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The Protagonist Speaks

Interviews with the characters of your favourite books

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Dark Fantasy

Gentry Mandrake (of Liefdom by Jesse Teller)

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Dear readers, tonight with me is a creature out of fairy tales – but not those tales we reserve for children. A guardian of a peaceful city, tonight’s protagonist is a fairy like no other.

He is here to tell us about the dark troubles he faces in his society, his longing to belong, and about fighting to protect the human child bound to him.

Tell us a little about yourself and where you come from.

I am a protector, a guardian of the city I live in, and the boy that I was born to. Every time a Gentry fairy is born, a human child is born, a child protected by the Gentry. I protect my child zealously. He is my life, and he is in danger.

The city where I live is called Liefdom. There are many cities in the world of The Veil, but Liefdom is the capital city of all fairy life. We are surrounded by a forest, but all our structures are built into dryad trees. Every tree holding up every house is alive and vibrant, personal. My home is in a tree named Lyadora. She is a black chestnut tree and she strongly dislikes me. I don’t think she hates me; I don’t think she’s capable of hate. But she tells me all the time that I am a monster, that I don’t belong here. Maybe she’s right.

What’s your understanding of hate?

I’m a warrior, so I am intimately engaged with the emotion hate. When I look at a thing that needs to die, I am enveloped with the emotion. My blood heated by it. There are a few things, a few acts, that inspire deep hatred in me. They are all tied to my fate as a protector. The city I live in is often called the City of Innocence. If someone endangers that innocence, my soul boils. There is an adversary out there. I can feel him, as I’m sure he can feel me. His life offends me, though I know not why. He has harmed my child. He has risen to destroy everything. He is poised to take it all away from me, and I know not his name. And I know not his face. But when I near him, I will be able to feel him throbbing in my bones. Continue reading “Gentry Mandrake (of Liefdom by Jesse Teller)” →

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Quinlan Reis (of The Rhenwars Saga by ML Spencer)

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Dear readers, tonight with me is a man facing imminent cataclysm. A conspiracy of darkmages have resorted to harnessing the powers of Hell to save their legacy, and Quin and his brother Braden are determined to stop them.

A mage himself, but with with a turbulent past and terrible and tragic secrets, he’s part of a band trying to prevent the forces of chaos from boring the Well of Tears into the netherworld, right under their city.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

I grew up in Caladorn. What you probably know of as the Black Lands. Of course, back in my day, they weren’t so very black. All that came about later…but that’s a story for another day. I was raised among the horseclans of the Khasahar until it was discovered that my brother and I could sense the magic field. There, on the spot, we were claimed as property of the Lyceum. After that, Braden and I were taken to Bryn Calazar to be trained to our respective orders. The names given to us by our father were stripped from us, our language replaced, our hair shorn…it was an appalling transition, one that I was only too delighted to make at the time. I was rather naïve back then, you see. I was still under the delusion that I might actually make something worthwhile of myself some day. How optimistic I must have been! Or stupid, which basically amounts to the same thing.

What do you do now?

Now? I drink. I’ve been known to frequent a brothel from time to time. It’s a lifestyle that seems particularly suited to my apathetic disposition.

Continue reading “Quinlan Reis (of The Rhenwars Saga by ML Spencer)” →

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Characters Speaking Out

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Dear readers, while we are taking a short break due to the holidays, I thought we’d include a recent full post done by our very first guest.

As part of Virtual FantasyCon (that awesome event where Felix and Murder In Absentia received an unprecedented five awards), we did a blog hunt. Readers jumped from blog to blog – and as an introduction to our corner of the blogosphere, Felix got a chance to speak for himself.

Of course, the bastard went ahead and started to curse me for making him work. Apparently he’s not big on doing self-promotions without immediate pay.

This post was originally published on Diane Riggins site. I’ll let you read Felix’s words for yourself.

Salve omnibus. My name is Spurius Vulpius Felix, sometimes known as Felix the Fox, but almost everybody calls me just Felix. It means Fortune’s Favourite in my language, though I’m afraid I am more like Furtuna’s favourite butt for practical jokes.

Actually, you may know my language as Latin. Years ago I visited your world, quite by accident. I came to a city named Rome, which was hauntingly similar to my own home in Egretia. Language, artists, philosophers all seemed familiar – yet there were some glaring differences. It was on a river, not on the seashore for one.

And everybody talked about gods and magic, but no one seemed to know how to properly practice it for another.

Anyway, I was approached by one of your world, one by the strange name of Assaph Mehr, and asked to collaborate on my memoirs. I would tell him my life’s stories, all the interesting mysteries I solved, and he promised to publish them to adoring fans in your world.

So far, the mentula hasn’t paid me a single denarius in royalties.

He says it’s a matter of time, that critical review has been exceptional, and that my memoirs are being sold all across your world. I would be paid, eventually, once he has finished repaying all the scribes and artists that have assisted him in the production of the scrolls. Or codices, as it appears your world prefers to bind sheets together, rather than stitch them in a scroll like civilised people.

So here I am, brought here to promote my own memoirs to increase my “fan base”, whatever that may be.

While I am here, I did check out what Assaph has been writing. Mostly true, just embellished a little. For example, there was this one case of a young woman who was haunted by the most dreadful dreams. It turns out that the cellars of her home were infested by lemurs. These are not, as Assaph says, cute and cuddly little creatures who “like to move it”, but rather than animus of unburied dead. They have the resemblance of what might have once been humans, but are now devoid of life and colour; grey shade of the dead.

As the story goes, I had to lure them away from the house and into the Mundus, the gates to the underworld. I distinctly remember that I told Assaph that I counted 44 of the evil spirits chasing me, but he insisted on making it fifty. He said that writing a story called Fifty Grey Shades would help him sell my memoirs, though I didn’t quite understand why.

So I will be here all week, always happy to answer questions and do everything to help Assaph increase our “fan base”. You can read the story about the Fifty Grey Shades on Assaph’s “website” (I won’t even pretend to understand what that is) here: https://egretia.com/short-stories/, together with a few more other short adventures. My first important case has been published as Murder In Absentia, and is available here: http://amzn.to/1XbfKN1. You can buy it for less than the price of a half-decent glass of wine (Assaph insists that that is the only way to go; you people do not seem to appreciate authors as a respectable profession). And lastly, Assaph has, apparently, been talking to other characters from fellow authors’ scrolls. You can find them on TheProtagonistSpeaks.com.

If you like to read more of Felix, you can read the (free) short stories he appears on at his home of egretia.com. You can also find him on the pages of Murder In Absentia, where his memoirs swept the amazing five awards at Virtual FanatsyCon.

We will resume our regular interviews next week, when we will be hosting a woman whose music moved heaven and earth. Please follow the site by email (bottom-right), via Twitter, or like our Facebook page to be notified when the next interview is posted.

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Lia (of The Veiled Soul by Abbie Chandler)

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Dear readers, tonight with me is a woman doomed to pay for crimes she doesn’t remember committing. As a grim reaper, the split of time between life and death is the only chance she gets to feel anything real.

She is here to tell us about the ephemeral transition between life and death, and of what binds her to the mortal world.

 

 

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

I have absolutely no idea where I grew up. As a grim reaper, my memories of my life (and the crime that got me here) have been wiped clean, and I’m stripped of my soul. The only life I’ve ever known is the reaper realm. It occupies the same space as the physical world. Same buildings, same things, but there are no people. There is no color. I leave ghostly footprints. I could be crashing is your guest bedroom or stealing your coffee. I can’t stick around in the same place very long, so I bounce around from houses to hotel rooms. The only thing I’m meant to do is reap souls, but residual urges drive me. I eat. I sleep. I run. I have sex. It’s muted and emotionless, but I guess it’s the only way I can connect to what I used to be.

How did you get here?

As a reaper, I’m unable to connect any living being. They’re not supposed to be able to see me. Just before I was ripped out of the reaper realm and thrust back into the physical world, I was supposed to reap the soul of a murdered young girl. The only problem is that the killer was there, and he could SEE me, and he seemed to know me. Then, instead of killing the girl, he tried to kill me. It’s not even possible to kill a reaper, but in that moment, my whole world shifted, and I was in the middle of a parking lot, bleeding to death. So now I’m trying to piece together how I got out, why a human could see a reaper, and what I did in the past to be a reaper to begin with. To make matters worse, I feel a constant pull to kill. I have no soul. I feel a bit like a monster.

But it’s nothing like him. They call him the Phoenix. Before he tried to murder me, I felt his soul. It was solid. Pure evil. Continue reading “Lia (of The Veiled Soul by Abbie Chandler)” →

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Dr. Skylar Santangelo (of Healing The Witch Of Adelaide Glen by J.C. Stockli)

JC Stockli - Healing The Witch Of Adelaide GlenDear readers, tonight with me is one of our leading legal prosecutors. As it turns out, his grudge against the paranormal and supernatural lies with some dark secrets in his past.

 

 

Tell us about where you grew up and studied. How did you get from slums to academia? What is your PhD about?

[chuckles] Mamma moved to the States when I was real young. I grew up in a housing project in the south end of the city. I never aspired to leave the hood. I liked it there. I was someone to be known there, but every smart-ass punk has it coming to him, I guess. I chose academia over incarceration. My boys from back on the day found their path on the straight and narrow and guided me along. I’d be dead without those guys, no doubt. In terms of my PhD, the only subjects that made sense were theology and demonology. I’m what you’d call a “subject matter expert.”

Tell us about those tats – what made you get them? Is there an overall design?

[turns head down with a furrowed brow] There’s a method to every man’s madness. Some of my ink is just the result of being a stupid punk. Others…? Yeah, they mean something… but we’re not getting into that here. Next question, man. Continue reading “Dr. Skylar Santangelo (of Healing The Witch Of Adelaide Glen by J.C. Stockli)” →

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Nameless (of the Followers of Torments series by K. Caffee)

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Dear readers, tonight is a first for us! With us is someone – some thing – without a name, one of the legendary Pukah. “What are the Pukah?” I hear you ask. Well, that is something that we would all like to know. Due to the Pukah rather, errm, unique nature, their creator K. Caffee is also with us. So it’s our absolute pleasure to break new grounds, and interview both the protagonist and the author at the same time!

 

 

So what, exactly, are the Pukah?

Know not me.  Some me pukah call, Master am, Runner am, Silk was.  Pukah?  Di’tang ask must.

(K. Caffee:  Until Nameless encountered Raonal, he had no idea he was anything other than an unusually adept fighter.  Even Raonal (Nameless calls him Di’tang – or Silken slave) hasn’t been able to fully explain the race.

The short answer is that they are a type of faerie crossbreed.  Typically, a pukah will bring joy, laughter, and inspiration into the life of anyone they meet, though there are some whose tendencies lean towards the more malicious end of the spectrum.  The full answer can be found here: “What are Pukah?”  (http://wp.me/p4Uq5a-1k)

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

Live I, eat I.  Obey must always, exactly.  Question not.  Play, fun have, free was.  Her honor always everything.  Honor not, live not eat not.  Speak She, tell all, teach well.  Obey did, live I, eat I.

(K. Caffee:  Nameless was born to the slave cells of the Melkresken and was not socialized until he was about seven.  Before that, he remained in complete isolated darkness.  Between the pukah inability to tell unadulterated truths and his early childhood, he mangles his syntax.  I’m just happy he can string together an almost coherent sentence – most children raised in similar environments never manage to accomplish that. Even after he began learning to speak, he remained in isolation until he became an adult.) Continue reading “Nameless (of the Followers of Torments series by K. Caffee)” →

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Vornen (of Oblivion’s Forge by Simon Williams)

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Dear readers, tonight with me is a member of a truly alien race. They have at last found the world of Aona, and in so doing have awaken ancient powers. Their world is now in turmoil, on the verge of total war.

 

Tell us about the world of Aona, what is it like?

Aona is vast – with four main lands, Aphenhast, Harn, Alhar and the separate lands of the South Ocean Islands. A lot of it remains unexplored. Aphenhast is ruled by one ruling family in the south, although their influence doesn’t extend much further than the Crescent mountains.

What can you tell us about the mysterious Gates?

I’m drawn to them and for a moment I see something that’s like a tear in the fabric of reality – a window to somewhere else, you might say. Some lead to other worlds, some lead only out into the Void between worlds. Regardless of that, all of them are dangerous and unpredictable. Legend has it that they were used millennia ago by the creatures known as marandaal, in an attempt to destroy all life on Aona. Continue reading “Vornen (of Oblivion’s Forge by Simon Williams)” →

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Jonas Black (of Black Fall by DJ Bodden)

Black Fall - D. J. boddenDear readers, tonight on the interview couch is a young man who had recently discovered some dark secrets in his family history. He is here to tell us about his personal journey in learning to deal with who he really is.

 

When did you first realise that you and your family are different from other people?

I guess I always knew we were different. My parents had – well, I thought they had – porphyria cutanea tarda. That’s PCT for short. It’s a disease that makes people super sensitive to sunlight, so we had to have heavy black curtains on all the windows and they only left the house at night. I grew up with nannies; I spent years explaining that to people… turns out it was all BS. I felt pretty stupid when I found out. Could we talk about something else? Continue reading “Jonas Black (of Black Fall by DJ Bodden)” →

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LX (of Fate by G.G. Atcheson)

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Dear readers, tonight with me on the couch is LX (or Alex for us Earthlings), an interstellar navigator. LX has been stranded on Earth for a while, trying to remain hidden. A recent discovery of some other beings that walk our earth has forced him out of of seclusion.

 

What’s your name?

Our alphabet is different from yours but using yours, it would be Lutnalind Zhendar Xavelk…LX or Alex if you prefer. It sounds pretty much like it does in my language.

Where were you born? What is it like growing up there?

I was born on a planet called Xhartan. For most of the time, growing up there was all right. I mean, we do not have diseases, or wars. The rain only comes down when our weathermen decide the planet needs some. You see, we have the most advance technology in the universe, so what is there not to like? Yet, albeit all that, growing up there was not easy for me. Kids loved to make fun of me because of my shorter stature, and to top it all, my eyes change colors with my mood so there is not a nickname I did not receive. It forced me to spend most of my time hiding, studying under a waterfall where I found company among the wild animal kingdom. Continue reading “LX (of Fate by G.G. Atcheson)” →

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