Den iridiska manövern, amuletten, freden & kartellen

These are two fantasy short stories I wrote sometime before summer 2006. I hadn’t really tried to write anything in the fantasy genre before that, so they can be considered my first serious stab at fantasy. One reason that I had been avoiding fantasy was that I felt it lacked the depth and shades of grey that I had seen a lot of in science fiction (not that there isn’t deep fantasy – there is, I just hadn’t seen much of it at the time).

I was therefore determined to write something “heavy,” and the result became ‘Den iridiska manövern’. The second short story, ‘Den iridiska amuletten’, is a bit more humorous, while still dark in its themes.

For those fluent in the Swedish language, the two stories are now available for download. So read them, share them – I’m happy as long as you don’t change them or make a profit from them. I’d love to hear what you think, though, so don’t hesitate to comment.

Both files are in the PDF format, so you’ll need to have Adobe Reader installed to view them.

Den iridiska manövern (‘The Iridian Maneuver’) is about the danger of miscommunication in foreign politics and war especially. The story shifts between the POV of a general besieging a fort, and the council with the power to decide whether he should attack or not.

Den iridiska amuletten (‘The Iridian Amulet’) takes place some time after ‘Maneuver’, although it is not a direct sequel. Instead, we follow a group of three thieves who are contracted to steal an amulet. A seemingly easy job, but is everything really what it seems?

Both stories are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Happy reading!

I have written one more short story in the same series, called ‘Den iridiska freden’ (‘The Iridian Peace’). It mostly deals with the consequences of the events that take place in ‘Den iridiska manövern’. I’m currently writing the fourth and final part of the series, the working title is ‘Den iridiska kartellen’ (‘The Iridian Cartel’), although I can’t say when it will be done. I only have a few pages written so far.

When ‘Den iridiska kartellen’ is finished, I intend to publish the stories through Lulu and/or Vulkan, where you will be able to order them as a single volume in a physical book form. I’m likely to keep the first two stories available here for free download under the Creative Commons license.