Brent Thomas Author Interview

The Deadly Troubadours seek to make a name for themselves by stealing a dragons egg. What was the inspiration that created this fantastic journey these characters go on?

There are two basic inspirations for this quest. The first and likely more obvious one, is alcohol. I have lived in Japan for over a decade and office drinking parties are a part of the culture. I certainly think this was on my mind when I decided the quest should began basically due to bragging while inebriated. As for the actual quest for the dragon egg, I wanted something relatively small scale. By that I mean a common element in fantasy is the everlasting fight against the eternal evil that threatens to destroy the world. And nothing against that books that use that in their stories, but I wanted this to be an adventure of our heroes making.

There are several well developed characters in this story. Kestra, Demetrius, Talbert, and Aleksander. What were the morals you were trying to capture while creating these characters?

To be honest I’ve never really thought about them in that way. I wanted them to be likable, even if they don’t always make the best choices. I wanted them to feel real in that we can understand their motivations even as they make those choices. I’m trying really hard to think of certain morals that I was thinking of, but I really do think I was more aiming for roundness of character, which sounds horribly egotistically of me.I would say that here are four people who are striving to make themselves better people while doing their past to remain loyal to each other and honest with each other about their mistakes.

I felt this story was very well written. What’s your experience as a writer?

Thank you! Writing has always been a hobby for me, even if at times has been a neglected one. I’ve been working on little short stories, many half finished, since elementary school. I had ringed-notebooks filled with little hand-written tales that have probably been tossed in the trash years ago. During college I tried a bit of play writing on things that never got produced even locally. After graduation I moved to Japan and did blogging on and off to keep the folks back home caught up with my life and that slowly petered out. Finally I got a job where I spent two days teaching special needs lessons and three days sitting at my work desk staring into a computer with too little work to do. That was when I remembered writing and starting a new blog, which transformed into my current site, and started writing little short stories to pass time because I figured if I was typing in English while looking seriously into the monitor everyone around me would just assume I was doing work. Deadly Troubadours actually started as a one off story about a little thief-mage running from some guards. Something about that story got stuck in my head and I kept thinking “What happened next?”

What is the next book that you are writing and when will that be published?

It is going to be a sequel to Deadly Troubadours. It is tentatively called “Sand, Sea, and Stone”. I’m hoping to have it released March 2017 and I will be starting a crowdfunding campaign to do a print run, much like I did with Deadly Troubadours. That campaign will likely start January 2017.

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Who are the Deadly Troubadours? Artists? Thieves? Pranksters? Punks? The answer depends on who you ask. In the summer city of Tryst the Deadly Troubadours seek to make a name for themselves – unfortunately that leads to a stupid oath after a night of heavy drinking. Because of course it does. Kestra: former gladiator. Demetrius Tate: magician and huckster. Talbert Gretchen: academic in exile. Aleksander: master of song. Will their actions earn them fame or infamy? Do they know they are out of their depths? Are they truly stupid enough to fight a dragon? Yes, yes they are. Because they are the Deadly Troubadours.