Emmanuel C Lachlan: The Ocellus Series

Black oval, wider than it is tall, with a white engraving of a person's eye.

Ocellus: The Story of the Twelfth Stone is the first book in the Ocellus Series and is an epic fantasy‑adventure for age 10 upwards.

Shy, grieving 11-year-old Joshua discovers a glassy-black, oval stone in a rock pool. Engraved on one face is a human eye and Joshua senses the eye staring at him. The stone is so compelling, he decides to keep it.

Soon after, a friendly alien in human form (Cassièl) confronts him, saying he has searched for the eye-stone (Ocellus) for trillions of years. He reveals that Ocellus, together with twelve other stones, is the source of all energy, matter, and life, but trillions of years ago vicious shapeshifters (The KimMorii) stole the thirteen stones and hid them across the universes.

Joshua naturally finds Cassièl's story too fantastic, so to prove his story and promising no harm will come to him, Cassièl takes Joshua and his step-sister, Alessa, along with the stone, to his own universe where they become close friends with other children brought from different universes. Together, they undertake a series of ever-more hazardous missions to help retrieve the stones. Meanwhile, the cruel KimMorii have kidnapped Joshua and Alessa's mother and incarcerated her on an infamous prison planet. Now unable to return to Earth, Joshua discovers some information about Ocellus that calls into question everything Cassièl has told him.

Can Joshua establish the truth about the thirteen stones? Can he help defeat the shapeshifters and bring peace to the universes, and can he ever find his way back to Earth?

Immense in scope and deep in emotion, the story of Ocellus will live in the memory.

Future Titles in the Ocellus Series

  • Black oval with a white engraving of two concentric ovals, to appear like a torus. Torus: The Story of the Tenth Stone

About the Author

Emmanuel C Lachlan is based in Godalming, Surrey, England and has written stories and poems for many years. He began formal training in creative writing in 2015.

He favours micro and flash fiction of 50 to 500 words and his themes are frequently Kafkaesque and often feature the individual against "them" and the system. He has had several pieces published.

His tutor suggested he expand a short piece and this evolved into the first book in the Ocellus Series: The Story of the Twelfth Stone. The second and third books in the series are: Möbius: The Story of the Eighth Stone, and Dodecahedron: The Story of the Second Stone.

His current project is Enneagon: The Story of the Fifth Stone.

When not writing, Emmanuel composes music for choirs and explores philosophy and mathematics.

Contact Emmanuel

The Alliance of Independent Authors - Author Member