I must admit I’ve been slacking on this blog. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been entirely idle. I’m still working on the clean-up of the Dream Whisperer’s sequel, and I must say I’m quite happy about how it turned out. There are plenty of new characters, and some of them are definitely keepers. There’s also a bit of additional background on familiar characters. That’s the great thing about a series. I get the opportunity to…
I’ve been on a hiatus during the festive season, which admittedly felt a lot less festive than in previous years — a notion you can surely relate to. I’d like to share some thoughts with you, looking back to 2020 and forwards to 2021. One of the themes in Dream Whisperer is the nearsightedness of man. We have difficulties coping with long-term issues and low-probability occurrences even if they represent high-impact threats. Nassim Taleb called…
In Dream Whisperer, Lady Eiluned, a high-ranking elf and Fleming’s grandmother, tells her grandson that the elves have decided to leave Earth because there’s no future for them in our world. About forty years ago — yes, I’m ancient — I went through a Kipling phase. I read all of his novels and short stories and enjoyed most of it a lot. I know, liking Kipling isn’t fashionable. It isn’t even politically correct. The man…
Dream Whisperer is in no small part the story of a race against the clock to prevent an Outer God from opening a portal to Earth for his terrifying relatives. The Dream Whisperer can only do so if he wakes five Sleepers from their millennia-old slumber. Before they departed from Earth, the Outer Gods scattered dozens of such Sleepers all over the planet. The hunt for Sleeper lairs takes British and French crack teams to…
When writing a novel situated at the beginning of the 20th century, the language used in dialogues is an issue. A modern reader expects snazzy and easy-to-follow repartees, so an exact imitation of the way people talked at the time isn’t always called for. On the other hand, you don’t want to use anachronistic words either. Moreover, the characters are mainly British, and Americanisms hadn’t taken over the language yet. It’s a minefield. A good…
One of the Dream Whisperer characters you’ll see returning in the sequel is Alan Hargrave. In Dream Whisperer, he’s an army captain serving as a medical doctor at the front. He’s a tender soul, and the casualties of war sicken him. Hargrave is one of the Celtic gods Fleming tries to get on his side in the fight against his archenemy. However, the good doctor is so disgusted with mankind by his war experience that…
Countess von Corvey travels to Istanbul on the SMS Loreley. The ship actually existed. It was built in Glasgow by D. & W. Henderson & Company in 1885, and its original name was Mohican. The original buyer, A.H.G. Wittey & Co., put the steam yacht already back on the market in 1892, and it was bought by the German Kriegsmarine in 1896. The Germans used it as a Stationsschiff — indicating it was meant to…
Although Dream Whisperer was plotted in reasonable detail before I started writing, I did quite a bit of research during the writing process itself. Usually, it didn’t affect the major plotlines, but it helped to flesh out the graphic novel scenario I’d written years ago, which I was using as a basis for my novel. Most of the last-minute research was about technical details, like what kinds of diving suits were available at the time;…
Dream Whisperer was just longlisted for BookViral’s Millennium Book Award. That means they think it’s one of the 40 best books they read and reviewed this year. Earlier this year BookViral posted a rave review of the novel, describing it as: ‘A full-on fantasy epic. Dream Whisperer delivers a rousing, large-scale adventure that rivals the very best in its genre.’ I never expected they’d include the novel in the longlist of their best books of…
Dream Whisperer’s main character, Fleming, was orphaned when he was still a babe in arms. The novel only offers sparse details about Fleming’s parents, except that his father spent a lot of time in India trying to patch things up between the British and the local gods. His endeavours were counteracted by the Evangelical missionaries’ relentless proselytising. Contrary to what often happened — the Church piggy-backing on the surge of colonisation by Western powers —…