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Author explores another world
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By AMY BIRKHEAD
Friendswood author Mary Fagan’s first book, Ammanon, leads off a four-part fantasy series and is getting some world-wide attention for the attention she has put into creating another world.
In getting to know Fagan, readers might be surprised that the fantasy fiction adventure series is loosely linked to her personal life.
“I was raised very liberal and very pacifistic. But I learned a respect for the military. I married a Marine,” Fagan said.
The book describes Ammanon, an empire spanning half a known world, and begins with a vision coming to two people: Azzariah, an aged high priest, and Galan, a bewildered young prince.
The prophecy foretells the coming of a woman from another world who will aid Ammanon in its time of peril. Galan is be the Emperor; a fearsome warrior, and Ammanon will prosper under his rule until he learns of a plot to assassinate him from a translator, Eydain.
The lonely emperor finds that Eydain knows nothing of the prophecy, is terrified of him, and would rather run than wed. Bitterly, he forces her to marry. The two now contend with each other as well as spies and mercenaries taking hold in the city.
Together with Ammanon’s highly trained forces, they face the threat with a series of daring ploys. But the final battle with this elusive foe is yet to come.
“I wondered, why does the military have to be mean and nasty, and why the military, with their discipline and their training, can’t they be honorable and decent? So I made up these warrior people who were bigger than anyone else,” Fagan said.
Fagan has worked in copywriting for advertising, and was employed as an admissions clerk at a hospital in Kansas when she got a train ticket to Galveston.
“A man with a Texas accent checked me in, and three years later I married him,” Fagan recalls.
Fagan said she began to read everything about the military. Much of the research she did for the series was historical. Each of the kingdoms she created has a unique culture and language, although she never committed the setting to Earth.
“They’re very human, but it’s not a race that we have ever met before. The only supernatural things that occur are deity-induced,” Fagan said.
This is the first book Fagan has written, although she said she has been writing her whole life, and this is the first fantasy piece she has composed. In between real-life assignments with aerospace contractor United Space Alliance, Fagan said she simply “sat at the computer and the story came out”. The original was later divided into a four part series for publication.
The author did note some of her favorite authors, including J. K Rowling, Christopher Paolini, and J.R.R. Tolkien, in adding a glossary of terms to Ammanon.
“I love languages and I began to have to explain how the different races formed,” Fagan said.
The Lafayette, Indiana, native studied English and Drama at the Adrian College and Central Michigan University, and later worked at the University of Houston-Downtown as a provost, when she began to get back into her writing.
Fagan said she will wait to see how the success of this book continues before she releases the rest of the series, although she said she is getting feedback internationally.
The series, Ammanon: Book One The Prophecy, can be purchased at most major retailers and Amazon.com has several cheering reviews now.
In getting to know Fagan, readers might be surprised that the fantasy fiction adventure series is loosely linked to her personal life.
“I was raised very liberal and very pacifistic. But I learned a respect for the military. I married a Marine,” Fagan said.
The book describes Ammanon, an empire spanning half a known world, and begins with a vision coming to two people: Azzariah, an aged high priest, and Galan, a bewildered young prince.
The prophecy foretells the coming of a woman from another world who will aid Ammanon in its time of peril. Galan is be the Emperor; a fearsome warrior, and Ammanon will prosper under his rule until he learns of a plot to assassinate him from a translator, Eydain.
The lonely emperor finds that Eydain knows nothing of the prophecy, is terrified of him, and would rather run than wed. Bitterly, he forces her to marry. The two now contend with each other as well as spies and mercenaries taking hold in the city.
Together with Ammanon’s highly trained forces, they face the threat with a series of daring ploys. But the final battle with this elusive foe is yet to come.
“I wondered, why does the military have to be mean and nasty, and why the military, with their discipline and their training, can’t they be honorable and decent? So I made up these warrior people who were bigger than anyone else,” Fagan said.
Fagan has worked in copywriting for advertising, and was employed as an admissions clerk at a hospital in Kansas when she got a train ticket to Galveston.
“A man with a Texas accent checked me in, and three years later I married him,” Fagan recalls.
Fagan said she began to read everything about the military. Much of the research she did for the series was historical. Each of the kingdoms she created has a unique culture and language, although she never committed the setting to Earth.
“They’re very human, but it’s not a race that we have ever met before. The only supernatural things that occur are deity-induced,” Fagan said.
This is the first book Fagan has written, although she said she has been writing her whole life, and this is the first fantasy piece she has composed. In between real-life assignments with aerospace contractor United Space Alliance, Fagan said she simply “sat at the computer and the story came out”. The original was later divided into a four part series for publication.
The author did note some of her favorite authors, including J. K Rowling, Christopher Paolini, and J.R.R. Tolkien, in adding a glossary of terms to Ammanon.
“I love languages and I began to have to explain how the different races formed,” Fagan said.
The Lafayette, Indiana, native studied English and Drama at the Adrian College and Central Michigan University, and later worked at the University of Houston-Downtown as a provost, when she began to get back into her writing.
Fagan said she will wait to see how the success of this book continues before she releases the rest of the series, although she said she is getting feedback internationally.
The series, Ammanon: Book One The Prophecy, can be purchased at most major retailers and Amazon.com has several cheering reviews now.
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frwd996 wrote on Aug 28, 2008 4:18 PM: