Caliban's End: Ten Tips for Reading 'What Lies Beneath'

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Ten Tips for Reading 'What Lies Beneath'

On the eve of my first book going public, I thought I'd put out a top ten list to accompany its release. What lies below is a list of tips that may help you in your trek across the pages of What Lies Beneath.

Make a mental note of anything that seems significant. If it seems important, it probably is.
Don't expect all loose threads to be tied up in this book. Some matters aren't resolved until the final chapters of Akin to Pity (the second and final book in the tale).
Give yourself time to read What Lies Beneath in uninterrupted chunks - it will be difficult to tame the narrative if you only read it a page or two at a time.
Try to spot the literary allusions - there's quite a few although some are a bit obscure.
Pay heed to the names. Many of them reveal a thing or two about the characters, creatures and countries of the Myr.
Get attached to certain characters but don't expect them all to live.
Consult with the Map on my wiki if you get a bit lost.
Check out the Characters page of the wiki if you'd like some more details on the characters.
Feel free to email me if you need clarification of anything you stumble across in the book.
Don't expect literary genius. The book is - after all - a hobby. It's far from perfect, but I hope you find it interesting enough to read to the end.

I'll be giving details in my next post about where/how to buy the book.

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Birren Brand

Central Tower, Sarras

Central Tower, Sarras

This tower, simply called Central, was much taller than all the towers through which he had passed on his high-speed journey to Sarras. His line was one of three adjoining the tower. His slider slowed down as his line leveled off. Tagtug could see a similar cable coming in from the east. His view of the southern line was obstructed by the colossal tower which, like every other transit tower, had its metal outer shell removed. Tagtug slid to a halt and gingerly stepped off the slider, his muscles taut and aching from hours and hours of concentrated effort.

The Crouching Mountain

The Crouching Mountain

Taking a large gulp of air that caused the wind to change direction, Kyuukyuu walked across the floor of the sea, past pods of great leviatha and herds of nep'gii. After walking for many days, holding his breath all the while, he noticed that the sea floor began to rise. Soon he found himself on the shores of Kompira. His eyes widened when he saw the beautiful land before him, but despite the loveliness of the forests and the arousing scent of the purple mists, he found he was exhausted and had to lie down. So he cleared a spot of forest not far from the golden shoreline and lay down to rest. His exhaustion was so great that he fell into the deepest sleep, a sleep from which he is still yet to wake.

Bith Brand

Bith Brand sang a sad tune and the long plaintive notes floated up through the leaves and hung upon the branches. Lara closed her eyes and listened to her mother’s song. It was a ballad about a woman whose love had gone across the sea. The woman was heart-broken and was setting off across the water to find the one she had lost. Lara didn’t really understand the song – she had never even seen the sea – but the doleful melody was strangely soothing and Lara could feel herself getting drowsy as she listened to it. Underneath her lace top Lara’s heart glowed, and the intricate white filigree of her shirt was suffused with a gentle blue light.

Arrowfish

Arrowfish

Suddenly, an Arion arrowfish shot high into the air. The mother bellycan opened her wings to steady herself as she leaned back slightly, and positioned herself directly under the arrowfish as it reached the apogee of its brief flight into the air. The fish plummeted back down and the bellycan extended a large pouch that had been hidden under the feathers covering the bird’s stomach. The arrowfish plopped straight into the bellycan’s pouch which then closed instantly, storing the catch for the family meal that evening. Although books had been written on the subject, no-one truly understood the reasons for the arrowfish’s perplexing suicidal flight.

The Worldpool

The Worldpool

Five leagues from the churning vortex, translucent ice floes could be found, stretching out across the pale blue surface of the lake. Any ships that came within two leagues of the Worldpool risked being battered by crystalline icebergs that roamed the lake’s centre like silent predators, waiting for a vessel that had strayed too close. The waters closer to the Worldpool were wrapped in mystery as no vessel had ever returned from wandering so close to the maw. Nothing escaped. It was believed that even time itself was disturbed so close to the malevolent sinkhole. The lake’s centre was a living contradiction, a turbulent place where frozen waters were roused into violent motion, where waters made white by the freezing heart of the lake succumbed to its darkness and disappeared to a forgotten realm below. And yet, inexplicably, from dawn to dusk, the sun always shone on the Worldpool. It was if the clouds were too scared to venture so close to the glaciated maelstrom. It was a black hole, reaching out and sucking in all it could under eternally sunny skies.

Flummox

Flummox

Kali heard a tiny growling sound at his feet. In the dirt before him, a twin-headed flummox sat with a round kor-kor nut in its small, pudgy hands. Although diminutive in size, being no larger than Kali's foot, the flummox was as irascible and pugnacious a beast as one could find on Terra. The flummox's two heads were facing each other, two pairs of bulbous green eyes staring at each other in a confrontation that was typical amongst the two-headed rodents that infested the Kolpian hills. Suddenly, the left head tilted right back, the mouth opening to an impossible wide degree. As the mouth opened, the flummox lifted this head up high on its neck. The head on the right cowered but the creature would not lift a hand in defence for fear of losing possession of the kor-kor nut. With a ferocity that would make a marrok squirm, the flummox's left head swooped down on the right, enveloping it entirely. Sharp incisors sheared through the right head's neck and in one of the world's most obscene animal behaviours, the flummox swallowed its own head. The violence of self-decapitation done, the flummox then spent the next few minutes yelping as the pain from its self-inflicted wound ripped through its entire body. A few minutes more and it collapsed to the ground dead, the trauma of the wound and the accompanying loss of blood too much for the little animal to bear.

Adzoba Aethelflaed

Adzoba Aethelflaed

Juliet yelped with fright and skidded to a halt. Before them stood a man taller than any Edgar had ever seen before. He was at least eight foot tall, even taller if one counted the massive horn that grew from the man’s forehead. The distinctive keratin projection rising two feet from the man’s skull marked him as a Kheperan, a race that lived in the deserts to the south of Lake Erras. Edgar had never met a Kheperan before, but he knew of them – their reputation for having short tempers and an endless supply of stubbornness preceded them.

Palia

Palia

The manifesto listed two passengers: Wade Grayson and his twin brother, a leper by the name of Caliban. The latter was particularly memorable. The day he arrived in Palia, he was placed in the quarantine station where all lepers destined for Sanctuary were kept until the boat taking them across the treacherous waters was ready to depart. Caliban had been brought into the station kicking and screaming. He pleaded with the locals to release him and when the Palians refused, he swore he would have the bloodiest of revenges upon the world and that the sleepy hamlet of Palia would be first to bleed.

Sulis

Sulis

The triplet moons shone down on Sulis. Pylos walked out onto his balcony to take in the evening air. Below him the city streets spread out in intricate patterns, bathed in the silvery light raining down from the night sky. All over the city, the amber light of lanterns flickered outside the houses on the main streets. The comforting drone of sandcadas reverberated across the city. Above this gentle hum, the General could hear snippets of conversation float up from the café on the street below.

Grisandole

Grisandole

The Isle of Grisandole lay directly ahead. The isle itself thrust up from the dark depths of the ocean to the equally brooding depths of the sky. Grisandole was even more barren and depressing than Lara had imagined. No trees or plants clung to the steep mountainside of the island. No beach encircled it. No seabirds flew above it. It was a place as lifeless as Terra’s distant moons. All was rock upon which nothing moved, save for the endlessly buffeting wind and waves. The peak of the conical isle was crowned with tall black towers and battlements devoid of flags or any other sign of habitation. On its own, the Morgai citadel seemed immense but in the context of the empty, lonely landscape surrounding it, it seemed insignificant. Its crumbling columns ineffectually pricked the thick skin of the sky.

The Sapphyrro

The Sapphyrro

The Sapphyrro were unusual looking by most races’ standards. They stood five foot tall on average, with no significant difference between males and females. Sympathetic brown eyes as large as soup bowls peered out from benign faces of grey-blue. Hair as white as foam flowed from the back of the head onto a carapace encasing a sinewy body covered in gossamer thin velvety fur. The shell surrounding the torso formed a natural suit of armour, and yet the civilized, peaceful natives of Skyfall Town had no known predators (other than Time and even its immutable will had softened in regards to the Sapphyrro who lived well beyond the years of all the other races of Terra; death took them tenderly, like a gentle wave on the shores of a quiet lake). Stout, muscular legs and long arms ending in large, three fingered hands sprung from openings in the shell.

The Endless

The Endless

The fisherman was in a vast cavern. The rock had a phosphorescent quality and emanated the most delicate red glow. High, high above the cascading waters of the Worldpool were gently tinged with the supernal glow of night seeping in from the world above, giving a softness to the dreadful surge that crashed into the Endless with deafening ferocity. The ethereal illumination of the stony surrounds revealed a dark, ulterior lake into which the blue waters of Lake Erras were poured and mixed until they became black.