What drives your art? What forces you, rides you, hustles you, controls you until its latest needs have been met? What really drives you to create speculative fiction art, be it words or images?

Fantasy works (film, television, music, games, art, etc.) really capture my imagination and hold my interest. I guess I just want to be a part of that.

If there was the possibility of becoming any speculative fiction character ever created (except your own), would you? Who? Why?

[Declined to answer]

If you could only take one author’s works compressed on an e-book reader on a “one-bag-only” one-way trip to another galaxy, whose works would it be and why?

Michael Moorcock. He’s a great writer, Elric being one of the best (if not THE best) fantasy characters of all time. There’s also a lot of his writing I (sadly) haven’t read.

Why Brom? What initiated his story and made you complete this particular tale?

Conan is another favorite character of mine and I hold a great respect for Howard’s articulate pen. Brom is basically Conan done up Azieran (the fantasy world in which I write) style. There’s more magic floating around Azieran ala Newhon than in Conan’s world, so naturally Brom has some magic that helps him along. Also, their situations are quite different. I’ve read all of (to the best of my knowledge) the Howard Conan tales, and in the midst of these reads, I was waiting to see Conan in his homeland amidst his own people and how he would relate to them after traveling abroad and becoming more learned and outwardly more sophisticated than his kin (even while retaining his primeval core). I wondered how they might react to that. Since this was never covered in the Conan mythology, I thought the idea was an excellent springboard for my own writings. [In this story,] I wished to write a quintessential Sword and Sorcery tale, that being the wizard vs. the barbarian, and conclude a possible outcome.

In the privacy of your favorite writing nook, do you act out your protagonist’s actions? Do you know how to use his weapons? Do you wear his clothes? Do you talk like him?

No. My family thinks I’m silly enough for writing this stuff, let alone acting it out. I have a claymore I swing around, so that’s close enough, I suppose. No [I don't wear Brom's clothes. And speak like him?] Only when angered!!!

Quick: List your first thought as your answers to these questions about the future of genre fiction:

Printing Methods: Offset or Print-on-Demand?

Both, but POD growing.

Reading Formats: Electronic or Print?

Both, but electronic growing…I do think Electronic has a huge hurdle to overcome…reading an electronic page is just not as warm as reading a printed page. Doesn’t have the same feel, and I mean that in a bad way.

Book Tours: Physical or Virtual?

[Declined to answer]

Reading Habits: Dead, Dying, Alive, Growing?

Dying. As other media becomes more impressive (video games, film, etc.) reading habits continue to decline.

Length: Flash, Short, Novella, 1970’s novel (60k), 1980’s novel (80k), 1990’s novel (120k), 2000’s novel (150k)

I suppose the 150k novel is king and will continue to be king as that’s where publishers make their biggest profit margin. I personally prefer the 1970s short novel. Short and sweet, not like these overblown grotesque novels of today that meander needlessly. Granted, I haven’t read any of those for awhile but “The Wheel of Time” series left me cold (after about eight books I just felt I didn’t really like the characters or how the story was devolving), and while a novel such as A Game of Thrones I thought was much better, I still didn’t feel like it stacked up against classics like M. John Harrison’s The Pastel City or Wagner’s short Kane novels.

Robert E. Howard, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, Louis L’Amour, Frederick Faust, Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini . . . the list could go on. Some lived long lives, some flared and burned out young. All lived life hard. All wrote pulse-pounding action-adventure, often dipping into the many different genres they share, yet each eventually establishing their name within a specific one. What do you believe you havein common with these authors, and what makes you so sure speculative fiction – heroic fantasy fiction to be precise – is your genre? Or is it?

I think my sensibilities toward fantasy are best illustrated and are influenced by: Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, and Fritz Leiber. I think heroic fantasy is my genre because I get bored more easily reading and writing other types of fiction.

Thank you for your time and answers, Christopher.

Christopher Heath lives in Indiana and has been writing fantasy for over a decade, either as a role-playing game designer under the official Dungeons and Dragons logo or producing short stories and novels for his Azieran fantasy world. These works have seen publication in over thirty venues, including professional rate sales to Fantasist Enterprises and Pitch-Black Books.

Review Praise for “Azieran: Claimed by Birthright”

“…This is straight ahead wizard vs. warrior and it is exciting. Well done!” ~ Dan Nelson

An excerpt

…Old Wyvgrin stood and moved to the side of his throne. He pulled forth a formidable blade from behind the ornate oaken frame. Strange runes ran the length of its polished steel, runes that harkened back to the ancient kings of frigid Bjorsek. Its quillons and hilt cast of cross-latticed steel, the bands conformed beneath the rain guard into a skeletal hand that clutched a diamond the size of a horse’s eye. That diamond shone with the crimson light of a captured eldritch soul; some whispered it belonged to the ancient, long-vanquished queen of the dracul. The arch mage felt the power in his hands and yearned to unlock its secrets. They would come in time.

“Behold, Avva’rin, Shard of Ice.” Wyvgrin enjoyed his theatrics.

“Gods! How did you . . .”

“Never mind how I came by it,” Wyvgrin snapped. “Fortune has landed the blade in my lap, and I know Brom will come to reclaim it, risking life and limb as would be expected of a mindless brute…

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