EM: Welcome back to the Cobblestone Café, everyone. I'm here this week with, not one, but two special guests: fantasy author Sandy Lender and her leading man, Nigel Taiman. Sandy, Nigel, thanks for joining me today!
Sandy Lender: Good morning. It's good to be here.
Nigel Taiman: Good morning. It's good to see you again, Ms. Sky. Thank you for hosting Sandy today.
EM: Nigel, please, there's no need to be formal. It's just EM, like the letter "M."
Nigel Taiman: Pretty. So does anyone in your life call you Emmie?
Sandy Lender: You can pretend he's not really here. He has this propensity for misusing everyone's name. It sends the women in the novel into conniptions half the time.
EM: That's all right. He can call me Emmie, if he wants to.
So, Sandy, there's a tremendous background to Choices Meant for Gods, a rich tapestry of gods and sorcery and at least two different kinds of magic, a tremendously complex history, not to mention different cities with different cultures that I presume are expanded later in the trilogy... How long did it take to work out all these details?
Sandy Lender: All your visitors will think I'm insane after this answer, but I guess an epic fantasy author has to be a little on the "touched" side or she wouldn't be in the business. I first envisioned my main character, the heroine of Choices Meant for Gods, Amanda Chariss, back in 1982 or 1983, as she stood on her benefactor's balcony with her arms holding back the curtains, as if she was embracing the morning before her like some sort of goddess. I was instantly taken with her...fell in love right then and there. What I didn't realize at the time was that I viewed her through the eyes of the bad guy; my villain, Lord Jamieson Drake, was the one showing me this stunning young lady. I've been hearing whispers of her story and her world's history ever since.
So it took roughly from 1983 to 2000 to sketch out the history and the religion and the map and the stars and the genealogy and the legends and everything necessary to create the story behind Choices Meant for Gods. I sat down at the computer in 2000 and wrote the first book in about three years.
As one of my muses and guides in the writing of the story, Chariss herself was instrumental in getting all the facts straight. Lately, Nigel here has been a big help in making sure I have the story right, as well.
EM: Wow, that's some serious dedication! But the Choices trilogy has obviously been an ambitious project from the start. Nigel, you probably know Sandy better than anyone. Tell us, how do you think she managed to stick with it through all those long years? What kept her going?
Nigel Taiman: I might be sitting too close to her to answer that honestly. I guess I could say she's quite driven to get the story of my bride told. She has deep sympathy for what Mandy goes through. Chariss. Pardon me. Everyone else calls her Chariss. Because she has such compassion for Chariss and the other characters, Sandy wants to get the story right. That means spending time on all the details. I think that's why the two of us are spending so much time in editing with Book II right now. The details are driving her nuts.
EM: Speaking of details... in the world of Choices Meant for Gods, there are at least three different kinds of magical ability that we've seen so far. There are wizards, like Hrazon, who use a kind of sorcery; there are "gifted" people like Chariss—and like you, too, Nigel, right?—who use the geasa; and there are even gods who walk the earth among mortals.
Can you give us just a bit of background about these three kinds of magic? What are their strengths and weaknesses, and how do they differ from one another?
Sandy Lender: Well, I need to make sure that we keep the two basic kinds of "magic" as people will call them very clear. I'm actually pretty careful not to refer to the geasa as magic. In fact, in the novel, bigots and people who fear the Geasa'n refer to those who possess the geasa as "magicked" and use the term in a derogatory fashion. It's often shortened to "'jicked" as a slang use, and it actually gets under my skin now as badly as some of our disgusting slang terms that bigots in our society use.
Hrazon, a wizard, does not use sorcery. He possesses the geasa. Chariss, a Geasa'n, does not use sorcery. She possesses the geasa. Nigel here, a Geasa'n, also possesses the geasa, but he's got a little surprise that we figure out in the novel and that will prove invaluable in Book II.
Now, Lord Drake, a sorcerer, uses sorcery. There's a big, bad, evil difference between the geasa and the power that is derived from sorcery in my novel. You see, I'm a southern baptist and I take to heart the parts of the Bible where it teaches that sorcery is a bad thing derived from a bad source. So I don't want to confuse younger readers with the idea that my "good guys" would use sorcery or magic, even if it was for a good purpose. This left me with a dilemma. How do I portray Chariss's gift without confusing the living daylights out of everybody? So I made something up. Yes, that's walking a fine line, but this is fantasy. What can ya do?
Oh, and then I had all these gods and goddesses (oh, that would kinda conflict with my southern baptist upbringing, by the way, but, again, epic fantasy...) that I couldn't have rushing about tossing spells derived from sorcery. So my best bet was to create a power derived from the positive forces in nature. Voila. The geasa was born. And I made Chariss just ooze with it because she rocks.
Nigel Taiman: She does.
Sandy Lender: There are different levels of power within the geasa. Everybody's got it doled out to them in differing amounts. That's why Chariss's power is unknown at first. Her wizard guardian, Hrazon, is forever being surprised by the things she can do, as is Master Rothahn, the god, when He shows up on the scene, because no one knows how much power a Geasa'n has until he or she starts practicing with it. Certain beings have known limitations, though, as the reader learns. For instance, wizards don't have good healing powers in the Choices Meant for Gods mythos.
EM: Nigel, I noticed you just had to chime in there about Chariss.
Nigel Taiman: By the gods, Woman! There is no way I can answer that without getting punched soundly.
Sandy Lender: I could promise not to punch you.
Nigel Taiman: Do you see how amused she is by this, Emmie? You don't know the danger you've put me in. I've got a bride back home in my society who won't like any answer I give and a fantasy author right here who won't like any answer I give.
I think the best way to explain this is to give you Sandy's opinion, not mine. Sandy doesn't think Chariss bears any resemblance to her or vice versa, and I'm not just talking about the amethyst on her cheek. Chariss is Chariss. In fact, Sandy says that if there are any characteristics of a person from this society in Chariss, it's probably traces of her younger sister and traces of the orphan Jane Eyre from the Charlotte Bronte novel. I've not met Sandy's sister, so I can't comment on that comparison, and from the passages I've read of Jane Eyre, I'd have to say Chariss does possess Jane's indomitable spirit. Chariss possesses a lot of spirit. In fact, she's got this incredible ability to—
Sandy Lender: EM, you might want to interrupt him right about now. That look means we're going to get a diatribe on Chariss's merits.
EM: Right. So, Sandy, before I let you go, I hear you're going to Dragoncon. That's in Atlanta, from August 31st to September 3rd. Do you know yet what appearances you'll be making?
Sandy Lender: I'm not presenting at DragonCon, but I will have a presence at my dealer table that I share with fellow ArcheBooks author M.B. Weston. Then I'm also assisting the good folks at FantasyBookSpot.com with their "newscasting" of the show. That fifteen years of journalism experience I've got under my belt lets me help lots of people.
EM: So have you done one of these before? What's it like to appear at a convention as a new author?
Sandy Lender: The conventions I've attended in the past have all seen me in an organizational role so this and Context 20, where I'll be speaking about building religions and researching things that don't exist and e-publishing... I imagine it's going to be a nonstop whirlwind of activity. At both shows.
EM: Wow, sounds exciting!
Sandy Lender: It does. I'm looking forward to carrying a sword around.
EM: Well, Larry's telling me we're just about out of time here, but I want to thank you both again for being on the show. Sandy, Nigel, it's been a real pleasure.
Sandy Lender: It has been fun! Thank you for inviting me. And this one here has been well-behaved.
Nigel Taiman: Nice. Emmie, it's been wonderful speaking with you again. Thank you for your hospitality.
And three... two... one... we're out. That's a wrap, everybody.
EM: So Nigel, are you going to Dragoncon, too?
Nigel Taiman: I'll be lurking. It's my job to keep the author safe, you know. She may carry that paltry little sword she's got but I'm the one who knows how to wield it. And you're going, right? You'll be accompanying us to the Tolkien party, I assume?
EM: Hey, really? You mean it?
Sandy Lender: Of course we have to hang out together. You've got to help me get away from my dealer table once in a while and make sure I get to meet all the celebrities I'm dying over. I'll be the gal with the amethyst on her cheekbone, high up near the corner of her right eye...
EM: That's terrific! I'll see you there!
Sandy Lender's Choices Meant for Gods was featured in the August issue of Wet Ink. Read the full review here, or visit the book site on Amazon
