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The Protagonist Speaks

Interviews with the characters of your favourite books

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Historical Fiction

Nikola Tesla (of Tesla’s Signal by Laura Woodswalker)

TESLA'S SIGNAL - Laura WoodswalkerDear readers, tonight with me is a special person, one who has turned into a cultural icon of our generation. The Protagonist is honoured to welcome Nikola Tesla to the interview couch!

Tonight he will tell us about his amazing discoveries, and his almost unnatural connection to electrical currents.

 

 

Can you describe to us your affinity to electricity? How does it feel / look?

As a child I could feel the lightning building up to strike, and I ran to touch it. Miraculously, instead of being killed, I felt as if my body and soul had come alive. The sensation was like you might feel the wind in your face, or a spray of water. I did not realize that others didn’t feel this and that I was something of a freak.

Because of my extreme sensitivity to currents and light, I developed what others might call Phobias. I did not like to look at women’s jewellery because of how it bent the light. I started trying to control this sensitivity through calculations. Numbers, especially the number 3, were like an invisible structure that I wove around the world. I always had to do everything by 3’s. After I nearly died of cholera, I became terrified of germs and reluctant to shake hands. I obsessively washed my eating utensils. People thought I was quite an eccentric! Some even thought I was mad…a ‘mad scientist’ if you will.

How did this affinity affect your scientific work?

My brain was like a finely tuned receiver. I could visualize the inside of devices…and when I built them, they worked perfectly! I could travel to imaginary places and speak with the people I met. My sensitivity became so painfully intense that I thought I would surely die…and that was when I received a communication from a race of energy beings who spoke to me in currents. This was not a hallucination: the Aon were from the dimension of ‘subtle matter’. They spent their lives studying the universe, and now they wished to study and exchange knowledge with me.

This meeting stimulated my brain to make new connections, and I was struck by a most  transcendent vision of the rotating magnetic field, which would become the 3-phase alternating current motor. This was the breakthrough which led to the gift of electrical power for all of the world. Continue reading “Nikola Tesla (of Tesla’s Signal by Laura Woodswalker)” →

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Sheshamun (of Behind Palace Walls by Erin Chase)

Erin Chase - Behind Palace Walls Book coverDear readers, tonight with us is a woman elevated to the highest order – the Pharaoh’s own court, and then rudely ejected by rivals within. She is here to tell us about life in Ancient Egypt.

 

 

What were your first few days in the palace’s harem like?

My first few days in the palace’s harem were very overwhelming! It is the complete opposite of a peasant’s life. I mean the food… goodness! Succulent duck and quail, honey drizzled on everything, fragrant wine, and the sweetmeats… oh the sweetmeats!

Sorry, what was the question again? Oh right, my introduction to the concubine lifestyle. Well on the plus side, I met my great friend Serera in the harem, as well as Manon, the Keeper of the Harem. I loved lounging by the water, playing Senet or Dogs and Jackals, and sharing my intimate secrets with Serera.

However, when it came to dealing with a couple of the other, more established concubines, life was tough! Senra and her partner in crime from the Far East, Tokahiru, sure knew how to make my life a living hell. Continue reading “Sheshamun (of Behind Palace Walls by Erin Chase)” →

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Captain Hollie Babbitt (of Red Horse by M. J. Logue)

Red Horse - M J Logue

Dear readers, tonight with us is Captain Hollie Babbitt, of the Parliamentarian Army. A scruffy ex-mercenary, his command includes a posh poet, a bad-tempered horse, and a troop made up of every rebel, dissenter and horse-thief the rest of the Army didn’t want.

 

 

Can you tell us a bit about where you grew up? What is the best memory of your childhood?

Has my wife put you up to this? That sounds like her kind o’ daft question.
I grew up in Lancashire, in Bolton, on the edge of the moors. There’s some folk as believe I was dragged up not brought up, which I was not. Never knew my mother, and the old – sorry, my father – hated me for better part o’ thirty-six years. Mam died having me, and he always said he’d have took her life over mine, if he’d been asked. That, and he never wanted a lad; he wanted a little girl, if he’d had to have a child instead of a wife.

I grew up a bit wild, bit not wicked. Neglected, you might say. I reckon the old mon thought if he beat me hard enough and often enough it’d do for bringing me up. The daft thing is, he thought he was doing the right thing. Thought if he let up on me I might go off and be a worse sinner than I was. Didn’t want me to bring shame on mam’s memory. Very godly feller, the old mon.

That’s not the sort of childhood you end up wi’ good memories of. Although there was a lass in Bolton that I was very fond of – no, not like that! Well, a bit like that – bless her, she used to look after me, slip me gingerbread, the odd hot pie, when he wasn’t around. I thought a lot of Gatty Norton. The old man taught me my letters, and my manners, but Gatty taught me kindness. Saw her again just before Marston Moor, but that – well. That’s a story for another time. She deserved better.

Oh aye – and she gave me a bit of a fondness for competent women, especially if they’re heavy-handed wi’ cake. But don’t mention that in front of the missus, eh? Continue reading “Captain Hollie Babbitt (of Red Horse by M. J. Logue)” →

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Thea (of Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn)

Mistress of Rome - Kate QuinnDear readers, tonight with me is a woman who came to us as a Judaean slave girl, only to catch the eye of our divine emperor. she is here to tell us of her remarkable journey, and about the highest echelons of Roman society.

 

 

What were your first impressions of Rome, after being sold to slavery in Judea?

I survived the suicide massacre of Masada when I was about four years old; one of seven survivors. The rest of my family died, and then I was enslaved and brought west. I don’t remember much of Judaea, but even so, Rome has never felt like home to me. It’s hot, teeming, raucous, and quite frequently cruel.

Is Emperor Domitian as bad in person as the senate makes him out to be?

It depends which side of him you see, and he has as many sides as a set of dice. To his soldiers he is blunt, honest, brave–they worship him. To the Senate he is arrogant, overbearing, dismissive–they despise him. To his family is he capricious, fearful, fickle–they quiver before him. To me . . . well. I fascinate him because he doesn’t frighten me. He likes to test that, and it’s kept me alive so far. Continue reading “Thea (of Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn)” →

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Gaius Petreius Ruso (of Vita Brevis by Ruth Downie)

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Dear readers, tonight with us is a combat medic, servicing in the legions assigned to one of the Roman Empire’s most notoriously dangerous provinces – Britain. He’s here to tell about his adventures, and accidental involvement in crime.

How does a Roman army medic end up solving murders?

I’m glad you asked that, because the answer is: reluctantly. I’m supposed to be in the business of making people feel better, so despite what anyone tells you, I’m not keen on stirring up trouble. I wouldn’t have gone near that business of the dead girl back in Deva if anyone else had been willing to deal with it. Oh, and if the lady who is now my wife hadn’t been quite so insistent.

(Of course as the head of the household, I’m the one in charge. Not my wife. I want to make that clear, because some of the people reading this may be Britons, who often have trouble remembering the proper order of things. I know this because my wife, Tilla, is a Briton. On the other hand, since very few of them see the point of reading and writing, this paragraph may be redundant.)

To return to the subject of murders—I certainly don’t go looking for them, but in the course of my work I stumble across suspicious injuries, and now word seems to have got round that if you’ve found an unexpected body, Ruso’s the man to deal with it. My author tells me that in the future there will be a specialist unit called the Police Force who are called in to sort out these things, while doctors can get on with seeing their patients and writing reports for the Treasury administrators. I’m sure she must have got the second half of that wrong. No-one in their right mind would pay a doctor to work as a scribe. Continue reading “Gaius Petreius Ruso (of Vita Brevis by Ruth Downie)” →

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Cassius (of Roman Mask by Thomas M. D. Brooke)

Thomas Brooke - Roman MaskDear readers, tonight with me in a man who witnessed one of the Roman Empire’s most iconic events. He is here to tell us about some of the wonders to be found across the Empire, and of its leading men and women.

 

What is Germany really like? Are the people there really as tall as the legends say?

Germany is awful.  No, really it is.  The lands are mainly covered in dark, thick forests that are often shrouded in mist, so finding your way through the impenetrable maze of woodland is all but impossible.  You don’t ever want to get lost in the woods there, trust me.  What isn’t forested, tends to be covered in bogs, or stony fields unsuited for anything but the basest of crops.  Their winters are so cold, with a harsh wind that comes in from the East, that you’re likely to freeze to death unless you find shelter come nightfall.

But worst of all are the people.  The German tribes are made up of a variety of warlike people all full of giant muscle bound warriors, with blonde or red hair, and fierce cold pale eyes that bore through you with hatred and malice.  Their women are almost as bad, often following their men to the battlefield to hurl insults and spit anger at their enemies from behind the lines. Continue reading “Cassius (of Roman Mask by Thomas M. D. Brooke)” →

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Felix the Fox – guest appearance on PureJonel

Web Cover-miniDear readers, some disturbing news tonight.

Felix seems to have done a runner, and gave a guest interview on PureJonel: http://purejonel.blogspot.ca/2016/01/FtF.html

The mentula has also answered a few more questions than he did for us… I need to have a chat with him!

So while I sort out the voices in my head, feel free to head to Jonel’s blog and read his interview 🙂

 

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Marcus Falerius Fronto (of Marius’ Mules by S. J. A. Turney)

mariusmulescollection

Dear readers, tonight we have with us Marcus Falerius Fronto, commander of the Tenth legion and long-time companion of Julius Caesar. Marcus Falerius comes to us off the pages of Marius’ Mules series of novels.

How was it progressing through positions to command the Tenth under Caesar?

Trouble. Seriously, no one can work alongside Caesar for any length of time without questioning what they are doing. The thing is: I remember him in Hispania as a quaestor, when I was just a fresh faced tribune. He was only in Hispania for two years and then went back to Rome, but when he came back as the governor a few years later I was still there and still in the army. Since we’d last met I had gone from being an innocent lad on the first steps of the ladder to being a battle-hardened officer, putting down endless troubles with the vicious native tribes. I had served for years then with the Ninth, refusing to quit my post after a year like most tribunes and head back to Rome to count coins or some such. Instead, I found I had something of a talent for war. The legate at the time – I forget his name, but he had a big nose and really hairy ears – held on to me. Considered me his lucky charm, I think. Anyway, by the time Caesar came back I’d fought up and down and back and forth across most of the country, and when the old coot in command of the Ninth died, Caesar gave me temporary command as a legate. Wasn’t really official, as it wasn’t a senatorial appointment and I was still quite young, I suppose, but I proved myself enough during his governorship that when he returned to Rome, I went with him and he secured me command of the Tenth. I was still their legate more than a year later when the old man led us into Gaul. The rest, as they say, is history. Continue reading “Marcus Falerius Fronto (of Marius’ Mules by S. J. A. Turney)” →

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Felix the Fox (of Murder in-absentia by Assaph Mehr)

Web Cover-miniDear readers, tonight we will be interviewing Felix the Fox. Felix comes to us from the far off magical city of Egretia. Felix is an interesting character, with quite an extraordinary career. His specialist services have saved the lives and property of many of his clients.

 

How did you get your nickname?

My name, just like my father’s, is Spurius Vulpius – but nobody uses it these days. I got the nickname Felix [ed: “lucky”] as a child, but as I grow older I’m less sure it means I’m Fortuna’s favourite. More like her favourite butt for practical jokes.

Fox is, of course, a reference to what I do for a living. It’s much nicer that ‘ferret’, which is almost what I got stuck with.

What do you do for a living?

I studied to be an incantator, a wizard. I got booted out of college, however, and never completed my studies. I worked a while for the firm of Gordius et Falconius, where I learned the art of investigation.

Now I work for myself as a fox – a sniffer of troubles, and resolver of predicaments. The kind of messes where there’s often a corpse involved. Continue reading “Felix the Fox (of Murder in-absentia by Assaph Mehr)” →

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