prelude to after the hero
There is a really good fantasy novel that I read earlier this year after I supported it on Patreon, and today it’s been officially released, so I wanted to make a post recommending it.
The book is called “Prelude to After The Hero: A Curious Tale.” It’s by a guy named Josh Fredman, who goes by “The Sinistral” online.
Josh is a true internet original, the sort of person whose out-of-the-way blog you discover after a series of idle clicks one day and which opens in on a whole new world which ends up becoming part of the warp and weft of your life. His LiveJournal, which has been updated roughly once a day since August 2003, is a treasure trove of personal reflections, records of day-to-day life, political essays, and the like, forming a kind of extensive and reflective life record I’ve essentially never seen anywhere else. I don’t always agree with him, but I always enjoy reading him, which is an experience not quite like reading anything else I know of online.
One of the recurring threads running through the journal, all the way back to 2003, is a work of fiction called The Curious Tale, the central part of which is a series of novels titled After The Hero. The central ideas and characters of the series were conceived all the way back when he was 18 (he’s now 33). Many of us, around age 18, dreamed of writing some sort of multi-volume, thematically sweeping magnum opus; Josh has not only held on to that dream, but held onto the magnus opus he originally conceived, writing draft after draft, organically tweaking characters and setting in line with his own personal growth but never relinquishing any piece of the core. Without independent wealth, living paycheck to paycheck, he has led a stripped-down material life and a vigorous mental one – writing his journal daily for a tiny audience, working away at the Curious Tale in the background, day after day, year after year.
The Prelude is the first installment of After The Hero, and also the first volume that’s reached a state he considers ready for public consumption. It’s a roughly 69,000-word novel about the aftermath of a sudden, disastrous attack on Sele, the capital city of a relatively new and secretive nation which harbors ambitious of spreading its progressive ideals throughout the world. A thing unto itself, it doesn’t quite match any existing subgenre of fantasy. The bleak, gothic opening pages and the strange architecture of Sele are reminiscent of Mervyn Peake. The extensive but un-showy worldbuilding is reminiscent of Tolkien but not at all in the way people usually mean when they say “reminiscent of Tolkien.” It’s a novel of grand, unironic high drama in which more than half of the text is dedicated to a detailed, unsexily procedural account of a government council meeting. It features colorful, bantering, almost over-the-top characters who nonetheless bear the marks of having been carefully mulled over as 3D human beings in the author’s head for well over a decade.
It’s rough at the edges – clearly a first novel – but I recommend checking it out if the above sounds interesting. The project’s website is http://curioustale.org/, and you can read the whole book online for free here. There’s also a Kindle edition for $2.99. The author also has a Patreon if you want to support him there. (His current financial situation is not great and he’s at the point where every Patreon donation, even a small one, will contribute greatly to his quality of life and ability to keep working.) I also, again, recommend reading some of his LJ if you want to know more of what he’s about.
(Finally, on a personal note, Josh read The Northern Caves right after I finished it and, without being asked, sent me a pleasant, interesting and very detailed response by email, including chapter-by-chapter reactions. The days after finishing TNC were emotionally hectic for me and this was a major pick-me-up.)
Just spent my evening reading the Prelude, and I’m seconding the recommendation. The detailed, unsexily procedural account of the government council meeting managed to be the most exciting thing I’ve read in a while, and I’m already really invested in these characters. (Lilit DeLatia was my favorite but also she totally deserved to get her head smacked into the table, bless her.)
(via itsbenedict)