Epic fantasy valley
![epic fantasy valley epic fantasy valley](https://severbronny.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/dragon-coming-of-age-epic-fantasy-book-series-fury-of-a-rising-dragon-1.jpg)
Your central character is a boy who becomes a vessel for a god, and his purpose in life is basically to avenge a massacre that his people endured many years ago. SHAPIRO: (Laughter) So as you mentioned, the crow is the avatar of a vengeful god in this book. You know, so you really have to be careful not to piss off crows. And then they pass that down to, like, their children and their children's children. And I think the idea that they could - you know, they recognize a face, and they remember you. You know, you'll notice that they are the avatar of a vengeful god in the book. ROANHORSE: You know, I think the grudge-holding. SHAPIRO: Was there one detail that you learned as you studied these birds to write the book that really blew your mind? Corvids in general are just fascinating birds, just super-intelligent. And so I guess just having crows around me, like, really inspired me to write about them. And I feel like they're talking to me and, you know, sort of checking in on me. They'll come, and they'll land on my roof. I'm sort of up on a mountain, and they - I see them occasionally going through the valley. And I'll tell you, I have a family of crows that hangs out around my house. ROANHORSE: Oh, you know, I kind of love crows. And yet the creature that you've built the entire story around is a common bird that many of us see every single day. I mean, there are water striders big enough to pull a barge.
![epic fantasy valley epic fantasy valley](https://cutewallpaper.org/23/absolutely-epic-fantasy-wallpaper/209522055.jpg)
SHAPIRO: In this book, you've imagined all kinds of fantastical creatures. So it's sort of a mix of all of those and then my own imagination. ROANHORSE: Well, I was sort of inspired by places like Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde from the ancestral Puebloans and then also the Incans, of course - the city of Machu Picchu and the bridge system that the Incans created, the wonderful woven bridges that still exist to this day.
![epic fantasy valley epic fantasy valley](http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/valley.jpg)
How much of the design of this fantasy city is based on actual cities that ancient people in the Americas built? There are meeting places way up in the sky connected by these suspension bridges, and then there are also parts of the city that are kind of deep in chasms carved into cliff faces. SHAPIRO: So the capital city where a lot of the action in this book takes place is called Tova. But actually, they were incredibly sophisticated, particularly in their astronomy and city planning and architecture. ROANHORSE: A lot of Americans, you know, probably still think of pre-Columbian societies as sort of primitive or savage, unfortunately. It's the first of a trilogy, and it's called "Black Sun." So this is just something I've always wanted to read I haven't really seen a lot of, so I just decided to write it myself. And I always wondered what it would be like to read an epic fantasy inspired by the rich cultures of the Americas, pre-Columbian Americas. REBECCA ROANHORSE: I'm a huge epic fantasy fan, and all my life, I think I've been reading epic fantasies inspired by European settings. The bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse grew up reading science fiction and fantasy novels that didn't often reflect her own experience and history as a Native American woman.