Today I’m happy to have my good friend Brian Rathbone on the site. Brian, and I have been help each other out in publishing for a few years. He’s an awesome resource, and a killer writer. If you aren’t following him, you should be.

What made you want to be a writer?

 I was driven by a deep love of reading–especially fantasy fiction. When I was reading the Dragonlance Chronicles, Shannara, the Belgariad, and Thomas Covenant, I always knew there was a story within me that I would one day tell. I’m glad I’ve finally gotten the chance to do just that.

 

What is the hardest part about writing a book for you?

Until a couple of weeks ago, my greatest challenge was finding time to write. Now, I am fortunate enough to write full-time, and that leaves me with the greatest challenge being editing. I’ve gotten better over time, and thank goodness for the professionals, but I do my best to catch the big pieces before sending it to my editor(s).

 

Can you tell us about your writing process?

 Most of my story creation and world building took place years ago while I worked in the high-stress world of high-tech. For a long time I would take my work to bed with me in the figurative sense. My wife still laughs about the times I’d sit up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night with the solution to some problem or another. Though occasionally productive, debugging code in my sleep was exhausting. I solved this problem by thinking about the story I would one day write before sleep. When I finally got the chance to write, I couldn’t write fast enough.

 

Where do you find inspiration for story ideas?

 I’ve always felt that a writer’s best friend is a deep well of experience, and I think the diversity of my background has helped me. I grew up training racehorses on a working farm with as many as forty head in training at any given time; I’ve worked in a nuclear plant, gas stations, convenience stores, commodities traders on Madison avenue, dot coms, and the NC Department of Commerce. As a consultant, I’ve done work for NASCAR teams, TV stations, Symantec, and other Fortune 500 companies. It is from those experiences that I draw my inspiration. 

 

Can you tell us where you came up with the idea for the Godsland Fantasy Series?

 I’ve always been fascinated by history. What always confused me was how much magic existed in the old world and how little exists today. All that remains now are legends and stories, which tend to seem a little more than far fetched, and yet people believed these things strongly—they lived, killed and died by those beliefs; surely they were not just flights of fancy. There had to be something real behind the stories in Greek and Roman mythology, and the Bible, and the Mahabharata. I started to wonder if there hadn’t been a very brief, yet very real, age of power. I asked myself what could cause such a thing, and I thought of the cicada cycle, and then I thought of comets; celestial bodies with elliptical orbits that left them in deep space for hundreds if not thousands of years at a time. Comets are often pulled from the Oort cloud by the gravity of another celestial body. I imagined a large planet drifting close to the cloud and sending a massive stream of comets on an epic journey. When I imagined what would happen if magic or power suddenly returned to the world, Call of the Herald was born.

 

I know there is several Series inside the Godsland Series, can you explain that to us?

 As a lover of fantasy fiction, one of the things that always bothered me were series that never ended. While I intended to write an epic tale, I also wanted to provide satisfying endings along the way. I looked to what David Eddings had done with the Belgariad and the Mallorean, and I saw a more reader friendly model. With that in mind, I set out to write a series of trilogies where each tells a complete story and provides what I hope is a satisfying ending.

 

Do you need to read each of the series in order?

While there is something to be said for reading the series in order, and I highly recommend reading the books within a trilogy in order, there is no reason readers can’t pick up the second trilogy before the first. I had originally thought it absolutely imperative that the books be read in order, but after more than a handful of readers told me they read the books out of order and enjoyed them, I started to reconsider. My change of opinion solidified when my brother gave me an audiobook for a long road trip; it was the second book in the Mistborn series and I loved it. I still haven’t gotten to finish the first one, and my enjoyment of it is only slightly diminished by knowing how it ends. Readers are smart–they figure things out even if we don’t spell it out for them. That was a lesson for me as a writer.

 

What was your experience writing the Godsland Series?

There’s nothing quite like connecting with readers. Not everyone loves the Godsland series, and that’s not a problem, but it warms my heart to know that most people who read the series connect with it. It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe.

 

Who is your favorite character from the series and why?

Now THAT is a tough question. I keep thinking of characters and then thinking of how I might have accidentally killed them. Oops.

 

Is there anything you would do different if you had to do it all over again?

 I would have started connecting with readers and writers sooner. I love connecting with folks on Twitter; I’m @brianrathbone. I’m also on Facebook.

 

Is there anything you’d like to say to your readers?

Thank you. Without you, I would never have gotten the chance to tell the stories to come. You have enabled me to chase my dream, and for that I will be forever grateful. The first two books in the Godsland series are free and links can be found at www.BrianRathbone.com.

 

To find out more about Brian and his books please visit his website www.BrianRathbone.com

The Dawning of Power

The debut trilogy in Brian Rathbone’s The World of Godsland fantasy series. This book includes three books:

Book One – Call of the Herald

Book Two – Inherited Danger

Book Three – Dragon Ore

Echoes of the ancients’ power are distant memories, tattered and faded by the passage of eons, but that is about to change. A new dawn has arrived. Latent abilities, harbored in mankind’s deepest fibers, wait to be unleashed. Ancient evils awaken, and old fears ignite the fires of war.

In times such as these, ordinary people have the power to save the world . . . or destroy it.

You can get your copy today at…

Amazon

 

Giveaway




You can also enter to win a copy of Dragon Ore by simply signing up on the newsletter. I will be holding a drawing at the end of the month and emailing the winner. If you have any questions about giveaways, please see the giveaways section of the site.

You can find out about Brian’s FREE books here.



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