Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster
@liviajelliot.com
Literary speculative fiction author, fusing political theory, psychological depth, and philosophical horror. I write for readers who read to solve.
https://liviajelliot.com/links/
https://liviajelliot.com/links/
Pinned
A philosophical fantasy of Thucydidean politics, eldritch beings, and psychological horror woven into fractured timelines.
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
Flatlands. Sheer speculation on unknown dimensions, and written by none other than a Square. This is an old book, published in 1884, and it does not fit neatly into modern-day publishing categories.
It is also a social critique of Victorian Society (1/3)
It is also a social critique of Victorian Society (1/3)
November 29, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Flatlands. Sheer speculation on unknown dimensions, and written by none other than a Square. This is an old book, published in 1884, and it does not fit neatly into modern-day publishing categories.
It is also a social critique of Victorian Society (1/3)
It is also a social critique of Victorian Society (1/3)
The alchemists in my series, Records of The Orders, diverge from traditional eldritch portrayals.
They are not reckless forces or ancient tentacled horrors, and they weren't born before humanity.
So what are they? A thread👇🏻 (1/6)
They are not reckless forces or ancient tentacled horrors, and they weren't born before humanity.
So what are they? A thread👇🏻 (1/6)
November 27, 2025 at 6:45 PM
The alchemists in my series, Records of The Orders, diverge from traditional eldritch portrayals.
They are not reckless forces or ancient tentacled horrors, and they weren't born before humanity.
So what are they? A thread👇🏻 (1/6)
They are not reckless forces or ancient tentacled horrors, and they weren't born before humanity.
So what are they? A thread👇🏻 (1/6)
Borges could change the entire mood of a scene with *one* adjective.
Not a dramatic one, but an unexpected one.
➡️"The *unanimous* night."
➡️"An evening that was *near, yet infinite*."
➡️"A mirror that *troubled* a hallway."
Why do these work? A thread 👇🏻 (1/4)
Not a dramatic one, but an unexpected one.
➡️"The *unanimous* night."
➡️"An evening that was *near, yet infinite*."
➡️"A mirror that *troubled* a hallway."
Why do these work? A thread 👇🏻 (1/4)
November 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Borges could change the entire mood of a scene with *one* adjective.
Not a dramatic one, but an unexpected one.
➡️"The *unanimous* night."
➡️"An evening that was *near, yet infinite*."
➡️"A mirror that *troubled* a hallway."
Why do these work? A thread 👇🏻 (1/4)
Not a dramatic one, but an unexpected one.
➡️"The *unanimous* night."
➡️"An evening that was *near, yet infinite*."
➡️"A mirror that *troubled* a hallway."
Why do these work? A thread 👇🏻 (1/4)
THE OMENS OF WAR
A story shaped by ideas.
Political theory, psychological depth, minds in conflict.
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy
A story shaped by ideas.
Political theory, psychological depth, minds in conflict.
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy
November 23, 2025 at 6:45 PM
THE OMENS OF WAR
A story shaped by ideas.
Political theory, psychological depth, minds in conflict.
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy
A story shaped by ideas.
Political theory, psychological depth, minds in conflict.
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy
It's time to write a podcast episode, which means my browser has at least ~20 tabs of papers, definitions, author interviews, and more 😅
What can I say? I love doing it.
What can I say? I love doing it.
November 21, 2025 at 8:07 PM
It's time to write a podcast episode, which means my browser has at least ~20 tabs of papers, definitions, author interviews, and more 😅
What can I say? I love doing it.
What can I say? I love doing it.
I read plenty of non-fiction, especially on comparative politics and the causes of war. Thucydides' analysis of why states choose conflict helped shape the political foundations of The Omens of War.
Let me walk you through it 👇🏻 (1/6)
Let me walk you through it 👇🏻 (1/6)
November 20, 2025 at 7:04 PM
I read plenty of non-fiction, especially on comparative politics and the causes of war. Thucydides' analysis of why states choose conflict helped shape the political foundations of The Omens of War.
Let me walk you through it 👇🏻 (1/6)
Let me walk you through it 👇🏻 (1/6)
Two characters walk down the same hallway.
The father—the Centurion—sees only the nation's former glory, now defaced.
The son—the strategist—feels the weight of that history on his shoulders.
The hallway hasn't changed, but the storyteller has.
Let's unpack why. 👇🏻 (1/3)
The father—the Centurion—sees only the nation's former glory, now defaced.
The son—the strategist—feels the weight of that history on his shoulders.
The hallway hasn't changed, but the storyteller has.
Let's unpack why. 👇🏻 (1/3)
November 19, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Two characters walk down the same hallway.
The father—the Centurion—sees only the nation's former glory, now defaced.
The son—the strategist—feels the weight of that history on his shoulders.
The hallway hasn't changed, but the storyteller has.
Let's unpack why. 👇🏻 (1/3)
The father—the Centurion—sees only the nation's former glory, now defaced.
The son—the strategist—feels the weight of that history on his shoulders.
The hallway hasn't changed, but the storyteller has.
Let's unpack why. 👇🏻 (1/3)
Readers are discovering exactly what this novel is, and what it isn't. 👇🏻
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy #WeirdLit
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy #WeirdLit
November 17, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Readers are discovering exactly what this novel is, and what it isn't. 👇🏻
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy #WeirdLit
#SpeculativeFiction #WeirdFiction #PhilosophicalFantasy #WeirdLit
In case you missed it yesterday, here's the updated framing for THE OMENS OF WAR 👇🏻
I've been thinking a lot about how to talk about my upcoming book, THE OMENS OF WAR. It's an unusual story: philosophical, psychological, political, nonlinear—and it took me a while to find language that truly reflects what it is.
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
November 16, 2025 at 8:20 PM
In case you missed it yesterday, here's the updated framing for THE OMENS OF WAR 👇🏻
I've been thinking a lot about how to talk about my upcoming book, THE OMENS OF WAR. It's an unusual story: philosophical, psychological, political, nonlinear—and it took me a while to find language that truly reflects what it is.
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
November 15, 2025 at 11:09 PM
I've been thinking a lot about how to talk about my upcoming book, THE OMENS OF WAR. It's an unusual story: philosophical, psychological, political, nonlinear—and it took me a while to find language that truly reflects what it is.
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
Here's what's changing 👇🏻 (1/6)
A philosophical fantasy of Thucydidean politics, eldritch beings, and psychological horror woven into fractured timelines.
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
November 15, 2025 at 7:35 AM
A philosophical fantasy of Thucydidean politics, eldritch beings, and psychological horror woven into fractured timelines.
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
⚔️THE OMENS OF WAR: A LITERARY SPECULATIVE FANTASY ⚔️
Coming February 2026! 🔗👇🏻
What happens when the world isn't real and you can't escape?
New podcast episode just dropped. #PhilipKDick #Ubik, and the most asked question ever: What is Ubik?
Listen: youtu.be/B1Of8JYOJ-o
New podcast episode just dropped. #PhilipKDick #Ubik, and the most asked question ever: What is Ubik?
Listen: youtu.be/B1Of8JYOJ-o
November 12, 2025 at 12:30 PM
What happens when the world isn't real and you can't escape?
New podcast episode just dropped. #PhilipKDick #Ubik, and the most asked question ever: What is Ubik?
Listen: youtu.be/B1Of8JYOJ-o
New podcast episode just dropped. #PhilipKDick #Ubik, and the most asked question ever: What is Ubik?
Listen: youtu.be/B1Of8JYOJ-o
Embassytown is both a meditation on language and an act of linguistic imagination itself. A novel that demonstrates what words can build, and what they can destroy.
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Livia J. Elliot's review of Embassytown
5/5: An idea-driven, frame narrative about the importance of language to every culture, and what language can do for our ability to think and express those thoughts. Embassytown is a quiet story, full...
www.goodreads.com
November 11, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Embassytown is both a meditation on language and an act of linguistic imagination itself. A novel that demonstrates what words can build, and what they can destroy.
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
📢PREORDERS ARE OPEN! 📢
My cosmic horror fantasy—a world of war, collapse, and impossible horrors—is now available for preorder on Amazon. Check my profile.
Thank you to everyone who's followed this journey from the prequel's release until now 🙌🏻
My cosmic horror fantasy—a world of war, collapse, and impossible horrors—is now available for preorder on Amazon. Check my profile.
Thank you to everyone who's followed this journey from the prequel's release until now 🙌🏻
November 10, 2025 at 7:30 PM
📢PREORDERS ARE OPEN! 📢
My cosmic horror fantasy—a world of war, collapse, and impossible horrors—is now available for preorder on Amazon. Check my profile.
Thank you to everyone who's followed this journey from the prequel's release until now 🙌🏻
My cosmic horror fantasy—a world of war, collapse, and impossible horrors—is now available for preorder on Amazon. Check my profile.
Thank you to everyone who's followed this journey from the prequel's release until now 🙌🏻
Embassytown.
a man in a black turtleneck stands in front of a window with perfection written on the bottom right
ALT: a man in a black turtleneck stands in front of a window with perfection written on the bottom right
media.tenor.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Embassytown.
This was just a great Guest Post on my Substack!
Check it out, Bert-Oliver gives some very practical guidelines on how to leverage the power of conlang.
Check it out, Bert-Oliver gives some very practical guidelines on how to leverage the power of conlang.
My Galacticide universe includes 4 full conlangs, built to reflect the cultures and psychologies of the species that speak them.
Read my guest post for Livia J. Elliot’s blog here: substack.com/home/post/p-167794668
#ScienceFiction #Worldbuilding #Linguistics #Conlang #WritingProcess #Galacticide
Read my guest post for Livia J. Elliot’s blog here: substack.com/home/post/p-167794668
#ScienceFiction #Worldbuilding #Linguistics #Conlang #WritingProcess #Galacticide
As Alien As Possible ~ World-building Series #3
Exploring how conlangs (constructed languages) can be used as narrative tools to give depth to fictional societies, and reveal how reveal how characters of that world think, relate, and dream.
substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:19 PM
This was just a great Guest Post on my Substack!
Check it out, Bert-Oliver gives some very practical guidelines on how to leverage the power of conlang.
Check it out, Bert-Oliver gives some very practical guidelines on how to leverage the power of conlang.
It is yet another of these days in which I need a mildly impossible-to-get political history book, and am outright shocked by its price.
Why?
Why?
November 7, 2025 at 8:29 PM
It is yet another of these days in which I need a mildly impossible-to-get political history book, and am outright shocked by its price.
Why?
Why?
It feels strange to ask, but this book means everything to me 🙏🏻
DANCE WITH ME is eligible for a nomination for #IndieInkAwards and your vote could help it find its way in. I would be endlessly grateful for your support.
Details in the reply 🙌🏻
DANCE WITH ME is eligible for a nomination for #IndieInkAwards and your vote could help it find its way in. I would be endlessly grateful for your support.
Details in the reply 🙌🏻
November 7, 2025 at 7:15 PM
It feels strange to ask, but this book means everything to me 🙏🏻
DANCE WITH ME is eligible for a nomination for #IndieInkAwards and your vote could help it find its way in. I would be endlessly grateful for your support.
Details in the reply 🙌🏻
DANCE WITH ME is eligible for a nomination for #IndieInkAwards and your vote could help it find its way in. I would be endlessly grateful for your support.
Details in the reply 🙌🏻
The eARC has been unleashed.
To those who waited in the dark: it is yours. Check your emails 👀
Thank you. For your faith, your curiosity, and your courage to enter this world before all others.
To those who waited in the dark: it is yours. Check your emails 👀
Thank you. For your faith, your curiosity, and your courage to enter this world before all others.
November 4, 2025 at 7:03 PM
The eARC has been unleashed.
To those who waited in the dark: it is yours. Check your emails 👀
Thank you. For your faith, your curiosity, and your courage to enter this world before all others.
To those who waited in the dark: it is yours. Check your emails 👀
Thank you. For your faith, your curiosity, and your courage to enter this world before all others.
Editing another Guests Talk for my podcast, and this will be the last episode of Season 2. I can't believe BOOKS UNDONE is going strong into its 3rd year!
November 1, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Editing another Guests Talk for my podcast, and this will be the last episode of Season 2. I can't believe BOOKS UNDONE is going strong into its 3rd year!
Two days, and the doors to The Towers of the Orders of Alchemists will open. The eARC will be unleashed. The omens of war are near.
This is the last call. Sign up for the eARC! 🔗👇🏻
This is the last call. Sign up for the eARC! 🔗👇🏻
November 1, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Two days, and the doors to The Towers of the Orders of Alchemists will open. The eARC will be unleashed. The omens of war are near.
This is the last call. Sign up for the eARC! 🔗👇🏻
This is the last call. Sign up for the eARC! 🔗👇🏻
Cyberpunk, a genre with enormous gravity, one that all but subsumed the high-minded optimism of the sci-fi that preceded it.
This week we have an extra essay from guest writer @henryneilsen.bsky.social
Don't miss it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/slow-down-...
This week we have an extra essay from guest writer @henryneilsen.bsky.social
Don't miss it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/slow-down-...
October 31, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Cyberpunk, a genre with enormous gravity, one that all but subsumed the high-minded optimism of the sci-fi that preceded it.
This week we have an extra essay from guest writer @henryneilsen.bsky.social
Don't miss it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/slow-down-...
This week we have an extra essay from guest writer @henryneilsen.bsky.social
Don't miss it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/slow-down-...
I just finished THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and it was super fun! Out of my usual preferences, but ultimately an absurdist comedy about the meaning of life and the pointlessness of the universe.
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Livia J. Elliot's review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
5/5: I read the edition with only the first book, not the omnibus. The review pertains only to Hitch-Hiker's, and not the subsequent books in the trilogy of five. An absurdist comedy about the meanin...
www.goodreads.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:32 AM
I just finished THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and it was super fun! Out of my usual preferences, but ultimately an absurdist comedy about the meaning of life and the pointlessness of the universe.
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
This week's essay covers discusses how the order in which a character thinks about the world can be used to introduce a secondary world.
And yes, it's a paragraph from my upcoming book THE OMENS OF WAR.
Read it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/worldbuild...
And yes, it's a paragraph from my upcoming book THE OMENS OF WAR.
Read it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/worldbuild...
October 29, 2025 at 12:45 PM
This week's essay covers discusses how the order in which a character thinks about the world can be used to introduce a secondary world.
And yes, it's a paragraph from my upcoming book THE OMENS OF WAR.
Read it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/worldbuild...
And yes, it's a paragraph from my upcoming book THE OMENS OF WAR.
Read it: liviajelliot.substack.com/p/worldbuild...
Read a book’s blurb and label the story for what it is, not for who wrote it.
October 28, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Read a book’s blurb and label the story for what it is, not for who wrote it.