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Pulling In All The Elements She Loved
Inner Space Aliens follows a tetrachromatic fifteen-year-old who decodes a message in the auroras about a hidden shapeshifting army beneath Iceland that is set to destroy the Earth, leaving him to lead an alliance to stop them. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My mom, Ieda, loved Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and visited the cave in Iceland that sparked his inspiration for that story. She loved the character of the Icelandic guide and wanted to write a story of what became of him. The teenagers in the trilogy began their adventure when the retired guide, their grandfather, went missing, and they went to the cave to search for him. Their portal adventure took them to another planet, where they met the old Norse gods. Ieda blended Norse mythology with the science fiction adventure, pulling in all the elements she loved. As for my contribution, I am obsessed with the northern lights and loved the opportunity to incorporate them into the story as a language.
What drew you to Icelandic folklore and the Huldufólk in particular?
My mom was Icelandic, and her heritage traces back to the settlement days there in 879. All of my early writing was inspired by Icelandic folklore, and even now, every book has a bit of Icelandic culture in it. The mythology around the Huldufólk has always been one of my favorites.
The idea of inheriting power, resentment, and responsibility runs throughout the book. Why were these important themes for you to explore?
Since my mother wrote the original manuscript and I came to it later, providing editing and rewrites, I can’t say for certain why these themes were important to her. I think inheriting power, and both the resentment and responsibility that come with it, are experiences many people can identify with on some level. Whether that power is an athletic skill or mathematical prowess, there is often pressure to pursue the gift. I think perhaps she was drawn to exploring the ways those forces shape our lives, especially as teenagers. I felt those themes added real depth to the story, and I’m glad I could help bring her vision to readers.
The ending suggests the conflict isn’t over. What can readers expect in the future?
The next book continues the adventure of the teenage trio, and is set entirely in Iceland and features the Huldufólkprominently. There’s a new threat, and a new portal, with lots of exciting action. The final installment highlights Kalli as the hero, forced to step up when he discovers a shocking secret about his past. Again working with his friends, Erik and Finna, the three rescue Earth from certain destruction.
A note from the author:
Hey there, friends! I wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes story about how this series came to be. Back in 2016, my amazing mom, Íeda Jónasdóttir Herman, published The Silver Arrow. She always dreamed it would be the start of an adventure series, and she even started writing Book 2, Inner Space Aliens, right after the first one came out. Mom had big plans: Erik would be the hero in the second book, and Kalli would step into the spotlight for the third, War of the Griddons. She was so excited, she even had all three covers designed in 2018! By 2019, Mom finished the first draft of Book 2 and had a summary ready for Book 3. We spent hours chatting about the story; what was awesome, what needed tweaking, and ideas for cool new twists. Sadly, she passed away in October 2019 before she could finish the series, and she left me all her stories-in-progress. It took me a long time to be able to read her words again, and even longer to start working on her edits. In our stories, Finna’s weapon is the Silver Arrow, and Erik’s is his javelin. But I wanted Erik to have a special ability—something that would match Finna’s mind-connection with Orealis. That’s how Erik’s unique gift of tetrachromacy and the secret aurora language came to life! Mom and I had talked about it, but she never got to finish that part, so I took it from our notes and made it real. I also added a few things that help connect this book to the final one, War of the Griddons. For that last story, all I had was Mom’s summary and our talks, so I had to write it from scratch. I hope I’ve honored her vision and brought her stories to life in a way she would love. I can’t wait for you to join me and Mom in these next two adventures!
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With Finna’s arrows, Kalli’s rallying voice, and a runaway sculptor who knows more than he should, Erik faces shapeshifters, subterranean armies, and the maddeningly pretty green lights of an angry sky. The Meridian Loki built is still singing — and it’s tuning the whole planet into a weapon. If they don’t stop it, Earth will fall.
Inner Space Aliens
Inner Space Aliens picks up with real momentum, taking Erik, Finna, and Kalli out of the afterglow of their earlier victory and dropping them into something murkier, stranger, and more subterranean. This time, the threat isn’t just a villain bent on conquest, but a whole hidden system of corruption under Iceland itself: Fjólsvin inherits Loki’s plans, the Morphytes dig toward geological catastrophe, and Erik, with his tetrachromacy and his ability to read Óðin’s aurora messages, is pushed into the role of leader whether he wants it or not. Along the way, the book braids together volcanic tremors, Huldufólk politics, Reme’s grief-haunted testimony about the attack on his village, and a cavern climax where Erik’s athletic discipline finally becomes destiny when he uses an arrow like a javelin and blinds Fjólsvin in the middle eye.
What I liked most is that the book understands Erik’s fear and doesn’t cheapen it. He isn’t brave in that polished, effortless way that can make young fantasy heroes feel prepackaged. He’s frightened, uncertain, analytical, often overwhelmed, and the novel lets that matter. His scenes have a nice inward pressure to them, especially when he’s trying to decode patterns in the aurora or convince himself he’s capable of carrying what Óðin expects of him. I also found the mythology unexpectedly affecting. The material around the Huldufólk, the fractured glyphics, and Queen Borghildur’s grave understanding of what Loki exploited gave the story a sadder undertow than I was expecting. Reme, too, adds a bruised human ache to the novel. His memories of seeing impossibly tall invaders with a third eye could have been handled as mere plot fuel, but they land with genuine trauma behind them, and that gives the book moral weight.
The writing itself is earnest, vivid, and sometimes wonderfully odd in ways I found charming. When it leans into landscape and atmosphere, it can be quite evocative. The northern lights as a coded language, the glittering blue caverns, the steaming grotesquerie of Fjólsvin’s lair, and the waterfall reveal near the end all have a bright storybook intensity that suits the novel’s mythic ambitions. The prose is a little overinsistent, and the dialogue can state emotions rather than letting them appear subtly. Still, I kept feeling the force of the imagination behind it. The book’s ideas are more interesting than they first appear to be. Beneath the adventure, there’s a recurring concern with inheritance, diluted power, betrayal born from resentment, and the burden of being chosen before you’re ready. I was especially drawn to the notion that lost grandeur and envy make the younger Huldufólk vulnerable to Loki’s promises. That gives the conflict a tragic contour rather than reducing it to simple good-versus-evil machinery.
Inner Space Aliens is imaginative and surprisingly tender beneath all its lava tubes and cosmic peril. It’s the kind of sequel that expands its world by making it weirder and sadder, while also giving Erik a satisfying turn at the center. I finished it feeling that the book’s heart is one of its strongest qualities, especially once the surviving characters come back together and the victory is shaded by the warning that the struggle underneath Earth is not over. I’d recommend it most to readers who enjoy YA fantasy with Nordic myth, hidden worlds, earnest heroism, and a taste for adventure stories where emotion and lore are allowed to sit side by side.
Pages: 230 | ASIN : B0GM8X2TSF
