Author Bio:
Jeremy Higley was born in California but now lives in Arizona. As of
2016 he’s a graduate student working on a master’s degree in English. He’s also
an instructional aide at a local elementary
school, a novelist, and a
contributing editor for a nonprofit student success company called LifeBound
Let's hear from Jeremy himself:
Let's hear from Jeremy himself:
When writing a “swords and sorcery” style fantasy like The Son of Dark, it is very easy to let
the sorcery overpower the swords. I’ve noticed this trend in so many fantasies,
and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For my book, though, I wanted a more even
playing field. I wanted magic to be ever present, certainly, but when fight
scenes came I didn’t want my non-magical characters to be deadweight.
To make this work, I had to do two things. First I had to build my magic
system with weaknesses that sword-users could take advantage of. Second, I had
to write non-magical characters who could still hold their own in a world full
of magic.
In many ways the magic system for The
Son of Dark is very traditional. For wizards, magic is performed through a
language of power, and the strength of the spell comes from the energy of the
wizard’s soul. This has its obvious disadvantages when fighting. It takes time
to explain to the elements around you that you want them to do something, and
whether your spell is offensive or defensive, time is something a swordsman
isn’t going to give you. The very versatility of language becomes a drawback.
There are a hundred things a wizard might say in response to a sword thrust.
While all the possibilities are crossing the wizard’s mind, his practiced
opponent doesn’t need to think deeply in order to deliver a killing blow with a
sword.
Further, the wizard can’t influence the swordsman directly with his
magic.
The magic still has its bite, though. Wizards can call swords to them or
turn them against their opponents, turn sand to glass and throw shards of it in
all directions, or conjure flesh onto dead bones to create terrifying allies.
Dragons can possess humans, or create a magical kind of fire that ignores flesh
and cloth and burns the very blood inside your veins. Thrown into this magical
world are characters like Zar, Morkin, and Largalarg.
Zar is easily the least magical major character in The Son of Dark. He’s a pirate turned merchant, and his most
valuable asset in a fight against magic is his quick decision-making. He takes
in a situation quickly and determines the best, most logical course. Before
swords are drawn and spells are spoken, he has often already leveled the
playing field by changing the environment to his advantage.
Morkin quickly becomes Zar’s most trusted ally, in spite of a vague
background and even vaguer motives. The idea behind Morkin has always been that
of a man who has turned a disability into a weapon. He and his entire people
are cursed with silence…they can neither hear nor be heard. This silence
extends to all human noises, including footsteps, clapping, and breathing. As a
result, Morkin has perfected a ninja-like regimen of skills.
Largalarg, on the other hand, is a ten-foot-tall troll known as a Grag.
Grags are known for making good non-magical mercenaries, and sure enough
Largalarg serves as Zar’s personal bodyguard. His weapon of choice is a ball
and chain, and his superior size and strength makes this a formidable choice
indeed. Though impractical on a medieval battlefield, I figured that in a
one-on-ten fight, wielded by a behemoth like Largalarg, a cannonball on a
length of chain would be a sensible option.
Balancing the world so that characters like this could hold their own
against magic-users was a personal goal of mine as a writer, as I hope I can
demonstrate with the excerpt below.
Excerpt from The Son of Dark:
Marga pointed to the
south. Zar didn’t turn, but he heard a gasp of recognition from Skel.
“Aja-aja,” he said with
concern. “Three of them, about two miles away.”
Zar sighed in
trepidation. The aja-aja were rare, enormous snakes prowling the Eltar plains,
preying on elephants and any herders foolish enough to attack them. They had
three heads each and stocky, powerful bodies to match, and could grow to over
forty feet long. They killed and then predigested their prey by spitting
streams of corrosive poison from their mouths.
“The aja-aja will be no
problem,” he bluffed, staring into Marga’s eyes. “I have two magic-users with
me now, a wizard and a Phage. They’re perfectly capable of dispatching a few
overgrown snakes.”
“If so, then I’ll
simply have to wait longer to be reunited with my precious one,”
the Wyvern said, eyeing
the flattened snake corpses around her.
Something inside Zar
began to burn like a fuse at the words “precious one.”
“You knew her before, I
presume,” he continued, his voice much quieter. “Before you kidnapped her, I
mean, and took over her mind.”
“She was mine to take,”
the Wyvern retorted through Marga’s lips. “She was always mine to take.”
The last words hissed
from Marga’s mouth like a challenge. Zar’s fingers wrapped around his sword’s
hilt. He wanted nothing more at this moment than a way to strike at
his enemy, but the
Wyvern was far, far away.
“If you want her,” Zar
said, “you’ll have to kill me.”
“Too risky,” the Wyvern
replied. “You crave nothing more than to die for her. To kill you might break
my grip.”
“If you don’t kill me
she will never truly be yours,” Zar said. He walked to within an arm’s length
of her. “As long as there’s breath in me, I will always be fighting to free
her.”
“I’m sure you mean
that,” the Wyvern said. “Once you’re dead, there’s nothing to stop me from
singing her back to me.”
Buy Links:
Publisher’s website: http://www.classactbooks.com/index.php/component/virtuemart/cat-young-adult/the-son-of-dark-tales-of-the-darksome-thorn-book-1-detail?Itemid=0
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