Knights of Ferlonia

INTRODUCTION

I had chosen to leave the introduction of this new novel of mine to a series of posts on my profile in order not to weigh down the summary and make it immediately understandable to readers where to start reading.

However, those posts contained information that I find interesting about the genesis of the work, and I would be sorry if they were lost in the recesses of my personal page, remaining obscure to those who approach this work.

I was "born" as a comic book artist and in 2019 I approached the writing of my first novel, because as a comic book artist I suck and I realized that I would never have been able to follow up on the mecha one-shot that I had drawn. I started publishing it in February 2020, and it's funny that a month later the COVID-19 pandemic would have broken out, since my work had premise unsettlingly similar.

Artro-bot was a complex story beyond my possibilities even putting it in writing, and what should have been a tetralogy is limited and will forever be limited to an Italian-only single volume that leads nowhere.

I think you can feel all the tiredness of that period from the epilogue of that novel. I had a lot of university exams to catch up on, and working on Artro-bot had become such an obsession that I was starting to lose my mind, since writing wasn't getting me anywhere.

Burnt out by that experience, I promised myself that I would never write a narrative work again, and that in my free time I would dedicate myself to playing video games and watching anime.

Things settled down, I graduated and started working.

Everything was fine, until last summer, when I had the misfortune, or perhaps the fortune, taken by the excitement of having just played FF VII Remake, to purchase FF XVI.

That game was the catalyst.

It pissed me off so much. Let's forget about the gameplay and the madness of calling Final Fantasy a hodgepodge that only copies the names and terminology of Final Fantasy (but I was already aware of that problem).

What really got on my nerves was the fact that all the critics had put so much emphasis on the story, a grandiose epic in its own way that could redeem the game for its shortcomings. The best written characters in the entire history of the franchise, protagonists of an adult and dark story, so much so that it earned a PEGI 18 rating on the cover.

I reacted with a surge of arrogance. I decided to show them how to write an adult and dark fantasy story, with complex characters and authentic relationships. A story with a worldbuilding worthy of its name where the governance of a nation isn't just thrown in there to add color, and therefore having a Duchy, an Empire, a Kingdom, a Republic that ultimately are all the same damn thing as long as they wage war.

Twenty chapters into the writing, I became aware of one thing. I didn't show them anything. In some goals I achieved satisfactory results. In others I failed miserably. It is not a story that will ever reach the heights of epicness of FF XVI. At least in this first volume. If there is a second one, we can talk about it.

However, I promise that it will be a stimulating adventure, capable of leaving you with something, even if it is only cynicism and bitterness. I promise that the narrative lines will close and that the quest will be completed, even if perhaps at the end of the road there will not be the Grail that we expected to find. Because that's what happens in the "adult world", right? You can put it however you want, but after thirty years old, whoever still believes in revolution doesn't have the right to have the 18+ logo printed on the cover of their story.

*****

And so, here is "Knights of Ferlonia". A fantasy with a Mediterranean setting, which in its construction takes full inspiration from the history of the Old Continent, but goes towards a world where the discovery of magic has exponentially accelerated technological development.

Since my mind, when it comes to working on its stories, can only reason in the style of battle shonen and seinen, you can expect a lot of action and beatings and little romance. Oh, there will be room for that too, but in doses and with tones that the average millenial dude can find it enjoyable without getting bored.

As for the subject matter, don't expect epicness and pitched battles. We will keep a low profile and travel on hidden paths, on the margins of the great avenues of history where powerful nations battle for dominance.

Of course, there will be a lot of gore and degradation, so kind readers be warned.

These are neither unique nor original premises, I am aware of it. But this time I've kept my ambitions very low. I just want it to be an entertaining and well-crafted work. And if you want to get on this boat, the captain announces over the intercom: "The crossing is about to begin, the crew wishes you a good voyage!"