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Three Years Ago Today, We Raised Our Glasses to the Ale Boy

Three Years Ago Today, We Raised Our Glasses to the Ale Boy

Last updated on: March 15, 2014 at 8:58 pm by Jeffrey Overstreet

Three Years Ago Today, We Raised Our Glasses to the Ale Boy 2014-03-15T20:58:46-06:00 Jeffrey Overstreet

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The Auralia Thread on display at Barnes and Noble.

“This is my favorite fantasy series,” says the latest Amazon reviewer of The Ale Boy’s Feast, the fourth and final book in my series of fantasy novels called The Auralia Thread. “I recommend it to everyone 13 through 120. Although the series is marketed toward adults, I am a teenager who really enjoyed them and will be rereading them over and over again.”

I hear this often — that the series I wrote for adults has been discovered and enjoyed by teenagers.

In fact, I’ve had letters from ten-year-olds as well. (Some of them, after reading the first book, Auralia’s Colors, had strong feelings about which characters they hoped would be married at some point in the series. Many of those wishes were never granted, I’m afraid.)

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since The Ale Boy’s Feast arrived in stores.

The great Kristopher K. Orr provided the art for all four books in The Auralia Thread.

It’s hard to believe that, since then, I haven’t found the time, energy, or support necessary to deliver the first book in my new series. But I’m hoping to find a way to change that soon.

In 2012 and early 2013, I made significant progress on a new novel. That came to a halt in the spring, when some new stresses and challenges shifted the balance of my life, and I’ve been struggling to find a way to restore writing as a daily routine. But I will, someday, somehow… because I think the characters and ideas leading me into it are even stronger than those in The Auralia Thread.

Many thanks again to those who supported me with such encouragement and provision through that four-year span — 2007-2011 — when I wrote and published four books while working full-time. That was quite a rush, a season of many dreams come true. When I am able to shift the current balance in my life toward a healthier routine, I will start the engine again and share the stories that I cannot wait to tell you.

You’ll find more information on The Auralia Thread here.

And if you’re looking for an introduction to the series, I suggest “Here There Be Dragons,” an introduction by Robert Joustra in Comment magazine, where he writes:

This is prophetic fiction; stories within stories, which turn back upon the reader questions of enduring cultural weight. Abascar’s fall, the redemption of Cent Regus and the slow seductive ruin of Bel Amica are narratives that underpin our cultural moment. Like in the fantasy greats, there are truths to be encountered, never totally attained, on every page—truths which shift and stretch, impossible to empirically pin, but equally so to deny. And this, as Ursula Le Guin would say, is as it should be. Truth, after all, is a matter of imagination.

A viscorclaw — one of the creepiest critters you’ll encounter in The Ale Boy’s Feast. Illustration by animator Ken Priebe.

And now, if you’ll indulge me, since I’m feeling nostalgic about this anniversary, I’ll reflect for a moment on some of the great encouragement that readers and reviewers published about The Ale Boy’s Feast. It was a relief to see the books appreciated, considering all of the work that a whole community contributed to make them possible.

“The Ale Boy’s Feast is a great, sprawling poem. Its rich language moves and breathes and awakens every sense. Jeffrey Overstreet has made something beautiful here. His story reminds us that beauty is an agent of grace.”
— Jonathan Rogers, author of The Charlatan’s Boy

“Jeffrey Overstreet writes like Van Gogh painted. He is a literary impressionist, and his understated yet vivid narrative style overwhelms the imagination. The Ale Boy’s Feast does more than just tell the end of a story; it invites the reader into the world of the Expanse with a cast of beautifully complex characters to join them in pursuit of the mystery that calls us all.”
—Lindsay Stallones, evangelicaloutpost.com

“…this story never failed to amaze me with its unpredictable course. It happens too frequently that in the final moments of a story, all the pieces are in place and it’s quite evident to the reader/viewer where they all fit. The Ale Boy’s Feast kept me guessing through its final sentences and even left with much to ponder after I closed and set down the book.” – Aaron White, Faith and Geekery

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