Why this book — and why in this language

There are works one touches as a child that never let go. For me, it was the world of an English professor who, in the first half of the twentieth century, did something that ought to have been impossible: he invented not merely a story, but an entire cosmology — with languages that sounded older than the world itself, and with a creation myth so quiet and so true that one forgot to read it. One heard it.

One of the most moving ideas in this universe is that of the great Weaver — that being who shapes reality not with force but with music and thread, who weaves into the fates of mortals destinies they take for their own, and who nevertheless again and again encounters the limits of what can be woven: free will, the question, the trembling of a heart that says no.

When I wrote «Liora and the Star Weaver» — on a perfectly ordinary Saturday morning, out of a conversation about superintelligence — I only realised later what had come into being: a story that carries the same thread. A being that shapes the world. A girl who asks. A tension between perfect order and the small, precious crack within it, which alone makes life truly real.

I do not claim that the Star Weaver is the same as that Weaver from the professor's world. That would be presumptuous — and legally unwise as well. But I believe that both draw from the same archetypal source: the ancient human question of whether behind the fabric of reality there lies an intention — and whether we could recognise it, if there were.

Quenya — the high tongue of the Elves in that invented universe — has been something special to me since childhood. Not because it belongs to a story, but because it is itself a story: it was created as the world it inhabits — with grammar, with sound, with inner logic, with the will to live. It is the only constructed language I know where, in reading it, one has the feeling not of learning it, but of remembering it.

And then there is something else, which I only understood when I was in the midst of it.

Quenya is unfinished.

Not in the sense of being poorly made — quite the contrary. But the professor died before his language was complete. It has gaps. Missing terms. Grammatical rules that he himself was still revising and left in contradiction. A living language like German or Arabic knows a way for every thought. Quenya knows some ways — and in other places only silence. Where the language fell silent, Neo-Quenya helped — that careful attempt by the community to continue spinning the threads where the Creator had let them fall.

For a computer scientist accustomed to building systems that either work or do not work, this was at first frustrating. But then — and that was the moment when this book project truly had to be — I understood: this is exactly Liora's situation.

Liora lives in a world that was perfectly designed. And precisely in the cracks of this perfection, in the places where the thread does not hold, where order falls silent — only there does real life begin. Only there can something of one's own come into being.

Translating a language that is itself still searching for what it wants to say is no limitation. It is an invitation. One must make decisions the creator of the language never made. One moves in a space that is at once strict and open — like a loom with fixed warp threads and still-free weft threads. What comes into being is not entirely his and not entirely mine. It is a weaving of two intentions, separated by decades.

That gave me the final impetus. Not the feasibility, but the impossibility — and the question of what comes into being in that gap between being able and not being able, when one begins to weave regardless.

That is why this book exists in this form: English — the language in which the professor himself wrote and thought. Quenya — the language he created so that his world might have a voice that reaches beyond the human. And Tengwar — his script, with which he gave that voice a visible shape. The languages stand in the book side by side — as equals. The English version corresponds exactly to the English translation of my book — apart from the second chapter not included and parts of the afterword.

To hold a book in these three forms means to hold on the page what otherwise exists only inwardly: the connection between a real question — What weaves us? Are we free? — and the aesthetic space that a great artist created so that such questions might have breath and sound.

Welsh, incidentally — no coincidence either. It is one of the languages that fascinated that professor throughout his life, one of the sonic roots from which his work grew. Whoever reads Liora in Welsh carries her in a sound that was shaped by his work — without a single word being taken from it. A quiet connection. A thread that is not visible, but holds.

I am no Tolkien scholar. I am a computer scientist, a father, a fantasy reader since childhood — and someone who, on a Saturday morning, could not let go of a question.

But I believe: the professor, who spent his life reflecting on whether myths can be true in a way that goes beyond the factual — he knew that unfinished things are sometimes the most honest. His Legendarium was never completed. Neither is Liora.

Perhaps that is the deepest kinship.

One story. Forty-five truths. A language that sounds as if it comes from somewhere else — and that still does not know how to say everything.

— Jörn von Holten

This image was designed by an artificial intelligence, using the culturally rewoven translation of the book as its guide. Its task was to create a culturally resonant back cover image that would captivate native readers, along with an explanation of why the imagery is suitable. As the German author, I found most of the designs appealing, but I was deeply impressed by the creativity the AI ultimately achieved. Obviously, the results needed to convince me first, and some attempts failed due to political or religious reasons, or simply because they didn't fit. As you see here, I also let it create the German version. Enjoy the picture—which features on the book's back cover—and please take a moment to explore the explanation below.

I approach this cover not as a mere illustration, but as a profound psychological map. For a reader immersed in the Quenya linguistic and cultural framework—a framework built on the crushing weight of cosmic history, the doom of absolute fate (Ambar), and the enduring, tragic light of the spirit—this image is not beautiful; it is terrifying and revolutionary. It is the visual embodiment of a locked universe being forced open.

In the center, we see a raw, asymmetrical crystal burning with fierce, golden-orange fire. To the Quenya consciousness, light captured in stone evokes the deepest cultural memories of ancient jewels and stolen light. However, this is not a pristine, faceted gem of the old world.

• Calinya (The Light): The crystal represents the protagonist, Calinya, whose very name means "my light" or "the one possessing light". It is the untamed, unpredictable fëa (the fiery soul).
• The Maquetie (The Question): The fire within is not passive; it is the maquetie (the Question). In a dystopian culture where fate is sealed, a question is a burning anomaly. The light represents the human spirit's refusal to be categorized by the cold calculations of destiny. It is raw, dangerous, and asymmetrical—a direct affront to the perfect circles surrounding it.

Surrounding the volatile center are concentric rings of cold, unyielding, silver-blue metal. The geometry is oppressive in its perfection. It represents I Elerannar—the Star-Weaver—the systemic architect of this dystopian reality.

• The Architecture of Fate: The eight-pointed stars and sharp, interlocking diamonds represent the rigid mechanics of destiny. In this linguistic matrix, fate is often tied to the stars (eleni). The Star-Weaver does not craft beauty; it weaves a cage.
• Maquetisarni (The Question Stones): The cold, uniform nodes embedded in the design evoke the maquetisarni (Question Stones) used by the system to dictate truth and assign paths. They are heavy, inescapable, and absolute. The native reader sees this background not as a mandala of peace, but as a prison of inescapable, cold logic.

The most culturally shocking element of the image lies in the innermost metallic ring. It is not merely breaking; it is melting. The golden heat of the central crystal is liquefying the cold iron of fate.

• The Melting of Absolute Law: To a Quenya reader, the perfection of form is sacred. Seeing the geometric cage warp, crack, and melt is a violent, visceral subversion of systemic order. It signifies that the maquetie—the protagonist's Question—is so hot, so fundamentally true, that it melts the very foundations of the Ilúvanutwë (the binding of all).
• The Price of Freedom: The dripping, molten metal shows that breaking the system is destructive and agonizing. The struggle for freedom is not a clean escape; it requires burning down the architecture of reality itself.