Born from the Waters by Aurora Seldon

[reviews_and_ramblings]

There were two reasons why I wanted to read this novella: first it’s from a new epubs, so new that they have only few titles available, and second since Aurora Seldon is a very active writer in the M/M community, but till now she has only published in Spanish. A lot of her fiction is free, and I was really interesting in have a taste of it, but Spanish was not one of the languages I was able to understand.

She tried her hand with English (meaning that someone else translated the story for her) with a fantasy novella, a retelling of the old fairy tale of the Little Mermaid. Thor is the love child of a Danish woman; no one knows who his father is, and his mother died when he was only a little child. Before dying, in an asylum, she was always telling him that he was different, that he was born from the waters. And Thor is well aware that his mother was not mad, that he is indeed different, since not only he has almost an ethereal androgynous beauty, but his own body is different, the skin, the hair, even the genitals.

To add difference to difference, Thor is also soon aware that he is attracted by boys; it’s strange, but his insecurity when he is only a teenager is not due by his homosexuality, but by his own awareness that he is not like the other boys; on an external eye, Thor instead is so beautiful and aloof that no one is harassing him, on the contrary, everyone, man or woman, wants to be the chosen one, the one to whom Thor will give himself.

But Thor’s fear of rejection is too big; he is unable to relate with other people, any small sign of rejection is seen like a big ostracism. Thor has to find his own way in the world, he is unable to live a normal life.

There are of course some faults in the story, more due to the translation than to the story itself. Sincerely, since I’m no a native English speaking, I didn’t find them so unsettling, but maybe for someone else they could be a distraction. The story has also a Young Adult/Coming of Age feeling: the narration starts when Thor is only a child and ends when he is an “adult”, but I think a barely one, probably 18 or so. Due to that, sex is a bit awkward, the awkwardness of who still doesn’t know what he is doing, and if you add to that the mutation in Thor’s body, well, you can understand that Thor is not exactly eager to share his body with someone else, I felt a little embarrassed myself.

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Comments

[pandorasvase.livejournal.com]

Sono intrigata.

Sono solo indecisa se prenderlo e basta oppure se indagare con te su alcuni aspetti della storia :P

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Cosa vuoi sapere? ;-)

[pandorasvase.livejournal.com]

*if you add to that the mutation in Thor’s body, well, you can understand that Thor is not exactly eager to share his body with someone else, I felt a little embarrassed myself.*

mi ha incuriosito questo, le mutazione e perchè lo troveresti imbarazzante.Mi fa pensare a qualcosa di più che il semplice mettere le pinne...

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

gli organi genitali di Thor sono come quelli di un pesce, ossia scompaiono dentro una membrana quando non è eccitato e praticamente Thor sembra senza "sesso". Ma quando compaiono, sono decisamente diversi nell'aspetto da quelli di un uomo, e l'autrice descrive abbastanza nel dettaglio questa diversità. Poi, come avrai capito dalla copertina, Thor incontra un sirenetto, che finalmente diventa il suo compagno... beh, sinceramente, non ho capito come fanno ad avere sesso quando il sirenetto ha la pinna, l'autrice dice solo "from behind"... però mi manca una parte anatomica essenziale... il didietro! Non sono esperta di pesci però...

[pandorasvase.livejournal.com]

LOL

misteri del fantasy :P magari la parte di pesce del sirenetto non è proprio quella di un pesce... vediamola così ;)

Comunque Born from the waters va nella mia lista di acquisti da fare!

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

probabilmente certe volte sono troppo "analitica" ;-)

[auroraseldon.livejournal.com]

Hi Elisa
Thanks a lot for read and review my story. It was a tale for an anthology called "Mermaids and tritons" and I wanted to use some of the aguaruna myths in the Peruvian jungle to "create" another race of water people.

I can read in English but I have too many difficults to write it properly, so the publisher has tu use a translator.

I am sorry that the translation has some faults :(

But I don't know if you like the story itself ;)

A friend of mine told me that it is nor "commercial" because of the location; but I wanted to write about the jungle of my country because it's magic and strange and I love it.


A big hug

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, I liked it and I also recommended it to the commenter above. As I said, I didn't find the translation a problem, maybe since the sentence construction is more similar to my way of writing English ;-)