Set in Atlantis, The Power of Water follows two men–one fighting for his people’s freedom and the other battling to keep the upper hand against his nemesis. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I enjoy reading and watching shows about alternative history, or, as some would call it, pseudo-science. When I started writing, I thought about Atlantis and how the downfall would have occurred. Plato talks about the people angering the gods, but could that have been future generations sent back to hunter-gatherers, trying to make sense of something they did not understand? Like how do the Sentinelese natives or any other primitive natives today describe a helicopter coming near them? Is it an animal? Do they understand it is a machine or just the amount of strange people?

So, I tried to build a story around an advanced civilization that used a power source we would not understand, but that gave them many of today’s conveniences. The story would then progress through their downfall and attempt to survive.

Did you plan the tone and direction of the novel before writing, or did it come out organically as you were writing?

Mostly organically. I knew the direction I wanted to go in but would stop occasionally to read what I wrote (some correcting, but mostly just to make sure it flowed to me). Usually, I would then ask myself how this got here or what if that happened first. Then, I would try to add that into the story, and if I liked it, I would flesh it out.

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

I guess the biggest thing is I wanted to write a story about how I thought a prior level of civilization could have been here and disappeared. Plato states Atlantis was a naval power, so I believe that means they would have been on the coasts. The coasts in many parts of the Ice Age world are hundreds of feet underwater now. And I think the current state of our underwater archaeology is still in the beginner phase.

Many like to think that we are the apex of human history, but I wonder if that is correct. I mean, we have been at our biological level for over 100,000 years, and only in the last 10,000 years have we gone from picking berries to rockets, nanites, quantum physics, and the like. Our long-ago ancestors seemed to be as inquisitive as we are, so why now and not before?

Can you give us a peek inside book 2 of The Doom of the Gods series? Where will it take your characters?

Book Two, The Power of Blood, will concentrate on the chaos of the Atlantean empire and the struggle between the parties. Jana will once again go after Risor. Rogat and Demetri will have a “come to the gods” moment. Shandar will struggle to keep his people together, and Lena, poor Lena, will find herself thrust into a power vacuum that forces her further away from finding her love, Tilor. Indrajit and Zhen will find themselves on a secret mission that turns into making friends from enemies.

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