I talk to the editors at The Qwillery about the challenges of world creation and writing alternate history. In the course of it, I out myself as a nerd.
Here’s a peek:
Describing THE SPEAR OF DESTINY was about as hard as writing it. I’m still not 100 percent sure I’ve got it down pat. Along the way, I’ve made a few mistakes. Let me explain.
The last thing I want to do is invoke the ire of steampunk purists. I love the purists in any fan base. I am one. As far as I’m concerned, there is no Star Trek outside the 23rd Century and The Empire Strikes Back was the last Star Wars movie they made. Barry Allen is still dead, zombies shamble slowly, Han shot first, and Superman wears red underwear over his blue tights.
But early on when THE SPEAR OF DESTINY was being pitched it picked up the steampunk label. I’m not sure if it was my agent or my editor. It was hard enough distilling the description down to “genre-mashing alternate history Nazi zombie supernatural comedy adventure with robots, cowboys and monsters.†(Somehow, “Indiana Jones meets Shaun of the Dead†sounded too much like a bad pitch to Griffin Mill in The Player.) I don’t know how the label got thrown in there.
Read the whole thing here: On zombies, Nazis, robots and cowboys: Writing the book was the easy part