Changeling !!BETTER!!
As it was, my only clues about the kind of book it would be came from the title and Yuko Shimizu's intriguing cover art. I'm fluent in folklore. I know what changelings are. As I started reading, I began to think this would be a fantasy novel in the style of John Crowley's Little, Big, where everything is fairies but no one talks about the fairies and the fairies are long loping metaphors for generations' worth of relationships with enchantment.
Changeling
In this game, the player characters are half-human, half-fairy changelings. Cut off from Arcadia, not quite of this Earth, these changelings are torn between their human and fae natures. If the two natures aren't balanced, the results may be disastrous.
The Dreaming, and the spark of inspiration changelings need to live, are fading. Faced with an increasingly cold and hostile world, and the ravages of Banality, they must do whatever they can to preserve both the Dreaming and themselves.
The Inanimae are wakening from their long slumber, the Twilight Trods are opening, and the Adhene are coming back. Worse, the Fomorian are stirring in their imprisonment, their dark servants wander the Dreaming freely for the first time since they were cast down, and the changelings are the only guardians of light left. Endless Winter is coming, the Elder Dark is rising...
1620s, auf, oph (modern form from 1630s; oafish is from 1610s), "a changeling; a foolish or otherwise defective child left by the fairies in place of another carried off," from a Scandinavian source such as Norwegian alfr "silly person," in Old Norse "elf" (see elf). Hence, "a misbegotten, deformed idiot, a simpleton" (17c.). Until recently, some dictionaries still gave the plural as oaves.
KIRK: Spock. Spock? SPOCK: Fascinating, Captain. The knowledge. The depth. KIRK: What does it mean, we are Nomad? SPOCK: It was, it was damaged in deep space. Undoubtedly, the meteorcollision. Its memory banks were destroyed, or most of them. Itwandered without purpose, and then it met the other. The other was analien probe of great power. Somehow they merged,repaired each other, became one. KIRK: Then it isn't Nomad? SPOCK: Not the Nomad we lost from Earth. It took from the other a newdirective to replace its own. The other was originally programmed tosecure and sterilise soil samples from other planets, probably as aprelude to colonisation. KIRK: A changeling. SPOCK: I beg your pardon? KIRK: An ancient Earth legend, Mister Spock. A changeling was a fairychild that was left in place of a human baby. The changeling assumedthe identity of the human child. So, it is to sterilise, and forsterilise read kill. SPOCK And it has the power and sophistication to do it. KIRK: Yes, it's powerful, it's sophisticated, but it's not infallible.It's space-happy. It thinks I'm its mother. SPOCK: And that is the only thing that has saved us until now. Yes. (They leave. Nomad flies through the forcefield. The two guards firetheir phasers at it but it's screens are back up. Nomad zaps them intooblivion.)
With ever-changing appearances, changelings reside in many societies undetected. Each changeling can supernaturally adopt any face they like. For some changelings, a new face is only a disguise. For other changelings, a new face may reveal an aspect of their soul.
The Psy/Changeling-world is a sci-fi romance series written by author Nalini Singh. Set on an alternate earth in the near future, there are three races: humans, changelings who can shapeshift into animals, and the psychic Psy. The Psy have been the predominant global leader for the past century, since the dawn of Silence in 1979. Their arrogance is starting to make their power slip... 041b061a72