Forward to Warrior Poet
With each installment of Dead Weight, I’ve asked one of my professional pals to write a forward. These are some of my favorite bits of the whole project. This time around, I’m pleased and proud to have Frances Pauli leading us into the fourth tale of the Faerie War. If you haven’ taken a look at her Kingdoms Gone stories, you really should. The Kingdoms Gone books read like a perfect blend of folklore and epic fantasy. You could do worse than spend a weekend loosing yourself in the pages of her breathtaking prose and wonderful imagination.
Warrior poet is coming Friday the 13th, but here is the forward by Frances Pauli.
FORWARD to DEAD WEIGHT: Warrior Poet
By: Frances Pauli
Authors of faerie stories are not to be trusted. Exceptionally good ones, even doubly so. Should a writer capture on paper the essence of the nuances and subtle magic of all things fey, then they must immediately be suspect. How do they know this? We can’t exactly ask them, can we? Not without revealing our own, suspicious nature. Have they seen things? Have they been ‘tetched by the Fairfolk and lived to pine after hidden worlds, to only find relief like the poets of old by scratching their fever dreams out on parchment?
I believe in faeries. Not the friendly, popular cartoon versions either. My sort of faeries keep to the shadows, just on the edge of perception. They reek of old magic, secrets, and a power outside of mortal understanding.
Don’t tell anyone else.
Don’t look more deeply, listen more carefully, or turn around when you hear the tinkling of bells in your shadow. If you must peek, be certain to wear your clothing inside out, to carry a silver mirror, and if possible, if you can ever manage to resist it, eat nothing, bring nothing back with you except for your stories. Your fever dreams. The stuff of the poet and the artist.
In our literary history, few authors have managed to capture the feel of things beyond the shimmering. Many try, of course. We are nursed up on pale, watered-down fairy tales and many of us are satisfied with that. Of course, those who are usually outgrow the addiction. The rest of us, those who hear the true singing, the other stories, recognize them for what they are. Fey magic.
Songs that haunt us all the way to our graves… and sometimes back.
It has been a long time since I opened a book and discovered a true song. The great origins of Urban Fantasy tinkled with it, but the genre had lately lost some of the depth and authenticity which made its authors so suspicious. The stories haven’t felt as dangerous, as steeped in lore and faerie magic. The research was there, but the heart was missing.
When I encountered Dead Weight, when I stepped into the faerie vision of M. Todd Gallowglas, I knew instantly that I’d come home. Here was an original tale, but one that sprouted like a vine from the old magic. Here was someone who wrote, not from fancy, but from a deep understanding of the song. In the Dead Weight books there lives the impossible marriage of true whimsy and absolute darkness that is fey.
Which, of course, makes their author very suspicious.
Which of course, makes his story all the more dangerous.
If you enter it, you will become as caught as the rest of us.
Be brave, traveler. Hold tightly to your mirror and listen. Perhaps, carry a shamrock, a bit of iron or a crust of stale bread. If you are very brave, or perhaps very wise, you’ll bring an offering of cream or butter. And should you open a door along with the book, I can only wish you happy dreaming.
~Frances Pauli
