The Oni

The story behind the book…

This tale came to my mind from a dream. There was a scorpion that seemed to have special powers. As it happens to many dreams, I forgot most of it after waking up, but the character remained in my head, which became the center to develop the environment around it.

In the beginning, this was supposed to be a tale, as up to that moment, it was my most usual type of writing. However, it ended up being a short novel or novelette. I thought to turn the scorpion into a god or write a story narrated by him within a scorpion’s community, but it didn’t come to light that way.

The best option was to locate it in a polytheist society, in a time when believing in magic was more common than nowadays, in modern times. Hence, I moved the character to Japan during the first half of the Twentieth Century. My research provided me possible names, and for writing, I placed my mind in that era.

This story was written in a small notebook, and when the tale was around the third part of what resulted when it was finished, I lost it while moving to a new place. Luckily for me, it reappeared two years later, while searching for something else. I was left with the desire to conclude the story. So, when it was back on my hands, I reread it, and my writing flowed as if the story had been building in my subconscious all that time. I finished it in a short time, and said to myself: “this has to be the first one to be published.”

The Oni was originally intended to come out together with an anthology of my tales, but, like in those musical bands when the members decide to launch a solo career, The Oni stepped forward and opened the way for its successors.

The Oni is available also in Spanish as “El Oni,” in both paperback and Kindle formats.

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