I firmly believe that no person’s situation is hopeless until their breath ceases. Borehole Bazaar reflects this philosophy. It is the first of a series, each book of which focusses on an aspect of the protagonist’s personal development and growth.
      This is, at its heart, a story about surviving in an abusive, hostile environment when both fighting and fleeing are not valid options. Bugbears, elves, goblins, halflings and humans are players in this tale, but the story, at its heart, is a vision of honest truth. The protagonist, Ptielieren (pronounced t̬ɑɪ el ɑɪ eəʳ ɪn), is fleeing political unrest in a caravan of humans, elf mutts (human elf hybrids), and others of his own most illustrious race when said caravan is overcome by an ambush. We pick up in the aftermath, as Ptielieren learns the folly of arrogance at the fists of his captors.
      Abuse is a tricky subject and it's not often talked about.  Oh, the term is bantered here and there, and it's either with pity that someone experienced it or with a kind of distant triumph that folks talk about survivors.  But survivor usually implies that the person got out, and, failing to escape, the person must either be pittied or there must be something wrong with them.  That has been my experience, and it is what I've observed in other folks who've been through rough

patches.  Now, on the outside looking in, this may seem perfectly fine, but sympathy can be a whole lot more damaging than apathy here.  When you're on the inside looking out, it never seems that bad.  A story or two, like the time when I was working two jobs and sleeping on a friend's couch while I pretended not to see the wild rats running in the living room, I mean, to hear it, it's pretty rough.  To live it, well, it was more humorous than anything else, a kind of background dread and no more damaging than knowing one of my best friends was sleeping on park benches and not being able to do a darn thing about it.  The minute someone said "oh, that's so sad.  I'm sorry you had to live through that," I began to question my sense of worth.  So, for that and with the intent to honor those of my friends who have gone through much, much worse and shared with me their experiences, this book explores the kind of abuse that doesn't have one convenient bad-guy to destroy or someplace safe to reach.

      The names in this tale are tied to the races that hold them.  Just as two individuals of wildly different origins would have difficulty pronouncing each other's names, so too do individuals of different races.  In keeping with this, races other than human often have foreign sounding names, while human hybrids (the racially charged slur "mutt" is used heavily by the protagonist) may have human, foreign or entirely original names (such as Sunrise or Tankard).  Often, longer or weirder named individuals are given nicknames.  Bieyshiealelleinu might be called Bayou and Boloborolo might be called Rolo.  The kind of grudging acceptance is not usually felt, but hearing a name said properly, that brings an upwelling of emotions and a sense of US that otherwise would not have developed.
      Ultimately, this is a story of hope, of surviving and adapting to a very harsh world, it is a story about moving to a culture that is unfriendly and unforgiving, and it is a story about finding something, anything, to use first to float, then to swim.  In later books, this something even helps Ptielieren to metaphorically fly.