Meet Abba Ryan, Egyptian author of "War of Shadow" epic

CAIRO- 14 September 2017: A new fantasy novel inspired by the infamous “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings” was released by Egyptian author Omar Abdel Aziz named “War of Shadow: The Dark Throne.”

“War of Shadow: the Dark Throne” is a trilogy set in the fantasy world “Arkhalia”, a peaceful land that has been stripped from its defense.

Manipulated by the evil bliss, Lord Azarius deteriorated the conditions of the peaceful land. The sequence of events builds up to visualize the classic war between good and evil.

The novel serves as an escape from reality, allowing the reader to delve behind the pages and live through the characters.

“I have binge-watched epic fantasies such as “Harry Potter,” “Game of Thrones”, and “Lord of the Rings” that allows people into their own worlds, where people can find out different aspects of their personalities that they were not aware of,” author Omar Abdel Aziz, more commonly known as “Abba Ryan”, told Egypt Today.


Omar Abdelaziz, the author of "War Of Shadow

Deeply enriched by epic tales, Ryan’s interest triggered his imagination and fertilized his mind’s soil. Ultimately, his knowledge of literature allowed him to transform simple ideas into intriguing plots of worlds where epic wars and struggles are abundant, he illustrated.

Abdel Aziz said that he has long harbored a special interest in Egypt’s ancient civilization, with a history smeared with power struggles over a throne occurring within the ruling circles.

Epic fantasies usually pull off those “end of the world” touches. Speaking of “War of Shadow”, Abdel Aziz commented, “the science of Eschatology and the emergence of the signs of the Day of Resurrection [Qeyama] deeply influenced me while writing the first part.”

“The Islamic connotation of the resurrection, which entails the emergence of the major events that are meant to drastically affect the whole world, culminated eventually in the occurrence of the day of reckoning, which is basically the main plot of my debut that takes place around the end of the time in ‘Arkhalia’,” he added.

Lord Azarius then becomes a resemblance of darkness, an absolute tyrant whose goal is to destroy the whole planet.

The conflict-driven epic fantasy, “War of Shadow: The Dark Throne” is set during medieval times, and serves as the first part of the three-part trilogy.

One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the struggle over power in the kingdom between the king, who seeks to preserve his throne on the one hand, and the High Council of Mages, which seeks to establish justice in the kingdom on the other hand.

When asked about the depiction of the on-action warrior movements throughout the book, Abdel Aziz replied that the invocation of a range of feelings they are hit with, including fear and pain laced with determination and persistence boils down to my practice of MMA, or the Mixed Martial Arts for many years.

It took Abdel Aziz four complete years to complete the first part, which he started early 2012 and completed late in 2015. The first part came out in 2016, with the second part due to be released in 2019, and the final part in 2021.


War Of Shadow Map


Abba Ryan, the second and most favorable names of Abdel Aziz, actually has its own back story.

“By the end of writing my first part, I tried contacting several international publishing houses; however, being an Arab writer based in the Middle East with the name Omar had ill resonance, and my request was met with objections from American and British publishers and literary agents. So, I decided to go with my nickname ‘Abba Ryan’, as people in the West could easily remember a name like that. It also holds a meaning in the Arabic language as ‘the father of Ryan’ (his son)," Abdel Aziz explained.


War of shadow book cover

The book cover “resembles a human being who is ensnared by the Darkness. Essentially, seeds of good and evil are engraved into our souls, yet deciding which is to take over the other is the core of human existence," Abdel Aziz concluded.