Author: H.L. Watson
Title: World of Ryyah-Birth of the Half Elves
Publisher: Two Harbors Press
ISBN: 9781937293420
Pages: 193, Paperback & Hardcover
Genre: Fantasy
Author Interview with H.L. Watson
Author Interview with H.L. Watson
Title: World of Ryyah-Birth of the Half Elves
Book One in the Elven Age Saga
Interviewed by: S. Marie Vernon, Pacific Book Review
PBR: Good Morning, Mr. Watson. Great to have you with us today to discuss book one of your six-part series of the World of Ryyah.
HLW: Thanks for having me.
PBR: Unless one studies the map closely on your website they might not know the exact location of where this story takes place, but the name of Donovan is from English or Gaelic descent. Does this story take place near what would be England today?
HLW: No. The story takes place in a completely different world where the world is referred to as Ryyah. I mainly named the male character Donovan. To give the reader a more familiar sounding name to identify more with the humans of this world.
PBR: You certainly have a thorough understanding of Elder and Elven History. You said you created these detailed backgrounds for video games originally. At what point, did you decide to start writing books about the World of Ryyah? Had you studied Elves for years or just did good research as you developed the games? Or, are much of the details from your own imagination?
HLW: Yes I originally created many of these concepts to be used as a back story for a videogame concept. But as time went on I discovered that the content I created was also a very good story and I decided to form it into a fantasy book series. It was about January of 2011 of this year when I first started writing. And I surprisingly discovered from my friends, family and early supporters that I was actually pretty good at it which was a complete surprise to me because I had never thought of doing anything like this before. And for as my ideas about the elves they mainly come from my imagination. But I do pull in some inspiration from traditional customs and lore of medieval Europe.
PBR: Did the gaming videos influence the fighting and violence in this story? For instance we see a lot of violence in video games in general and, in this book, the elves and humans are brutal when they take on an enemy.
HLW: Yes that is a correct assumption. The high degree of action that is fairly commonplace in today’s video games did have a lot to do with influencing my style of writing in this story.
PBR: The story is very imaginative. We begin to see how the elves are like humans and really care about their loved ones. Humans are surprised by this in the story. Our prior understanding of elves may be as mischievous little being who are and prone to trickery. Any comment about the human-like emotions depicted by them in the story?
HLW: I would say depending on what generation you happen to be from. Your ideals of elves would different drastically. The older generation would tend to believe in the traditional concept of elves. Which is as you stated “mischievous little being who are and prone to trickery” but the younger generation would tend to believe in more of the visions of elves made popular by the (Lord of the rings) books and movies. But personally in my opinion I believe that the traits of mischievous tricksters more adequately describe fantasy races such as goblins, gnomes and Imps then Elves by today’s standards.
PBR: The story also has vision for your coming books. Have you started these other books or just the second one? I imagine as you are writing the second book a scene from book six might form in your mind, do you stop and jot that down although you are concentrating specifically on the second book?
HLW: I have not started any of the other six books in the series yet I’m still working on book 2. But you are right in assuming that I often get strong ideals in my head that I either have to commit to memory or write down immediately.
PBR: Do you have a time line for the completion of the next five books in the Elven Age Saga?
HLW: I don’t really have a timeline yet but I would say that it is a pretty fair assumption to assume that one book a year would be a good starting point to go on.
PBR: Will the coming books all be sequels or is there a prequel in there somewhere?
HLW: Right now the only books I have in mind are sequels. But I am not entirely opposed to doing a prequel once I have completed this series perhaps in the future.
PBR: When do you expect your readers could hope for book two to be available for purchase?
Thank you and good luck with your coming books of The World of Ryyah.
HLW: Thank you so much for your kind words. Readers can expect book two (Unlikely Alliance) to be on bookshelves sometime around the winter of 2012.
