Te Kōrero Ahi Kā – Darian Smith

Te Kōrero Ahi Kā – Darian Smith

Te Kōrero Ahi Kā

By Darian Smith

I’ve been thrilled to be able to participate in the creation of Te Korero Ahi Ka, and am very proud to show this collection of excellent New Zealand speculative fiction to anyone who might be interested in seeing what our country has to offer in the realms of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

There’s something unique about the voice of this section of the world and I love being part of it.

The story I contributed was a reprint which had won a competition SpecFicNZ in conjunction with www.wilywriters.com a few years ago. It’s one I’m particularly proud of and blends a multi-hued pasifika-style setting with the concept of magic as its own entity.  In this story, magic is an almost living thing – the star cloak –  that seeks the right person to wield it. The main character is a man who once wore the star cloak and controlled its magic but lost it. I wanted to explore the concept of power corrupting and that many of our best lessons in life are learned from loss and failure.

(As a little bonus “Easter Egg” some of the character names in the story have relevant meanings in the pasifika languages they’re borrowed from.)

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