David Drake

LORD OF THE ISLES was my chance to get back to writing fantasy. It now seems an obvious thing to have done, but it sure took me a long time to come to that realization.

Andrew Lang’s Color Fairy Books were a staple of my reading as a child, and when I entered my teens and could buy books for myself I was just as interested in fantasy as science fiction. Robert E Howard’s heroic fantasy stories were a lot of the reason I started writing myself, and when I was seventeen I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. (I’ve reread the work frequently).

It’s my belief that heroic fantasy forms a broad arc, with Howard being one pole and Tolkien the other. The works of the two men differ in emphasis but are extremely similar at the core level. Both writers affected me and my writing a great deal. continue reading…

Cover art: Donato

The (common) religion of the Isles is based on Sumerian cult and ritual, but the magic itself comes from the Mediterranean and is mostly Egyptian in its original source.  The voces mysticae which I’ve referred to as “words of power” in the text represent the language of demiurges; that is, they are intended to have meaning to beings which can then translate human desires to the ultimate powers of the cosmos.  I have copied them from real spell manuscripts of the classical period.

I don’t personally believe that the voces mysticae have power over events, but millions of intelligent, civilized people did believe that.  I don’t pronounce the voces mysticae aloud when I’m writing. continue reading…