I'm excited to have a chance to interview a dear friend and wonderful author, Jolea M. Harrison. She's sharing interesting info about her fantasy series, Guardians of the Word. Her magical system is fascinating. Check out her world...
In the Guardians of the Word, what types of evil must your main character, Dynan Telaerin, fight against?
The ultimate
kind, the heart of evil, the BIG ONE - personified by the demon, Beliel. From
that pinnacle of darkness, the tendrils spread outward, seeping into the souls
of the ignorant and unguarded. It’s the kind of evil that could infiltrate
anyone, anywhere, at any time. Of course it has, in one Maralt Adaeryn, the
epitome of evil. He started out as one of the good guys, but his arrogance
opens a path for evil to reach him. His fall from grace is extreme and
unforgivable.
In Legend, Dynan must
run and hide his identity even more than he did in the previous adventures of
this series. What is chasing him?
Running from
place to place takes a tremendous toll. There’s no sense of connection. No
feeling of being at home, in a physical sense as well as a mental one. Also,
he’s the equivalent of any modern famous person, say, Brad Pitt - everyone
knows who he is, so if he goes out in public, he can be recognized, discovered,
which in turn leads to more running. So at the same time as being pursued all
over the galaxy by the bad guys, Dynan’s own identity is chasing him. He has to
find somewhere where no one knows his name, and that is a dangerous and
difficult undertaking...and also - it doesn’t work.
Legend is the story of Dynan’s survival, rediscovering a reason to
live. What previously challenged his will to go on?
Dynan is a
young man who has suffered a lot of loss in his life in a relatively short
period of time, so it’s a lot for anyone to absorb much less a guy who is
twenty-two. He’s being hunted. People he loves are dying all around him.
Everywhere he goes, terrible things happen to the point he feels responsible
for them because he exists. Along with being an Epic Fantasy, Legend touches on
the issues everyone faces in life when dealing with death. How do you pick
yourself up and go on? He has to live, but in order to survive he has to figure
out how without it driving him completely insane.
How do Dynan’s dreams and nightmares become real?
Dynan is the focal point of two
divergent entities of power, one on the side of good and one on the side of
evil. The premise is that if he finds out too soon what is really going on, his
lack of experience and youth will lend itself to the powers of evil and he’ll
end up being used as a kind of portal from the world of the demon into the
world of the living. They’ll take the power he intrinsically holds, and use it
against the world. Of course that’s what the bad guys want, so they send him
dreams that show him the truth. The good guys keep trying to keep him from
remembering these dreams, which makes them into liars. In Legend, the armor of
lies starts to crack when some of the dreams he’s had walk into his life as
living, breathing people.
Briefly describe the magical systems of your world. How do those who
are empowered gain their abilities?
The main characters of my story are telepathic. They have the usual
ability to communicate with each other, and they have the ability to attack one
another. One of the interesting precepts is the requirement of blocking these
attacks. That’s done through mental imagination and the ability to intently concentrate
on a single item, or it could be a location, for extended periods of time until
the attack stops. It requires training to succeed. As in real life, attention to
detail is difficult to maintain. For a telepath a short attention span can be
deadly.
Thanks Marsha for
letting me stop by your blog world. If your readers want more information on
the Guardians of the Word series, they can get it at the following websites –
On the web - http://jm-harrison.com
On Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/JoleaMHarrison
At Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Jolea-M.-Harrison
Blurb~
The
Guardians of the Word is an epic fantasy, science fiction amalgam that
tells the story of Dynan Telaerin's struggle to rid the world of evil.
After having barely survived the loss of his twin brother Dain, Dynan is
forced to run father and submerge his identity further than ever
before. LEGEND is the story of his survival, how he discovers a reason
to want to live and where he learns that dreams can be real. But as with
Chosen, Myth and Telepath, nothing is guaranteed. Dreams can be real
but so can nightmares.
Author Bio~
Many authors will say, I’ve
been writing for as long as I can remember, a statement that may be met with
some skepticism, but it happens to be true! The first story I wrote I was about
nine or ten. It was an illustrated (on 3 x 5 cards!) tale about a young
princess in search of the King’s
approval, who went out and killed the evil monster none of the knights could
slay! After reading Lord of the Rings, the fantasy bug bit, leaving an
indelible mark, which was then complicated by my immediate love of Star War. So
it’s no real surprise to
me that I’m still
writing after all these years, the way I want, without regard to genre.
I began writing The Guardians of the Word many, many years
ago, stopping and starting while life moved on. It was always a dream to
publish. After my fair share of typical agent rejection notices, and upon
hearing about the major changes the publishing industry was facing, I thought -
in the words of George Bernard Shaw - why not?
2 comments:
Thanks Marsha for having me on your beautiful blog! :)
Glad to have you spend the day!
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