L.A. Comic Con’s Artist Alley brings out very talented individuals. Among those individuals this year was self-published author J.R. Traas. J.R. Traas came out to promote his newest cyber-punk fantasy series, The Aelfraver Trilogy. I had the privilege of sitting down with him to talk about this epic adventure.
Interview with J.R. Traas
J.R. Traas is a self-published author with twenty books under his belt. The Rave is the first book in his newest series and was available to purchase at the convention. In fact, the series sparked so much interest, that he sold out of physical copies! That is not surprising, however. The premise of this series is incredibly interesting and very different from other stories within the fantasy genre.
“The series follows Alina. She is a 17-year-old monster hunter, but the twist is that she is a pacifist” Traas says. He went on to explain:
Alina’s story begins when her grandfather disappears under mysterious circumstances and leaves the school of monster hunters that he was running to her. All of the customers, all of the students disappear along with the grandfather of course, leaving her in the lurch.
As Alina’s story unfolds, she buys herself a one-way ticket to the floating capitol city of New El in what Traas calls “a last ditch gamble to go after this mysterious creature that has been wiping out the wealthy elite, leaving no witnesses.” Of course, with the twist of her being a pacifist, Alina will no doubt face incredibly difficult situations on her journey.
The inspiration behind the story comes from Traas’ love for all sorts of different types of stories. Traas says:
I was reading “The Witcher” at the time. I was watching “Full Metal Alchemist.” There were all these things just sort of, like, rolling around in my head. And so, as I was reading “The Witcher,” I was thinking, like monster hunters, that’s cool. I really enjoy the series. But what if I made it really difficult to be a monster hunter? Okay, monster hunter, but there’s this key weakness, you know. She doesn’t kill them. What would that look like? How would that work?
He goes on to say:
The magic system, it’s very much, it’s soft magic…there are definitely rules that govern it, but you don’t have to get too in the weeds with that. So, I feel like “Full Metal Alchemist” has a good version of that, where they’ve just got equivalent exchange.
You can find this all-new series with its “mish-mash of elemental magic and more psychedelic, dream walking magic” on Amazon.
Check out more convention coverage:
Zachary Levi touches on the importance of mental health at LA Comic Con
What you need to know before you head to Anime Pasadena 2021
