My novel is almost ready, and will be published soon. It took me about three months to write the story down, but the novel's characters have been in the back of my mind for longer than I remember — at least ten years.
Years ago, one of the characters (who I had labeled as a villain) spoke to me.
"Maybe I am villain in your story, but I am hero in mine."
That was interesting, and made me think deeper about this villain in my story.
So many questions: Is he really the villain? Who are his friends? Who is his family? Is he the main character, or just an extra in this story?
Then, a few other characters walked out from the shadows.
I dreamed of these characters. I wanted to know them better. I wondered about the places they visited, the food they ate, their failures, their glories.
I kept jotting it all down. So many notes, and so many quotes -- after a while, it all became rather chaotic. So, to make sense of all this madness, I started writing the novel.
Now, as the novel gets ready for publishing, one last question to settle: to what genre does it belong?
It is an epic, with entangled storylines about warring kingdoms, and their princes, soldiers and monks. It is an fantasy, but there is no magic, no fairies, no dragons.
It contains quite a few philosophical quotes, but it is not just a book on philosophy. Instead, it is a tale of struggle between competing ideologies, and the underlying lust for power.
So what is the genre? I think “epic fantasy - without magic” describes it best.
Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince presents statecraft as an amoral enterprise in which a ruler relies on fear, calculated cruelty, and deception to govern an inherently fickle and self-interested populace. Conversely, Shon Mehta’s Tasvak in The Timingila functions as a systems architect rather than a predatory autocrat. Recognizing the role of oppressive social structures, he seeks to shift his subjects from mere survival toward collective agency. In doing so, the novel suggests that effective statecraft cannot be separated from foundational ethics. While Machiavelli argues that a prince must sometimes employ morally questionable means to preserve the state, Tasvak’s trajectory demonstrates how systematic deception can ultimately erode institutional trust, leaving the ruler constrained by the very structures of mistrust they helped create. Machiavelli’s Fox and Lion are strategies for a ruler who wants to become the master of a predatory world. Mehta’s Timingila is a force of nature that neutralizes the predators to end the game entirely.
ReplyDeleteTasvak’s tragedy is that he must play the part of the Fox and the Lion so flawlessly that he risks becoming the very apex predator the Timingila is meant to destroy.