A mighty Battle Mage abandons the Dathens to live a secluded life, but decades later, now in his old age, he is suddenly burdened with a task that pulls him back to his old adrenaline-rushing battles.
This is N. J. Franco, author of the fantasy series Dathen Legends. The second instalment, The 13th Dathen, has just been released.
With the sequel’s publication, we spoke with N. J. about the focal point of his next edition, how he keeps track of the world and the characters he’s created, and how his real-world experiences in the US Army have affected his work so far.
With the arrival of your newest book in the Dathen series - The 13th Dathen - earlier this month, what do readers need to know about the story so far?
The previous book – The Immortal War - follows the last few months of a war that seemed endless, since both sides of the fighting had the ability to bring back their dead a few days after falling in battle.
In this book, the war is now over, but the real enemy of the two nations is about to reveal themselves…
As an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons and a keen admirer of fantasy novelist R. A. Salvatore, the possible inspirations for your writing are seemingly endless. For your second book, what was the focal point for you and your continuing narrative?
There are parts of the Dathen lore that I wanted to mention in the first book, but didn’t have the opportunity to - such as a more extensive look into the source of their Dathen magic, and most importantly, how the Dathens were able to know who had fallen in battle and needed to be brought back. I knew achieving this would require me to write another book with a whole new conflict - one that wouldn’t be fully resolved until book three.
You’ve previously shared with us that the idea for this series came to you while writing a paper at college. Since then, you’ve had to design a world and a cast of characters, aiming to keep a strong grasp of the fictional land you’ve created. Do you find this difficult to do? Are there any tips or tricks that have helped you along the way?
This may be had to believe, but playing Minecraft has really helped me design many of the buildings in my world. I would often login to Minecraft with a vague, or sometimes non-existent, idea of what I wanted a building to look like. I would then start laying different types of blocks and equipment down and through trial and error, I would often have a fully constructed building in a matter of hours I could then use to help describe those same buildings in my books.
The Horack Dathen Temple, Tenton Keep, and Lucious Drake’s homestead are just some of the buildings I was able to flesh out with the help of Minecraft.
Having served for over thirteen years in the US Army as a Combat Cameraman, do you think that any of your experiences in combat have leaked through into your fantasy writing? The greatest fantasy novels explore a detailed fictional land but do reflect or comment upon real world events - do you see this in your work?
My military career has definitely inspired my writing. For instance: the rank system I designed for both of my armies to have. I took the current U.S. Army rank system and simplified it, by deleting the ranks I felt weren’t necessary for a functioning military. I’m sure many Staff Sergeants and Sergeant Majors may disagree with me on that - especially since their ranks were some of the first to go!
Also, the sleeping quarters of my main character for my first book were heavily inspired by some real-world barracks I would occasionally have to sleep in while I was stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. There, we would have a quarterly Field Training Exercise in which we would have to stay in barracks that I’m pretty sure were built during the Vietnam War. They were basically long, concrete buildings with rows of bunk beds in them. I used my experiences sleeping in those barracks to design the sleeping quarters for Enron and the rest of his company - making sure to tone them down to match what you’d expect to see in a medieval fantasy series.
I could go on forever talking about all the ways my military career had inspired my books, from the designs of additional buildings and structures to general soldier behaviour.
For readers who are eagerly anticipating the next instalment in the Dathen series, we have some exciting news. Although early in development, what can you tease about your upcoming third title, Mortal Gods?
I really don’t want to spoil too much, but book three will contain a major battle between two gods…
The 13th Dathen is available now in paperback.
