#AwesomeCharacters
There used to be a character named Doran who had a minor role in #EchoSight. When I realized that everything he did & was could be absorbed by Cavid & Sono, he got culled. I liked him a lot less than Cavid, who's way funnier & better character overall than Doran ever was.
A phoenix with inspiration from an American Kestrel, a type of falcon, as well as some other birds. Its wings are outstretched and is the other form of my main character from my novel series.
A man with a peacock tail in a towel, drawn in pencil. His expression is annoyed as if he was interrupted in the bath or at the beach, and he has a few tattoos (one on his arm, and one on his neck). In his hand is a pair of sunglasses.
A phoenix character based on a white raven from my novel series. Embers rise from his feathers as he looks over his shoulder at the morning light.
A bunch of bird head sketches, partially colored and slightly cartoonish. Golden eagle, raven, Great Horned owl, American Kestrel, a heron, and a kea.
I draw (and write!) about bird people! (Phoenixes, specifically.)
I'm Verati (they/he). My published novel, #EchoSight, is all about a disabled shapeshifter saving a city from a monstrous fungal plague before it's too late.
And since I have a working tablet pen again, I can draw more bird people!
I ❤️ my main trio in #EchoSight be/c arguably they're all protags to adjacent genres perfectly blending into one story.
Cavid's on his way to becoming a cyberpunk-genre augment back alley doc; Theso's in a magic spy novel; & Enaka's threading that needle between supernatural crime & monster hunter.
Hi! I'm Verati, #SFF #trans author/artist of #EchoSight: when a sassy, nonbinary, disabled monster hunter tries to save a city from a xenomorphic fungal hivemind, they stumble upon more intrigue than they bargained for. Can they & an enemy archmage work together before its too late?
It's been a while since I plugged my novel, #EchoSight, bc I don't want it to look like my ENTIRE personality (it is).
But check it out! It's a high/urban fantasy abt a nonbinary disabled soldier trying to save a city from fungal demons & having A TIME. And they're very sassy.
#📚🌈 #📚⚡️ #📚🪐 #💙📚
#AwesomeCharacters
Both in #EchoSight & #ScentOfSmoke, we see the effects of the Domains before we meet them. (Monsters appear in droves. People feel tense. Animals flee.) We know that they are historically VERY bad & dangerous, though there's still way more that people DON'T know about them.
A promo image featuring some line less art of a girl reading. The purpose is to promote the End of the Year Sale going on Smashwords from December 8th to January 1st. Ebooks are discounted between 25% to 100% off. My own is 75%.
The cover of my novel, Echo Sight. The main character is wearing a feather cloak and holds a flame in their left hand and a chain weapon in their right. They float above an underground lake with memories rippling in the water. Behind them, mostly obscured in the dark behind the stalagmites, is a dragon with bright, glowing eyes, watching them. My name, Cian Verati, is in gold at the bottom.
End of the Year Sale on Smashwords! #EchoSight is 75% off for the last time this year, so #gift your friends who like #SFF a fantastic genre-bent high urban #fantasy w/ tight plot, lovable characters & a lived-in world. See why it has 5⭐s on Itch & GR!
books2read.com/u/mgBLNR
#💙📚 #📚🪐#🩸📚#🌈📚 #sales
#SFFChat #TaintedFaculties #EchoSight #ScentOfSmoke
You know Enaka is nb right off the bat. I'll explain it in B2, but if you want they/them pronouns in Afredal, there's a three dot marker you can put on your middle finger so that people know. Eirokai (Enaka's first language) uses default neutral—
Getting live updates from an #EchoSight reader who's currently getting emotionally wrecked by the last two chapters is bringing me life. It's such high praise, lol.
#MelsNoWriMo #TaintedFaculties
At least in #EchoSight, a purely platonic friendship sparks immediately between Enaka & Cavid, & that's not going away any time soon.
But you see glimpses of their other important friendships going into Book 2: Ikoda, Sacara, Farah...& Enna's old captain, Ris.
From #EchoSight 🐦🔥,🐉,🐇
Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want!
(Non-authors: are chains like these fun/helpful or nah?)
Find it here: www.cianverati.com/books or verati404.itch.io/echo-sight
#WritingPrompt #TaintedFaculties
BEFORE #EchoSight, Enaka had a close friend group for the 1st time while they were stationed at the doomed Ft Holpas. Kalju, Farah, Ikoda, & Cpt Ris were/are all important to them.
& their sibling-esque relationships w/ Hauk & Sacara in part made them who they are.
#TaintedFaculties #EchoSight #ScentOfSmoke #QueerPrompts
Neither person in this picture is cishet & neither am I (the artist & author).
#EchoSight #TaintedFaculties
#💙📚 #📚🪐 #📚🌃 #📚⚡️
-A wiseass shapeshifting "game warden"
- Xenomorphic fungal parasites
- A time limit to save a city
- An archmage from a rival nation that has his reasons for helping
- Queer, disabled, & POC rep
#PlotTober
#ScentOfSmoke #TaintedFaculties
Enaka travels outside of Akert in this sequel to #EchoSight to such as:
- a necromancer's city besieged by imperial neighbors, a last stronghold of a threatened people
- across the open steppes
- a wizard house
- ruins of an underground civilization
Sisyphean.
I know most folks don't have the money for art (& many for even basic necessities), but I want my book read. I know it's great. I'm working on the sequel *right now.*
So if you want a copy of #EchoSight, lmk & you can have one. I'd appreciate word of mouth if you like it.
#💙📚 #📚🪐#🩸📚#🌈📚
In #EchoSight, Enaka pretty explicitly sides with local minorities against a callous, bigoted system. This is only going to continue to be a thing in #ScentOfSmoke and the other three books. I'm not sorry.
It's horror, sci-high-fantasy, & detective mystery all in one! #EchoSight follows a nonbinary shapeshifting detective trying to stop a monster fungal threat from flattening a city. You'll have fun and tears in this wry-humor queernormative ride. $4.99 everywhere! #TueTeaser
www.cianverati.com/books
Stickers of my very stressed main cast of characters. The top is of a redhead, Enaka, in profile with their face in their hand with the caption, "Makr's fucking ashes." The middle is of a young boy with white hair and sickly complexion with a medical bracelt and a uellow shirt cringing back with the caption, "Fuck!" And the bottom is of a green-haired man in a white suit closing his eyes in mild, tired despair with the caption, "For Sam's sake."
A closeup of a white-haired boy with a shit-eating grin on his face and mischief in his seagull heart about to make bad decisions in spiking a watermelon on someone that can end him with supernatural superiority.
A continental map of my book's setting with scribbled notes all over it by the main character, Enaka, including a spider where there are, in fact, large spiders, and a panicked scribble over a portion over the map that says Sporelands along with the word, "No." There is also a shopping list and some informant's phone number, travel notes, and a circle around their destination.
A closeup of Enaka's annoyed face at having to hold a panicked, overreacting teenager.
#EchoSight has a certain, shall we say, gremlin energy about it?
Check out this great #SFF #read about a #shapeshifter on a time limit to save a city from fungal monsters—
Just $4.99 everywhere online ebooks are sold!
verati404.itch.io/echo-sight or
www.cianverati.com/books
#📚💙 #📚🪐 #📚🌈 #📚⚡️ #📚🩸
I also have a queer indie book! I didn't see your post before, or I would've thrown this in the ring. Adult urban fantasy + monster horror. Dragons, shapeshifters, & a time limit to save a city!
#EchoSight #📚💙 #📚🌈 #📚🪐 #📚⚡️ #📚🌃 #📚 🩸
Oh! I bought the book a bit ago. I'm in between books right now so I think it's time. #EchoSight sounds like something right up my alley!
So...Amazon's bad. Itch is also now in people's crosshairs. As a writer, where the hell am I supposed to sell from?
Buy my book from wherever pisses you off the least! ( #EchoSight is *real* good!)
If you like paranormal detectives, horror, & offbeat fantasy, check it out!
#books #💙📚 #📚🪐 #🩸📚 #🌈📚
#EchoSight just a bunch of neurodivergent shapeshifters fighting demons.
Enaka is literally incapable of developing physical scars because Tunori (phoenixes) have such strong healing abilities. The type of things they can't fix are bodily trauma enough to quickly kill them, regrowing limbs, & some genetic conditions.
#oc #ocart #ocquestion #<3oc #EchoSight
And hey! If you, too, like funny shit with actual heartfelt, real-world reflections snuck in between great fight scenes, check out #EchoSight on #Itch-io! Let me be the written-word James Gunn you didn't know you were looking for.
#💙📚 #🌃📚 #🌈📚 #🪐📚
#QueerPrompts #WritingCommunity
In #EchoSight, every third chapter is a period of Enaka's past leading up to the present, giving context and world information where it would otherwise be awkward in the main action. It shows why Enaka is the way they are, as well as aides the pacing of the novel.
An excerpt from chapter 1, the Senka Problem; or, Please just let me do my job. Blood never clings to phoenix feathers. Symbolic, I guess, though mostly just convenient for me at the time. The guy at my feet was super dead. The feather quills of my cloak dragged on the concrete, so I held its hem close as I crouched beside the body. Raindrops hissed as each one pelted the exposed skin on my face and hands. In the bleak, stormy night, my halo did basically nothing that the bright harbor lights didn't. "Fucking great," said the big man standing over me.
The cover of my novel, Echo Sight, showing the non-binary main character hovering above an underground lake reflecting their memories while a blue and green-eyed dragon lurks behind them. The bubbles super-imposed on the cover read: adult main character, wiseass funny narrator, disability and mental health rep, over 400 pages, dragons, bird people, and spirits, oh my! There was only one bed. Near-future tech world. Magical realism. Fungal monsters. Shapeshifters. Themes of justice, environmentalism, intersectionalism. LGBTQA plus, found family.
A very loose sketch of Enaka with feathers sprouting out of their skin. They are red-faced with embarrassment, their hair everywhere, while the background implies being smitten with all the sparkles and floating colors.
A dark-haired man commanding ocean waves with the movements of his hands. His expression is stern in concentration. He wears a pair of large earrings and a necklace vial containing liquid within. His black formal shirt is soaked through, and underneath him is the words "Echo Sight," the title of the novel he's from.
#EchoSight is a book enjoyed as both a stand-alone & as the beginning of its pentology: when a routine monster hunt goes awry, shapeshifting, disabled game warden-esque hunter Enaka is on a tight schedule to save a city against xeno-fungi w/ an archmage that could ruin their life...or save it. #📚💙
July world builders prompt list. This is a post for Day 8: a fact about your world's sun.
#JulyWorldbuilders #TaintedFaculties #EchoSight #WritingPrompts
(Make-up) Day 8: A fact about your world's sun.
Aivel is a K-Type main sequence star with four orbiting planets, two of which are within the CHZ: Kareden, where the story happens, & Delest, which is mostly a mystery to Karedenians.
July world builders prompt list. Today is Day 9: myths or legends about your sun.
#JulyWorldbuilders #TaintedFaculties #EchoSight #WritingPrompts
Day 9: Myths/legends about the sun
Kasthan legend says that Aivel (the sun), was once born as a mortal in order to guide the world to peace.
The Lomai say she failed. Also that she lost a fistfight to the evil phoenix wizard, Nuvani.
I decided to do my own anti-prime sale on Itch-io: 60% off #EchoSight until the end of #Amazon #PrimeDay #sale, in the hopes of lowering the barrier for people to get it. Check out the reviews, y'all! If you like any mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and light horror, give it a shot!
#📚💙#🪐📚#🌈📚#⚡️📚
