Ask the Author: Scott P. Southall
Answered Questions (4)
Scott P. Southall
Hi Celia.
I am sorry I missed your question earlier but let me try to answer it now. The idea for this storyline came from a trip to Egypt in 2017. My wife and I were lucky enough to have an incredible Egyptologist as our guide. We got to learn an amazing amount by visiting multiple sites across the country and having this resource to ask endless questions. That being said a huge amount of energy went into expanding this knowledge to actually write the story.
Much of the setting in Ancient Egypt is based upon historical fact. Akhenaten’s movement of the capital from Thebes to Akhetaten was fact. Nefertiti was Queen and Akhenaten did have multiple wives. Thutmose was the royal sculptor and the bust of Nefertiti is real. The change from polytheism (worshipping multiple gods) to monotheism during Akhenaten’s reign was also true. Given that the roots of their religion stretched back well more than a thousand years it got me to thinking about why something like this could have happened. Thus The Order of Time.
Anubis was the god of the afterlife in Ancient Egypt and he was incredibly important to ancient Egyptians, The afterlife, like heaven for Christians, was the place to be. Thus the embalming process and elaborate burial sites including he possession you needed in the afterlife. If he didn’t let you into the afterlife everything pretty much ended when he fed you to the demon.
The idea of him becoming power hungry was something I made up. I suppose it’s easy to paint the god of the afterlife as a bad guy when he looks like a jackal. The alliance with the Corsairs was also fictional but served as the perfect motivation for these two sets of bad guys to come together.
If you can’t tell I enjoy both mythology and history. The opportunity to combine them in adventure for kids is something I hope that readers enjoy.
Regards
Scott
I am sorry I missed your question earlier but let me try to answer it now. The idea for this storyline came from a trip to Egypt in 2017. My wife and I were lucky enough to have an incredible Egyptologist as our guide. We got to learn an amazing amount by visiting multiple sites across the country and having this resource to ask endless questions. That being said a huge amount of energy went into expanding this knowledge to actually write the story.
Much of the setting in Ancient Egypt is based upon historical fact. Akhenaten’s movement of the capital from Thebes to Akhetaten was fact. Nefertiti was Queen and Akhenaten did have multiple wives. Thutmose was the royal sculptor and the bust of Nefertiti is real. The change from polytheism (worshipping multiple gods) to monotheism during Akhenaten’s reign was also true. Given that the roots of their religion stretched back well more than a thousand years it got me to thinking about why something like this could have happened. Thus The Order of Time.
Anubis was the god of the afterlife in Ancient Egypt and he was incredibly important to ancient Egyptians, The afterlife, like heaven for Christians, was the place to be. Thus the embalming process and elaborate burial sites including he possession you needed in the afterlife. If he didn’t let you into the afterlife everything pretty much ended when he fed you to the demon.
The idea of him becoming power hungry was something I made up. I suppose it’s easy to paint the god of the afterlife as a bad guy when he looks like a jackal. The alliance with the Corsairs was also fictional but served as the perfect motivation for these two sets of bad guys to come together.
If you can’t tell I enjoy both mythology and history. The opportunity to combine them in adventure for kids is something I hope that readers enjoy.
Regards
Scott
Scott P. Southall
This is a great question and one that had gotten harder to answer the older I’ve gotten. What I can tell you is that my eleven year old self was completely enthralled by the idea of going to Anne McCaffrey’s Pern.
The idea of becoming a rider and forming a life long bond with a fire breathing, teleporting, telepathic dragon was pretty much my birthday, Halloween, and Christmas all wrapped up in one.
The idea of becoming a rider and forming a life long bond with a fire breathing, teleporting, telepathic dragon was pretty much my birthday, Halloween, and Christmas all wrapped up in one.
Scott P. Southall
I am working on a sequel to The Order of Time with Anastasia and Edward returning as protagonists. I am having a lot of fun introducing new locations and new historical characters into the mix. I am little challenged finding time while balancing my job in the banking industry, small children learning at home (read home schooling), and finding enough time to write. I am hoping to publish this one prior the end of the calendar year in 2020.
Scott P. Southall
The concept of twins who befriend the curator of the Smithsonian was a construct that I had used for telling bedtime stories to my own kids. My wife and I took our first holiday without kids a few years ago and spent time in Paris (always a favourite for us) and Egypt which was on both of our lists. We absolutely loved Egypt and were lucky to have an amazing guide/Egyptologist for our trip. The idea for the storyline formed during the trip and I started writing on the plane ride home.
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