David Drake

Cover art: Donato

I’ve based the religion of the Isles generally on that of Sumer: the sacred triad of Inanna, Dumuzi, and Ereshkigal. The words of power, however, are the voces mysticae of the documentary magic common in the Mediterranean Basin during classical times. This was the language spoken to the demiurges who would in turn intercede on behalf of humans with the Gods.

I have no personal religious beliefs, but many very intelligent people believed that these voces mysticae were effective in rousing spiritual powers to affect human endeavors. I prefer not to pronounce them aloud. Readers can make their own decisions on the subject. continue reading…

INTRODUCTION: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

I’m a very organized writer–insanely organized, one might say, and we’ll get back to that in a moment. I take extensive notes before I start plotting, and I do very detailed plots (usually in the range of 5-15,000 words per plot, though a few have been much longer).

Occasionally I hear a writer say something along the lines of, “My hero went off in a direction I didn’t expect.” I shake my head: my heroes don’t do anything of the sort. It turned out, however, that they could still surprise me. continue reading…

1984 hardcover dust jacket; Cover art: Michael Whelan

BIRDS OF PREY was the first novel I tried to write. It was a very long time before I succeeded, but I think in this case the wait was worth it.

While I was still in law school I got and read the two-volume Teubner (Latin text only) edition of the so-called Scriptores Historiae Augustae, the Augustan Histories. This is a collection of lives of the later emperors (Hadrian through Numerian), purportedly by many contemporary authors but probably by one man of much later (5th century?) date with political axes to grind. While the SHA is in many respects a fictional text, it does incorporate material from books that haven’t survived–and is, for my purposes as a writer, very evocative. continue reading…