King of the Forgotten Darkness follows a man from a war-ravaged magical realm who returns to the nightmare from which he escaped after learning his mother may still be alive. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I love a good adventure story, and I’ve always liked the idea of portal fantasy–but I’m also a Jungian psychiatrist and scholar, and so I wanted to tell a story that had symbolic depth and resonance. Like Ursula LeGuin, I believe fantasy has the greatest possibility for showing deep, inner truths because the symbols are unfettered by any sort of rules. In King of the Forgotten Darkness, the two worlds represent two mentalities, and you can even think of them as two halves of the modern individual psyche. On one hand, you have our very understandable desire to control our lives and eliminate pain and suffering. But on the other hand there is a dark side, full of chaos and pain and “magic”, but also wonder and awe. I wanted to write a story in which our protagonist must transition between these worlds.

How did you balance magic and its use throughout the story to keep it believable?

The magic in this world actually follows quite a few “rules,” though they are not super rigid, they are difficult to predict, and spells are very costly to the caster to learn and use. Spells and magic have a kind of sentience to it, that works with the caster, and it marks you–outwardly and inwardly–and so magic wielders are very dangerous and powerful, but they also have many weaknesses. In general, though, the main way in which I balance magic is social: beings in Erentyr know that magic is real and have an idea of what spellcasters can do, and so they take precautions. Opposing sides of a conflict will employ magic and counter-magic to achieve their ends. Since magic marks the wielder, it means non-magical people can easily identify magic-users, and will act accordingly.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I explore several, but they all orbit the idea of suffering: what is our relation to it? For example, early on, Liam has the opportunity to take a pill that would eliminate the pain of his many losses. He chooses not to take it. Would you? Most people I have asked agree with Liam’s choice, even though it seems counter-intuitive. This theme is echoed in the very existence of the two worlds–one of which is tightly controlled by social programs and ubiquitous AI, while Erentyr is messy, bloody, brutal, and painful, but full of magic, beauty, awe, and wonder. As a result, most of the action is in Erentyr. On a personal level, this book deals with individual trauma and survivor guilt–something I have encountered in treating war veterans, for example. As the reviewer stated, I don’t just dabble in trauma, I stare it down with this story, and provide some real-world answers through the narrative of how to deal with this very difficult personal problem.

Can we look forward to a follow-up to this novel? What are you currently working on?

King of the Forgotten Darkness is a complete story in itself, but it is part of a larger narrative: The Raven’s Tale. The Raven’s Tale is 9 books I have been working on since the 1990s. My planning is extensive, and I can write rather quickly, so rest assured they WILL be finished (unlike some authors lol). Not only that, but books 4 and 6 are already written. I am currently writing book 2, the first draft of which is nearly done. I have a long process of drafting and alpha/beta reader rounds, and publishing in general takes time, but it is well underway.

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