ARVA: The Michaelmas Oddity, an Alchymical Faery tale

by C.P. Webster

The war is over, the Blight has receded and a brutal new authority rules over all Albion. But order demands conformity. The so-called Michaelmas Oddities are different, a folktale come to life, genetic misfits whose uncanny powers are both feared and coveted by the new regime.

This is the story of John Gabriel - the dreamer seeking a myth - and Edith Blake - the rich girl rejecting conformity. Theirs is a tale that is woven between realms of concrete reality and darkly strange otherworlds and they must overcome challenges that will push them to the limits of endurance and sanity, if they are ever to unravel the supernatural mystery that lies at the core of their being.

ARVA is the first volume in the Albion Trinity.

291 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 9, 2019

About the author

I was born in the 1960s and grew up in the north of England. When I was a teenager my family emigrated to South Africa. I completed my schooling there and after leaving school I began studying computer programming, dropped out and then worked as a stocks control clerk in a factory.

During these politically tumultuous years in South Africa, I wondered what to do with my life. I enjoyed writing and some of the fantasy and sci-fi stories I wrote were ultimately published in genre magazines. I also wrote a great deal of poetry (some of which was also published).

At the end of the 80s I became an art student and began to learn about the processes, history, creative practices and possibilities of photography. In 1990 I graduated with a distinction. In the same year I got a job as a photographer's assistant in Johannesburg and moved into a flat in the city with my wife. We lived in Jo'burg for just over a year before I was invited to teach photography as a part-timer at my alma mater. In 1991 my wife and I had our first child.

I worked as a teacher in London for two years in the mid 90s, then, in 1996 I was appointed Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Returning to fiction was inspired by my return to ‘Albion’ and a reacquaintance with what was for me the deep mythic earth of my homeland. When I moved to west Wales my career took precedence for some time and I became more involved in establishing myself as a visual artist and exhibiting internationally.

As a result of my academic work, some years passed before I decided to revisit fiction.

As a reader, I have long been interested in a broad range of writing from fiction to fantasy/science fiction, apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. Writers of particular interest have been J. M. Coetzee (in particular his novel 'Life and Times of Michael K'), Alan Paton, Alan Garner, John Wyndham, Michael Moorcock, John Christopher, Ursula Le Guin, Robert Westall, H. P. Lovecraft, and Susan Cooper amongst many, many others.