What is the Phantammeron Really About?

Some of you might be wondering about the “meaning” of the Phantammeron fantasy novel series beyond the mysterious pool that drives its insidious plot. So I thought I would reveal a few secrets about the books to you and surrender a few more mysteries.

The original conception of the novels was based on what I call the “Origin of Faerie”; a creation myth of a future world and race of fallen beings much like the Elves or Noldor in Tolkien’s Silmarillion. My vision was much different than that grand old author’s, however. I wanted to use “mythological writing” as a new medium to express their tragic tale and portray their history in the novels as a sort of translation into our language what the Fay or Faerie would have expressed as their own personal history, and yet have it read as both a literary tragedy but also as a “religious book” spiritually inspired and yet emotionally charged in the telling.

I also had designed worlds and events much more expansive, entangled, and complex than Tolkien’s singular Silmaril story. I had intended to use rings or cursed relics in my books. But unlike Tolkien they would be pawns to even greater events, relics, and histories than what Tolkien had explored.

Over the years I have begun to read many of the same ancient books Tolkien read – old Indo-European texts and mansucripts often hundreds of years old. What I found in them was a much broader imaginary world than I first thought. I had not found in my studies any joy in linguistics nor lives of hobbits, but instead had embraced the more ancient idea of Faerie and their “Other World”, one imbibed with the deeper mists of some faded yet living mystery. I had begun to see through these manuscripts a dark expanse of time filled with pieces of ancient myths, and Mankind’s vast imagination hidden within them. I saw in my mind’s eye great continents filled with bejeweled streets, white cities and citadels, and feel with my heart the deeper intrigue fated children living there. I felt I had beheld more of Faeryland than that old master, Tolkien.

There was new spiritual relevance in these tomes. I saw they had been barely touched on by Tolkien and wholly missing in the Lord of the Rings. And so I designed and built the Phantammeron story structure upon a much larger Truth I had discovered; a tale of a much larger set of worlds and tragedies that might take myself within this grand exploration of myth. But the Human condition, like in Tolkien’s works, would remain entangled in the gossamer web of those tales.

I had decided to start from the point of view of the Birth of the Heavens and of Faerie. The tragic birth and death of the Forests of Phantaia and the One Tree would form a sort of Creation Myth for them in Book One. From this first book would come their parents, the Gods, and the spring and tree of their paradise that would soon form their homeland. It was the making of this mournful paradise through tragic means that was expressed in Book One, though I knew few readers would fully see purpose of those early stories till later books.

Such was the mythological origins of my Phantammeron. But this Garden of Eden I called Abrea would be my grand attempt at a Faerie Heaven and yet a Biblical tale of Eden. And so in Book One had larger archetypes begun to take shape. For many of my views of the world and my faith would be planted there as the books evolve.

This theme of the Origin of Faerie and their tragic paradise would form the backdrop of the darker tale of the Sacred Pool , the One Tree, and their meaning. These had been the heart of the books from the beginning, and would remain a driving force behind the birth and death of Faerie later; their legends, subplots, and fated paths. In later books would be born a new world that I created for them with a more earthly struggle centered around the forested heaven call Phantaia and their desire to return to it and restore its fallen beauty.

You will note in Book One there is yet no clue to faerie or their origins. The Faerie or Children of Shining as they are called, have not appeared and won’t for several books. The reason is simple: Phantaia is their Promised Paradise, not their world or earth. That will come later. But Ana and Ama will form their divine parentage and the great mother and father that birthed their first children. They will eventually find themselves thrown from Phantaia into a new world much like Earth’s whose primal origin will begin the larger tale of the vast continent of creatures and races I had suggested earlier would appear. This world will be truly vast, as expansive as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Its name is Anatar. And its birth and death, its wild landscape and civilizations, its vast races of beings, monsters, and conflicts have all been mapped out already in stories and myths from large notebooks I transcribed into digital text a few years back. That is all I can share for now.

But the beauty of these mythological themes I have researched and expanded upon owe much more to the parable and tragic history of all Mankind. Though my work is inspired by Tolkien’s transcendental concept of Mythopoeia in literature, I care not for wars of ancient days, kingship, linguistic plays, and elven histories tied to grand tragic plays.

Instead, I seek to showcase a vast mythic stage filled with vast landscapes and mysterious plots, heroic challenges, naive explorations, and great adventures across vast forgotten landscapes, hidden treasures, bleak and violent wars, fairy tale magic of old, love and romance, tragic relationships, and the irrational misty places in story where only myth may travel. For myth has been the driver of all my work and will continue to be until its complete and perfect.

In future books in the Phantammeron series I will introduce colorful new characters and beasts, reinventing ancient creatures like that of dragons and dwarfs, and filling my story with their faces and forms refreshed from myth and based on a careful reading of their interpretation in the many ancient texts I have read. Yes there will be giants galore as beings that first roamed our Primitive earth in story. Lonely wizards in towers held aloft casting lightning bolts from dark spires in far flung lands will reign again. Endless mountains of mist, vast catacombs spanning thousands of miles underground, and rambling castles of whitest alabaster forged will be be built again by once proud Kings in my old stories.

But they all will serve the strange might of the myths I have chosen to fill them with, thus breaking free from the rock of reality that held Tolkien’s books and so many others trapped in more modern place and time. For truest Faerie to me has become a much wilder more imaginative place born of unimaginable beauty, where Primitive Nature alone holds sway. It is a place where the reader’s imagination will have more freedom to define itself and breach free the clean air. Yet will it align with the much larger Nature that once surrounded mankind on this Earth before we obliterated it. For Nature’s preeminence will always reign supreme in my mytho-poetic books.

Mighty Myth and bountiful Nature hand in hand shall allow me a much larger landscape to fashion in my books than used in any other novels to date. And so with a much grander vision giving life to my histories of Faerie, I shall proceed with joy and hope exploring something I believe will be truly vast. I’m hoping that these ideas alone shine through for you as the reader and elevates the books to a mystical and spiritual level not yet seen in fantasy. That has been my goal.

And so the true purpose of my Phantammeron fantasy books is finally revealed. As I mentioned, I will hopefully have achieved through myth a much richer fantasy world beyond anything yet written. And in doing so, I hope to fill my own mind with the missing visions I have sought in books but could never find.

For this mythological vision of ancient Faeryland is for me the source of what drives the Phantammeron books. It was written to fill in me alone that void for my own entertainment and my own spiritual rebirth, something I could not find in any book or text known. I sought long ago to capture that vision and the vast worlds of magic and mystery and tragic beauty I had but glimpsed from afar in so many author’s works but had never quite fully grasped. In the Phantammeron it is my hope I finally make those ideas truly complete.

— the Author



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