Recently Cristina Istrati interviewed me about myself and my book, Maldene as part of her Blog Hop event. What follows is the text of that interview.

1) What is the Title of your book?
“Maldene: Volume One” It’s actually the first half of the first novel, “Maldene”, just divided into 2 volumes since it’s a bit big and I’m a bit unknown.

2) Where did the idea come from for your book?
I put the plot together from a number of sources over the years; some from the back of my head, some from weekly games with my friends. A few parts of it I had in mind from the beginning and that was first, I wanted to had a sort of quasi-poetic feel to some of the descriptive style, and second I wanted to design the ultimate bad guy.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
A loaded question. The first Maldene book is definitely Epic Fantasy, but later in the series some science-fiction elements start sliding in.

4) Which actors would you choose to play in your movie rendition?
Good question and one I’ve discussed with a few friends. I’d probably go with a bunch of unknowns so people can better identify them as the characters from the book and not “so and so” playing another role. The most important casting would be for the role of Miro, my ultimate bad guy. It have to be someone that can exude subtle evil at a glance.

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
“A world beyond time… an adventure beyond imagining.”

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I am independently published by Vault of Knowledge. Though as far as an ‘agency” I could use a good marketing or PR agency.

7) How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The first Maldene book came in at over 330,000 words. That took me 9 months. But I was still teaching myself how to do things, and was not yet on my full schedule that I would later develop. Nowadays a book of that length would take me about 3 months, editing included. To give you a comparison, Maldene XIII came in at 570,000 words and took me 4 months, editing included.

8) What other books would you compare this story to?
I tell people Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter because most people know those, but a couple of people have compared it to The Wheel of Time. Frankly, though, the further you get into the series the more you really can’t compare it to anything at all.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I always had a love of fantasy and Sci-Fi, and I guess around age 13 knew that I’d be writing something, just never knew what. Also hated the physical work of typing on a typewriter with the liquid paper and such. It took a number of years for the complete story to come together in my head and by that time there were word processors.

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s a world of fantasy and science fiction, with it’s own history, language, and even alphabet. a world as complete as our own Earth, with a plot that spans an entire world, other dimensions, thousands of years, and the stars beyond. A story about a villain who plans centuries in advance, a story about… Maldene.