From ‘Lord of the Rings’ on, jewelry has long played a role in fantasy fiction
Looking for a summer read? Former JCK managing editor Richard Dalglish has written a fantasy novel, and it, naturally, includes jewelry.
“The good guys all have amnesia, but they also have rings with the same insignia, so they know they’re connected somehow,” Dalglish says. “All those years at JCK must have injected jewelry into my DNA.”
Dalglish’s fantasy novel Day of the Fastle—“like Game of Thrones, only shorter,” he says—is now available from Double Dragon Publishing in e-book format. A trade paperback edition will be available later this year.
As to why fantasy novels typically involve jewelry—from Lord of the Rings onward—Dalglish says that’s because, historically, gold, silver, and gems were imbued with magical properties.
“Consider an octagonal rock that’s the hardest natural substance on earth and that when faceted sparkles and flares with color, and you can’t stop looking at it,” he says. “Even today that’s magical. In earlier times it must have seemed literally magical.”
(Photo courtesy of Double Dragon Publishing)
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