I want to welcome Mathias
G.B. Colwell! First I’d love you to introduce yourself.
I’m California raised. Well traveled. I love pizza and fish
tacos. I enjoy outdoor activities like snowboarding or playing soccer or
basketball, but I’m just as likely to stay inside and read a book or watch TV.
Currently I work in higher education. I love the work of many authors, but
Robert Jordan, Patrick Rothfuss, David Eddings, Jim Butcher, Brandon Sanderson,
and JK Rowling are among my favorites.
Tell us about your
latest release.
Among my latest releases is a book called Dusk Runner, Book 1 of The Dark Arrow
Trilogy. It’s sort of a classic adventure tale, a high fantasy sword and
sorcery type book where the primary race of beings are elves. It has action,
romance, magic, and it moves along at a fairly quick pace making it an easy and
enjoyable read.
Now I have a few
questions for you – I have found readers do like to know fun things about us
writers.
1.) Who is your
favorite villain – it can be from a book (even one of yours), movie or TV show.
And why?
Does Gollum, from The
Lord of the Rings count? On second thought, I’m not sure that he does. If
we decide that Gollum doesn’t count as a true villain, then I think I would
actually have to go with a group of villains. I really enjoy the Forsaken from The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan.
Collectively, they represent just about every conceivable reason for a person
to become a villain, along with many personal motivations, their own inner set
of intrigue and power squabbles, and some truly evil intentions. Villains
really don’t get much better than the Forsaken, although I admit, I am partial
to WOT so maybe my opinions are a bit biased.
2.) Who is your
favorite character out of your books? Why?
That is a tough question. I guess I’m going to have to go
with Beathan, a character from one of my series called The Collector Series.
Beathan is a half-human, half-fairy with a penchant for theft and mischief. He’s
my favorite for a number of reasons. Firstly, I think he’s exciting and a bit
unpredictable. Secondly, he enjoys creating a bit of chaos and I’ve always
enjoyed characters who add to the general madness of a story just a little bit.
And lastly, he is just really fun to write, probably more fun to write than
just about any of my other characters, which has made me rather fond of him.
3.) What do genre do
you write? What made you pick that one?
I like to think that I write primarily fantasy, although
some of my work might more aptly be classified in a slightly different section
of speculative fiction. It’s pretty simple, I try to write stories that I would
want to read and I happen to love a good fantasy series.
4.) What are you
working on now?
I am currently finishing up Entrance to Dark Harbor, Book 2 of The Dark Arrow Trilogy. I’m also outlining
and preparing to start writing Book 3 of that same trilogy.
5.) What got you to
start writing?
This may sound slightly self-centered, but I remember a long
time ago thinking that I wanted to somehow be remembered after I was gone. What
better way to be remembered, than by being immortalized through the pages of a
wonderfully written story?
6.) Where do you get
your ideas from?
Anywhere, really. From reading or watching TV. From a dream.
From the way a shadow plays across the ground. From a particularly evocative
piece of music. I find that my ideas have come from a variety of different
places and I tend to enjoy the fact that inspiration can come from just about
anywhere.
7.) What would people
who read your work be surprised to find out about you?
That one of my happy places is the Dr. Seuss section in a
bookstore. Actually, that might not be surprising at all, since he is moderately
beloved by a wide variety of readers.
8.) Do you have any
special talents?
I can robot whistle (aka hum and whistle at the same time).
It’s one of those things you sort of have to hear someone do to understand.
9.) What was the one
piece of advice you received when you were an aspiring author that has stuck
with you? Why?
I don’t know if anyone specifically said this to me, but a
lesson I learned and took to heart early on, and a lesson I still rely on quite
frequently, is to learn how to deal with rejection and failure. You’ll fail and
get rejected a lot as a writer. And that won’t stop even as you write and
publish more. Developing a thick skin is important if you want to be able to
continue to practice your craft.
10.) If you could talk
to any famous figure (present, past or fictional) who would it be and what
would you talk about?
That is also a really tough question, with so many possible
answers. I’m a huge sports fan, in particular a fan of the English football
(soccer) club Manchester United. I grew up watching them play and absolutely
fell in love with them as a teenager with (unrealistic) aspirations of playing professionally.
As such, I would love a sit down chat with the club’s most famous, and recently
retired, manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
11.) What song would
you say describes your life?
I enjoy Mumford and Sons quite a lot, and they have a song
called Hopeless Wanderer. I don’t know if it completely describes every aspect
of my life, but the wanderer part seems to fit pretty well, considering that
I’ve lived on four continents and traveled to over thirty countries.
12.) If you could come
back as any animal – what would it be?
I’m going to be cliché. Something with flight. I guess an
eagle of some kind. Although lounging in a tree as a leopard runs a close
second. Maybe we should go with a mythical creature instead? Isn’t a griffin
essentially a combination of a large feline and a giant bird? That would
combine my two answers into one.
Excerpt:
Djumair
Silverfist had been a traitor for nineteen long years and a coward for most of
his life. He was the most dangerous type of coward there was, a bold one. He
reflected idly on his life as he awaited the final orders for his next mission.
Djumair let his thoughts drift even further from the next task and more upon
his own being. He was not someone to question the decisions of the past. They
were gone and could not be remade, so why bother with them? However, he was not
above succumbing, every now and again, to the self-reflective melancholy one
reserved for time spent sifting through memories over a goblet of wine and a
good view. Djumair looked off the edge of the platform, not five feet from
where he sat, at the plains interspersed sparsely with copses of trees beneath
him. Even though he was alone, and had nobody with which to share his thoughts,
he allowed his mind to continue its backward journey. He was a solitary person
after all. In many ways he preferred to be alone and it seemed fitting to reminisce
by himself.
Permission
granted, he continued to remember. Not for the first time, nor for the last,
his mind pondered the curious tandem of cowardice and courage that was Djumair
Silverfist. He knew exactly what was required of a person to be on the winning
side of conflicts in life, and he did whatever was necessary to ensure that he
never lost. That fact, in and of itself, was his craven fault. Yet it
simultaneously lent credence to his arrogant understanding of his own dangerous
competency when it came to vanquishing a foe. He feared the price of losing so
greatly that he knew he was a coward to the very core of his being. However, he
was bold enough to know which decision or action, in the right circumstances,
would be enough to ensure that he avoided failure, pain, and any other
unpleasant consequences of defeat. Sometimes those decisions were difficult,
but he made them all the same. Therein lay his courage, the ability to make
challenging decisions.
His
mind flashed back to that fateful day nineteen years ago, when he unleashed the
flood of water that burst open Verdantihya’s fabled gates—ripped them open from
within. Bleeding and broken, he had sacrificed everything to avoid death, to
avoid losing. He had joined the winning side, that much was clear. While he now
sat and sipped wine freely on a slaver’s deck, his former kinsmen fought, died,
bled, and were captured. He thought of them as ‘former’ because one couldn’t
really claim to belong to the very people who they had betrayed. This sense of
un-belonging defined Djumair, but it was a fair price for his own freedom,
though not without pain.
Djumair
had spent the better portion of the last two decades fighting a war for a king
who he did not love and a Grand Marshal who he did not respect, and it had all
been by his own choice. Many long years ago, when he had first felt the icy
fingers of fear twisting in his belly, he had chosen this path. The first
invasion had been sudden and swift, and the humans had established such a
strong foothold on the continent that he had known his people had no hope of
triumph. He had done the only thing possible, he had defected to what he knew
would be the winning side. It had been a decision motivated by fear, but the
choice in and of itself had not been one that was without the need for courage.
It was a strange internal parallel in which he lived; fearful enough to betray
his people and avoid defeat, and brave enough to make the hard choices in life,
the choices that cut ties to one’s heritage.
He
broke from his reverie as he watched a servant approach from across the
open-aired room. The wind swirled gently, high up on the eastern most Pillar in
the land. Djumair reclined in a lounging seat with a view. It was a seat
reserved for the slave captains who frequented this last outpost before heading
north to begin a raid, or heading east to deliver the latest batch of captives
to the humans. The wind was a dry breeze billowing up from the southeast. It
carried the scent of smoke from the Camps and the dust from the land further
beyond them as it curled up over the edge of the platform, leaving the ground
far below it, hundreds of feet down. It was still strange to Djumair, even
after his long years in this southern land, that the air could be so dry. This
wind had a strangely familiar smell to it, a scent for which he felt the
inklings of recognition. However, just when it felt he was about to lay hold of
the memory of that particular scent’s origin, it slipped away from his mind’s
grasp. He didn’t like that. Djumair couldn’t shake the odd feeling of
importance for whatever it was he could not remember. It never paid to forget
important information.
He
took another swill of the white wine that sat chilled in his goblet, the
contents creating tiny droplets of condensation on the exterior. It was not the
most popular of beverages among his southern compatriots, but it was light and
tangy. It soothed his dry throat and reminded him of the pleasures of this
land, pleasures he was not likely to forget seeing as they were, in large part,
the reason he had chosen this course in life. Wine of this vintage had been
impossible to find in the north even before the invasion, let alone now, with
the northern people of Andalaya scattered to the four winds across their
mountain lands.
The
servant finally reached the small, stand table to Djumair’s right. He carried a
silver pitcher polished to perfection, full of wine no doubt, should Djumair
require more. It was the joy, and the nuisance, of being important. People to
do his bidding, and at the same time, those same people were the ones who often
interrupted the few quiet moments he had to himself. The swallow of wine tasted
sour as Djumair grimaced slightly at the bothersome servant. The boy should be
able to see that his wine glass was still half full and in no need of
refilling.
The
servant was young and dark haired like all of his people, and as he drew closer
he must have seen the dangerous glint in Djumair’s eyes. The boy hesitated as
if considering retreat, but then continued once he realized that he had come
too far to leave without offering more wine. Fear shone in the boy’s eyes as he
approached. Djumair knew the fright that his name inspired in others. Just
because he knew he was a coward, didn’t mean that others did. In truth, most
men were cowards at their core, he was just one of the few who admitted it to
themselves. He embraced it and let it become a strength rather than a weakness.
He let his fear push and prod him until it became a source of ingenuity and
boldness rather than a reason to run from a fight. But this boy didn’t know he
was a coward. Instead, this servant saw one of the most feared warriors in the
land, someone known for chopping off his own hand in order to win a battle. It
was good the boy feared him. He liked it that way.
Djumair
Silverfist watched the boy’s eyes glance down at the immaculately forged silver
fist attached to the end of his left arm. It was sculpted to perfection to
resemble the very likeness of a living hand closed into a fist. It lay, along
with his left arm, on the armrest and it glimmered in the setting sun.
“Would
you care for some more wine?” the servant stuttered, his black hair hanging
down the back of his tan, brown neck. All of the boy’s kinsmen were tanned and
brown, courtesy of this southern sun. For a brief instant Djumair felt bad for
the boy. He was a servant, not a slave, but in this society of warriors and
conquerors, once you accepted the role of servant, it was yours to fulfill for
the rest of your life. The boy would never escape it. The pity was fleeting as
Djumair remembered the boy’s interruption of one of the few moments of solitary
respite he had to simply enjoy the little things in life, like a sunset and a
glass of wine.
He
shook his head curtly. “Would you have me become drunk and susceptible to any
sellsword who wishes to come my way?” He barked in response. “One glass of wine
is enough for any man who calls himself a warrior. Once you have had more than
one, you cease the right to claim that title. You then become a drunkard and
just another body for your captain to throw at the enemy.” His words might have
been a little harsh, but the boy had annoyed him.
“Yes,
Silverfist, I mean, Sir,” the boy spluttered quickly to repent, “what do I know
of battle and fighting? Of course, you are right.” He spun too quickly as he
turned to walk away, and the pitcher flew from the tray, spilling its contents
all over the ground.
The
servant spun back to face Djumair, clearly expecting a tongue scathing remark
at the very least, if not a command to the whipping post or worse. Djumair
sneered slightly as he sat on the lounge chair, still reclining through the
entire interaction, and watched the boy as he clutched the tray to his chest in
fear, awaiting the consequences for spilling the wine.
His
own image as reflected in the tray caught Djumair’s eye, and he gazed upon his
reflection as he pondered how he should punish the servant. From the polished,
gleaming surface of the tray, light blue eyes stared back at him. Pale features,
unlike the servant’s, looked at him, and blond hair adorned the top of his
head. The sides of his head were shaved in the manner of the warriors of the
south, and his long, flowing locks of blond hair flowed off the back of his
head just past his shoulders like a white-gold mane. It was not held in a
braid, but it was gathered at intervals by loose, rawhide ties to keep it from
getting in his way as he moved or fought. The hairstyle left the sides of his
head clean, revealing ears that were pointed at the top, protruding in the
manner of both his northern heritage and the servant’s people. Dark or light of
skin, the pointed ears were a common feature between the two races.
Djumair
had a small, silver ring in his right nostril, but the most distinctive marks
upon his face were the three blood red tears tattooed on both of his cheeks as
if falling from the corners of his eyes. Traitor’s Tears. They marked a person
who had betrayed Andalaya in order to serve the King of the South. A decision
Djumair Silverfist had made long, long ago. The tattoos were on his cheeks by
choice. He had been the first to betray and had been the first to be tattooed.
What was now required of the northerners who chose to give their lives to serve
their new masters, he had pioneered as a twisted memorial to whom he had once
been. In a strange way everything about him was defined by choice, from the
biggest decision to the smallest decoration on his body. Nothing had been
forced upon him, and nothing would be.
He
stood up slowly, faced down the servant with a penetrating gaze, and then
backhanded him across the face as hard as he could. The boy dropped in a heap,
and by the time he managed to pull himself together, Djumair had long since sat
back down on his chair. He could hear the boy’s sniffles, and feel the sting on
the back of his good, right hand from the impact. It set his pulse racing and
his blood buzzing. Even the slightest hint of combat made his whole body feel
as if it were on fire. He was a warrior through and through. He feared death,
but it did not keep him from the challenge of the fray. This however, was a
simple disciplinary action and he calmed his fighting instincts.
“Go. Now. Get a rag, or
better yet, remove your shirt and wipe up that mess,” Djumair said flatly as he
gazed at the view before him. Maybe he could recapture some of the serenity
that had preceded this unfortunate encounter—unfortunate for him, since it had
interrupted his quiet. Djumair cared not a whit for the pain the boy was
suffering.
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