Urban fantasy author Aaron Sher writes under his own name, blending magic and modern life with sharp wit and Boston grit. His debut novel, Applied Leverage, launched a new series set largely in Boston, and the second book, Mechanical Advantage, is scheduled for early 2026. A high-fantasy epic may be in the cards someday, but, as he likes to say, “you know how the future is.” After the last five years, do we ever….
When he isn’t building fantastical worlds, Aaron is a software engineer, martial artist, and according to himself, a “decent” cook, “very (very) amateur” blacksmith and bladesmith, and has learned that humans are the prefered furniture for cats, as demonstrated in his photo. He’s been devouring fantasy since childhood and started writing it through the sprawling backstories he created for his tabletop RPG characters, reaching over 100,000 words and just might evolve into a novel of its own.
Originally from Massachusetts, Aaron spent twenty-five years in the Rochester, NY area before settling in Pittsburgh, PA, where he lives with his wife and an ever-changing menagerie of cats, fish, plants, and assorted wildlife.
Let’s find out a bit more about Aaron, shall we?
What first sparked the idea for your current or most recent project?
The series originally started as a magic system I was playing around with. The idea in the series is that certain people have psionic gifts—for example, Connor Rourke, the protagonist, is a telekinetic. Psionics use your own energy, though, and humans really just don’t have very much energy; the human brain runs on something like 20 watts, so if you try to lift a car with that you’re going to have a bad day. Psionics are about finesse rather than power, therefore.
There’s one psionic gift that gets around that limitation, though—the mage gift. Mages are psionics who can tap into an external power source called the Origin. In this way they can leverage (yes, this is part of the reason for the title) their limited personal power into a much greater energy output. Mages can do things like throw fireballs, in other words.
I originally thought that I was going to write a science fantasy series around this magic system; the inspiration was the book Psion by Joan D. Vinge. I had that idea in my head for something like ten years and never got anywhere with it. One day, I thought, what if it’s an urban fantasy? As soon as I looked at it from that angle, the whole story came together.
Which book, film, or life event most influenced this story?
The biggest influence would have to be Butcher’s Dresden Files. They’re kind of the canonical urban fantasy in my mind: noir detective who’s also a wizard, fae courts, vampires, all the standard tropes (which are standard because of books like that series, of course).
I put some effort into avoiding the tropes for my own book, because i knew if I didn’t it would come off as derivative. I took out most of the noir elements in particular, and (so far) there are no nonhuman creatures at all in the story—though that might change going forward. Possibly. No spoilers.
Which character surprised you by doing something unplanned?
In Applied Leverage I can’t say that a lot of that happened. Certainly many (most) of the details didn’t work out the way I thought they were going to, but the overall plot pretty much went to plan. In book two, Mechanical Advantage, some things have happened, though—at one point I was writing a conversation and Connor started asking (very sensible) questions that I didn’t know the answers to. I hate it when my characters are smarter than I am.
What part of the process pushed you closest to giving up?
Honestly, I thought the hardest part of writing a book was going to be… writing a book. More fool me. I almost gave up multiple times during the editing process, largely because I had no idea what I was doing and couldn’t justify spending the money on an editor for a little hobby project that might never see the light of day.
Once I actually published it, of course, I learned that the actually hard part of writing a book is marketing. Compared to that, everything else is the fun bit.
How did you move past that obstacle?
Just determination, I guess. I really didn’t think I was going to finish the thing in the first place, and once I did I didn’t want to see it just rot on my hard drive.
What do you hope readers feel after the last page?
Applied Leverage is intended to be a satisfying action-fantasy romp. I’m hoping that readers feel like all the buildup was worth it and want to go on and read the rest of the series. It’s not intended to make you rethink your world view; no disrespect to that kind of writing, but sometimes you just need a fun escape.
What is your writing routine?
Bold of you to assume I have a routine. I work full time at a job that I find very taxing mentally. I get some writing done in the evenings (I have an iPad on a stand and a Bluetooth keyboard so I can write in my comfy recliner in the corner of the bedroom), but most of the really hard work (e.g., outlining) happens on the weekends.
For outlining in particular, or for finding a way out of the corners that I’ve written myself into, I like to go for walks around my neighborhood. I find that I think much better when my feet are moving and I can mutter to myself; I’m sure my neighbors all think I’m crazy.
How has writing changed how you see yourself?
It’s an interesting question. It’s one of the biggest projects I’ve taken on in my “spare time”, as if such a thing existed, and I’m very proud of myself for having actually seen it through to completion. If I can finish the series (which is planned for about seven books), I’ll be over the moon, but I might need to retire in order to have enough time to do that.
One thing about writing as a hobby, though—it’s making retirement look a whole lot better than it did before.
Share a favorite line or passage and why it matters.
Here’s a quote I’m fond of:
“And tell them what? I was attacked magically and stuck in a secret prison after opening a magically locked safe? And then I escaped said prison by the use of psychic powers? Yeah, that’ll go over well.”
I like that because it really captures the absurdity of the whole urban fantasy genre in a nutshell, even while you’re (hopefully) suspending your disbelief. I’ve got an even better quote along these lines in Mechanical Advantage, but it’s too spoilery to share that one yet.
What story or idea is tugging at you now?
I’m currently in editing for Mechanical Advantage, so that’s taking most of my attention. I have a fantasy world that I’ve designed for my current TTRPG campaign that I really like, however, and someday I want to write a high fantasy series set there. I’ve written over a hundred thousand words of character backstories set in that world, and it’s a real shame that I can’t just glue them together and call them a novel.
I am publishing a short story in an anthology being prepared for the author event Tales as Dark as Time in July 2026 (https://talesasdarkastime.
How would you like this work, or your body of work, to be remembered?
I’m tempted to say “at all”. If I can entertain some readers for a few hours, I’ve done my job; I don’t need to influence the future of the genre for generations to come in order to consider myself a success. I also don’t need to be a commercial success and make a million dollars at it, which is a damn good thing, considering.
If folks read the books and enjoy them, I’m happy. Everything else is gravy.
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That last part—“at all”—hits pretty hard. The life of an indie author can sometimes make an author feel invisible. Your feedback really matters, so much more than many readers realize. So please make sure to review, review, review!
Find all the details about his books, including links to at them to your collection, at aaronsher.com, or visit linktr.ee/aaronsher for all his social links in one place.
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