Hobbit ranch houses, boomer row homes and elvish condos for sale!
This morning I completed Haft, at 40,948 words.
This is my first, and probably my last fantasy, with such worn and weary tropes as elves, dwarfs and wizards. Haft is set in Middle Earth and is a 16-part [14 chapters and one large 3-part chapter] adventure about a messiah of a downtrodden race—the orks, who are one of the few decent races of Middle Earth.
When I outlined it on its inception six weeks or so ago to Lynn, on a skype call, she grinned with a wince and said, “People are going to hate it.”
Well, half of it will be serialized later this year on this site. Until then, if you want an advance copy or would like to volunteer to proof it, email me and I'll send you the PDF draft.
For you Old English philologists out there, never fear. I have not tried to use obsolete Anglo-Saxon diction for the ork dialect. Rather, I have decided to base their diction on many a real life Harm City character's jargon, as I have character-mined my non-fiction urban blight work to fill the heroic roll call of orkish heroes...
Apologies considered, found wanting, and left to languish.
James LaFond, 6/9/21, Pittsburgh
