JQM Literary Spotlight Presents Tond, Book Four: The War of Mechanas
FIRST, LET’S GET TO KNOW YOU A BIT. TELL US SOMETHING UNIQUE ABOUT YOURSELF:
When teaching middle or high school classes, I often introduce myself by playing “Three Truths and a Lie”: four statements, and the students have to guess which one is a lie. The following are all true:
1. I was born in Seattle
2. When I was in 2nd grade, the other kids nicknamed me “Scribbles”.
3. When I was in 8th grade, I was the (unofficial) arm-wrestling champion of the school.
4. Also in 8th grade, I attempted to write my first novel. It probably wasn’t very good.
5. I lived in Japan for three years.
6. I once played piano in a nine-hour concert with some of my friends.
7. I have written seven books.
I insert some other absurd statement that’s a lie, but usually the kids guess “I was born in Seattle” as the lie because it’s the most likely to actually be true.
WHAT IS THE GENRE AND AUDIENCE FOR THIS BOOK:
“Epic” high fantasy, with sword-and-sorcery adventure (though I dislike the term) and a lot of details of imaginary cultures. The audience is probably nerds everywhere: anyone who likes other-worldly quests. (Some sections may be a little too frightening or violent for some pre-teen readers; if it were a movie, I’d rate it PG-13.)
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS BOOK:
I was in 8th grade, and I was in the middle of reading Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”. I was walking from one class to another and I suddenly said to myself, “I should write something like that sometime.” In retrospect, this is odd because I wasn’t even thinking about saying that to myself. What I meant by “something like that” was a long book with some connections to folklore or mythology and set in a fantastical ancient world. The result, more than forty years later, is the “Tond” series.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR BOOK:
This is the fourth book in the first “Tond” series. The quest is completed, but questions remain. The loremasters (and the “Others”, who’ve arrived in Tond from elsewhere) meet in a grand council to attempt answers. Then the Great Menace strikes. In the final climactic battle, the fate of Tond hangs in the balance as Rolan (the protagonist throughout the series) and Shar himself (the mysterious King of the Taennish Folk) confront their shared enemy. The end of the battle is allegorical in that both Law and Grace are needed to confront an evil which knows only one of them and understands neither.
There is a final scene, a sort-of coda to the series as a whole, which widens the series to a cosmic scale. Rolan is shown the evolution of life in the universe and the ultimate nature of the evil that threatened Tond. The book ends with a couple of minor loose ends (probably unnoticed by most readers) that will later become vastly important and form the basis for the Second “Tond” Series.
WHERE CAN WE PURCHASE YOUR BOOK:
Tond, Book Four: The War of Mechanas: Scribner, Steven E.: 9781797833958: Amazon.com: Books
My website: Steven E. Scribner, author (google.com)
James Quinlan Meservy - Author 