While Liz loves a good strong female lead in a story, and the most current guest posts are about that subject, I felt it necessary to go against the trend and write about the menacing presence in my debut novel…

What do you do when you love dark fantasy and the supernatural, but you’ve grown kind of tired of all the usual monster suspects—vampires, zombies, ghosts, demons? Whoah, wait a minute! Nope, can’t say I’ll ever grow tired of demons. But what’s a writer to do when they’ve never been baptised into an established religion; their knowledge of demons comes mostly from novels, television, and movies; has limited time to research actual references to this phenomenon in primary sources; and wants to make the antagonist of their first novel a demon?

The answer: You strip down the demon, reduce it to not much more than a vapour by ignoring the socio-historical and religious contexts in which they are referenced. It was a challenge to do this, but in the end it raised the question: What is a demon?

There’s no single answer that’s correct. However, the answer I chose to use helped develop an alternate world called Elish, where demons walk alongside humans. These demons are solid in form and highly representational of the very feeling that can make some people freeze and cower while others flee toward safety. These demons are forms of fear, taking on the shape of whatever it is that is feared. Not a new idea in fiction, but one I was able to twist to my delight.

A look at the most current psychology textbooks reveals an ever-evolving list of phobias. Name something and someone somewhere is afraid of it. There are common primal fears: the unknown, the dark, insects. Instead I found myself developing a protagonist born out of a specific time and place in history, one belonging to Elish instead of our world.

The time is during the early age and the place a veldt on the verge of becoming a desert, where cactuses grew like giants, their spines longer than swords, and the tallest were used to execute criminals and war prisoners by way of impalement. Humans hung up on spines, left to bleed out, die, and rot. This bit of history is enough to cause anyone to shudder (I hope), and lo, a demon is born into the world Elish, one made of green flesh and red spines, pulsing with life, determined to spread his brand of fear so that he can continue to exist.

A cactus demon.

Meet Istok, the primary antagonist in my debut fantasy novel, The Forgotten Gemstone, which isn’t as dark as I make it seem. In fact, it’s rather a bright and colourful book, as one reader described it. It's fantasy with a bit of Science Fantasy and a leaning toward Lovecraft instead of Tolkien.

And as is the trend here, the main protagonist is a woman. Ule is part of a race of trans-dimensional world builders. Although she can manipulate energy on a quantum level, her true power doesn’t come from having supernatural abilities. She also doesn’t fight like a warrior or have witty remarks. Her strength comes from her willingness to explore and rediscover those parts of herself that are permanent, so that she can stand on her own two feet and shine in a world where, and I quote from another demon in the story, a cat demon named Kaleel the Rex, “everyone makes sport of casting each other into the shadows.”

Seriously? How can anyone be afraid of cats?!

For more information on Kit Daven and The Forgotten Gemstone, please visit www.KitDaven.com

Available in Print on CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4514429

Available in Print and for the Kindle on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00GF4LC5M

Available for the Kobo on Chapters.Indigo.ca: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-forgotten-gemstone/9780991982707-item.html