What do you mean by Free Celtic Fiction?
Ah, I’m glad you asked. Is this fiction from Ireland or Scotland or Wales? No. The title of my pages, this “blog”, was L. Stephen O’Neill. Sadly, not so many folks were searching for me by name, so being advised to be more descriptive I came up with descriptive words that I felt would be popular searches as well as descriptive.
Being at least partly Scots I am personally drawn to the word FREE. I consider myself a celt, I live in Oregon, but I like bagpipes, I’m constructing a fictional, Roman Empire Free, world to let the Celts have another go at world domination, I’m CELTIC. Did I mention the FICTIONal world of Tir na Nua? Well read about that below.
Fiction
Fiction can be truer than real life. The lives of mere characters, literary constructs, can clarify and instruct a reader, helping them to gain perspective, inspiration, and fortitude for their real life situations. Their own problems and opportunities are much more complex to be sure, but sometimes the perspective of fiction is a perfect catalyst for positive change. . .
. . . or just a very entertaining read!
These are the stories that I have begun to commit to ones and zeroes to this point:
The Abbot and the Djinn
NEW I’ve found a fragment of a planned novel (actually trilogy) That introduces the point of view character of the UiUilsen Saga. Meet Hunter Wilde. I had not planned on sharing things I actually planned to one day publish, but I wanted to introduce you to Hunter.
An Anuniaq Tale
The Deer Riders
Information regarding the Losterlies
the Red Hand of Courage
The Annals of the Tuatha de Dana
Tir na Nua
I have several stories, novels, that I am in the process of writing. Most if not all are set in the world of Tir na Nua. This new world is a world apart from the Earth that we know and has been, there are names and situations that may seem familiar, but though they echo the world we know they are not from that world at all.
Here I plan to gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each of them or at least flesh out this new land, Tir na Nua.
Currently I am focusing on a novel set in a island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established and from where it diffused. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”
On the Losterlies are a people known as wanderers or gypsies who are decendants of a particular Inuit by the name of Anuniaq. “Anuniaq Goes to Sea… …Again” is a tale from his life as is Anuniaq and the Storm Tossed Sea.
People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples, known by the Rus as the Icefolk, who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them. I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward. The working title for this novel is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”.
I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.
I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story (I’m an American Football fan) and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle or my perception of what the Gaelic people were about. I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the Disputed Lands though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.
An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it. Among the characters stories will touch on: Balor, originally Llyr, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and many more.
In the Disputed Lands life is cheap. Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape in a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings. Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region. Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko”, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service”
Stay tuned. I have been adding material as quickly as I can.
Enjoy,
LSO
