BATTLE OF EBULON: Walter Rhein
Another interview with a fellow Battle of Ebulon collaborator today.
Your name: Walter Rhein
Title of the book that lends characters to Ebulon's need:
“The Bone Sword,” which was published by Rhemalda publishing in 2010 (http://rhemalda.com/ ). I believe this was the second or third novel that Rhemalda acquired the rights to. Rhett (the publisher) has told me a couple times that he's going to redo the cover because they hadn't had a lot of experience with cover design and it kind of shows.(http://www.amazon.com/Bone-Sword-Walter-Rhein/dp/0982743726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370276260&sr=8-1&keywords=the+bone+sword+walter+rhein)
My second novel, “Beyond Birkie Fever" is radically different from my first novel. The first is an example of heroic fantasy, and the second is a humorous memoir about cross-country skiing.(http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Birkie-Fever-Walter-Rhein/dp/1936850028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314120830&sr=8-1)
“The Bone Sword” has been a bit of an under-performer in terms of sales, but it has opened a lot of doors for me. The book has led directly to discussions with four different publishers about future works, so I consider it a great success. It's one of those things where it's just a matter of getting people to read it. Speaking of that, if anyone's interested in receiving a review copy you can contact me at: walterrhein@gmail.com.
*Tell us a little bit about yourself as an author. Why do you write? What got you into writing?*I've been writing since high school and I have a degree in English literature. After college I moved to Lima, Peru for ten years where it was inexpensive enough to live that I could dedicate a lot of my time to writing. I still maintain a blog about Peru called “Streets of Lima” (http://www.streetsoflima.com/ ). I actually make more money selling advertising on my blog than I do from writing, although the articles I place are catching up quickly.*Tell us a little bit about your character(s) who answer Ebulon’s call for help. Where do they come from? What is their world like? What about King Yadi’s plea convinces them to join the battle?*Malik is a deserter from an elite unit of swordsmen. He's not exactly “heroic,” though that's due to the fact that he's been mistreated and not because he's a bad person. He answers King Yadi's call reluctantly because it manifests itself in the form of a headache he can't escape from. As a result, he's not happy about partaking in Ebulon's defense, although in the end he gets the job done (though it's not in a way that the inhabitants of Ebulon might have wanted).*What intrigued you to take part in this collaboration?*It's always good to get exposure in a collaboration like this. A lot of times people propose these things but then they never come to fruition. Shane Porteous expressed a lot of enthusiasm from the get-go and I felt the collaboration was actually going to happen. Also, I hadn't written Malik for a while and I kind of missed him.*What about this collaboration was the most fun? Least fun?*It's been all fun, especially meeting the new writers. I'm looking forward to reading the whole collaboration and getting to meet a bunch of new characters.*Where can we learn more about your book(s)? (website/facebook/twitter/etc?) *The best place to follow me is on “Streets of Lima” where I try to update every day (http://www.streetsoflima.com/ ).I'd also welcome all of you to join my “Heroic Fantasy” group on Facebook (where I believe the Ebulon collaboration got a big kick-start). Janet Morris is a regular contributor there, she's the author of the Thieves' World stories involving Tempus Thales and her comments are very insightful: https://www.facebook.com/groups/heroicfantasy/I also have an author blog where I interview a lot of up and coming writers, here's the page for more information on that:http://walterrhein.blogspot.com/2010/06/interviews-for-heroic-fantasy.html