One of the requests I’ve often received is for a series of books detailing the original Gods’ War that took place during the creation of my world of Dezrel. It’s one of those events that influences many of my books, and the religions in particular. Now I’ve generally been hesitant for several reasons. The first being that it’s yet another prequel series to the Half-Orcs. Given how that would make it prequel series number four, I really, really wanted to try moving forward instead of backwards (hence my current writing of Half-Orcs number 6). The second reason was that I didn’t think I had that interesting a story to tell. Strange, I know, given it’s a giant war between deities, but it felt too distant, felt too predictable. I wasn’t sure how I’d tell it to give it the power it deserved.
And that’s where Robert Duperre comes in. I’ve known Rob for almost three years now. I first met him when he was writing reviews for his website, Journal of Always. He did a glowing review of Weight of Blood, and it started up a conversation between us. He was great for feedback, and it seemed everything I tried to do he picked up on, sometimes even if I wasn’t aware of it (to see a great example of this, read his review of Cost of Betrayal here.
After about a year, I started relying on him to help guide me along when I hit ruts in my stories, or felt lost (Dance of Death in particular; he was a massive help in guiding that one along through multiple talks on the phone). He also gave me confidence in where I took the later two Paladin novels, reading very early copies of the novels before I ever finished. So this is someone who knew my world in and out, what I liked to accomplish, how I grew my characters, etc.
And then I mentioned co-authoring a book with him, covering the Gods’ War. His response? “I thought you’d never ask.”
He had an outline of ideas ready for me within a week, and already I could see what he would bring to the table. He was able to analyze so many little things that would come about from such a young world, incorporate the deities and their conflict into a much larger story than I originally envisioned. Most of all, it was the human element he managed to bring out, the one aspect I really needed to be excited about the project. It was all there, and it was fantastic. The go-ahead given, we began writing The Mountain Crumbles, the first of what appears to be three novels set during the time period. We’re about halfway finished with TMC, and hope to have it out before Christmas.
For anyone worried about quality, just know that I would never release a product with my name on it that I’m not proud of. I’m heavily involved in all of this, and I assure you my writing style will still be very much present throughout. I’ve got final say in pretty much everything else as well, as rare as I’ve needed to use it. But Rob’s bringing a breath of fresh air to my world, and I think everyone who’s been looking forward to this particular conflict should be very pleased. There’s a lot of homages to the later books, a lot of little connections, and a few massive reveals that should make any longtime reader of mine very, very happy.
Rob should be lurking around, so any questions/worries feel free to ask and one of us should be able to answer to the best of our abilities. And if you want to check out any of Rob’s work beforehand, I’ve included his author page on Amazon below. If you need a start, I’d go with Silas.
