THE LORE of the SUPERNATURAL

Some folk call them "fairies" others call them "wights". Whatever you name them, it is useful to be armed with knowledge of their ways, if you intend to venture into the countryside of the British Isles or the fantastic world called Aia. Fortunately, over the course of human history this information has been thoroughly catalogued.

Wight Lore:

Seelie wights are those who wish mortals well, and even give them supernatural help, or who merely use them as targets for their harmless mischief. The intent of unseelie wights, however, is to harm humankind.

Although they can ...

OK, the last few columns have been pretty serious (well, in theme, if not execution). I've covered a lot of the basics in a few general overviews and principles, looked at fleshing out worlds and the nature of power, and in general, been technical.

So, lets sit back for a column and discuss the fuzzy stuff, the intuitive, the non-linear part. It's a column ...

My interest in the Knights Templar goes back many, many years, and first surfaced in print when I began writing about the Knights of Saint Michael in the Deryni series. ...

INTRODUCTION:
This is going to be a bit different from my usual columns - instead of me talking to the audience, I'm interviewing an author who has built a strong continuity-driven fiction series. This will be an irregular feature, exploring the ideas and concepts of unique individuals and how they created their worlds.

OUR WORLD:
Imagine a world of living biotechnology, a secret criminal conspiracy, and two enemies-turned-friends who discover the world and each other are not what they thought. The powers of nature, the balance of man and his environment, all spiral towards a terrifying conclusion as ignorance, greed, love, and heroism combine . . .

In Pokemon: Evolution.

Yes, Pokemon - Pokemon turned into Hong Kong Film Noir twelve years down the road. This isn't a standard fanfiction: it's an extrapolated look at a world while trying to keep true to the themes of the original tales and game. Its a developed possible-future story with culture, characters, and causality. With such a tight continuity, I figured an interview with its main creator and writer, Alicia Ashby, would be invaluable.

If you want to find the stories, you can find them here at fanfiction.net by searching for the title "Pokemon: Evolution", its author (under her nom de plume of "Lynxara") or following these links (if fanfiction.net hasn't rearranged its database)

Evolution #1
Evolution #2
Evolution #3
Evolution #4
Evolution #5
Evolution #6

Or visit Evolution's home site:

http://students.roanoke.edu/a/aashby/EvoWebpage/evopage.html< /a>



And now, on to the the interview.

INTERVIEW:
Well, let's start from the top. Pokemon: Evolution is a complete world, a look at Pokemon twelve years into the future in a very detailed setting. How did this idea start?

Well, the idea had profoundly humble beginnings. It started when my co-writer, DamienK, wanted to run a metaconcept of a canon character in an IRC roleplay channel I frequented. ...

During a discussion I recently had with a Tolkien fan, he informed me that we are all like Gollum, selfish and prone to evil. I think he missed Tolkiens message in LOTR. Certainly we are all tempted by evil, but the moment Tolkien introduced us to Samwise Gamgee ...