Description
<p><strong><em>Have you ever awoken from a vivid dream and wondered which side of waking was real?</em></strong></p><p>Burt Higgins' retirement is not going well. His children have grown, and his wife has gone off to earn a late-life degree, leaving him alone in his sprawling suburban home. With too much time on his hands, he broods on the state of the world, obsessively following the worst of cable news and the Internet. Increasingly angry at the state of affairs, he nurtures a fantasy that a dark lord from another realm has foisted these problems on humankind. If only he could transport to that world, he'd confront the demon and use the magic found there to defeat the beast and end despair forever.</p><p>On a particularly bad news day, while housebound in the midst of a snowstorm, he retreats to his study to shut out the world and immerse himself in his books. When, on a whim, he lights a candle purchased in an obscure Prague curiosity shop, a magical guide appears and offers to take him on whatever quest he chooses. When he asks to become a hero in a fantasy realm, he discovers a more complex world than he expected, and battling evil with magic turns out to be far from his greatest challenge.</p><p><strong>EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS</strong> a specualtive fantasy adventure sure not just to entertain you, but to make you consider your life, your dreams, your goals. [DRM-Free]</p><h2><strong>Books by David Litwack:</strong></h2><ul><li><em>Along the Watchtower</em></li><li><em>The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky</em></li><li><em>The Time That's Given</em></li><li><em>The Children of Darkness</em> (The Seekers - Book 1)</li><li><em>The Stuff of Stars</em> (The Seekers - Book 2)</li><li><em>The Light of Reason</em> (The Seekers - Book 3)</li></ul><h2><strong>More Great Fantasy Fiction from Evolved Publishing:</strong></h2><ul><li><em>The Awakening of David Rose</em> (David Rose #1) by Daryl Rothman</li><li><em>Shadow Swarm</em> by D. Robert Pease</li><li><em>Kingdom in Chains</em> by J.W. Zulauf</li><li>The "Grims' Truth" Series by Isu Yin & Fae Yang</li></ul><p> </p>
Story Behind The Book
King James I was a great witch hunter, and considered himself an expert on the subject. So why would Shakespeare write a play about witches setting up his ancestor, so to speak? At face value, it doesn't seem to make sense. However, a closer look at Holinshed gives us an alternative: "the common opinion was, that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destiny, or else some nymphs or fairies imbued with knowledge of prophesy."
Well, that is something altogether different! The word "weird" has its origins in the Saxon word wyrd meaning fate, or personal destiny. Some even attribute the first modern use of the word "weird" to Shakespeare. If you look at the Weird Sisters from the Scandinavian point of view, the word wyrd translates to Urd, one of the Norns of mythology who controlled the destiny of mankind. Presumably that would be more palatable than agents of the devil.
If we were to accept that the Witches were actually the Norns, their presence makes more sense to me. Like the Greek Fates, their will was thought to be unalterable. The Norns are said to appear at the bedside of a newborn and shape the child’s future. Hence they appear several times in my novel; their heavy guiding hand is never entirely far away. Although modern scholars tend to believe that Banquo and his heirs never really existed, if their genealogy is good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for me!
