The notion for King of Ashes was actually pretty odd. Anyway, I wanted to take a short break, which I did, and that unfortunately went on longer than planned due to some personal, family issues. Writers don’t retire we drop dead or get put in a home. Where did the inspiration come from for this new series? You then burst back into the spotlight with 2018’s King of Ashes, first in the Firemane Saga. Following the conclusion of Riftwar in 2013 with Magician’s End, you headed into retirement and the world expected your legacy to live on through your work. As I said, my dad had been in the entertainment industry, and his literary agent, the brilliant Harold Matson, and he saw something in Magician, so he represented me and eventually editor Adrian Zackheim at Doubleday bought it, and from there one thing led to another and I still haven’t found that other job in marketing. We had a tax revolt in California in 1978 and funding was cut, and I was instantly a full-time writer. I had majored in Mass Market & Public Opinion and had done a fair bit of political stuff, but now I was working for non-profits. After I graduated I decided to turn my hand to fiction, looking for a second income possibility. It’s a long story, and the short version is I learned I was a pretty good writer in college, because I could hack out papers and get A’s. In the UK, for example, it was always one novel.

Can you tell me a little about how this came about?Īctually, it was It was split into two volumes for paperback release in the US. Your career in publishing started out in 1982 with the release of Magician: Apprentice, the first novel in what would turn into the Riftwar Cycle, a series with 31 novels. I think my work mostly is character driven, for another thing the old man said was, “Give them someone to root for.” That’s about as self-analytical as I can get.

First was, ‘if you’re not writing action, you’re writing talking heads, and if it’s talking heads, they better be saying something important.” Second was, “Don’t fart around, tell the damn story!” So, efficiently? I hope so. My father was a writer/director/producer, and he had two hints for me (he didn’t imagine I’d become an author). In 40 years no one has asked me that before! Congratulations. To start off, for those who haven’t read your work before, how would you describe your writing style?

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