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Q. Cynthia, Hero For Hire
was such a fun read. I loved Eno. How hard was he to bring to life
for you?
A. Very easy. He just
popped into my head, sword in hand, attitude in place, looking for an
adventure. Once I figured out that he should tell his story from his
own point of view, I never had another day's trouble with him. It's
now a matter of remembering that he's bigger than I am, stronger than
I am, and much, much more male. As a barbarian from Thrace, he has an
outsider's view of the society in which he lives and, as a hero for
hire, his adventures can be as wide-ranging as I choose. Because the
Gods and the monsters aren't just stories, they're real and have
actions and emotions all their own. Eno finds himself involved in
their issues whether he likes it or not.
Q. Mythology of the
ancient world can present its own problems. Though you have a ton of
reference materials, was there any of it that you found most
challenging?
A. The details are the
tough part. What *exactly* would he eat? How far along is the
architecture? Was this king the same as that king but with a
different spelling? What were the lives of women like? There's not a
whole lot of concrete detailed information on 1200 B.C., give or
take, even though there are many scholarly works about this part of
the Bronze Age. And of course, if I have to stretch a historical
point for a good joke, I'll do it. I'm always amazed though when I
come across a historical fact that was recently discovered, and it
turns out that I imagined something quite similar.
Q. I really enjoyed the
ease in which your story flowed. It never stumbled over itself, nor
did it ever get bogged down in details, you always gave just enough.
Where did this precise ability come from? Inherent, or through
education?
A. Though I can't say,
like Elmore Leonard, that I don't write the parts people skip, I do
try not to 'info-dump' my research. If I do, there's usually a joke
in there somewhere. I figure that most people have at least a visual
idea of what Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt was like, if only from
the movies. So I don't need to do long descriptions. As to where it
comes from...darned if I know! Practice, I guess, and reading the
works of writers who are much better than I am. There's a lot of
those.
Interviewer
response: *smile* Better than you? Well, that's a matter of opinion,
I assure you.
Q. Hero For Hire is the
first book in your trilogy of Eno The Thracian, I hope I got that
right, with the second book, The Stone Gods, on the market, and the
final book, Dark Mountain, due out soon, where will you go from here?
A. Dark Mountain is
actually the third book in a 5-book series. There's lots more Eno to
come! I intend to send him to Babylon and then to the Shang Dynasty
in China. He's a well-traveled hero, to say the least. I wanted to
explore myths of the Ancient World, when they weren't just stories
but deeply held beliefs. In his time, everyone knew there were living
gods on Mt. Olympus, who meddled in mortal lives. Everyone knew
someone who had a cousin who'd seen a harpy or a chimera, much like
our own urban legends. The hardest part has been resisting some of
the cooler myths of, say, India and Scandinavia. Maybe there will be
some shorter works about his adventures in those parts later on. I
think Eno and Thor would get along.
Interviewer response:
Can you even begin to imagine how happy I am to hear THAT? Here I am
thinking I'll only have one more book with my darling hero, Eno, and
you tell me it's not a trilogy but 5 books? *happy Snoopy dance*
Q. Care to give us a sneak
peek at Dark Mountain? I can't wait to read it!
A. Sure, here's a
snippet:
Six beautiful girls,
each dressed in a wisp made of overlapping leaves, stood before me,
smiling remote, dreamy, rather silly smiles. Though each had slightly
different features or individual hair color, they were alike enough
to be sisters. Their skin was fresh, their eyes bright, their lips
inviting. On closer inspection, however, they also had in common the
fact that they didn't have legs. All were floating mysteriously in
mid-air.
I'd become a little leery
of strange women at this point, whether seated in a hut, drifting
weightlessly in a wood or lying in a lake. Still I am not the kind to
be needlessly insulting to anyone, let alone supernatural females.
It's too dangerous if they take offense.
"Good day, my
ladies. May I ask if I'm on the right path to see the Great God?"
My voice seemed hardly loud enough to reach even the nearest of them
but after a moment they nodded, one after the other. It was like
watching a ripple of wind move among the leaves of a willow tree.
One of them reached
out an incomparably graceful hand and brushed lightly at the braided
rope that held my bag of necessities on my shoulder. "Oh, yes,"
I said. "Nothing of craft."
Again their heads
bobbed in sequence. "Turn your backs, my ladies, for I'll have
to take everything off, kilt, belt and boots."
As they drifted slowly
around to face the other way. I got a shock. They were completely
hollow when seen from the rear. Their human-like forms were no deeper
than a wooden veneer applied to make a cheap piece of furniture look
luxurious. Yet their heads moved and their arms, even though I could
see that these were nothing more than hollow tubes, empty of muscle,
bones and blood.
Q. Are they crazy? I
wouldn't have turned around! :D Any parting comments you'd like to
leave us with?
A. The great thing
about independent publishing is that an author can bring a book they
believe in to an audience. I would encourage anyone who wants to do
it to try. Even if you don't make a ton of money, you'll find a great
community of writers and readers. I have met so many wonderful people
in the 'indie' world that I wouldn't trade for a really sweet
publishing contract...of course, that's easy to say *now*! Many
thanks for having me.
Thank you for joining me, Cynthia, and for that sneak peek. It gives me something to cling to!
Stay tuned next week, folks as I present C.B. Pratt and her second
book in this series, The Stone Gods.
Hero For Hire (Eno the Thracian)
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