Jani Ojala

It's 2031 and Eemeli Kangas is dead. Fernio keeps watch over his dominion of Siberian forest, enjoying more reach than he's ever had before. His job is not only to watch over Korok, Shiru, Ruini and Aeor but make sure the year-old giant wolves learn all that there is to learn about what makes humans the dominant species - everything they can be. Tiia is searching for answers. Suddenly losing everything and suddenly getting it back last year evoked something deep. She starts spending time with a single mother whose outlook answers a lot of her questions, but looming over it all is the mystery of this lady's husband and his shady involvement in international crime. Sammy is disillusioned. His life stays shockingly similar after gaining possession of a magic he can wield. He's in a more stable position, in every sense, than he ever has been. An illicit affair with a secretary shows Sammy that still waters run deep; life is long and full of situations that either don't satisfy you enough, or satisfy too much. Viktor lost two fingers in the Nevada Sunrise last year. It wasn't enough to completely lose his grip on things. He can still carry the weight he needs to; only now, it's with enough physical burden involved that it becomes an active reminder of the worth of his labor. Alex Coleman got his family back in the Sunrise. He appreciates his life as much as this good fortune will elicit... but gets more complications into his swing of things when something flies through his window. It's an unnecessary complication, but one he learns to love. At new heights of their power, the world's magics keep getting irritated by mankind's excess. When a fourth magic rears its head, it increases the potency of it all. Almost like Nevada Sunrise did. Only this time it's a perpetual flow, rather than a single explosive cataclysm. Because life is long.

It's 1887 and Marshall Marston is hiding from some sour after-effects of the American Civil War with his family in Mexico. He decides to impart wisdom on his oldest son and heir, Lori. These are turbulent times, the South has gone crazy and only further South, is where the misunderstood family can regroup and get their last chance at redemption. These are the beginnings of the Marston-dynasty, and of their control over the magical entity, the Absolution-Spear. As the journey points them southwards, Lori and his friend Gonzo Rains set sail for the Saboga-island in Panama. This island has been devastated by a terrible wave, and little life is left. Life, that the sailors see as a new prospect; new resources up for collecting. But they have only learned what the tide has taken away; they will take years to understand just what has survived. It's been over a thousand years since the events of WHAT MYNOS SAW, and the Seers are helpless when they watch a lightning hit the Earth from the Moon. What begins from a chase down in the Mexican forests, sets the stage for a battle where lives and entire lineages are at-stake. During this years-long pursuit for power, a battle is fought with bullets, betrayals, spears and conspiracies. Two families are in a race for an absolute prize and their offspring are born into this race. Their children grow up in this race. They wear crowns, and wield weapons that hold such power they couldn't conceive of, even if it was explained... And the island sees it all.

NEW SAND FOR OLD GLASS: First PrequelIt's the year 800 and Mynos lives in his family's old home with his pet-wolf and pet-sheep. Their family was a staple of a growing farming-community in Southwest Finland. Now there's two of them left. Now, middle-brother Veros is the only one still looking after Mynos. Mynos is the town's shaman, a restless artist who acts as a bridge between people who see him either as clueless, or pure-at-heart. Tragedies have almost wiped out Mynos and Veros' family. Mynos refuses the older brother's torn-by-the-wild outlook, and secrets unravel as to how everybody got the way they are, while Mynos just... sits there. Sits there and carves, sits there and paints, sits there and talks, sits there... and wonders if he means anything at all. In his years as the town's top artist, Mynos has had the chance to brush up against all matter of proud people, but all that those experiences have provided him -- all that anything seems to provide him -- is making his introspection merely intensify. He wants to love. He refuses to hate the nearby owls as much as the Village Master does. He wants something that's made here in the close corners of his cold house, to stand the test of time. To have something to show for all these moments alone in his room. To live on, after he dies.

The 2030s are here. A new decade commences for the casts of The Coleman Stories, Overbite and Oulunsalo Fiction. Old world's magics, that allowed life's delicate balance to exist for a moonage, revolt against mankind's excess. Sammy Sieppi's boss, Sandking has a recluse younger brother Maskmaker, whom has stolen the answer to one of life's quintessential questions: "what happens after we die?". The Absolution-Spear's foul abuse in the hands of the Marston dynasty, gets Shotimamimu the dream-owl talking, only unto the chosen few who can see him upon appearance. While this is going on, an experimental life-force declares hunting-season in the Siberian region of Yakutia, Russia. A force so grand-standingly unstoppabe, people have no choice but to try to understand and work around Nair, lest they become prey to him. Nothing will stop the six-meter wolf. Markus Leinonen goes for his first overseas trip with a friend, leaving Tiia alone with an owl in her dreams. Viktor has bought back Ouluinsalo, and is set in his ways running the town... until Ivan calls him about a beast in the East. The final Colemans are still looking for a place in the world that'll have them. Sammy SIeppi comes back from prison and his boss is now an old, legacy-obsessed man ruling New York's post-apocalyptic world of organized crime from a lonely castle. The Soisalo-family are set in their ways and best-selling author Petri wants to discover new horizon in the West. Eemeli Kangas' owl-dreams get merged with those of a woman living in the same town and the two discover a life-changing truth about a clan of astral seers that operate from a place man cannot tread. As life goes on and a new era commences, awareness of Maskmaker forces folk to ask some difficult questions about their lives. His demeaning life-story about a perpetual second place to a brother that has claimed his place as King... has driven the 66-year-old Marston-brother into a life of monstrous abuse. Of existential proportions. As long as the blade in his necklace has a pulse, the ink will never dry from his curated stories.

It was the decade my parents were born in. 1,700 albums I listened to, as research. 7 albums a day, with very few off-days, for roughly 1,5 years. Followed by spending a summer reading stories and backgrounds. 36 of these albums have a 10/10-rating from me; the other 64 sitting at 9.5/10. All in all this was way too selective. All in all I'm a little bit exhausted. Come over to the window, darling. I'd like to tell you about music.

Years of getting better at writing, discovering music, and trying to somehow merge those things into a form of authorship where my words could do a service to music I truly love... Years of building up a little community around it, being at both ends of introducing somebody to a record they fucking love that changed their lives. When you're reading my top 100 albums of the 2010s-list, just know. It has all been leading up to this.

Notes of a summer in captivity: Overbite tells a story about people's rise above anxiety, confinement and overall impossibleness. In the summer of 2013, four criminals escape from a prison-transport bus that suffers a crash after its' driver is poisoned. Walking along a field in the moments right after the crash, four men piece together the plans of their lawyer, Gabriel. They wonder if they've been saved or just captured further. Amidst wondering, they find out more details about the Sundberg-brothers -- the criminal entity behind the crash. Years ago the Sundberg-brothers escaped home, and to get back at their parents for how they were raised, they've been passively channeling their hatred and pain outwards to the world around then... until Gabriel had a plan. The journey Jorma, Matti, Petri and Sami set out on, could take them anywhere. The convicts find it hard to breathe until they start slowly finding themselves through simple positive visualization.

The Coleman Stories tells six bitter stories of inter-generational violence. 20 years of trying to find a purpose in a destructive legacy. So few fighters ever get to tell their story; let alone this family of killers and career-criminals. The 1st story catches up with William Coleman, a 15-year-old American boy relocated to Oulu as a kid... about to burn a man alive in a warehouse. He tells his life story to Johnny Green, as two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. William's two lives, and the looming threat of him finding his heart after channeling his hate outward all his life... gets to his core. The 2nd story grows from the 1st, and showcases a reality of the Coleman legacy; a whirling storm, sucking in all involved. The 3rd story follows William's father, James, on his way to the top of the mysteriously influential Greens. The 4th story finds people seizing second chances in life - so rare to have - and struggling not to be overcome by things that got drowned in the river of time along with their former life. The 5th story finds the Coleman men confronting or confining to their demons... while Sanna Coleman finds a mother within herself. The legacy ends at story 6.

The last part of the Oulunsalo Fiction-series, "Helicopters" makes jumps back in time to draw contrasts with the troublesome present, looks at the pieces scattered on the floor, picks them up, asks the questions and gives the answers. Riku and Pasi return to a home vastly different from the one they left when they disappeared two years ago. The identity of The Russian is revealed, and with it, unveiled a web of deceit where everybody's played a part. Viktor and Samuli run into each other in the most unlikely circumstances after the former's stayed in hiding ever since last year's office-shooting, and the latter's fallen into a deep depression. One having lost his parents and the other having lost his best friend in the multi-cliffhanger ending of Talisman, each man's path takes them to different spiritual directions. While picking up the pieces of their lives in the aftermath of disaster, they must soar like a spectacle in the sky in order to reach their destinies before it's too late, and Oulunsalo gets frozen by Eastern mobsters.

The idea to take titlecard-photos for each chapter of all Oulunsalo Fiction-books occurred to me in 2018, as I prepped for the process of releasing the trilogy on wordpress.com. There needed to be a thumbnail when you share it on social media, and I thought: why not? These stories, these characters, conflicts and settings provoke mental images in my mind all day long anyways. Be nice to express that. Little things from my hometown, Oulunsalo, inspire me more than I'll probably remember ten years from now. I'll have this trilogy to look back on, in case I ever forget. So this book is different from anything I've released before. It's a book about my books - the absolute power move for a young writer working in fiction. The trilogy was a 5-year project, and here I'll go in-depth about what inspired everything in the magnum opus of my writing career... so far. I'll be a lot less formal here than I've been on anything else, going over memories and images. To keep up with that spirit, I didn't edit the book at all either. All written in one take. Probably gonna run into some typos, but that doesn't matter. The testimony was complete.

Set in my hometown, "Oulunsalo Fiction" tells a story spanning three books and three summers. A local criminal organization, overlooked by a bigger one in Russia, is under the strain of constant instability via its moving parts. Stories of depression, paranoia, isolation and loss, take us through the nearby island of Hailuoto, Trader's Road and the Church's proximity, the airport and the mysterious woods surrounding it. The characters face struggles of old age, struggles lost in time, struggles of young age, of uncertainty about the future. Within this struggle, a new kind of hope arises; from within; from finding a new way. Starring:Tapani KumavaaraSamuli LeinonenViktor EkholmRiku NiskanenTiia Haaranen

"Business as us'". Tapani Kumavaara is a depressed freelancer-criminal in his early 40's, and his story of battling with depression is reflective of a chapter in my past - one I'm on the mission of coming in terms with. The story takes place in his hometown of Oulunsalo, where his thoughts explore desperation by ambitiously wallowing in it, falling deeper into conflict about self, existential questions, destructive emotion, judgement. He and his friends get a job as corpse-disposers. One of those friends is Samuli - a younger man, who also faces crisis, but does so with grace, breaking loose like the phoenix becoming a pro at life. Other ones are the impulse-driven, irrational Miska, and Riku, who's just been released. They join in on burying dark sins in the pristine nature of the neighboring island, Hailuoto. Meanwhile, at home, everything is at its horribly wrong place, everything is at stake, everything runs wild and everything is impossible to grab onto. Ice Road is the first addition in the "Oulunsalo Fiction" trilogy.

Ylipurema kertoo ihmisen noususta pakkoajatusten ja ahdistuksen yläpuolelle mahdottomissa olosuhteissa. Alussa neljä vankilaan kuljetettavaa tuomittua rikollista pakenee kuljetuksesta. Kun he saavat tietää lakimies-Mikaelin juonista, heitä alkaa mietityttää, tulivatko he todellisuudessa pelastetuiksi vai kaapatuiksi. Sillä välin, kun he miettivät, he saavat tietää Sundbergin pojista, jotka ovat suunnitelleet kuljetusauton kolarin. Sundbergin pojat ovat päässeet vuosia sitten kotoa pakoon. Kostaakseen isille ja äidille sen, miten heitä kohdeltiin, he ovat passiivisesti kanavoineet vihansa koko muuhun maailmaan... Kunnes Mikaelilla on suunnitelmaSe, minkä Jorma, Sami, Petri ja Matti aloittavat, voi päättyä minne vaan. Karkureiden on vaikea hengittää, kunnes he alkavat hitaasti löytää itseään yksinkertaisen positiivisen ajattelun kautta.