The Legend of the Hunter

SPOILER WARNING! THIS INTERVIEW CONTAINS

SPOILERS FROM THE LEGEND OF THE HUNTER

So tell your readers: are there any “Easter eggs” hidden in the novel?

Interesting that you should ask that, for there are indeed. I’m sure though that the readers have identified some of these. Here are the hidden treats:

All the names of the Weavers start with a Z because the first Weaver I named came from something I was called in error by an acquaintance of mine, Christo Lewin. He thought my name was Zidayt! I was so tickled by it that I knew I just had to use it.

The names of the Elves all end with “-lin”. This is a term of respect and formality. That’s why when they speak to each other and are familiar with each other, they tend to drop the “-lin” part.

The Elves always speak formally. They never use contracted words. Ever!

All the names of the Thugs are palindromes, as is the name of their city.

All the names of the Silent Ones start with … a silent letter!

The name “Ghoshal” is in homage to one of my favourite Hindi singers, Shreya Ghoshal; “Hulya” is derived from another favourite Hindi singer of mine. Rahul Vaidya.

And last but in no way the least: Belac is Caleb spelled backwards as homage to my favourite (but fairly unknown) American actor/writer/director/producer, Caleb Alexander Smith.

Did you follow a specific writing process or plan for your novel? For example, did you plan each chapter or create each character in advance?

Not at all! I simply started writing and went to where the story took me. As I mentioned in the Foreword, sometimes I had no clue what a character was going to do or say until he or she did or said it. Marethlin developed as a cheeky, mischievous Elf all on his own, while Talat suddenly revealed to me that he is actually quite sarcastic and can’t resist making humorous comments or saying one-liners. I had no idea why the Silent Ones were called so until Krauwyk called them Stutterers! The fact that Zenia was a Ripple was a revelation to me as well. I had the feeling that she was important, as I just couldn’t seem to separate her from Zidayt, and then she ended up making that stunning comment about knowing where Lathlin was. I had definitely not planned for Kunkuna to die, but it seemed right when it happened. My process is to simply write and see where I end up, but that means I have to keep track of what happened earlier so that I can remember to incorporate those things into the latter part of the story. I was forced very early on to compile a glossary of characters, places and creatures; later I realised I also needed to keep a list of Elvish words!

Final question: Why did you not have a fight to the death between Belac and the Drakheen? Instead, you chose to have the Drakheen killed by a frunx. Don’t you feel that was cheating your readers?

I don’t feel I cheated the readers out of a final showdown mostly because the novel has enough other fights. In fact, it opens with Belac battling the dreiche, and the readers immediately get to see what a skilled fighter he is. Based on that, it is fairly obvious that he would have been able to defeat the Drakheen. Belac not only had a superb sword as a weapon, but he also had arrows, he is extremely fast and he has unlimited stamina. The Drakheen mostly depended on his magic, which Lathlin and the Ripple managed to easily negate. I felt I wanted to give the Drakheen a humiliating and horrifying death because he is so arrogant, wicked and entirely unpleasant. I thought having a spider attack and then devour him alive was a kind of poetic justice. Also, I am deathly afraid of spiders, so I knew the Drakheen being killed by one would for sure freak me out.

Any final words, or hints, about the next book?

I’m deeply grateful to my readers who are kind enough to spend their valuable time on reading my little novel. I write to entertain them, and I hope I have succeeded in this. As for the next book: all I can say is that characters from the other continents will form part of it, but Belac, Lathlin and a few others will definitely feature in it. I welcome any and all feedback, so feel free to email me on my email address: [email protected].