History, Scenes from a Life, The Flame Before Us

A quick post

June 18, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

A quick post for today, highlighting a couple of things. First, the Past Horizons blog has reported some interesting archaeological finds recently.

Cover - Triumphal Accounts in Hebrew and Egyptian — Cover – Triumphal Accounts in Hebrew and Egyptian

One concerns the copper mines at Timna which I touched on long ago in my PhD as an example of how Egyptian and Levantine cultures might interact and share cultural values.

Now originally when this was found, there was a theory that these represented “King Solomon’s Mines”, dating from the 10th century BC (Iron Age). But fairly soon it became clear that the original extraction work had gone on much earlier, in the Late Bronze Age, certainly back to the 13th century and possibly 200 years earlier still. So originally the mines were worked during the period of Egyptian control of the Levant, though certainly it carried on into the Israelite monarchy period. So if King Solomon ever exploited these resources, he was continuing a long tradition, not starting a new one.

Temple area at Timna - Past Horizons blog — Temple area at Timna – Past Horizons blog

But the next assumption was that the enterprise was fundamentally run as an Egyptian colonial outpost, with Egyptian overseers directing a local workforce. This assumption has now been challenged by careful exploratory work. It now seems that the Egyptian presence was considerably smaller in scale, and probably represented a trade outreach rather than any kind of direct control. The Hathor temple shows clear signs of reuse of an earlier holy place, and virtually no Egyptian writing has been found. So the new picture is much more nuanced – the endeavour seems to have been a shared activity between different groups, and it is likely that the technical know-how concerning mining was provided by local groups rather than imported from The Beloved Land.

Finally, I have registered both Scenes From a Life and The Flame Before Us with the audiobook auditioning service ACX. The basic idea is that potential readers flock along to the site, select books which they like and are suited for, and audition for you. Any royalties are split between author and reader. It’s a nice idea, so let’s see what happens next. Should you know anybody keen on going in to such a venture, the two project links are Scenes From a Life and The Flame Before Us.

Book Signing, In a Milk and Honeyed Land, Scenes from a Life, The Flame Before Us

The Bookshop Literary Festival, East Grinstead

June 9, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

This coming Saturday, June 13th, I shall be taking part in a literary festival at The Bookshop, East Grinstead, along with a bunch of other authors from various parts of England, mostly though not entirely the south. The Facebook listing for the event is https://www.facebook.com/events/1573685189577242/.

I guess many readers of this will be way too far away from East Grinstead to get there, but it would be wonderful to meet up with anyone who is able to make the journey. It is rare in these internet-enabled days to get to actually encounter a person with whom one has enjoyed chat and correspondence for a long time. I shall be there with copies of each of In a Milk and Honeyed Land, Scenes from a Life, and The Flame Before Us, and it looks as though there will be book readings from each of the various authors. Sounds great!

So if you’re able to get the The Bookshop, 22 High Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 3AW (http://www.eastgrinsteadbookshop.co.uk/) between 10am and 4:30pm on Saturday June 13th, it would be great to see you.

Historical fiction, Review, The Flame Before Us

First review of The Flame Before Us

June 7, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

This review appeared last night on the Breakfast With Pandora blog and also on Amazon.com.

Cover - The Flame Before Us — Cover – The Flame Before Us

Some extracts…

The time is 1200 BC, and the situation is dire for the established civilizations on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. A large group of marauders invades from the west, destroying Ugarit, the west Syrian metropolis, and threatening the Nile Delta itself, as well as Egyptian vassals in Canaan, including the cities of Gedjet (Gaza) and Shalem (Jerusalem).

These invaders are dubbed the “Sea Peoples” because of their preference for using ships as a means of transportation. Scholars have been divided as to where they come from, but Abbott settles on the hypothesis that they were Greeks. He goes one step farther as well and takes them for the Greeks who attacked and destroyed the legendary city of Troy.

So, ambitious this book is, but in characteristic fashion, Abbott focuses less on sea captains with wind whipping their hair than on what we have come to know after Iraq as “collateral damage:” the ordinary people affected by these events.

To be sure, Abbott can’t resist a scholar’s interest in the Sea Peoples’ ability to defeat conventional chariot-centered warfare. But there are actually zero eye-witness descriptions of large battles. Instead, the on-stage violence, so to speak, is always personal and jarring.

Several threads of characters, two from the sacked city of Ugarit, two from Egypt, two from Canaan, one from Greece, and one of the Ibryhim (Hebrews) form the material for Abbott’s tapestry; there are so many characters, in fact, and the historical situation is so complex, that Abbott helpfully includes extensive explanatory notes at the end of the book.

But despite their number and diversity, each set of personages is distinct and vivid in its own way, and helps to create a full picture of what life must have been like in the uncertain times at the end of the Bronze Age. A surprising tenderness in the face of brutality, loss, and displacement is the emotion that underpins the action.

The reviewer goes on to muse how his favourite character is Hekanefer, the Egyptian scribe attached to one of the Egyptian army units trying to defend the land. I must admit to very much enjoying him myself, especially the different ways he relates to different family members. I have seen several blogs recently doing “meet my character” posts, and this made me think that this would be a good plan for hear. Watch this space…

Historical fiction, History, In a Milk and Honeyed Land, Scenes from a Life, The Flame Before Us, Timeline

Kephrath timeline

June 2, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

Some months ago (Timelines and maps, January 2015) I talked about setting up a timeline + map for my Kephrath stories. At that time I was just using some third party pages for which I entered data in some convenient form and then linked to a remote web page. This time around I have done it properly and used a proper Javascript library (https://code.google.com/p/timemap/) within the context of my own web site – check out http://www.kephrath.com/Timeline.aspx for the result. The link is also in the blog menu above…

Some events from In a Milk and Honeyed Land and Scenes from a Life, plus surrounding history

Fundamentally this works in exactly the same way as the third party pages, but of course I now have much more direct control over the content and appearance. Basically the source data is supplied in a format called JSON – easy to grasp and prepare, but rather strict and unforgiving about the details of formatting. The JSON data includes not only the events themselves – dates and descriptions – but also the details about colours and layout.

The latest version of Google maps allows you to remove modern artifacts such as roads, country names, and the like, so is ideally suited for me. Or indeed many of my historical fiction co-authors who write about various times in the past.

So far, key events are in place for In a Milk and Honeyed Land, and Scenes from a Life. I am currently in the process of entering the additional data for The Flame Before Us – this book covers only a few months of time, unlike the two earlier books which spanned a considerable number of years. So the dates will be rather squashed together. But of course the beauty of the system is that as I write more books, the new fictional history – and any relevant actual historical events surrounding it – can simply be added in.

The start of The Flame Before Us, plus surrounding events

Remember: http://www.kephrath.com/Timeline.aspx !

Historical fiction, History, In a Milk and Honeyed Land, The Flame Before Us

The changing place of women in the ancient Near East

May 26, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

So far as we can tell, the place of women in ancient Near Eastern culture shifted rapidly between the second and first millennia BC. At the start of that time, say around 1400BC during the Late Bronze Age, it was possible in some places for women to own and manage property, hold positions of considerable social rank, be literate, and so on. By the middle of the first millennium, say around 600 or 700 BC, just before the Babylonian armies conquered most of the Levant, women had a distinctly subordinate role, defined by the status of their father or husband.

We understand this partly through the written word, and partly through artefact. Some Egyptian letters written by or for women document their business transactions, for example. Or in other cases letters written by a husband show that his wife was trusted with the business while he was away. The Hebrew Bible describes women in the pre-monarchy era who were recognised as owners of land and leaders of the people.

Physical artefacts such as amulets or official seals from the earlier period show roughly equal numbers of male and female figures – usually, though not always, gods and goddesses. Later ones showing figures are heavily skewed towards male subjects, and where a scene would previously have called for a woman to be shown, an abstract representative symbol such as a star or tree often appears.

What these sources do not tell us is what social or cultural impulse was behind these changes of representation, and the shifts of attitude they reveal. Certainly, the region had become a more dangerous place. The Bronze Age great kings with their extensive vassal territories had been swept away, replaced by small localised kingdoms in permanent strife. Life, and travel, had become hazardous. So did the place of women change because of the widespread unrest? Did communities feel a need to protect their women, or less positively simply want to assert ownership over a valuable resource?

In fiction, I have chosen to present this change in several ways. The Four Towns, including Kephrath, are traditionally arranged matrilocally… a man moves into the household of his new wife, rather than bringing her into his family home. Descent and property is reckoned through daughters rather than sons. This is the world of In a Milk and Honeyed Land. There is no solid evidence this was done in Canaan, but the Hebrew Bible records traces of such traditions in Mesopotamia.

In my fictional world, the advent of the Sea Peoples signals the change. The ancient world cataclysm is described in The Flame Before Us. Greek women were, at least in classical times, strictly subordinate to men. I have assumed that this also applied to their Mycenaean precursors, who carried this cultural habit with them as they moved through the Levant. So the social disruption brought about by so many newcomers – whether for war or peace – changed the nature of the existing culture as it absorbed them.

The exact historical cause is unknown, and will probably remain so. However, it seemed to me that the interaction of European and Middle Eastern cultures at this early date might well lead to some unexpected results. Perhaps this was one of them.

Historical fiction, History

Egyptian interest in Canaan in the Bronze Age

May 19, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

Part of the background of all of my Kephrath books is Egypt. I call this the land of the Mitsriy – the name reflects both the biblical and modern Arabic names for that nation, whereas Egypt comes to us via a roundabout route through Greek.

Ancient Egypt was not as a rule interested in conquest per se, in the way that the later Assyrians, Babylonians, or Romans were. They were usually satisfied with securing a buffer area of tribes and cities to both north and south. These vassals rendered tribute of various kinds – goods, valuables, or people for the most part – in return for their local rulers being left in place by the Pharaoh. Loyalty was rewarded by support against enemies, rebellion (real or imagined) by punitive action.

Egypt appointed regional governors – one was at Gaza (Gedjet in the stories) – but control was light. The area was not regularly policed: military action was normally a direct response to some provocation, though now and then flag-waving marches took place. Indeed, rivalry and internal fighting between cities seems to have been positively encouraged, perhaps to prevent wider alliances being formed. A few militaristic pharaohs certainly did campaign through Canaan northwards, even reaching the Euphrates River on occasion. But the purpose here was to establish zones of control with reference to the other Great Kings of the age – Mitanni and the Hittites for the most part – and there was no attempt to set up permanent garrisons in these areas.

Rameses III against the Sea Peoples (Wikipedia)

This system started to break down around the end of the 19th dynasty (soon after 1200BC). Threats arose from other quarters, including north Africa and across the Mediterranean sea, and weaker pharaohs reduced the level of activity in the provinces. The major trade and defence route along the coast – The Sea Road – was defended all the more heavily, but elsewhere the Egyptian presence thinned out. The last great pharaoh in military terms of this era was Rameses III, who successfully defended Egypt against several attacks by The Sea Peoples and from Libya. Even he, however, decided that the only successful way to defend Canaan was to make terms with the invaders and grant them land. This event is recounted at the end of The Flame Before Us.

It used to be thought that Egyptians disappeared almost overnight from Canaan, at the end of the Bronze Age. This simple picture has been replaced by the understanding that Egyptian decline was a long and complex process. There was a continued – if reduced – presence in Canaan for a few hundred years. To be sure, there was no longer a serious military presence, and Egyptian words and wishes no longer commanded the same respect and obedience that used to be the case. But Egyptian cultural influence – building styles, pottery, systems of government, and habits of language and writing – persisted, and were influential in shaping the future of the kingdoms which emerged from this time, including the Israelites.

It’s always tempting with history to imagine “what-if” scenarios. What if the Egyptians under Rameses II had been more successful at the Battle of Qadesh against the Hittites, and gained control of the whole region up to Turkey? What if a more vigorous foreign policy had held the Sea Peoples back further north, avoiding the necessity to give territory away in the Gaza area? What if the Egyptians had poured more energy into linking up with the civilisations of Mesopotamia, instead of falling behind technologically and (in the end) being overrun? But these are for another day…

Historical fiction, History

Shipping and boats in the ancient world – on rivers

May 12, 2015 RichardAbbott 1 Comment

FerribyBoats.co.uk - Reconstruction of one of the Ferriby Bronze Age boats — FerribyBoats.co.uk – Reconstruction of one of the Ferriby Bronze Age boats

Back to ancient history today, with part 2 about boats and shipping. Last time I talked about transport at sea; this time it’s the turn of rivers. I knew very little about this until recently, but in fact the widespread navigability of rivers across non-Mediterranean Europe was a crucial factor in driving the settlement patterns across Europe, from Brittany to the Urals.

The Mediterranean countries have no great network of rivers, so it was natural that communities and nations turned to the great inland sea for long distance transport of heavy goods. But north of the Alps the situation was entirely different. Going up one river as far as possible, then arranging for a short portage to the next river, traders could span great distances with comparative ease.

I had read before of the Viking overland routes down to the Black Sea and Byzantium, but this was only one example among many. There were corresponding journeys all through modern France, Germany, Poland and so on. When the Romans tried to defeat the Germanic tribes by crossing the Rhine into the Teutoberg Forest, they perceived it as a trackless and impenetrable maze. In contrast, the tribes living there saw the rivers as a network of easy transport and communication.

Hull County Council Museum - remnant of the Hasholme Iron Age boat — Hull County Council Museum – remnant of the Hasholme Iron Age boat

France was readily crossed from north to south as well, enabling the tin trade from the British Isles to flourish. According to a Greek writer, this journey took about 30 days for a group fully loaded with goods. This direct route to Marseilles was much more economical than the sea route around Spain – which is going to be a key plot theme in my next historical fiction book.

Rivers across northern and central Europe drove not only settlement patterns, but also boat technology. Specialised river vessels were developed, quite different in design to the ocean-going ones. They were usually between 10 and 15 metres long, had flat hulls with no keel, and were easily propelled by oar, pole, or dragging from a towpath. They could carry 25-30 people, or about 5 or 6 tons of freight or livestock with a small handling crew. Some might even be called the original ancestors of modern roll-on-roll-off ferries, since the bow section flattened out when beached, so that barrels could be easily shifted on board or off.

Hull County Council - artist's impression of the Hasholme Iron Age boat — Hull County Council – artist’s impression of the Hasholme Iron Age boat

This river transport network survived in places up to the Middle Ages. By then, the increasing demand for energy in the form of water mills outstripped the need for navigation, and rivers were divided into sections so that easy transport was blocked. The brief ascendance of canals in the late 18th and 19th century might be seen as the last vestige of this ancient impulse to travel on inland water. But from the Middle Ages, roads, followed by railways, had essentially taken over the task of the rivers to move heavy freight.

Back around 1200BC however, the existence of these river boats was a key factor in human occupation and travel outside Mediterranean Europe, and will surface in some form in my next book…

History

Law, Liberty, Legacy – Magna Carta at the British Library

May 5, 2015 RichardAbbott 1 Comment

British Library - Magna Carta — British Library – Magna Carta

A brief digression today to talk about an exhibition I went to last weekend at the British Library – Law, Liberty, Legacy exploring Magna Carta, which is on display until September 1st this year – see http://www.bl.uk/events/magna-carta–law-liberty-legacy

Just to describe it first, the exhibits begin with the social and legal situation in England previously, go on to record the events that took place in 1215 and their immediate aftermath, and finally trace many of the ways in which Magna Carta has inspired and steered social action right through to the present day.

As you might expect, the items on show are almost entirely pieces of literature, from legal decisions through activist pamphlets to satire and celebration. I had no idea that so many books had survived from the 13th and 14th century, and to see them in one place was arresting in itself. This does mean, however, that unlike the themed displays in the British Museum there is very little by way of physical artefact to engage with – the exhibition is definitely one which you need to grapple with on an intellectual and imaginative level.

I found the reception history of Magna Carta fascinating. It has been said that the document has been far more influential and memorable as a source of inspiration for social justice, than as a law code or constitutional document. After all, most of it deals with medieval and feudal concerns and issues. These were left behind in this country long ago, and are often quite irrelevant elsewhere. Only three of the original stipulations are still part of English law, and at least one of these, to do with the special role of the church of England, may not survive much longer. Here in England we have no problem discarding previous ideas and replacing them with new ones!

The fragments which have most consistently served as a rallying cry relate to justice – a person is entitled to a fair trial involving their peers, the rulers of the land are not above the law, and the state should not use arrest simply as a means of political coercion. These themes have echoed over and over again since 1215, and are still absolutely central to debate in this and other countries. Here in the UK, this is at the heart of contemporary questions relating to state surveillance and responses to suspected terrorists – how does a nation balance personal liberty and national protection?

I found it fascinating to see how far these principles have spread over the years, and how often they have been used to challenge the actions of various UK governments through the years. From individual radical pamphlet writers facing incarceration on charges of treason, to former colonies seeking independence, to today’s activists demanding transparency in government, over and over again the clauses are invoked. And, of course, it has also been invoked by numerous out-and-out villains seeking to deflect official interest away from their actions!

One of the most poignant displays was in relation to the US Declaration of Independence. Many of the original legislative documents of the individual states were already built around principles of a fair trial and the like. So it is no surprise to see Thomas Jefferson and others appealing to Magna Carta as a source of inspiration. But one item on display is Jefferson’s original hand-written draft of the Declaration, on which he neatly underlined those clauses which he had wanted, but which were omitted from the final declaration. One of these related to racial equality, and one has to wonder how different American history might have been if Jefferson and others had succeeded in building that in to the American Constitution right from the start.

So this is an important exhibition to be held, and judging by the crowds present at the weekend it is a popular one. It is well worth seeing, whether you approach it from a historical interest viewpoint or one of social justice. If you are in the London area sometime before September 1st, I recommend you take the opportunity to see it.

History, The Flame Before Us

Shipping and boats in the ancient Mediterranean – at sea

April 30, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

Now that The Flame Before Us is happily released, my thoughts are turning to the next venture. I have several ideas which I want to pursue, but the one for today involves a sea journey, out from Phoenicia along (and ultimately outside) the Mediterranean Sea. Right now I do not have a working title, but the action will start very soon after Flame finishes.

But leaving aside plot details, this means that I have been reading up about ships and shipping in the ancient near east and beyond. Now, much Mediterranean shipping of that time was purely coastal, returning to beach on a handy shore as night fell. But there were what you might call “long-haul” vessels as well, which even if they routinely remained in sight of the coast for navigation, were fully able to remain at sea for long periods of time.

A lot of our information about these comes from shipwrecks, such as the one recovered from the south Turkish coast which has provided a wealth of information about 14th century BC maritime life. She was lost approximately 100 years before the events of In a Milk and Honeyed Land. The ship was carrying about 10 tons of copper ingots, a rather smaller quantity of tin, and a wide selection of valuables and other cargo originating in Mycenaean Greece, Cyprus, Canaan, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, and various parts of Europe. The ship herself was around 15m in length. Scientific American reckoned that it was one of the ten most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

Model of the Uluburun ship (from Wikipedia)

So shipwrecks give us a lot of information, and pictorial evidence from various sources gives us more. For example, the pictures of Rameses III’s battles against the Sea Peoples show us both Egyptian and other vessels. We do not always know if the artist meant the drawing to be strictly accurate, particularly where rigging is concerned, but they are a good start.

There have been several recent reconstructions of ancient sea-going ships, such as the Phoenician vessel that I blogged about some time ago, based on a ship dating from about half a millennium later than the Uluburun wreck. The best known mariners of this era were the Phoenicians, but many other nations had their own ships as well.

Something else that I recently found out is how prevalent river transport was across much of Europe… but this will be the subject of another blog.

Fantasy, Historical fiction, Interview

Author interview – David Frauenfelder

April 24, 2015 RichardAbbott Leave a comment

Today I am welcoming David Frauenfelder to an author interview. Up to now I have been staying this side of the Atlantic for these interviews, but it’s time to go across the pond now. I first came across David’s writing towards the end of 2013, and have been following as he has tackled a couple of different genres.

Review link – Skater in a Strange Land
Review – The Skater and the Saint
Review – The Mirror and the Mage

David Frauenfelder Q. David, I first came across you in connection with Skater in a Strange Land, about which I wrote “a sort of cross-over science-fiction / fantasy book that mostly defies description but kept me reading avidly to the end“. What drew you to write about Borschland, a fictitious continent appearing from time to time in the Indian Ocean?

A. I am an inveterate reader of maps and creator of worlds. I have pretty often had dreams where I am looking at a map and suddenly I dive into the place the map represents.

If I am in a boring meeting, I will sketch a map of an imaginary place from whatever is percolating in my brain at the time. If something like Dasht-e-Kavir comes out (a real desert in Iran), the world will be a wasteland with Persian and Arabic place names.

From there, it’s a very quick step to imagining peoples, cultures, and history. It helps that as a child I read all the fantasy standards from Lloyd Alexander to Ursula K. LeGuin.

Add in academic training in languages and literature (Greek and Latin primarily), plus a bit of travel, and you’ve got a walking world generator.

Q. Borschland is a truly zany place, lovingly described in your books, with its own language (rather like Dutch), religious heritage, social hierarchy, and economy. Adjacent lands are populated with their own species. Where did the different ingredients all come from? And why ice hockey as a national sport and addiction?

Borschland map A. I am utterly enchanted by the zaniness of human beings. If you read anything about anywhere that is an actual place in the world, it is pretty much full of unbelievably entertaining and improbable names and events. I was just reading about anthropologists who analyzed the grammar of Aboriginal languages in 19th century Australia. Can you imagine what their lives must have been like?

At the same time, human beings aren’t random. There is a kind of interior logic to our zaniness.

So, for Borschland, which began very innocently in my teenage years as a place where I could run a fantasy ice hockey league, once I discerned the interior logic of the place, I began to feel complete freedom in making Borschland totally and completely itself with no apologies.

I chose ice hockey because Borschland was named after a friend of mine who introduced me to the sport. Because of him, I became a lifelong fan, though I have never so much as laced up ice skates. Zany, yet with its own logic.

Hockey is a wonderful sport, with its own culture and improbabilities. There’s so much possibility for story there.

Much of the rest comes from the idea of the phase shift, which is a physically impossible but for me essential ingredient of the world– Borschland and its continent, as you say, “from time to time” phase out of this world and into a parallel universe. Figuring out how a culture would react to such a state of affairs drove a lot of what Borschland ended up being.

And you do have to be comfortable with talking bears.

Q. More recently you have branched into YA fiction with The Mirror and the Mage, set in the very early period of Rome and blending fantasy, fun and educational elements. Can you tell us a little about this new endeavour?

David Frauenfelder A. As a teacher of Latin to adolescents, I’m constantly looking for ways to bring my subject alive, and for quite a long time I had an idea about making the system of Latin grammar a system of magic. That way, I figured, a student could come at the rather dry idea of grammar from the point of view of an exciting story and perhaps see what the Romans knew, which is that their language was a source of power for them, and that, more generally, language simply is power.

For years the idea remained just that, until I saw how I could incorporate the magic system into an actual though quite legendary time in Roman history, the moment when the Romans overthrew the Etruscans and became a republic in the late 6th century BC.

The liberator of the Romans is Lucius Junius Brutus, and what he did as a young man and politician is duly written down by historians. But what about Lucius Junius Brutus the teenager? Now there was a completely blank slate on which I could create an adventure.

Q. So there are two quite different fiction series here, both of which are clearly very much alive in your imagination. You have also explored non-fiction writing a little. Are there other things you know you would like to write about as and when time permits?

A. Find me a MacArthur grant, Richard, and I’ll answer this question. To write everything I dream about, I would need quite a bit more time and freedom.

Q. Your author profile on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6801887.D_W_Frauenfelder) mentions that you teach classical languages, and have a great enthusiasm for the ancient world, especially as it expressed itself in myth. This comes over very clearly in The Mirror and the Mage, focusing as it does on a period of Rome’s history which is less familiar to many than the time of the Caesars. To what extent does your teaching career intersect with writing?

A. For much of my thirties and forties I was what you might call a populist scholar, which means that I wrote about my field of speciality, Greek mythology, in a way which aspired to be engaging and accessible to a general audience. That culminated in an online course I wrote for gifted 10-13 year-olds, Growing Up Heroic: Adventures in Greek Mythology (http://tip.duke.edu/node/160). It was a course that concentrated on the adolescent characters in ancient Greek stories.

Nowadays, I’m hoping that The Mirror and the Mage (and its sequel, The Staff and the Shield, which will release this year) will interest a young adolescent readership.

Cover image - Zeus is my Type! Q. Your blog (http://myth.typepad.com/breakfast/) contains an eclectic mix of posts addressing your very wide range of interests, including a look at ancient Greek gods by way of modern psychometric methods (Zeus Is My Type!, available through Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/482593 and other places). Now, it is clear from the blog that you greatly value historical accuracy and credibility in a book. How do you carry out research for your own writing?

A. I feel as if I’ve learned just enough to be able to create plausible lies. I’m always waiting for a reader to tell me that a historical detail in my book is wrong, or that hockey players don’t do that in real life. But my philosophy is, if you spend your whole life making sure you’re accurate, you’ll end by not writing very much fiction.

Q. How about locating your books? You have lived on both west and east coasts of America. Do you find either of these places emerging in your writing? Or possibly other places you have visited?

A. I find myself mostly incapable and uninterested in writing about where I have lived, less so places I have visited. Greece is a wonder, for example. I have set a novel there that takes place in 2000 BC. I felt free to delve that deep because in Greece I feel as if time is all one. Nothing dies. You can hear voices from millennia in the past. It’s eerie, but altogether exhilarating. I cannot sleep in Greece. I’m too inundated with spirits.

Q. I happen to know that there are follow-up novels in both the Skater and the Mirror series coming up before too long. How much are you willing to tell us about these just now?

A. I’m proud to say that I just finished the first draft of The Staff and the Shield. It introduces the historical idea that Lucius Junius Brutus faked being a simpleton (this is the meaning of “Brutus”) in order to escape the jealous eye of the Etruscan king. While playing this role in real life, Lucius has a grand adventure in the Etruscan Land of the Dead, a dangerous place of monsters and goddesses.

Book 3 of the Skater series, still in preliminary drafts, is called The Last Phase Shift, and discusses what happens when a group of scientists try to find a way to stop phase shifts on Borschland’s continent. It would seem as if hockey could not come in here, but it absolutely does. Also, so does the east coast of the United States. Hopefully not in a boring way.

Finally, is there anything you would like to add which we have not touched on so far?

A. Yes. If your readers have persevered this far, I would like to bestow upon each’s forehead a big gold star. And I would also like to thank you, sir, for your generous hospitality. It’s been a treat.

Thanks David for taking the time today to talk with me. All the best for you in the future.

Links:

Blog: http://myth.typepad.com/breakfast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davefrau

True North Writers Cooperative: https://www.facebook.com/pages/True-North-Writers-and-Publishers-Co-operative/581345541879610

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davefrau (@davefrau)

Goodreads profile https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6801887.D_W_Frauenfelder