- Are there underrepresented groups or ideas featured in your book? If so, discuss them.
There’s a lot, actually, but I’ll focus on the main character, who is gay. Finn—the main character—is just living his life. He’s part of a tribal people ruled by a druidess. His favorite pastime is fishing. He has a little cottage he built on the river. Basically, he’s just a young man living his simple, country life, and then—bam—an invading soldier from the theocratic Dayigan Empire spots him in the arms of another man and he’s facing a death sentence.
I think a lot of underrepresented groups can, unfortunately, understand that—that moment when you’re just living your life, not hurting anyone, and suddenly you’re attacked out of nowhere. Maybe it’s a verbal attack or even an actual physical attack. Maybe you’re sitting at a restaurant with your friends, and a woman randomly approaches to nicely hand you a pamphlet filled with bigoted caricatures of your people burning in hell—I hate it when that happens. I could list so many encounters like that that have happened to me. It really breaks you down.
In Finn’s case, his entire life is turned upside-down, and he needs to fight despite having no desire to fight at all. It’s sad, really, because he’s a sweet guy.
Sorry. That’s probably not exactly the happiest note to start the interview on, but it’s not exactly the happiest book.
- Are you a full-time or part-time writer? How does that affect your writing?
Lately, writing has almost been full-time, as far as the hours I’ve been putting in, but just not in the pay [laughs]. I have an actual full-time job too. I’m a video editor and camera operator. It’s difficult, of course, to work eight hours at my day job and then come home to work hours more. Weekends are for writing. If I take a vacation—writing. It’s been particularly hectic launching Thorns of Chaos while also launching A Plague of Hatred for June while also trying to write the third book.
However, despite all that, I’m really excited about where the world of Perdinok is, and after years of development, I’m excited to share it with readers. (Don’t worry; I didn’t try to cram years of world-building in one book.) The excitement of sharing this world keeps me going. That and a lot of caffeine.
- Do you reward yourself for writing or punish yourself for failing to do so? How?
So, I know this might sound silly, but the reward for me is actually reading the book. I hate it when I’m reading along, really getting into the story, and it stops abruptly because—you know—I haven’t actually written that part yet.
The best part is when I get the book back from the editor, finish those final fixes, and finally, finally, finally I can read the completed book from start to finish without stopping to change this or that or keep an eye out for errant commas. You know, read it like a reader and enjoy it. Seriously, that’s awesome.
I’m already excited to read books that I haven’t even started yet.
- What are you working on now, and when can we expect it?
So, I kinda mentioned it already, but I’m working on The Encroaching Chaos series. This book that’s out now, Thorns of Chaos, is set in the same world and is very related to the series but not actually part of it. The first official book in the series, A Plague of Hatred, is also finished and will come out in June. It’s already on preorder if anyone’s interested.
All that’s to say, I’m currently working on the second book in The Encroaching Chaos series. I’m actually pretty far along in that book already, so ideally it will come out late this same year—maybe in October—but it just depends. It’s more important for me to get it right rather than meet a particular date. Of course, I’m excited about that one too—I’m excited about all of them. The series continues to expand the world of Perdinok while drawing it closer to the dark fate that awaits it. And in the series, you’ll see a few familiar faces pop up from Thorns of Chaos.
“Cain crafts a vivid world … rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes of oppression and suffering.” –BookLife Reviews
Queer Grimdark Fantasy: Finn is no hero, chosen born, or noble. Despite escalating tensions from the Dayigan soldier’s occupation of Feah lands, the happy-go-lucky twenty-five-year-old is content to spend his days fishing and flirting with the other men in his Celtic-like village. But everything changes at their midyear’s eve festival when an angry Dayigan commander catches Finn in the arms of another man. Suddenly framed for murder, he must flee his village or face death.
However, Finn isn’t the Dayigans’ only target. They believe all Feahs are wicked and intend to destroy them by any means necessary. The Feahs’ one hope of stopping the reign of terror is to find a relic forged by dark faeries and able to control chaos magic-and claim it to protect themselves. With the fate of the Feah lands resting on his shoulders, Finn seeks out sorcerers who practice ancient, forbidden magic.
Instead, he finds love with the handsome but fierce head of the sorcerers–and a power he never knew he could possess.
But when the Dayigans strike, can Finn harness the perilous magic to save his people without losing himself in the process?
Warnings: violence, sexual content, harsh language, homophobia, major character death
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He kept a low flight of about thirty feet and could see their village as he passed.
A dozen rowboats—wicker frames covered in skins—lay inverted in a line on the shore. Just past where sand turned to grass, but before turning to forest, a small cluster of homes stood within a fence of long, thin branches woven horizontally between rough posts. Each of the houses had low mud walls and tall conical roofs of thatch.
Finn saw that all the villagers had gathered outside around the houses. Many held torches. A few children chased each other just above the roofs in aerial frolics.
Down the shoreline, Finn continued flying toward the Dayigan fort.
Ominous walls of thick logs, standing two stories high and sharpened, surrounded the roughly square fortress at a hundred and fifty feet across.
When the Dayigans had first arrived four years ago and built their walls, Finn’s people were aghast that they would rip down so much of their forest for such a pointless thing. The structures inside the walls were wooden too, with roofs shingled with green-painted wood. Wooden docks extended from the fort out into the river. Three large sailing ships—not built from these forests but from some forest somewhere—rocked within the tide.
At each corner of the fort, a tower extended higher, and from the center of each, a mast held a smaller horizontal pole at its peak. From each, an emerald green banner hung like a warning in the wind. In gold thread, it bore the sun and both moons in an upward-pointing triangle. A downward-pointing triangle, below the first, represented the distant island city of Dayigo. It screamed, “This is ours now, not yours,” a sentiment echoed by the fort’s inhabitants.
Finn knew better than to enter the fort. Instead, he landed on the shore just outside the wall.
There, the ground was planked over in a level boardwalk. Stalls ran along the edges. The area should have been bursting with goods from all across the continent, but it was empty.
Holding his salmon like a smelly newborn, Finn stared, disappointed and unsure what to do.
Lann landed beside him. “Won’t get much trading done here.”
“’Tis market day, is it not?”
“Aye, it were market day when it were day,” Lann said. “But ’tis not day no more. Come on then, let’s go back. Chief Kaie will have enough gifts without yours, so.”
“I’ve come this far, though, haven’t I,” Finn said. “Might as well see if someone’s about.”
Finn walked forward and stepped up on the boardwalk. He stopped and gasped, clutching his fish to his chest.
A Dayigan soldier stood guard. He was Human—a race like the Terovae, but without wings. They had hairy faces, and though some were thin, like Terovaes, others could grow wider with either muscle or fat. This soldier was larger in the muscular variety, and a suit of chainmail, covered by a green tabard, armored him.
The soldier eyed Finn but didn’t turn his way.
Finn had also found Humans to be a little angry all the time.
“Go on then,” Lann prompted behind Finn. “’Twill be midnight ’fore you’re done.”
Finn breathed deeply and approached.
“Good evening to you, Dayigan friend,” Finn said. “Hate to be a bother, sir, but I’ve come for a quick trade, and I’ll pop off.”
Maintaining his rigid posture and staring forward, the Human replied gruffly. “The market’s shut for the month.”
“Aye, that be true,” Finn said. “And I hate I missed it, but ’tis a special night, this. Tonight, my people—the Feah, well, all the Five Tribes really—celebrate Midyear’s Eve. That’s the end of the dark season and the start of the light season. I’m sure your God Déagar would have a special place in his heart for that, right? Light season, like. And you see, there’s this tradition where we all get a gift for the chief druidess, and I, fool I am, forgot. And to make things worse, me brother’s a temple guardian and his wife—my sister by marriage—she’s not only a druidess, herself, but no less the second-in-command of our whole fecking tribe.” He breathed. “So, ’twill go well noticed if I show up with naught but empty hands and shrugged shoulders, won’t it now?”
The soldier said nothing.
“Right,” Finn said. “What can I get for this then?” He held up the salmon. “A basket of eggs would be lovely. The druidesses use them for the beernog.”
“There’s plenty of fish in the river. We can get our own.”
“That be true, yes. But this fish isn’t in the river, is it? No, this fish is ready and waiting for yourself. And that saves you all the bother of fishing it out.”
The Human turned his head toward Finn and glared a moment. He snatched the fish by its tail. He held it, looked at it, and threw it.
The salmon flew a limp and uneventful flight to hit the boardwalk’s edge, head slapping wood with a spray of blood. It fell to splat on the beach at the water’s edge.
The Human chuckled. “Looks like ’tis in the river to me.”
“Fucking Human!” Lann charged forward to fight.
The soldier drew his sword. “You want to fight me, savage? I’ll gut the both of you before you can—”
“No call for that,” Finn said. “We’re all friends having a chat like.”
Lann stopped but glared.
Finn walked to Lann and patted his chest, now flexed along with the rest of his tense body.
“I don’t think he wants to trade at all,” Finn said. Turning back to the soldier, he added, “We’ll be on our way then. Good night to you.”
The soldier didn’t lower his sword, and Lann didn’t relax.
“The village’ll be waiting for us now,” Finn insisted.
Lann spit on the plank-covered ground.
Finn pushed Lann’s shoulder to turn him.
The Terovaes flew away.
Jeremiah Cain is a dark epic fantasy writer of a vivid world that BookLife Reviews called, “rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes.” He served as an army medic and has a BA in Communication with a minor in English. In addition to reading and writing, he loves video games, particularly RPGs.
Author Website: https://jeremiahcain.com
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