The Djinn has awoken.
Djinn Awakes is a Web Serial Novel previously published in Wattpad (link unavailable due to its participation on an editorial contest). It has a sequel, Alliance of Steel.
Gina Serna is a Spanish seventeen years old girl, a drop-out from high school who tries to find a work to sustain herself and her good-for-nothing father. One morning, though, a Tall, Dark, and Handsome stranger named Alyosha breaks gently into her flat, treats her to breakfast cereal, and tells her she has been sold by her father, and to come to see him whenever she wants some answers. A bodyguard, Lorca, will be placed next to her to protect and prepare her for what's to come.
And then hell breaks loose and the Djinn awakes; a powerful, malevolent entity who empowers Gina with the strenght of every human life she takes. Gina is now the Djinn, or at least its wielder, and has become an Alter, one of the inhabitants of the supernatural society called the Otherworld.
First novel from the Dark'n'Soul series, written by Tony Steel. The second novel, Alliance of Steel can be found here
. Steel also began, but ultimately abandoned, a role-playing game (link).
This work includes examples of:
- Action Girl: Gina was it even before the start of the plot.
- All-Loving Hero: Lorca. Or so it seems, until he unleashes his powers.
- Anti-Hero: Lorca would have been an Ideal Hero, for sure. But due to his Dark and Troubled Past and his case of Bad Powers, Good People, he cannot see himself as one.
- The Assimilator: The Djinn absorbs the physical strength of any human or Alter killed by Gina's hand.
- In Alliance of Steel other powers can be absorbed too, but on a fraction of the original's might.
- Alyosha is revealed to be one too, on his own way. As a Mortis, Alyosha is able to "free" anyone who is, for sure, about to die. He allows their souls to leave the body immediate and painlessly; the pain, memories and knowledge of the deceased pass through him, who retains the latter. He also receives their remaining natural lifespan, the time that they would have been able to live forward.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Alyosha understands the Berserker mind state better than Lorca, up to the point where he is able to hand him his ass on a plate easily. While lecturing him.
- Badass Longcoat: Lorca's sleeveless leather coat.
- Bookends: The book starts with Gina's angry, painful scream, and so it ends.
- The Berserker: Subversion: Lorca followed an ancient training that allows him to become a "superior berserker": he won't fight against his friends and has access to Super-Reflexes and Uninhibited Muscle Power. He can Feel No Pain, too.
- Double Subversion: After being seriously injured, he cannot fight The Berserker to came out, now played completely straight and attacking Gina unremorsefully.
- The Brute: Goliat, a 7,5 feet towering, massive fighter designed to act as a human tank.
- Byronic Hero: Alyosha has hints of this, that become heavier in Alliance of Steel, trying not to succumb to his worst impulses. He fails.
- The Call Has Bad Reception: Gina was never meant to wield the power of the Djinn.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Gina stars as this. She seems to be growing out of it as she struggles and becomes more determined and assertive.
- Dark Action Girl: Lapislazuli Oneiros, the shapeshifting mercenary.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Played with. The Otherworld is full of people Blessed with Suck. They aren’t fully human anymore, but mostly due to choices and circumstances. Becoming an Alter doesn’t makes you evil. It just a powerful Start of Darkness that no one can avoid.
- Differently Powered Individual: Any human involved with the supernatural world is called an Alter. There are a few main races
- The Dreaded: Steel. ‘’Alliance of Steel’’ makes Aralar this, too.
- Downplayed with Alyosha. He is usually more respected than dreaded, but usually no one would be so unwise to get on his wrong side. He also would be backed-up by Aralar and Steel in a second if needed.
- Their First Time: Gina and Lorca. With a lot of Virgin Tension to spice it up. Will They or Won't They?? Well, they don’t… not yet. And then Lorca dies.
- The Gunslinger: Lapislazuli is the main gun user on the first book, and one of the most prominent on the sequel. Justified, as her powers aren't too combat oriented.
- The Hero: Lorca. Not the protagonist, though, but his personality fulfills the archetype.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Lorca is too hurt to keep his berserker side under control immediately after a battle, Gina tries to calm him down appealing to his feelings for her. It fails.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: The fight that finally awoke the Djinn could have been very different, with a different set of choices…
- Leotard of Power: Gina dons one as she joins Arán's team, Lock & Load. She wears it under her normal clothes; it's made of carbon nanotubes and Fang's spidersilk so it's flexible but bulletproof.
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Subverted. Gina quickly becomes the strongest character around, in terms of Brute Force.
- Mentor Archetype: Alyosha, both to Gina and Lorca. He later starts to think about having Gina for some Wife Husbandry.
- Neck Snap: Several. Gruesomely described, and mostly inflicted by super strong characters.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
- Goliat happens to be a vampire Cyborg. Gina decides to suspend her disbelief after realizing it.
- Lorca's powers are described to be partly Warrior-like and partly psychic.
- No Periods, Period: Averted in Alliance of Steel, as Gina has to get ready for hers.
- Our Spirits Are Different: The eponymous Djinn is a spirit, or as they are called in Otherworld, an Astral. They inhabit the Astral Plane and have different abilities related to their dominion. The Djinn doesn't seem to be able to grant wishes, other than the wish of unlimited physical potential as the Sublime Cult asked so long ago.
- Our Mages Are Different: Magic is theurgy, as detailed in the role-playing game. It is briefly mentioned in Alliance of Steel.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: The Therian are all werebeasts, each of them having multiple animal traits on their half-animal form: horns, fur, scales, claws, hooves, fangs... they are usually asymmetrical and even deformed. They have a powerful Healing Factor, but it will just heal their wounds, not fully regenerate them, and its effects can disfigure or horribly scar them.
- Perky Female Minion: Lapislazuli Oneiros will happily banter and tease you after asking for a down time from trying to blow you up.
- Precursors: Downplayed. The Sublime Cult were originally a powerful clan of magicians who were minor RealityWarpers. They started the centuries-lasting rites that brought the Djinn into the physical realm. Their spells about breaking boundaries were abysmal. The Circle corrupted them and their doctrines through decades to hinder their power.
- Really 700 Years Old: One of the minichapters reveals that Alyosha is such. The sequel reveals the same for Steel, Aran and Aralar.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Gina, as the vessel of the Djinn.
- Shapeshifting: Lapislazuli Oneiros' power, the humanshifting version.
- Shout-Out:
- [[Big Bad, Tulius Michel Boese]] is named after Tulio and Miguel, from The Road to El Dorado. El Dorado means "The Golden One" in Spanish. Boese is a phonetic approximation to "Boost" in French. So his name, and personality, are a reference to Booster Gold.
- Alianza de Acero has a character named the Tinker, a woman whose power is creating artifacts.
- When Arán met Gina, his first words to her were "Come with me if you want to live". His favourite gun is the AMT Hardballer Longslide.
- Touched by Vorlons: Few people knows how it works, but every Alter was originally a regular human being who took the wrong choice and became something else.
- The Children know. They all follow the way of the Firstborn, the first Child, and are bonded to the being called the Sacred Guardian, who provides each one of them with a different avatar of him, their personal Guardians.
- Tank-Top Tomboy: Gina favours that outfit, due to it being comfortable to move in.
- Transferable Memory: Alyosha is revealed to be a Mortis, a really scarce kind of Alter whose power is granting a quick, peaceful death to those who are beyond hope of being saved. As he frees their souls, they go through him, granting Alyosha every knowledge and skill that they had. It also provides increases his longevity, for as long as they would have ideally lived on. Alyosha has done this for centuries now.
- The Unchosen One: Gina, kinda. She was never hoped nor wanted to wield the power of the Djinn, but then something went wrong with the Sublime Cult plans.
- Uninhibited Muscle Power: Lorca. In Alianza de Acero, the Tinker frees the Djinn, and it takes possession of Gina's body. Without Gina's sense of her own strength, the Djinn repeteadly hurts her body as he uses his full power unrestrained.
- Unkempt Beauty: Gina is not making herself any favours by wearing his dad's old clothes, but she is pretty attractive on a tomboyish way.
- World of Badass: Almost every character.
