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It’s all part of the flow.
Beware the Golden Tigers follows the Protectors as they uncover histories spanning centuries and realities, challenging the Golden Tigers’ conviction that the Hunger Witches must remain enemies. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I wanted both sides to have a point. Right or wrong – none of that matters. A person’s point of view is backed by reasons they find perfectly valid. Stealing from human history of waging wars or even killing so-called witches in the name of religion, I used the Bhaskari to reflect those ideals while having the Soma to very naturally fight back in force. There are wars going on right now and all sides think they’re right. As long as that’s the case, people cannot come together. The Bhaskari and Soma are victims of that same rigidity. And that melded well with the Protectors having a witch group member, forcing Ishan and Bombastus to act accordingly in reverence to their faith. Any time a reader tries Ishan and Bombastus for a heinous act, I want them to consider how we humans did, and do, the very same thing. Regularly.
How did you decide which parts of Torvinia’s history to reveal before readers could see their consequences in the present?
It’s all part of the flow. When I wrote “Protectors Of The Light Crown,” I vaguely touched upon that reality’s Middle Ages, knowing I wanted to dip back into it with “Beware The Golden Tigers.” And I’m using various bridges to connect both eras. Easy was part of the team in modern times in the first book, but in book two, he’s been transported to medieval days. Oath is the leader of the team in the present, but he’s the king’s cabinet member Peneth Ralston in the past. I include a number of links every time I jump timelines. There are many clues as to what the reader should look for next. In book one, Harlan the Arm and Roguesheart seemed to have a familiar relationship. Book two efforts to explain why. And so on. I’ve had people tell me how much they enjoyed re-reading the books in order to uncover certain Easter Eggs that pointed them down hardened paths. Torvinia’s history reveals, as with all the others, not only move the story along, but they also reward the reader. One person told me she liked how the more she reads, the more she finds out. That’s by design. And I’m ecstatic that she noticed.
What drew you to make Dexter’s meditation with Nadaniel a source of change in how he judges his enemies?
You write what you know, and that’s part of my own personal spiritual journey. As a student of theology, esoterics and science, I studied for years on how I could prove to myself that they were all saying the same things using different words. In trying to level myself up, I decided I would become a better person by taking the words of Jesus Christ to heart and love everyone. I couldn’t do it. I failed. So, I thought deeply about the process. It seemed to me that if I could stop judging others, I could readily accept them. If I could accept them, I could understand them. If I could understand them, I could learn to like them. And ultimately love them. With that, Dexter is mirroring my own personal journey.
How did you approach Ishan’s centuries of experience while allowing the Protectors to question the beliefs he formed from it?
I had to accept that, as Ishan developed spiritually, albeit via questionable means, he also had to gain particular insights. As the story goes on, Ishan is shown to have endured the hateful ways of the Lavandra as a means of following the path of his religion. Then, he lived through the unabashed hedonism of Vati Carnelia. When he became Citri, he and Bombastus were deeply duty-bound. But as a consequence of advancement toward the lighter traits of their color-coded progression, there must have been minute sparks of divinity sprinkling before their feet. As dead-set stubborn as both Ishan and Bombastus were when it came to their faith, they also couldn’t deny the bits of evidence flashing right before their eyes. I like to think that, during those times, both of them could listen to morsels of reason. Perhaps that came from being golden Citri, as “reason” is seemingly nonexistent to the red Lavandra and orange Vati.
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From an alternate universe, witch hunters of the Bhaskari priesthood arrive, not as legend but as forces of reckoning. Their presence brings a conflict that threatens to unravel everything Aeril’s heroes fought to protect.
In an earlier timeline, Faden the Liar faces execution for a long trail of crimes, his fate sealed by King Greith of House Frays. But when a divine mercy is offered unexpectedly, the kingdom of Torvinia will be forever changed.
In Aeril, peace is fleeting and sacrifice is inevitable in both eras.
Beware The Golden Tigers
Beware the Golden Tigers by Aspry Jones is the second novel in the Light Crown series, and it operates on an unusually broad speculative canvas. The story combines superhero fiction, medieval fantasy, science fiction, spiritual mythology, time travel, and the multiverse without treating those elements as separate attractions. They belong to one history. The modern-day Protectors, including Dexter Park, or Sleepyhead, share the narrative with figures from ancient Torvinia, alternate realities, distant planets, and earlier generations of heroes. At the center of the novel is a conflict involving Ishan, the Golden Tiger, whose centuries-old understanding of the Hunger Witches collides with the Protectors’ growing conviction that inherited enmity shouldn’t determine how people are judged. That conflict gives the book a strong moral center while still allowing it to function as an energetic superhero adventure filled with investigations, battles, hidden histories, strange powers, and personal revelations.
Jones builds the novel through accumulation. Chapters shift among time periods and characters, sometimes interrupting the immediate action to explain the origin of a person, culture, power, or historical conflict. The result is a world that feels governed by its own mythology. Medieval Torvinia and its kings, angels, monks, criminals, and political institutions eventually connect to the technologically advanced present, while stories involving the Five Stars, the Hunger Witches, Xu Fu, the Kunglun, Suni Mako, and other figures gradually reveal how much of the present has been shaped by misunderstood history. The novel also treats reincarnation, parallel realities, and spiritual advancement as structural parts of its universe. Because so many relationships and revelations cross centuries, the book rewards close attention to names, beliefs, and seemingly isolated stories. Its density is part of its identity, creating the sense that every character is living inside a history much larger than any single adventure.
I think the strongest element of the novel is its sustained interest in compassion, perspective, and the possibility of change. Dexter’s development is especially important. His meditation with Nadaniel begins as a practical attempt to gain control over himself, but it gradually reshapes the way he sees criminals, enemies, friends, and even alternate versions of himself. That outlook becomes increasingly significant as the Protectors confront people whose violence comes from inherited beliefs, trauma, or radically different versions of history. Early in the novel, Beeswing tells King Greith, “When you are drowning in your worst hour, the Creator’s love will turn it into your greatest gift,” a statement that anticipates the book’s repeated transformation of suffering into moral choice. Near the climax, Dexter reduces that philosophy to its clearest form when he tells Ishan, “Choose love. I swear it will work.” Scarlet’s changing relationship with her own destructive hands, Suni’s complicated family history, Faden’s spiritual journey, and Ishan’s struggle with centuries of conviction all develop the same question from different directions: whether identity is fixed by the past or shaped by what someone chooses to do with it.
Beware the Golden Tigers moves between elaborate exposition, rapid action, irreverent humor, comic-book spectacle, and unexpectedly reflective passages. Jones is comfortable placing a philosophical discussion beside a violent confrontation or following a piece of ancient history with casual modern dialogue, and that contrast gives the novel a distinct personality. The large cast and extensive mythology make the book feel closer to an ongoing superhero universe than a narrowly contained adventure, with individual chapters often expanding the meaning of events that appeared straightforward when first introduced. Beneath the costumes, magic, aliens, alternate worlds, and centuries of lore, however, the novel is primarily concerned with how people understand one another. Its heroes are tested as much by their assumptions as by their enemies, and its central conflicts gain weight from the realization that certainty itself can become dangerous. Beware the Golden Tigers is therefore both an expansive genre adventure and a story about learning to see another person’s history clearly enough to choose something better than repetition.
Pages: 309 | ASIN: B0HCJMGHR9
High Fantasy
Protectors of the Light Crown centers around a gamer whose life is forever changed when a character from his dreams manifests in real life. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I am operating on the concept that dreams are gateways into alternate realities. Whether or not that is seen as true or false in our human level of understanding doesn’t matter. In my novel, Protectors, Dexter Park initially struggles with the sudden strangeness of his own life after discovering that his dream experiences are indeed real ones, and not just figments of his sleeping imagination. When he accidentally yanks Tickle out of her own reality while asleep one night, it is only the beginning of a very wild ride.
How long did it take you to imagine, draft, and write the world your characters live in?
Using the “plotter” method, I outlined my characters and chapters in a very linear fashion. I’m so dedicated to the bullet-point process that Matt Posner of the School of Fiction podcast told me he’d never seen any other writer take it to such an extreme. I design my characters from their grandparents on down and tailor the story to their personal development. Once I’m sure of who and what I’m dealing with, I come up with general ideas for every chapter. Then, I fine-tune those chapters into detailed pieces and begin writing, starting with Chapter One, until I’m done and ready for rewrites and edits. That process took me ten years of stopping and starting as the rollercoaster of life got in the way. Book 2 won’t take nearly as long.
What do you think were some of the defining moments in Dexter’s development?
This is a story of superheroes in a story sprinkled with high fantasy. And superhero origins usually involved “daddy issues” or their dealing with losing parental figures, etc. Dexter is no different there, and a large part of his story arc involves deep insecurities from physical challenges and having to come to terms with having lost his mom and dad. When he joins The Protectors as a team of super-powered individuals pledged to take down an ancient evil, he’s its least effective member. I dedicated chapters specifically toward Dexter seeing himself in a better light.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
As I said, it took me ten years to write Protectors, but that won’t happen again. If Book Two takes more than five years, I’d be very surprised. I’m shooting for 3 years. I have other books in me, ready to go from paper to screen, but Book Two in this series trilogy is my baby. I’m presently working on that outline.
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Just hours after meeting, the duo find themselves locked in battle with a giant reptile, living on a spaceship, and joining a fledgling team of heroes pledged to take down a supernatural threat from their ancient past.
The road ahead is fraught with danger and uncertainty, but the new group of unlikely friends know that standing together will give them a fighting chance in an unwinnable war against the demonic Venomous Wretch.
Aspry Jones is an Emmy nominated, live broadcast television veteran. He is currently working on a memoir and the sequel to Protectors of the Light. Crown. He lives in North Carolina and loves chess, dogs, nature, meditation, YouTube, all kinds of music, and is deeply entrenched in esoteric spiritual practices.
Protectors of the Light Crown
Protectors of the Light Crown is a genre-bending epic that intertwines fantasy, sci-fi, and social commentary in a bold, breakneck narrative. It opens with the grim downfall of King Greith—a monarch twisted by greed and transformed into a monstrous tyrant—and pivots unexpectedly into the life of Dexter Park, a nerdy gamer from a gritty, gentrified future Earth. When a character from Dexter’s vivid dreams, the charmingly chaotic Tickle, manifests in real life, the story takes off into surreal territory, blending action, humor, and tenderness as the duo grapples with bizarre threats and mysterious origins.
The writing style explodes with color. It’s cinematic, dramatic, and cheeky all at once. There’s a refreshing rhythm to the prose—sentences punch, pause, and pirouette like a well-choreographed dance. Dialogue crackles with personality. Scenes shift from the thunderous chaos of palace sieges to the intimate awkwardness of a diner booth, yet the transitions never feel jarring. The world-building, especially in the fantasy sections, is deep and darkly lyrical. The political history of Teraligia felt eerily familiar, with its corrupt thrones and cash-fueled coups.
That said, it’s the characters that pulled me in and kept me flipping pages. Dexter, our reluctant hero, is hilarious. He’s awkward, tired, and deeply relatable. Tickle is a burst of madness and heart, bouncing between childlike wonder and sharp-edged warrior with wild unpredictability. Their interactions are oddball magic—equal parts sweet and strange. I found myself laughing, then worrying, then totally smitten. The story walks a fine line between absurd and profound, never quite tipping over either edge.
The sheer volume of ideas can be overwhelming at time. There’s political allegory, dream logic, high fantasy, gritty urban decay, gamer satire, and even romantic comedy—sometimes all in the same chapter. It’s wild, and it works more often than not, but it can leave your brain spinning if you’re not buckled in. Still, I admired the boldness. It felt like the author wrote without fear, without filter, and somehow, that courage paid off.
Protectors of the Light Crown is a weird and wild ride—and I enjoyed it. It’s perfect for readers who want their fantasy laced with sarcasm, their heroes a little broken, and their stories to color outside the lines. Gamers, geeks, dreamers, and anyone who’s ever felt a little lost or out of place—this one’s for you.
Pages: 466 | ASIN : B0DNMM5K6K
