption we so desperately crave. 

Even the greatest survivor emerges from their disease hardened and can only climb to the mountaintop and look upon a glorious future they will never live to see.

Oh how the men and women of that shining future would look back with pity upon the would-be revolutionary if they knew.  Those of us down in the gutter, who stare longingly at the stars we can never reach.

But when that new generation is finally born, in a world of bright color and welcoming, loving arms, those born after need not trouble their dreams over us.

For we will be but the stones beneath their dancing feet,

The solid and secure foundation for their joy, upon which their happy thoughts should not be allowed to dwell,

Except to occasionally paint over our dull and faded faces with their own brightness, life and laughter.

Retroactively making redemptive masterpieces from the broken pieces of our hard exteriors,

Beautiful smiles smoothed over the grim expressions that in our time we were forced to wear.

By their gentle hands, our old fears and confusion become certainty; the unshakable courage of immortal heroes and young gods preserved forever in the laughter of our children.

For when this new generation rises up, its feet planted firmly in the soil of the world of tomorrow,

Free from the monsters that haunt our dreams and menace our days,

When they raise us up, we drowned men and women who came before the flood,

We who could not make the crossing into this new life, weighed down as we were by the boulders that the cruel old world has hung around our necks,

They will not judge us too harshly.

 

My Interview on whatwereading.com

 whatwereading.com recently interviewed me about the Falhorne series.

Check it out:

https://www.whatwereading.com/an-interview-with-tristan-dineen/

 

All My Books FREE on Smashwords Until July 31!

Both books of the Falhorne series will be available to download for free on Smashwords until July 31 2023! Follow the link and enjoy!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/79709

Tristan Dineen Author Interview

Originally appeared at https://timetofeedmyreads.blogspot.com/2023/03/tristan-dineen-interview.html

A little introduction.

Hello all! I’m Tristan Dineen, author of the Falhorne series of dark fantasy novels. I’m an ESL teacher based in Canada, at least when the nether realms of my imagination aren’t calling me away.

When did your love of books begin?

Deep in the mists of time. I was obsessed with Robin Hood and King Arthur as a kid and those stories ultimately led me to Tolkien.

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

I read The Hobbit in sixth grade and that basically did it – I wanted to be a writer. It still took me until my 30s to actually write my first novel, but the seed was planted. The vividness of Middle Earth was spellbinding and I started designing my own fantasy worlds.

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

Getting started as an independent author was a challenging process. I was lucky to be part of a local genre-fiction group of authors, most of whom were self-published, who welcomed me into their circle even though I hadn’t yet published anything myself. Marian Thorpe, author of the Empire’s Daughter series, played a mentorship role for me and I doubt the Falhorne series would have seen the light of day without her kind assistance.

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

Passion is a beautiful thing. It will carry you far. But you’ll need to build connections with other authors too. You don’t have to do this alone and it will be far easier if you don’t try to!

Tell us about your book/books:

The Falhorne series consists of two books – Falhorne: The World is Burning (Book 1) and Falhorne: Dark Dawn (Book 2) – that chronicle the epic quest of Tagus, an aging warrior struggling to rescue his people from servitude in a deeply unjust society. In the process of confronting the brutal feudal authorities that rule the land of Vinos, he uncovers an ancient evil that threatens to consume everything he holds dear. Tagus is a Falhorne, one of the few surviving members of a once mighty military order dedicated to defending the followers of the Elder Gods from persecution at the hands of church and state. Aided by a mixed bag of unlikely companions, he finds that he can wield the powers of his eldritch forebears with a talent unmatched in centuries, but will it be enough to defeat the insatiable appetite of He Who Thirsts?

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

Writing is often a lonely process of grinding your manuscript out. Without support and encouragement from fellow authors and beta-readers, that loneliness can easily become unbearable. Community makes writing possible and I’m seriously grateful for all the support I’ve received.

If you could say anything to your readers, what would it be?

Being a new name on the scene is a challenging thing, thank you for giving myself and my world a chance.

Where can people connect with you?

I’m on Twitter @tristan_dineen (which is where it’s easiest to connect with me)

People can go to my blog at https://titanustribune.blogspot.com/ for links to all my work and other social media accounts.

They can also reach me by email at 11firstimperator11@gmail.com