Gods and Wizards

I have completed a number of fantasy novels that share the same world, most of them part of one series or another. In my notes, I had long referred to this simply as the D-World, after the first books set there, the four that make up the Donzalo’s Destiny epic. However, I decided—if only for marketing purposes—there should be an overall name for these books.

This is nothing new for writers, to be sure. We have, of course, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, though he didn’t invent the label. Cabell lumped many of his books together as the Biography of Don Manuel. Some didn’t quite fit neatly! There is the Eternal Champion of Moorcock. Probably Norton’s Witch World books fit too—they are often referred to as a series. There is certainly no continuing story, nor even characters, but they do share a universe.

There were plenty enough possibilities but I decided on Gods and Wizards. Or, more fully, Gods and Wizards: the Annals of Izan. I might simply say ‘a Gods and Wizards novel’ somewhere on my covers and in my blurbs.

‘Izan’ refers to the entire infiniverse in which the tales are set, not to the actual world of Donzalo, the D-World. That we name Exura (more on that below) but of course those who dwell there call it ‘Earth.’ The name Izan was applied by the wizard Hurasu soon after he arrived in the new world that was to be his home for the next four millennia.

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It may be noted that the ‘Donzalo world,’ where much of my fantasy fiction is set, is part of the Infiniverse—underlying everything is the idea of infinite universes, at least in potential. The stories do stray into some of those other worlds on occasion, in particularly the homes of the various pantheons of gods known in the D-World. This is one reason why I chose an overall name for the infiniverse—for Being. Magic, as it exists in that world, depends entirely on the ability to manipulate access to those other universes.

In theory, what with infinite universes, completely different systems of magic could and would exist elsewhere. Everything could and would exist elsewhere!

It may also be noted that there are no ‘poles’ in this infiniverse, no Order versus Chaos as one finds in Moorcock, Zelazny, et al. Nor is there a duality of Good versus Evil in the sense it is usual understood. There is existence and non-existence; infinite being ever filling the infinite void. Others have used the term infiniverse, so it is not one I would employ as an overall name for my fantasy fiction. Thus, Izan.

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The sorcerer Hurasu, who has made an appearance in more than one of my novels, hails from Atlantis, originally. Atlantis, in my mythos, is another world or universe, from which an individual occasionally finds his way to our own Earth. This is a one way gate; there is no going back to Atlantis from here.

Not directly. In theory, one might find a roundabout route through other worlds. Our world does not communicate much with others; the ways between them and ours are few and difficult of passage. That is why magic does not work well here—we can not readily access those other worlds. Eventually, Hurasu did find a way of leaving our world and taking residence in Exura, the ‘D-World’ where most of my fantasies are set.

Therefor, Hurasu is not any ‘race’ or ethnic type we know here. My descriptions of him suggest he is vaguely ‘Asian’ in appearance, perhaps not so unlike an individual from Central Asia where Turkic and Iranian cultures mingle. This allows a later Atlantean, Xahun, who follows him to our Earth, to fit in readily enough in Russia.

Neither of these names are the ones they used in Atlantis. Xahun is an Atlantean word meaning ‘lord.’ Hurasu came by his name in the early days of his life in the D-World; it meant something like ‘crow’ in the language of the people among whom he lived on the island of Nagi.

When Hurasu created a language—Zikem—for the people of his valley realm, he chose to base much of its vocabulary on the Etruscan he had learned while sojourning in our own world. He felt it would be unwise to use his native Atlantean tongue, as that might draw attention from powerful sorcerers there.

To be sure, words from other languages were incorporated, and the syntax is not that of Etruscan at all. Some of the language he learned when he first arrived in his new home, on the island of Nagi, shows up in a word here and there. The word he used to refer to the Infiniverse, to infinite being, Izan, is from that language. So is his own chosen name, and that of the island itself.

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Exura is the Nagi name for the D-World, meaning literally ‘new world.’ It comes to mean more the D-World universe than the physical world. Hurasu and other wizards do use this Nagian name for their world.

Ker is ‘Earth’ in Zikem. It is what Valley and Tesran folk use when speaking of their world in an everyday sense, but use the Exura name when referring to the D-World in the sense of a distinct universe among the infinite worlds.

And all universes—infinite being—is Izan. Somewhere in infinite Izan I have set my Annals.

Stephen Brooke