The Man from Parkho Khatune Bears Favor - The prequel to Joe Lyon Layden's upcoming novel "The Oracle of Lost Sagas."
It has been sixteen generations since the Age of Winter ended. All but the wisest of sages have forgotten the kingdoms and peoples that thrived before the thaw. But those long gone refuse to be still, and their secrets, old and new, are on the verge of being revealed.
Shiromain Shitek is a Magus in service to the illustrious King Mokla, who has recently acquired lands along the River of Sorrows. A strange creature of shadow is stalking children in the border towns. The Magus must solve the monster's riddle, and restore peace between his own people and the conquered Misha, who he knows little about.
King Mokla's greatest rival is the matriarchy of Jaydu, to which the varied peoples of the Golden River pay tribute. When one of Jaydu's hamlets calls for ritual war against a tribe of newcomers seeking refuge, Nashira the court musician is sent to sit in judgement. But will the immigrants follow the ancient tenets of war?
The Initiated One is a novice in an ancient band of hunter-assassins, who must travel into the highlands that were once ruled by his ancestors, but are now overrun by those of ogre-kind. There, he must prove himself worthy of respect to those of his Order, and finally earn his name.
The Queen of a forgotten people comes of age in the cruel lands of the north, but slowly realizes that she is not of her subjects' kind.
On an island far to the south, a shipwrecked sailor battles for survival. With the help of a mysterious race of dwarves, he must escape cannibalistic goblin-men and flesh-eating dragons, even as a smoking volcano threatens to erupt. He has no knowledge of the woman, last daughter of an ancient line of chiefs , who will be the final arbiter of his fate.
The age in which these characters live has been recreated through over 15 years of research into myth, anthropology, archeology, and genetics. The result is an alien world of magic and mystery, stranger than science fiction and more wondrous than fantasy. It is a world that never existed... or did it?
Though my work reads like fantasy, and will seem like "sword and sorcery" to most readers, it is actually meticulously researched prehistoric fiction and involves such things as The Hobbit of Indonesia, The Red Deer Cave People, giant pangolins (that I believe inspired the dragon at Ishtar's Gate), Balangoda Man, Megalania Prisca, Denisovans, Ursicus Rossicus, horned gophers, giant rocs, etc.
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