BATTLE OF EBULON: Shane Porteous

Over the summer I will be interviewing some of the authors that contributed to the Ebulon collaboration that I had the pleasure of being a part of this past Spring. Today, I am kicking the interviews off with our fearless leader: Shane Porteus. Ebulon and the entire collaboration were his brainchildren, so it seemed fitting to interview him first. Your Name: Shane PorteousTitle of the book that lends characters to Ebulon's need: How Gods Bleed Thank you for joining us today, Shane. Please tell us a little bit about yourself as an author.I pride myself on telling original alternative stories or at the least stories that haven’t been done to death.  That’s the one thing I feel confident about, not whether you’ll like or hate my novels, but I guarantee you’ll remember them.Why do you write? Difficult to pin point a single reason, I’ve simply written my entire life and cannot imagine my life without writing. But I think a big reason is the timeless idea of being able to create an entire world in your mind and actually bringing it to life on paper. I also like having that sense of control that writing gives you. It is up to you to decide how the story goes, there is something very comforting about that.What got you into writing?Again this is difficult, in some ways I wish I could point to a single great book and say that is the reason why I write. The only answer I can give you is it is simply who I am. Please tell us a little bit about your character who answers Ebulon’s call for help.His name is Cada Varl, he is a rather dark character. But you can’t blame him for that because even though it wasn’t on purpose his world was plunged into darkness because of him. He carries the burden of many sins and even though he possesses incredible powers, he paid a terrible price to achieve them.Where does Cada Varl come from? Cada Varl comes from the now perished kingdom of Gatavoi, but his actions have drastically changed the entire landscape of the continent, Noonsva.What is his world like? The best way to answer this question is with the How Gods Bleed prologue itself:The Rodovic war was the bloodiest and longest conflict of its age. Fought between the kingdoms of Gatavoi and Belrondia, it was a war that lasted for three decades. But it was on the fields of Marga where the most important battle of history was fought. Over one million warriors from both kingdoms waged a battle more ferocious than any other. By the 11^th day the battle had come to a bloody end and only a single man still stood. Cada Varl, a soldier of Gatavoi. But after seeing so much blood and death Cada Varl had lost his humanity.As he began to wander the land aimlessly, wolves, drawn by the smell of blood and death came to the field and feasted on the flesh of the fallen. Such a feast of human flesh made the wolves hunger for more of the same taste. The wolves followed the wandering Cada Varl attacking him upon nightfall. As the now mindless man lay there with the wolves savoring his flesh he witnessed the full moon and its light reminded him of whom he once was.With his memories restored the desire for survival returned and using a simple spike of silver worn around his neck he injured one of the wolves. Seeing their meal was now ready to fight back the wolves stirred and fled from him. Though he now remembered his humanity the light of the moon was not enough to make it return and so he remained immortal, a shell of what he once was. Though he had been able to save himself from the wolves, their tastes remained and having fed on the flesh of an immortal they now carried a piece of him inside them.The wolves attacked villages, cities and anywhere else where humans dwelled. Those who were attacked but survived were infected by Cada Varl’s immortality, twisted and combined with the spirit of the wolves. From this hybrid of an infection the survivors became monsters, neither wolves nor immortals, but something in between. As the wolves continued attacking villages so the monsters continued to spread until only after a few short decades they had become so numerous that the west belonged to them. The very few humans that one way or another survived the rise of the monsters fled into the east and thus the continent of Noonsva became divided between the lands of the werewolves in the west and the lands of man in the east.What about King Yadi’s plea convinces Cada Varl to join the battle?It has to do with Cada Varl’s guilt, the fact he didn’t act sooner in order to save his own world from a plague of monsters. So when he heard King Yadi’s plea to save Ebulon from monsters (orcs) Cada Varl didn’t hesitate to aid Ebulon.What was the reason for you creating this anthology?I’ve always loved crossovers, there is something very appealing about taking characters from separate stories created by different people and putting them together in the same story. It is such a unique experience that I definitely wanted to experience for myself.What about this collaboration was the most fun? Actually seeing it get off the ground! A couple of years ago I tried very hard to put together a very different anthology and all I got was criticism and put downs from quite frankly very arrogant authors. It really left a bad taste in my mouth and so I was very happy by the enthusiasm of all the great authors who contributed to the anthology.What about this collaboration was the least fun? When I put up my first post asking for authors to join me in this collaboration there were a handful of authors who just wanted to dismiss it and criticize the idea. I really don’t like cynicism and I really can’t stand it when one author tries to get over at another author’s expense. Not to get on my high horse or anything but for any writer or would be writer, reading this please take this advice. Never try to get over at another author’s expense and don’t go out of your way to criticize them just because you don’t like an idea they had. Worry about your own work instead of spending all your time belittling other writers. With all that said I am very glad to say that I have proven them all wrong. Not to overhype the anthology but it really is top notch with some truly talented authors lending their brilliance to it.Thank you so much for coming over and chatting with us today, Shane! Where can we learn more about your book(s)? Feel free to drop me a line on my goodreads account.