The Universe
The World of the Aeonians
Seven core ideas carry the world of the Chronicles. Whoever knows them reads the books differently: not as a battle of good against evil, but as a long practice of recognition.
The Thin Places
The world of the Chronicles is not equally dense everywhere. There are points where the here and the beyond touch one another, so-called thin places or thresholds. They lie on a fine net of lines running through the land. At them, whoever crosses over is accompanied, so that no one walks the last road alone. Ribbeck im Havelland is one of these places.
Light and Its Absence
In this world there is no evil as a power and no prince of darkness. There is light and the absence of light, an emptiness that wants nothing and plans nothing. An absence cannot be fought; it can only be filled. The familiar good-versus-evil scheme falls away, and in its place stands a different question: which way a consciousness turns.
From Every Undoing Grows New Form
The world is neither chance nor plan, but a process: a single consciousness seeking to know itself. What acts against this ground is not punished, it fails by its own nature, patiently, often across spans longer than a human life. And without exception: from every undoing grows new form. Chaos is no enemy of order, it is its raw material.
The Grace of Mortality
In the Chronicles, mortality is no defect but a distinction. Because the days are numbered, they have weight; whoever has all the time in the world has, strictly speaking, none. The immortal beings of the series envy humans precisely what humans fear most. Hence the title of the saga: The Immortality of Mortality.
The Lake and the Sea
A soul in this world is a drop of the one sea, falling in order to experience what the sea cannot: being alone. Between complete separation and complete union lies a third, the lake: a being-together in which many are held without any of them going out. There a soul loses its fear of the sea, and what its lives have begun ripens on, like a pear picked too early and laid in straw. Two sentences hold it: The lake takes the fear out of the sea. The lake is the kindness of the sea.
What an Aeonian Is
Aeonians are ancient beings outside time and death: no heroes, no gods. They cast no shadow and appear to each as what they can bear to see. Because they cannot die, they have never quite learned to live. Among them counts neither power nor age, but self-knowledge alone, the only currency of this world.
What Remains
Above the whole series stands one question that no book answers, because it is not built for answering: what remains, when you lose what you love and cannot go yourself? It is the quiet heart of the Chronicles, and every story is an attempt to live it rather than solve it.
Questions for the World
What are the Chronicles of the Aeonian?
The Chronicles of the Aeonian are a fictional universe by David Vaupel. At its heart is the series »The Immortality of Mortality«, in which Menelaus, a being who cannot die, tells a chronicler his long life. The world is set in real places in Brandenburg, above all Ribbeck im Havelland.
What is an Aeonian?
An Aeonian is an ancient, immortal being that stands outside time and death. Aeonians are no heroes and no gods, they cannot die and for that very reason have never quite learned to live. What counts among them is not power or age, but self-knowledge.
What are »thresholds« and »thin places«?
Thin places or thresholds are points where the world becomes permeable and the here and the beyond touch. In the Chronicles they lie along a fine net of lines through the land. Ribbeck im Havelland is one of these places.
Is this a world of good against evil?
No. The Chronicles know no darkness as an enemy. There is only the absence of light, an emptiness one does not fight but fills. The guiding thought is: from every undoing grows new form.
Where can I get to know the world of the Aeonians?
It begins with the novel »The Awakening« (Book I), followed by »The Long Night« (Book II); »The Light Transfigured« (Book III) and »The Starfall« (Book IV) are announced. The free game demo »The Aeonians« can be played right in the browser, and whoever has questions for the world can also speak directly with Menelaus.
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