Warriors Of Virtue: Epic YA Fantasy Series: November 2016

Height: 6' 6" (198 cm)

Build: skin and bones

Weight: indeterminate — wizards can change their weight and size at will

Eyes: pale, blue-grey, dotted with unusually small black pupils

Hair: silver-white cut to mid tight, long beard and mustache

Age: In 5999A Ardanian's believe him to be at least 200 years old. This author can tell you, he is much older.

Other distinguishing features: Elven ears; long, colour-changing nails; aquiline nose

Parents: Classified

Lovers: Classified

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual — all wizards are.

Companion: Wise Owl, Artemis

Staff: Silver, topped with a phoenix spreading his wings and a blue stone.

Favourite Pastry: Cinnamon Rolls

Occupation: 5999A - tutor hired by the Royal Family of Ardan

Hobbies: Reading, flying, and experimenting.
Dominant Elements: Water and Air.
Weakness: Overthinks things, then when something happens he acts impulsively. Tends to believe he knows best all the time. Pride. He cannot see the faults of people once he loves and trusts them. Incapable of letting things go. Lauraliee Lumijer (she is the daughter he never had).

Cornelian grew up in an Overworldlian orphanage. He was found wrapped in a scarf stitched with his name to identify him. He became Cornelian the Great when he stole Dragon Lord Malachite's Blood Ruby with a simple switching spell, rendering him powerless long enough for Warriors of Virtue to defeat him in The Great Battle.

When he was seven years old he was training with a group of wizards. He was able to perform the Curio Spell on his first try.

His past is classified. To be revealed throughout the series.

He is wise, kind, neat, and fastidious. He has a great sense of humor. He is also not afraid to get his hands dirty and is a capable warrior.

"Failure is naught but Success waiting to happen." ~ Cornelian the Great

I write fantasy because in Grade 8 I read George Orwell's Animal Farm.

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Have you read the book? If you haven't I highly recommend you do. On the surface it is a highly entertaining story about farm animals who decide they had enough of their human masters. They get rid of them and work the farm themselves. The last paragraph in the book gave me chills when I read it; brilliant!

If the reader digs deeper, the book is social commentary (satire) on Russian Revolution of 1917 and the birth of Stalin's Communism. My teacher explained how at the time Orwell was writing the novel Soviet Union and UK were war-time allies, and Stalin was held in high esteem; therefore, Orwell disguised his story as a fantasy to make his disgust with the Russian Revolution more palatable to his audience.

Before this moment, I believed that all fantasy was make-believe, but after, I realized the medium can be used to explore sensitive opinions and topics without openly offending anyone. Imagine how ridiculous a world leader would look if he admitted he saw himself as a fantasy pig? Can you see this conversation:

Stalin: Orwell, you are going to Siberia!

Orwell: Why sir?

Stalin: You created malicious negative propaganda about my regime!

Orwell: Sir?

Stalin: Animal Farm! It's about me and my friends!!!

Orwell:... No, Sir. It is about a pig named Napoleon and these farm animals...

I, as an author, do not wish to cause offence to anyone, but I do have opinions and ideas that are controversial and that I feel I need to express and explore. By cloaking them in fantasy, I feel safe in not holding back and not worrying about being politically correct.

I write YA fantasy, because I do not want to dwell on the gross and disturbing in my book, but rather on a way of getting past such horrors. I do not know about you as a reader, but I do not need a step-by-step description of the sexual act, murder, dismemberment, torture, rape... to understand the point of the story. Such description's are necessary when that is what the story is about; I'm still disturbed by Andrić's description of the Ottoman torturer putting a pike through a live man in his Nobel winning novel The Bridge on the Drina, but that novel was a commentary on the cruelty of the regime, so I understand the purpose of the scene. I find "adult" fantasy books often include disturbing, overly graphic descriptions for the "realism" or the "shock" factor when they are completely unnecessary to the plot or the momentum of the story.

I'm not saying that YA books do not have disturbing content. The difference is that the authors do not "show" everything!

Warriors of Virtue Epic YA Fantasy Series is a way for me to work through the issues and stereotypes that have come up in my life; a way to organize the chaos in my mind and answer some deep questions. I work very hard to make sure that the series stays rated PG13, even though there are rather many disturbing questions and serious issues that flow throughout the story, such as:

1. Is war a problem or a solution?

2. What is evil?

3. How to deal with bullying and image bashing?

4. What does it mean to be beautiful?

5. How to take charge when you are put in charge, but do not wish to be in charge?

6. What is justice for rape victims?

7. The illusion of a stable government?

8. What is the meaning of life? Why are we on this earth?

9. The importance of education?

10. The importance of family?

11. The importance of love?

12. Racism?

13. Slavery?

14. Revenge?

15. Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts?

16. Loss of innocence. Is ignorance bliss?

17. What to do when your good intentions lead to disaster?

...

Reading these questions it's hard to believe that my book is a fairytale comedy, or that it's written for children 12+.

That is the beauty of YA Fantasy; the freedom to say everything, without saying anything.

Mili Fay, an award winning artist, trained as a classical animator at Sheridan College, but when computer animation took over the field, she decided that she loved drawing more than animating. In November of 2011 she created Mili Fay Art determined to support the world one artwork at a time. Today, she passionately creates imaginative artwork and stories, always graced with a humorous modern twist.

Currently, Mili is working on an epic YA fantasy series, Warriors of Virtue, about a reluctant princess, Lauraliee Lumijer, who grows into a queen as she defends Ardan from dragon people (people that change into dragons) and a hermit dragon prince, Diamond Pendragon, who is forced to rejoin Ardanian society and reevaluate his convictions.