History Literature / LabyrinthsOfEcho

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: All antropomorphic races of Echo are capable of cross-breeding to fertile offspring, making racial distinctions mostly a moot point.

** Humans originating on the Cherukhta continent and divided in 3 subspecies: mountain (thoughtful and harmonic), flatland (phlegmatic and passive) and seashore (active and full of temper) dwellers. Almost all humans who left Cherukhta for Khonkhona were seashore dwellers. The term "human" is synonymous with "anthropomorphic sentient" in the Kingdom of Echo and becoming progressively more widespread in the world, as most races consider the term a compliment and an acknowledgement of equality.

*** Skarkhls can be any beast, bird, plant or even mushroom. Some of them prefer the human form and spend almost their entire lives in human shape. Skarkhl descendants of large wild dog breeds excel at shapeshifting. They enjoy to marry humans, and about the half of denizens of the Echo kingdom are to some degree skarkhls. The denizens of the Shimara county are mainly fox skarkhls.

*** Khrebels, the "pure spirits". They never appear in human form, but freely speak any human language and wield powerful magic. Burivukh birds and the sentient stones of the Kholomi fortress are the best known khrebels, but they also occur as plants and beasts. The natives of Arvarokh island were shaped by the burivukh birds, worship them and believe that humans can reincarnate as burivukhs.[[spoiler: Their belief is true. Melamori later spends some time on Arvarokh and comes to Max's aid as a burivukh.]]

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Averted. Kröggels are nowhere near contemporary russian fantasy dwarves and come in two varieties:
** Flatland kröggels - caustic, cantankerous, quarrelsome gnomes. Masters of disguise and stealth, related to the krays.
** Mountain kröggels of the Kebla princedom, a social and amicable people. Kebla is unique in housing small kröggels and giant ekhls in the same cities. Cities of Kebla are among the most wondrous sights in the world of Echo.
* OurElvesAreBetter: Not better, but very different from fantasy standarts. During the ''A Bequest for Lonli-Lokli'' story, Shurf takes the time needed to drive from Echo to the backwater place where his inheritance awaits to drop an Infodump regarding various sentient species on Max. Said Infodump also contains a multiple level StealthPun nicely dispersed inside. The overall species name is кейифайи, keyifayi.[[spoiler: Closest russian word is кайф, meaning "flush" or "high".]] The foremost difference between elves, humans and krays is the formers' absence of binary logic. They do not clearly grasp concepts like good vs. evil, black vs. white or for that matter male vs. female. The last heavily influences their and their descendants' love lives to the dismay of non-elven populations.[[spoiler: Max is shocked to learn that King Gurig, being of elven descent, has a male and a female "favorite liaison".]]\\

** Upiates, Упиаты - the peaceful elves. They never left their homelands on the Uandook continent. Generally very passive, but nigh-allpowerful if sufficiently disturbed to take action. The population of the Kuman Khalifate is almost entirely composed of their descendants from short-lived marriages with humans.[[spoiler: Relaxation and being at peace are main effects of opiate derived drugs.]]
** Amfitamayas, Амфитамайи - the excited elves. Amfitamayas are inventors, travellers and conquerors. All elves on the Khonkhona continent who came with the conqueror Ul'viar the Faceless and all elves on the Cherukhta continent are amfitamayas.[[spoiler: Excitement and strong drive to action are main effects of amphetamines derived drugs.]]
** Elcidiayas, Элсидиайи - the invisible elves. They are absolutely immaterial and inhabit material items. Their proximity fills sentients with existential childlike happiness. After prolonged co-habitation elcidiayas may share their knowledge with other sentients, and True Magic users vastly benefit from it. Antiques' merchants mainly profit from searching for and selling of items inhabited by elcidiayas.[[spoiler: Hallucinations and expanded conciousness are main effects of hallucinogenic drugs, and the probably best known hallucinogenic is LSD, transliterated to ЛСД in russian.]]

** ''Forelock of the Land'' [[hottip:*: the english title is the literal translation of the russian title ''Чуб Земли'', but the pun on the russian "пуп земли", which means "omphalos", i.e. center / most important place of the world, is lost]]

** ''Crow on a Bridge'' [[hottip:*: among russian nursery rhymes, there is an endless one which goes: "Еду дальше, вижу мост, на мосту ворона сохнет. Взял ворону я за хвост, положил её под мост - пусть она помокнет. Еду дальше, вижу мост, под мостом ворона мокнет. Взял ворону я за хвост, положил её на мост - пусть она подсохнет." This rhyme mentions a crow being put endlessly on a bridge to dry or under a bridge to soak. The book deals with the founder of the aptly named Order of the Water Crow.]]

* OurElvesAreBetter: Not better, but very different from fantasy standarts. During the ''A Bequest for Lonli-Lokli'' story, Shurf takes the time needed to drive from Echo to the backwater place where his inheritance awaits to drop an Infodump regarding various sentient species on Max. Said Infodump also contains a multiple level StealthPun nicely dispersed inside. The overall species name is кейифайи, keyifayi.[[spoiler: Closest russian word is кайф, meaning "flush" or "high".]] The foremost difference between elves, humans and krays is the formers' absence of binary logic. They do not clearly grasp concepts like good vs. evil, black vs. white or for that matter male vs. female. The last heavily influences their and their descendants' love lives to the dismay of non-elven populations.[[spoiler: Max is shocked to learn that King Gurig, being of elven descent, has a male and a female "favorite liaison".]]

** The titular Green Waters' dweller feeds on souls of those entranced in his song. In it's limited sentience, it considers souls a worthy payment for the joy of witnessing the song.

** Two races of tangible elves originating on the Uanduk continent and invisible elves (at least the tangible ones claim that species to be elven).

** ''Forelock of the Land'' %% Translation needs confirmation from someone who actually knows what the title refers to

** ''Crow on a Bridge''

* BratsWithSlingshots: The Baboom slingshots are standard issue sidearms for police and non-magical criminals alike. Max finds them quite funny... until he sees them used in combat.

** The Plain Magic. Uses forces of the world. It is subdivided into Black and White Magic (Black Magic mainly affects material things, while White Magic affects minds and emotions) and graded by the amount of magical power used. Grades 1 to 5 are pretty harmless, while anything above that (the ultimate Plain Magic grade is 234, Loyso "rumored to" reach 235) is illegal under the Codex of Khrembrer, since the world is already over-drained. It's safe to use it far from the Heart of the World, but very few can do this.
*** BlackMagic: Isn't evil or even particularly destructive in this setting. Instead, it operates with material things, akin to {{alchemy}} and item-crafting. It's the White Magic (which operates with pure energies) that you have to keep an eye on.
** TheGift: The True Magic. Uses forces of the multiverse and thus considered beneficial to the given world. Only a handful of individuals across the multiverse can use it, though among the wizards not even knowing it exists a few basic elements such as Dark Path were fairly widespread.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The shadow of the apocalypse has been hanging over the world since the War of the Codex, and pretty much the entire series is, in one way or another, about preventing it from occurring. [[spoiler:It should have been already ''after'' the end, but they got an earlier RealityWarper to enforce a more satisfying timeline, and even that is barely enough.]]

** Shurf Lonli-Lokli: "The Mad Fishmonger". As he himself clarified, he ''earned'' it despite the all-out magical civil war, when sane people won't stay in Echo at all... and no one'd bat an eye on wizards' antics even in better times.

* The '''''Chronicles of Echo''''' -- prequels narrated by other characters after ''The Quiet City'', but describing events at various times from before The War for Codex to after ''The Quiet City''. These are ongoing. Currently contains six volumes, with the most recent one published in 2010.

* ''Chronicles of Echo''. The prequels narrated by characters after ''The Quiet City'', but describing events at various times from before The War for Codex to after ''The Quiet City''. These are ongoing.

The ''Chronicles of Echo'' series currently contains six volumes, with the most recent one published in 2010.

* FantasticDrug: Psychoactive substances of another world generally are a gamble. Max is wasted and nearly killed by a weak and utterly safe relaxant, but mostly immune to side effects of a strong psychostimulant. In turn, Max accidentally acquired pot smoking which [[spoiled:temporarily disabled his friends LawfulStupid personality, so that old ChaoticStupid version re-emerged]].

* TheAlcatraz: The AntiMagic prison Kholomi, designed to hold the most dangerous prisoners.

* BlackMagic: Isn't evil or even particularly destructive in this setting. Instead, it operates with material things, akin to {{alchemy}} and item-crafting. It's the White Magic (which operates with pure energies) that you have to keep an eye on.

* DarkWorld: The Dark Side, kinda. "Dark Side" is a poetic epithet given to the SpiritWorld underlying the material world of Echo. It is no more malicious than the material world and it's not actually "dark" there (except for Sir Max, who takes the name too seriously and his belief makes him perceive it as literally covered in darkness all the time).
* DeadlyPrank: The first time Max uses his Poisonous Spit of Death ability on a criminal, he does it for the lulz, since he was told it only works when he is scared and the criminal wasn't particularly scary. Turns out, he was misinformed.

* FunctionalMagic: The Plain Magic. It is subdivided into Black and White Magic (Black Magic mainly affects material things, while White Magic affects minds and emotions) and graded by the amount of magical power used. Grades 1 to 5 are pretty harmless, while anything above that (the ultimate Plain Magic grade is 237) is illegal under the Codex of Khrembrer.
* TheGift: The True Magic. Only a handful of individuals across the multiverse can use it.

* HeelFaceBrainwashing: While he never been exactly evil, [[spoiler:Kofa Yokh]] present personality is a result of a spell cast upon him by his late father, and it is significantly nicer than the original one.
* HowDareYouDieOnMe: Max saves a dying man ([[spoiler:Mokhi Faa]]) in ''Bakki Bugvin's Glasses'' by pleading him not to die. Since the man was under a magical compulsion to fulfill ''any'' wishes, he healed up instantly like a champ.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The shadow of the apocalypse has been hanging over the world since the War of the Codex, and pretty much the entire series is, in one way or another, about preventing it from occurring.

* LovePotion: Tehhi Shekk tries using one on Sir Max when they first meet, and it works... in a way. [[spoiler:Actually, it kills him on the spot due to his previously established intolerance of local drugs. Luckily, Juffin teleports in almost immediately, puts Tehhi and Max's body in bed together (according to a legend, death by love potion can be reversed if the poisoner immediately beds the poisoned), and leaves to procure a second heart for Max from his Shadow. Turns out, the legend was right and Max comes back to life, but Juffin implants a second heart into him, anyway.]] In any case, Tehhi and Max start dating after this.

* NonindicativeName: Despite the SI's full title of "Lesser Secret Investigations Force", there is no "Greater SIF"; their existence are hardly a secret to anyone (what they ''do'' to solve cases is nobody's business but they are no SecretPolice); and the "Force" (the corresponding Russian term can be also translated as "Army") consists of less than ten individuals.

** Juffin Hally: "The Kettarian Hunter"
** Shurf Lonli-Lokli: "The Mad Fishmonger"

* SparingTheAces: The reason Juffin couldn't bring himself to kill Loyso Pondokhva, the most dangerous Grand Magister of the entire Age of the Orders, was because Loyso demonstrated a small capacity for True Magic.

''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' (original title: "Лабиринты Ехо"[[hottip:*:In the series, "Ехо" (pronounced "YEH-kho") is the name of a city. Although it is customarily transliterated as "Echo", the Russian word for "echo", as in the sound effect, is "эхо" (pronounced "EH-kho").]]) is a Russian UrbanFantasy-slash-MagicalLand series written between 1996 and 2003 by Svetlana Martynchik, better known by her pen name Max Frei. Extremely popular in Russia, it is in the process of being translated into English, with the first volume ("The Stranger") published in 2009 by Overlook Press. After its final volume, it was continued with a new series, ''Chronicles of Echo'', which began in 2005 and is on-going to date.

* '''''Labyrinth''''' (1996, retitled ''Outsider'' in the second edition). Includes following novellas:

** ''Outsider''

''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' (original title: "Лабиринты Ехо"[[hottip:*:In the series, "Ехо" (pronounced "YEH-kho") is the name of a city. Although it is customarily transliterated as "Echo", the Russian word for "echo", as in the sound effect, is "эхо" (pronounced "EH-kho").]]) is a Russian UrbanFantasy-slash-MagicalLand series written between 1996 and 2003 by Svetlana Martynchik, better known by her pen name MaxFrei. Despite being extremely popular in Russia, the series has never been translated to English. After its final volume, it was continued with a new series, ''Chronicles of Echo'', which began in 2005 and is on-going to date.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The shadow of the apocalypse has been hanging of the world since the War of the Codex, and pretty much the entire series is, in one way or another, about preventing it from occurring.

* MindControl: Max's green Death Orbs, which are supposed to kill people, instead turn them into obedient slaves. There is still a chance that they kill them, however, so Max always has to make sure there isn't a part of him that wants his target dead before casting this spell.

* NonindicativeName: Despite the SI's full title of "Lesser Secret Investigations Force", there is no "Greater SIF", their existence are hardly a secret to anyone (what they ''do'' to solve cases is nobody's business but they are no SecretPolice), and the "Force" (the corresponding Russian term can be also translated as "Army") consists of less than ten individuals.

** Kofa Yokh: the seldom used "Right-Bank Dragon" (from the time he worked as the police chief of the right bank of Khuron, the river Echo stands upon).

* HeelFaceBrainwashing: While he never been exactly evil, [[spoiler: Kofa Yokh]] present personality is are sult of spell, and it is significantly nicer than the original one.

* TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: In [[spoiler: ''King Bangee'']]
* SinkOrSwimMentor: Juffin, in spades

* ThatManIsDead: Deliberately self-induced by [[spoiler: Lonli-Lokli]], to avoid the ghosts of those murdered by his wilder, younger self to catch up with him

''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' (original title: "Лабиринты Ехо"[[hottip:*:In the series, "Ехо" (pronounced "YEH-kho") is the name of a city. Although it is customarily transliterated as "Echo", the Russian word for "echo", as in the sound effect, is "эхо" (pronounced "EH-kho").]]) is a Russian UrbanFantasy series written between 1996 and 2003 by Svetlana Martynchik, better known by her pen name MaxFrei. Despite being extremely popular in Russia, the books have never been translated to English. The series was continued with a new series, ''Chronicles of Echo'', which began in 2005 and is on-going to date.

The series concerns Sir Max, a regular shmoe from [[RealLife our world]], who is invited and subsequently transported to [[AlternateDimension another world]], one where magic and the miraculous is commonplace. It's not all flowers and butterflies, however: some eighty years ago, a GreatOffscreenWar between numerous magical [[TheOrder Orders]] nearly brought about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. The catastrophe was narrowly averted and an ironclad BanOnMagic was enacted in the city of Echo, the World's Heart (i.e. sole source of magical energy), whose depletion almost led to the apocalypse. To enforce the ban, an elite regiment of {{Mage Killer}}s was formed to hunt down any rogue mages in Echo and exiled Magisters of the disbanded Orders who return to the city. As it turns out, Max was invited over because he has a rare capacity for True Magic, one which doesn't strain the World's Heart, as well as a number of nifty little talents that make him a great addition to said regiment, the Lesser Secret Investigations Force.

Despite the dark premise, the series is quite humorous most of the time, resulting in severe {{Mood Whiplash}}es whenever the [[ItGotWorse shit actually goes south]].

* ''Labyrinth'' (1996, retitled ''Outsider'' in the second edition). Includes following novellas:

* ''Volunteers of Eternity'' (1996):

* ''The Dark Side'' (1997, retitled ''Simple Magical Items'' in the third edition)

* ''Arbiter'' (1997, was lumped with ''The Dark Side'' in the second edition but split off again, inheriting its title, in the third)

* ''Apparitions'' (1998)

* ''The Power of What-Might-Have-Been'' (1998)

* ''A Talkative Dead Man'' (1999)

* ''Labyrinth of Mönin'' (originally published with the second edition of the series in 2003)

* ''Labyrinth'' (originally titled ''Outsider'', 1996)
* ''Volunteers of Eternity'' (1996)

* MoodWhiplash: The series is quite prone to it, such as following the extremely depressive ''Victims of Circumstances'' up with the hilarious ''A Trip to Kettari'' in the first volume, or, on a volume level, ''The Power of What-Might-Have-Been'' ([[DespairEventHorizon especially]], ''The Return of Ugurbado'') and anything that came before or after.

* BanOnMagic: Not ''all'' magic, only the Plain Magic and only for grades above the fifth. The legal magic is quite enough to ensure reasonably comfortable existence for everyone. Later in the series, the law is further relaxed for cooks who gain the right to use magic up to grade 20 for their professional activity.

* ''The Power of What Might Have Been'' (1998)

The series concerns Sir Max, a regular shmoe from [[RealLife our world]], who is invited and subsequently transported to [[AlternateDimension another world]], one where magic and the miraculous is commonplace. It's not all flowers and butterflies, however: some eighty years ago, a GreatOffscreenWar between numerous magical [[TheOrder Orders]] nearly brought about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. The catastrophe was narrowly averted and an ironclad BanOnMagic was enacted in the city of Echo, the World's Heart (i.e. sole source of magical energy), whose depletion almost led to the Apocalypse. To enforce the ban, an elite regiment of {{Mage Killer}}s was formed in Echo to hunt down any rogue mages and exiled Magisters of the disbanded Orders, should they return to the city. As it turns out, Max was invited over because he has a rare capacity for True Magic, one which doesn't strain the World's Heart, as well as a number of nifty little talents that make him a great addition to said regiment, the Lesser Secret Investigations Force.