Armanth : Preamble

Preamble

I asked myself where to begin. Introduce the Songs of Loss project and saga? Talk about its genesis? Its raison d’être? Start by thanking all the people who have encouraged me and followed this adventure? Or worse, talk about myself?

Well, I had to choose; and so, after several attempts, I decided to talk about the birth of Songs of Loss.

It all began on January 27, 2014 precisely. I was opening up to Igor Polouchine – who at the time was still just an acquaintance – at a time when I needed to trust, to talk intimately. To tell the truth, my creativity had been at a standstill for months following the abandonment of an over-ambitious work project, and I hadn’t produced anything in ages; a great emptiness that was becoming a yawning abyss of black depression into which I was sinking. I’d stopped dreaming and giving birth to dreams, which for me is like a little death; in short, I wasn’t happy. Who knows why, I confided in him and asked: « What can I do?  »

He replied quite simply: « bha, write! Since you can’t draw anymore, write. Let go of what’s in your heart and soul, write about your experience and about yourself ». It’s something I refused to do, and will probably never do, autobiography. I tend to consider that my personal history, however rich and interesting it may be, including in the Chinese sense of the word, is of little interest. I know it, I tell anecdotes about it frequently, but I have a certain disdain for my autobiography. The best way to inspire dreams isn’t to talk about me.

So I’ve been digging out old texts of short stories lost on my hard drive. I’ve always written, but it was just a hobby I’d always had. These texts were very dear and intimate to me, but what could I do with them? We talked for a long time; Igor Polouchine told me to let my guts out, to consider what I was going to write as an outlet, to apprehend what I wanted to put down on paper as a catharsis. Since what I loved most of all was to dream and to make others dream, I had to delve into my dreams and nightmares to draw out all the essence of a story.

This is what I set out to do, under his guidance, encouragement and advice. I gained a friend as well as a mentor, which Igor still is for me today. The world of Loss was born from a piece of music, Lisa was shaped by the mingled reminiscences of invented characters and intimate memories, or crossed through encounters; and I made the decision that The Songs of Loss would then be the sum of my worst dreams, and my most splendid nightmares. Yes, in that order.

I’m a TTRPG roleplayer; a neologism (now in the french Larousse dictionary since 2017) to designate practitioners of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. I’m a creator of universes, an exercise I’m particularly fond of and which I’ve nurtured by reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, J.R.R Tolkien, Jack Vance, Franck Herbert, Marion Zimmer Bradley and many others. The Songs of Loss is set in a universe that I’m still inventing and enriching, in parallel with the writing of its chapters and volumes, and to which I’m trying to breathe the life and depth that my elders were able to generate and with which they still and always make us dream.

But as Igor advised me to write and let my pen speak for itself, and as he encouraged me to continue, the Songs of Loss is much more intimate than a simple planet-fantasy with clockpunk (Da Vinci-Punk in french) overtones. I’ve thrown into it everything I could count of horrors, injustices and wounds, evils and insanities; and tears in abundance. I breathed into it all I could cherish of hopes and intelligence, daydreams and magic. I’ve even had to pour into it a good deal of my madness, the madness that we all carry with us and with which we try to live as best we can in as good an understanding as possible.

I’m surprised myself sometimes. I’ve sometimes managed to upset my own ethical barriers, to question my own morals about what I put down on paper; and it still happens! The Songs of Loss is about sexism, inequality, cruel violence, enslavement, the most wretched condition of women, and it doesn’t really do it tenderly; all things I’m not likely to apologize for. I’m a feminist and a humanist, I hate slavery and the horrors it engendered, I have difficulty understanding racism, inequality, homophobia, religious fundamentalism, hatred of others and violence; and yet all this is cruelly present in my novel. The sum of my worst dreams and my most splendid nightmares, remember?

But The Songs of Loss is also about hope, courage and reconstruction. They speak of revolution and struggle as well as love and trust. It’s hard for me to be truly, or gratuitously, cruel to my main protagonists, just as I don’t like stories that end badly or indulge in horror or cruelty. I’ve written all this to make people think, as much as to denounce the horrors of the most despicable afflictions of human society. Dreaming and inspiring dreams, remember?

So here we are, years later.

Michel Chevalier, from Stellamaris Editions, has since become one of my earliest and most enthusiastic fans. Three volumes have already been published, and I’m working on the fourth. The world of Songs of Loss has been brought together in a blog dedicated to the tabletop role-playing game based on it, which was also published in French, with a success I hadn’t expected.

And I’m about to embark on a furious folly: translating my own texts into English, on my own. Oh, don’t think I’m a master of the English language, far from it. Besides, it’s probably full of mistakes. I get the help of translation software, and I reread, patiently, correcting each sentence, looking to see if the poetry or meaning of my French sentences gives the same result in English. I dive headfirst into synonym dictionaries, English expression lexicons and grammar summaries. My God, it’s madness! What if I told you what deplorable grades I got in English at school?

But it’s my dream that I’m realizing, on my own. So, even if it’s not as successful as I’d like – I don’t know, you’ll tell me – I can only continue, enthusiastic and full of hope, to make my dream come true!

This is just the beginning. The Songs of Loss is a saga. I’ve estimated – I dare not claim to say « planned » – that to unfold the story of this revolution, I’ll need around 9 à 10 volumes. I realize, and I’m the first to be surprised, that this world, this story, is going to occupy a whole part of my life. I’m not sure I’ve taken the full measure yet, but all I know is that I’m delighted, and that all the people who have encouraged, supported, criticized, advised or simply thanked me have all become the driving force behind my motivation and enthusiasm to decide that the Songs of Loss will indeed become this world I’m creating, offering and giving you, to dream about.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, this book is dedicated to Alysia Lorétan and Émilie Latieule. The former for all that she is and represents: my companion and my wife, my Love, my Angel, who never doubts me at any time when I’m the first to do so so often. The second for the time it took her to earn my trust, protect her and pamper her with love and affection, as one would protect a too-fragile jewel in a jewel box.

Each of them is represented in the novels, often several times, through their multiple role-playing avatars and imaginary worlds, and I often laugh to see them carried away, surprised or astonished, delighted or moved, as they read the adventures of these characters that they too have created and that I have made my own.

The third person was Stéphane Gallay, my big brother at heart, who reviewed the first version of my novel with both kindness and ruthlessness, urging me to redo the whole thing, following his advice. And it was a very good review, without which my novel wouldn’t have been a success.

This book is also dedicated to my family and friends, who were all there to support and advise me, including the fans of The Songs of Loss who reread, commented and annotated the chapters to help me correct them.

The author

I’m a French professional illustrator living in Switzerland, in Collonges in the canton of Valais. I’m an inveterate role-player. I have worked and still work in the tabletop role-playing world. Given my age and my experience dating back to the 80s, the often-used nickname of « Ludosaurus » suits me quite well.

I’ve spent most of my professional career in graphics, visual communication, art direction and illustration. For a long time, writing was just a hobby, and my publications were limited to a few short stories in student magazines. I have to admit that I was much more motivated by the idea of comics as a literary medium, a project I eventually gave up on after several failed attempts.

I’m passionate about a lot of things: from wild music to cinematic art, culture, history, ethnology, archaeology, popular science, time-consuming video games, surprising sexual practices, cuisines, alcohols and drinks from all over the world and, last but not least, animals – by which I mean all animals, cockroaches and centipede excepted.

Finally, I spend most of my time in front of a screen, a keyboard, a graphics tablet and the appropriate drawing software; or with my nose on paper, surrounded by pencils, when I’m not writing or imagining. In short, to dream….

Axelle « Psychée » Bouet