What IS The Phoenix and the Dragon?

 What IS The Phoenix and the Dragon?

The story is fantasy, certainly, but its future audience will discover that The Phoenix and the Dragon (PaD) series is not as a “normal” fantasy by any means.

Prototypes of PaD certainly drove for the genre of High Fantasy, the most epic type there is, best exemplified in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  TRoL may still be considered High Fantasy by some people, but it’s certainly less magical that it used to be.  Probably the greatest reason for this development was the transformation of the Rioti’ordane.

Readers of this blog may recall my comparison of Uruk-hai becoming Numenorians.  That conversion changed everything.  The epic emphasis of the story turned from magic to, incredibly enough, politics.  In a very large sense, politics is what the war of PaD is all about.

And PaD is all about this war.  This is a series chronicling a huge, worldwide war in another world set in its own Middle Ages.

This is a story that could almost be considered historical fiction—simply put, it’s the history of a fictional world.  And yet, there’s still an aspect of fantasy, still an aspect of the supernatural.  In fact, the supernatural is perhaps more important now than ever, because Providence has a visible hand in the motion of events.

Some characters in TRoL have telekinetic and telepathic abilities simply as genetic trait of their races.  This is considered a less magical and more practical matter—it’s simply natural for these people.  Something akin to magic is touched upon in the later pages of the book, but even this is very far removed from spells and wands and even Rings of Power.

The Phoenix and the Dragon is still an epic.  It is also a war story.  And this epic war story not only concerns itself with the fates of nations, but with the hearts of the men and women that shape the war.  War brings out the best and worst of men, and this story is going to give you that.  Despite the different non-human characters, this is a very human story.

I dearly hope that you stay tuned for more, and that you’ll be willing—and maybe even excited—to read the first installment of this epic when it’s finally released.