Ren is also on Twitter and Facebook

The Chronicles of Aesirium is a 6-book science fiction/fantasy series, set in the Steampunk world of Aerthos. Though written for a Young Adult audience, the stories are enjoyed across a much broader audience of young and old alike.

The stories revolve around Rom, an eleven year old girl who discovers that not only is she a Reaper – an angel of death – but that her very existence and destiny are inextricably tangled in the history and future of the community she calls home. Will she accept the burden placed on her shoulders? Will she be able to take the power of life and death in her hands, and do so before it’s too late?

Reaper’s Return – Book 1:

What if Death wore a pretty black dress?

Everyone in Oldtown had heard talk of the Reapers. Even though nobody had seen one in years, everyone whispered the tales: flying from rooftop to rooftop, stealing the souls of the unwary, letting their undead beasts hunt through the streets for any member of the community too reckless or fearless to heed the nightly curfew … mysterious and terrifying, most feared to even mention them by name, lest they appear and gather your spirit away.

For 11-year-old Romany, her greatest fears were less about the mythological Reapers and more about surviving a miserable life inside of Oldtown’s solitary orphanage. Her stark white hair made her an obvious target for the bullies, and the cruel nickname of “Ratgirl” had followed her for years. But if Rom thought her troubles were behind her, being struck dead by a bolt of lightning would only open the door to an entire life of new ones.

First on the list? Finding out that she herself…is a Reaper.

Explore the world of Aerthos in the first book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “Reaper’s Return”.

The Morrow Stone – Book 2:

Dead was only the beginning.

The myths of Oldtown-Against-the-Wall were changing quickly. The Reapers were no longer just a bedtime story to keep easily frightened children in their beds at night, but something flesh and blood. For eleven-year old Orphan Romany, it was more than a rumor; it was her job.  With the patient training by Ian and Mulligan, however, she begins to learn more of what sort of challenges await her in her new role.

But when agents of Aesirium’s Queen come looking for Rom, it indicates a darker level of risk to Rom and her friends. What does the Queen want with her? And will she stop at nothing to get her?

The adventures of Rom, the young angel of death, continue in the second book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “The Morrow Stone.”

The City of the Dead – Book 3:

All knowledge started somewhere else.

Following the appearance of an entirely new and horrifying breed of corrupted being, Rom decides that she needs answers. Under the council of an old associate, she returns from her two year search for information about the Queen to seek help from her old friends Kari and Cousins. Together, they decide to seek out answers outside of Oldtown, which leads them far past the Wild and into the mysterious City of the Dead.

What answers await them there? Or will they only uncover more questions?

The adventures of Rom, the young angel of death, continue in the third book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “The City of the Dead”.

Reaper’s Flight – Book 4:

Even Death needs her friends.

Kari, Cousins and Favo race to find Rom, while Rom awakens in darkness to find an unexpected horror. Their two paths lead them both back to Aesirium, where a confrontation has been brewing since Rom’s awakening as a Sheharid Is’iin. Even as she struggles to accept the mantle of responsibility of a Reaper, Rom finds there are greater terrors yet awaiting her.

When they at last confront the Queen, will any of them survive?

The adventures of Rom, the young angel of death, continue in the fourth book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “Reaper’s Flight”.

Into the Blink – Book 5:

Where does the world go when you close your eyes?

Cousins never gave up on Rom, even after she vanished in a powerful explosion that seemed to leave a crack in the sky. He and Kari struggle to come to terms with her absence when a new mystery appears involving the Machines, and they leave Oldtown in search of answers that may resolve one of the great unsolved riddles of Oldtown’s history. Not be outdone, Favo manages to find himself in a precarious situation when old habits prove to die very hard.

Meanwhile, Rom’s own path may lead her on a previously unimagined series of travels, but only once she comes to understand where she is and how to get out.

The adventures of Rom, the young angel of death, continue in the fifth book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “Into the Blink.”

The Crook and the Blade – Book 6:

Death may be lied to; but in the end she will always know the truth.

Kari and Cousins struggle to survive the Machine War, and they learn how the histories of the Machines and the people of Aesirium and Oldtown are hopelessly intertwined. Deception within the city of Aesirium may prove sufficient to bring the city down, and Rom returns just in time to face off against the evil which has threatened both cities for centuries.

The adventures of Rom, the young angel of death, come to a powerful conclusion in the sixth and final book of the Chronicles of Aesirium, the YA Steampunk Fantasy “The Crook and the Blade.”

The six books of the Chronicles of Aesirium are finally available in both ebook and paperback versions at the following websites:

Amazon (Paperback / Kindle)

Barnes and Noble (Paperback / Nook)

Smashwords (all ebook formats)

When developing the Aerthian history, one of the facets I was specifically exploring was the concept of perceived history; the idea of how the facts of the past are mutable, depending on so many factors: education, motivation of the classes within a society, tradition, mythology and the evolution of perspective. In a relatively short period of time, even our own modern and presumably enlightened culture has been prone to forgetting the lessons of the past, or at least guilty of remembering events though a heavy bias filter – and this even with such access to instantaneous sources of information. Imagine an ongoing society without that – one which relies heavily on oral tradition, an agrarian-based civilization where casual study is a luxury afforded only the elite?

Add into that mix a divergent technological formula – one founded on a conscientious principle of personal responsibility – where, emotionally, the individual is tied irrevocably to the energy they require and their (for lack of a better term) global footprint? Being a long-time fan of the ‘retro tech’ so prevalent in the so-called Steampunk sub genre, I decided to incorporate something of the look and feel of a subtle application of steam-tech, but only to infuse it in small doses into the book’s environment.

Along with the steampunk element, I added what the people of Aerthos refer to as “art”, a sort of magical governance which possesses a musical component. Much like in the Tolkien books wherein the old elven magicks incorporated music into their magic craft, in the world of Aerthos, all art-workings generate an almost inaudible musical by-product. This resonance is a sort of fingerprint which any form of elemental manipulation generates, but the ability to perceive and understand that music has been all but lost to the generations who have turned from it.

Above all the distinctive elements present in Aerthos, one of the most dominant is the relationship of life and death. In this world, when a soul has left its ‘mortal coil’, it passes into another realm referred to simply as the world of the spirit or world of spirits. In this place, the soul rests from its travels and prepares for the next steps in its immortal journey, wherever that may be. But the transition from physical to spirit is not an easy one. Many souls get lost along the way, some become distracted, and others simply do not wish to move along.

Into this potential for stagnation, the universe has provided a new form of life: the Sheharid Is’iin. These “Shepherds” or “Reapers” resemble the humans of Aerthos, but are gifted with long life and other nascent abilities which help them perform their responsibilities of ushering those wayward spirits fully beyond their physical lives and urging them onward. These Reapers are able to tap into the residual energies of this land of spirits, giving them the power to – when needed – more directly engage the most stubborn souls. All Reapers begin their lives as essentially human, a process which instills in them the requisite empathy for their responsibilities, as well as an understanding for the world upon which they must do their work; until they reach the moment of their own death (either by natural causes or otherwise) and are transformed into one of the Sheharid Is’iin, and their bodies are marked by the appearance of one or more mystic gems which are the embodiment of their calling and power.

Central to the books in the “Aerthos Trilogy” is the grand city of Aesirium, the majestic and superficially immaculate metropolis built at the top of cliffs which plunge dramatically into the ocean. Surrounding the city on the remaining sides is a tremendous Wall, built to protect the citizens of Aesirium from the wild creatures that live to the west. Hundreds of years before the start of “The Morrow Stone”, a great civil war has divided the people of Aesirium between the ideals of science and art. One of the primary results of this war was that the losing side – those who followed Art above all else – have been exiled to the land beyond the great Wall. They live there still, their buildings huddling between the Wall and the expansive agricultural fields once tended by impressive Machines. The Machines have gone, but the people of “Oldtown” now tend the fields themselves, caught between the necessities of subsistence, the impenetrable Wall, and the fears of the unknown Wildlands to the west.

It is here, their history all but lost under the sweat of their brow, that our story begins. It is into this exiled town of the faithful that a new child arrives; an unusual girl with shock-white hair, called Romany.

And those who have remembered the old prophecies, and who have watched the skies for her arrival, mark her arrival with great interest.

Rom begins the series as an eleven-year-old orphan girl, with shock-white hair and dark blue eyes. She is raised in the only orphanage present in Oldtown-Against-the-Wall, a large facility run by the Matrons who teach an adherence to the traditional faith in old gods no longer shared by the majority of the townspeople. The old statues that fill the orphanage mirror the general degree of belief in these old gods – faded, worn and lacking in detail – and this appreciation and respect for traditions is imprinted upon Rom in more than one way. She is impetuous, brash and rebellious, and very fond of embracing her enthusiastic reluctance to think ahead of any given situation – “looking before you leap” is more true of Rom than one might imagine, and in more than one manner. But accompanying this capriciousness is a general love of life and a dreaminess that makes her a great joy to write and read about. To me, she represents the irrepressible joy and undeniable optimism of youth; the very elements that often seem to be the first to go as we grow up, and the elements we most long for in our old age.

Rom’s best friend is another orphan by the name of Hikari. Hikari – Kari to her friends – is a young girl gifted with the innate comprehension of science. Even at her young age, she astounds the most educated professors of Oldtown’s colleges with her elemental understanding of steam, the ‘path of elements’, and, even, art itself. She is also Rom’s conscience to a certain degree, and helps ground her friend’s blatant lack of planning with at least a small amount of urging to pause and figure things out.

The third of the young characters in the books is Ballis Furthore, a slightly older young lad with vast connections on the streets of Oldtown. Initially understanding that people were more likely to trust a person with familial connections, Ballis would assure his would-be clients that he would have a cousin take care of this request or that on their behalf. In time, he appeared to have so many “cousins” that the term itself became his more commonly-associated pseudonym. “Cousins” crosses paths with Rom and Kari while in the middle of a particularly troublesome assignment: the delivery of a mysterious and possibly dangerous item; one which draws all three of them into a mystery that can be traced back to the origins of Oldtown itself.

Goya Parva is one of the oldest living people in Oldtown, and she maintains an apothecary near the collegiate district of Oldtown-Against-the-Wall. She also keeps watch over an impressive collection of artifacts from the ancient days of the people of Aerthos, as well as the written histories and prophecies of their civilization. Unlike most of the people of Oldtown, Goya remembers the days when the Sheharid Is’iin were well-known and worked alongside them; and she has watched patiently for their return.

Favo Carr is the disreputable leader of one of the few criminal organizations existing in Oldtown. He had run afoul of the law on more than one occasion, and is despised by the ruling council: although never convicted of any crime, he is generally assumed to either be responsible for much of the underworld activities which occur in Oldtown or responsible for the guilty parties themselves. With Molla, his beautiful but deadly second-in-command, he uses his vast network of thugs and villains to establish a focused but fearsome power that yet manages to keep its hand in the pockets of the towns’ law-abiding populace.

Ren Cummins – Eclipse

In writing the Aerthos books, the influence of music has been tremendous. From using a broad canvas of soundtracks while I write (Danny Elfman, Yoko Kanno, Bear McCreary, Hans Zimmer, David Arnold, Murray Gold, Joe Hisaishi and others) as well as my general sense of music, personally, I can feel music floating in between the words and paragraphs of nearly every page. Were there, perhaps, an extra four or five hours to every day, I’d be interested in writing an entire soundtrack to the books myself. There are specific scenes that I can’t read without hearing the music almost palpably in my skin – I did what I could to infuse that sensibility into the stories themselves, adding music as a layer of the magic/art employed by the characters themselves.

For me, music transcends simple communication, possessing something elemental and magical; so it wasn’t that far of a leap to make a more literal connection.

subterranean remix