Listening News

The Hunt, book two of The Secret World Chronicle is set to release on June 1st.
As part of the promotional tour de force Steve and Mercedes have graciously granted me an interview, which I present to you.

1. Will The Hunt settle into more traditional superhero fare, or continue with the cutthroat action?
M: The Hunt continues on several fronts.  The search for the identity and location of the Thulians continues.  Echo copes with many problems; political maneuvering, blame-casting, the decimation of their personnel, the emboldening of the meta-villain population, just to name a few.  And just who is behind all of this?

S:  The first book, Invasion, was meant to be an introduction to the Secret World by way of sudden chaos. Now the heroes must deal with the aftermath. The Thulians are still out there, somewhere, but there’s trouble at home. We’ll also learn more about Metis, the secret science city, and meet Echo’s second greatest foe, Dominic Verdigris VIII.

2. I understand that the main characters belong to individual authors, how much crossover will there be? Will there more team dynamics?

M: We would very much like for there to be more team dynamics; that is in the plan, although we are keeping our plans fluid.

S:  You will see a consolidation of viewpoints and character arcs, but the POV characters that you have already met — Belladonna, Handsome Devil, Mercurye, Ramona, Vickie Vee, et al, will still tell their stories.

3. Vickie Vee and Murdock seem born leaders, though flawed. Are you going to introduce new Metas to fill their teams, or gather known characters?

M: New metas will continue to be introduced as we have left the door open for more writers, later, and by invitation. Existing characters will die.  There will be a lot of twists that hopefully no one will see coming.

S: Vickie Vee a leader? Never thought of her that way, though in a time of crisis, everyone must step up and be counted. That’s the joy of the Secret World: each character, no matter how damaged, will be tested and required to excel or fall. But the answer to the second question is, of course, yes! Nothing is more fun than conceiving superheroes.

4. Will there be more of the Eisenfaust back-story?

M: There is some in a story just recorded, “Sgian Dubh” and will be more as we do fill-in WWII stories.

S: Let’s  just say that, when I die, I also want my body to be carted off to a secret science city by a UFO.

5. I actually teared up at a couple of points, the first appearance of Seraphym, Handsome Devil seeing Shahkti dodging energy beams on the highway. Are you ever moved by your own work? Or each others?

M: Heavens yes.  I cry over my own work like the  heroine of Romancing the Stone and I cry at the work of my collaborators.

S: If I can’t make people cry with my writing, I just hit them with a stick when their back is turned.

6. Speaking of Seraphym… Wow!  But please be careful, don’t lose the mystery.

M: Seraphym, I hope, is as alien as an almost-omniscient creature must be.

S: It is a challenge to include an omniscient protagonist, but then, Misty has had a bit of practice at her craft.  Seraphym presents some of the more intriguing dilemmas for our characters.

7. How’s the long distance collaboration working? Do you miss the high five moments?  Any phone calls at three am?

M: No phone calls but a lot of IM.  That’s the  real benefit in living in the internet age.

S: In a sense it’s like Misty and I work together at a company but on separate floors. I know I can call her at anytime (3 am is actually an ideal time for her!) but IM is easier. And, more importantly, Google Talk keeps logs for us so we don’t have to jot anything down! It’s a tremendously handy tool.

 8. It’s hard to sustain a labor of love, especially at this level, so do you have plans for monetizing this project?

M: That has always been the plan.  We hope to prove there is an audience for this story by getting one on our own.  Once we can bring that to the table, we have an advantage.  If we can really do our job well, the buzz will be big enough that the publishers will come to us.

S: Without much press, SWC has already amassed a substantial audience. When we do haul out the big guns, it will be ubiquitous! We hope.  But the podcasting approach has been a quite a boon to us. It has given us control over our concept and time to nurture it without interference, so we can present a complete package to a publisher. I think in the future you will see this approach more often.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for this wonderful Podcast.
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