Hello all! I am thrilled today to have Lou Anders, author of the THRONES & BONES series, on my blog today! NIGHTBORN, the newest addition to the THRONES & BONES trilogy, will be released on July 14th of this year. Trust me when I say, these books are absolutely fabulous! Read my reviews for
FROSTBORN and
NIGHTBORN.
From the author of Frostborn comes Book 2 in the acclaimed Thrones and Bones fantasy-adventure trilogy for fans of Lloyd Alexander and Brandon Mull.
Karn Korlundsson is a gamer. Not a riddle solver. But in order to rescue his best friend, Thianna Frostborn, he will need to travel to the faraway city of Castlebriar (by wyvern), learn how to play a new board game called Charioteers (not a problem), decipher the Riddle of the Horn, and tangle with mysterious elves.
Meet Desstra. She’s in training to join the Underhand—the elite agents of the dark elves. When she crosses paths with Karn, she is not all that she appears to be.
Everyone is chasing after the horn of Osius, an ancient artifact with the power to change the world. The lengths to which Karn will go in the name of friendship will be sorely tested. Who knew that solving a riddle could be so deadly?
The novel includes instructions for playing the board game Charioteers. Visit ThronesandBones.com for additional games, maps, character profiles, and more!
Hello Lou! I am so excited to have you on my blog today! Without further ado, onto the questions:
1.
What inspired you to incorporate Norse mythology
into your story?
There were two
different factors working together. The first was that I wanted to write a
strong female character that my own daughter, and girls everywhere, could read
and enjoy. I wanted my heroine to be the one in the thick of the action, not
relegated to being the “brains of the operation”
or the magical member of the team, as girl characters can sometimes be in
adventure books. And as my own children are biracial, I wanted to explore a
character who felt like she was caught between two cultures. So the idea of a
half-giantess was born. At the same time, this was my first foray into fantasy
fiction, and I wanted to explore the roots of the genre in Western literature,
drilling back to the same myths and legends that inspired Tolkien. So while I
was settling on a girl who grew up with frost giants, I was also researching
the mythology of Europe, and both things led me to the Scandinavian people and
their influences.
2.
Was it always your dream to become an author?
Yes. Though it was a
dream that was put on hold many times. As a child, I wrote short stories and
small comic strips, and I was always the Game Master when we played Role
Playing Games. I took fiction writing courses in college, but my own
limitations (doubtless caused by a lack of maturity) frustrated me, and I set
the dreams aside for a while. I got into acting, studying it first in a fifth
year of school, and then in Oxford and London, and I eventually moved to
Chicago, where I ended up writing and directing theater. This led to a move to
Los Angeles, where I worked as a journalist while writing screenplays with a
partner. Through a roundabout move into the dot-com space in San Francisco, I
eventually ended up working in genre publishing. Then, about five years ago, a
friend asked me to write a short story for an anthology. I was reluctant, but
he insisted. When I finished, we both agreed that what I’d
written was more an introduction to a book than a stand-alone short form work.
I set about to turn it into a novel, and while that wasn’t
Frostborn, it was the manuscript that got me an agent and started me
writing prose in earnest.
3.
Is writing your only job? Or do you have other
jobs on the side?
When I wrote Frostborn
and Nightborn, I was working as the editorial director and art director
of an adult science fiction and fantasy imprint. In fact, I have won the Hugo
Award for editing and the Chesley Award for art directing, and I may be the
only person in the field to have won both of those awards. I quit last
September, however, to devote myself full time to writing the Thrones and Bones
series.
4.
I know that the THRONES AND BONES trilogy is not
finished . . . but I see that there are lots of places on the map that haven’t
been explored yet. Is there a possibility of a spin-off series?
In short, yes. There
are actually seven maps to date, all drawn by the incredible Robert Lazzaretti,
and with Nightborn’s publication, six of them will be public. But I
realize it’s the Continent of Katernia map you are
referring to. When I built the world, I deliberately constructed it to be a
vast-enough canvas to encompass a thousand stories. And I hammered out the
different countries and their histories and cultures for weeks before I ever
started a plot outline. Now all I have to do is open the map on my computer and
pick a location, and story ideas start to suggest themselves to me. I can tell
you things going on all over Katernia, and some of the other continents as
well. And I can tell you about stories that happened hundreds or even thousands
of years before the events of the Thrones and Bones series. I hope I get to
follow Karn, Thianna, and Desstra’s adventures for years to come, but there are
other characters waiting in the wings to have their turn as well.
5.
If Karn, Desstra, and Thianna were to play
Monopoly, who would win?
Karn and Desstra
would be fairly evenly matched in a game like Monopoly. He’s
the better strategist, but he has a blind spot when it comes to deceitful
characters, and Desstra could probably trick him again. She’d
play dirty, and he might fall for it. We’ll never know, however, as Thianna would lose
patience with the game almost immediately, snatch the playing pieces, and run
off.
6.
You are sentenced to a ten-year exile on a
desert island with nothing but a knife, a canteen, and a piece of string. You
are allowed to take one of the characters from FROSTBORN and NIGHTBORN with
you. Who would you take?
I wouldn’t
dare split up Karn and Thianna’s friendship. They belong together until they
decide they don’t, and far be it from me to come between them.
Desstra, however, is a loner without a clear place in the world. I know where
she’ll eventually come into her own, but it’s
going to be a long time coming, and as an elf, she’s
long-lived anyway, so a ten-year detour to hang out with her creator wouldn’t
be hard on her. I hope.
Thank you so much for stopping by today, Lou!
About the Author:
Lou Anders drew on a recent visit to Norway, along with
his adventures traveling across Europe in his teens and twenties, to write Frostborn
and Nightborn, combining those experiences with his love of
globe-trotting adventure fiction and games (both tabletop and role-playing).
However, he has yet to ride a wyvern. With the addition of characters Desstra
and Tanthal, Anders hopes that his second book in the Thrones and Bones series
will continue to appeal to boys and girls equally. Anders is the recipient of a
Hugo Award for editing and a Chesley Award for art direction. He has published
over five hundred articles and stories on science fiction and fantasy television
and literature. A prolific speaker, Anders regularly attends writing
conventions around the country. He and his family reside in Birmingham,
Alabama. You can visit him online at louanders.com and ThronesandBones.com, on
Facebook, on Tumblr, and on Twitter at @ThronesandBones and @LouAnders.
Links:
Twitter: @ThronesandBones @LouAnders
