Medianical Age: Drifting through the tides of time
About the novel: Introduction
M.A. Álvarez
As the author of the novel, I would like to share some of its characteristics, by way of introduction:
The title Medianical Age is a play on words: medieval, age and mechanical. This is because the story takes place in the Middle Ages and in a mechanized distant future, so it is a fantasy and science fiction novel.
Medianical Age is my first novel with illustrations of my authorship. Although I have already made illustrations for the covers of my books, as in my novel El Rostro en el Laúd, this is the first novel with interior illustrations too, in addition to the illustration of the characters on the cover.
The novel has the following structure: It is divided into five acts and each act into five chapters, where the events unfold like the pieces of a puzzle that come together at the end. In addition, in medieval times the verb tense used is the past and in the future it is narrated in the present tense. This is intended to make readers live the temporal jumps.
Medianical Age characters illustration
About the characters
The characters, in general, are of the antihero category and, in some cases, there is a change in the traditional role of male and female characters established in classic tales.
In addition, there are some characters based on minority groups. At present, there is still a heritage in these collectives related to the hardships they went through in the past, for example:
– Nogurd is related to madness, a concept that in the Middle Ages was negatively associated with witchcraft, possession or a pact with the devil. Stereotypes about madness persist today. Expressions such as “You’re crazy!” have lost their original meaning, but the term is still considered negative. In any context, the words crazy or insanity tend to be negative, and this can affect people with mental illness and their families, as they may be wrongly assumed to be dangerous, violent or weak, which can lead to discrimination in various social contexts.
– Peccoth, a redhead character: Only about 1 percent of the world’s population is a redhead. Historically, red-haired people have attracted attention. Unfortunately, people often tend to reject or fear what is “different” from the common, which has led to animosity, prejudice and superstitions about them over time. During the Middle Ages, redheads were associated with witchcraft and they even linked this hair color with fire and hell. Many of the historical myths about redheads have been debunked, but, today, some stigmas prevail and that can make redheads a target for discrimination, harassment and even television stereotypes have been created. A curious fact is that, actually, World Redhead Day is celebrated to fight prejudice.
– Jimmy Joe is a cyborg from the future who lived in the Old West when he was fully human. He is the son of an American Indian woman and a gunman. Turned outlaw, through him we see some aspects of this period of the nineteenth century. One of the most popularized chapters by Hollywood cinema was the intense struggle that, throughout that century, the Indigenous peoples of North America waged against the conquest and occupation of their lands by colonists. However, in the western genre, a distorted view of American Indians was shown, presenting them as savage enemies, although the reality was different. In fact, over time, cinematic representations reformulated this vision, showing a more complex perspective of life in the Old West. Today, American Indian communities are facing difficulties and numerous associations are trying to preserve their cultural legacy.