A prolific fantasy writer from Huddersfield who has had his short stories viewed over 300,000 times on Youtube has released his latest book.

Aqib Ali, 30, published his book ‘Rekindle Project: Origins’ to a warm reception on Amazon. It was released on June 23 with the second book in the series available in November 2023.

Aqib started writing while he was in secondary school at the age of 14. But he began writing seriously when he started college. 

He said: “I was inspired after reading a lot of fantasy books by authors like Raymond E. Feist, Brandon Sanderson, and Christopher Paolini. I was also inspired by movies like The Lord of The Rings. 

“A massive influence on me was the ‘Witcher’ series of computer games which I played a lot so I was inspired to write my own modern take on monster hunting stories but in a fantasy setting.”

“I am motivated by wanting to tell great stories. I like to experiment with my writing in the Horror/Fantasy and LitRPG Genre.

LitRPG is a new genre that has become very popular with thousands of new readers coming in every month. It incorporates elements of role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and mixes it with literature. 

He added: “Many of these stories incorporate a trope where the main character is thrust into a game-like world where they have to fight enemies, level up and win epic loot to improve their character’s stats so they can carry on fighting bigger and higher-level enemies to progress the story. It’s like reading a book where you are playing a game.

“I am writing in this genre because I love Role Playing Games and writing, so I decided to combine them and write stories of games I would like to see and play.”

The book is about an old man on his deathbed who is asked to sacrifice his life to test a new experimental system that can transfer his consciousness to a parallel universe where he will be able to live his life again. 

Once there he soon realises that everything is very similar to the RPG games he used to play as a teenager. Dungeons, epic boss-battles, unique game mechanics and not to mention - fantastic quests.

“My plan is to carry on releasing LitRPG novels for the foreseeable future as it’s something I enjoy doing. 

“My family have supported me with this as it’s something that I have found great success in. In my spare time I like to play RPG games and learn new songs on the Guitar.

“I had no help from anyone. I did it all completely on my own. I had to research every single thing. I had no one to guide me. In the Asian community there aren’t many writers especially fantasy writers. Maybe just a handful in the whole of the UK. I had to work hard to get things done myself. Things would have been easier if I had someone to help me.

“About three years ago I started writing short stories on Reddit. I wrote a few standalone short stories, they received a lot of attention and I decided to create a series based in the same world as my books.

He said: “I found a niche on Youtube for horror stories. I found that horror stories were really popular at the time due to the lockdown and the Covid pandemic as a lot of people were on Youtube listening to them. 

"Many Youtube horror channels began to grow rapidly. I thought I would give it a shot as there was a gap in the market.”

His stories were narrated by Youtuber Dr Creepen. They spoke to each other and within a week he narrated Aqib’s story and uploaded it. Over the last three years it has had over 150,000 views.
He has self-published two books in the Dark Ranger series. 

The first episode was published on Amazon and on his website as an e-book in 2016. In 2018 he self published the second episode.

He said: “What motivates me is that I want to be recognised as a fantasy author, I can’t stop until that goal is achieved as I want to prove the Asian community wrong. I want to prove that we Asians can actually become fantasy writers. And artistic talent shouldn’t be frowned upon.” 

He has started to work with other Asian fantasy writers and established the Asian Fantasy Alliance. 

Members of the group plan to work together, help each other and go to events and promote their work and share audiences. But their main objective is to help the next generation of fantasy writers. To support them and make life easier for them.