Review of Hollow Road/interview with author Dan Fitzgerald

I want to talk about Hollow Road, Book one of the Maer Cycle, by Dan Fitzgerald.

It’s a fantasy novel, I went into it knowing it would be three books. As a matter of fact, the follow up books are available now in some form or fashion at most major retailers. What sold me on picking it up was the concept of the Maer—mysterious beings who are said to be dangerous, have returned.

“This is the story of their return”.

Let me start with the craftmanship. Fitzgerald is smooth in delivery. It’s clear, yet subtle world building throughout this—what folks call low fantasy—novel that distinguishes it. The novel is fundamentally sound, not concerned with what readers think should happen. From the first line, you trust Fitzgerald to guide you forward.

“Carl cradled the contract in his left hand, careful not to crush or wrinkle it as he circled the empty streets of Wells.”

In this opening line of the novel, Fitzgerald does in his first line the exact thing I love in a first line. Meaningful movement from a main character. That’s it folks. All you need to do. And just to rib y’all a little. No prologue. He just jumps in.

It feels a lot like a time piece. The language fits the characters and their background. You trust the world right from the start, and you do so without a lot of extra. Instead of adding a ton of details, Fitzgerald leans on timing and pacing and language to settle you in. It’s not that there aren’t many details, it’s that he doesn’t lean into them.

After we settle into the story, we finally get on to the journey. By this time, we meet our three main characters and we’re off to discover what Fitzgerald has to offer.

But let’s talk about what I thought was the core of the story.

The Maer are a mystery. When we finally meet them, we see what the story is truly about. At the same time, without spoilers, when we really meet them, it’s when we see where Hollow Road draws a line. A social theme is interjected, and how it’s presented, you start to see the main characters in a different light. From that point on, the novel—for the most part—is about how they’re going to treat these creatures. We see what the main characters standards are, morally, and how far they’ll go on the spectrum of being pretty damned cool or certainly not cool.

There are other creatures in this world. Crazy lizards. Giants. We have an army, and individuals with special abilities. It’s all here. They travel through a lot of dirt, and they do it slowly. They walk truly far distances without complaint. It’s a fantasy story. Nobody is in a hurry and they’re mostly always on the brink of death.

I read this both in a paper back that I won, and simultaneously on Scribd. A little past halfway done, I realized we weren’t going to have definite resolve at the end. To me there are two ways to do a trilogy—make the arc over three books or make the novels independently build off the other. Hollow Road is the beginning of the story, and you can feel that in the pacing. This story is not just about how the characters treated the Maer; it’s about the Maer becoming the icon that moves the broader story. As much as you hang on to the main characters in the beginning, there’s a kind of passing of the baton from them to Maer as the story builds to its end.

All that being the case, it always remains character focused.
To help discuss Hollow Road, I’m bringing in the author Dan Fitzgerald to shed some light on things.

U.L. Hello, Mr. Fitzgerald. Good to have you here. Let’s talk about the Maer for a second. In the review I didn’t want to give away their appearance. To me, it’s unique. Tell us a little about their physical appearance.

DF: They look exactly like humans, but with more hair. I had some sketches done for publicity purposes, which I can share if you like, but it was funny—the artist really did not want to put hair and beards on the faces of the female Maer. The Maer have hair covering their entire bodies, say the amount you’d find on a deer, but they have more hair in the same places as humans: top of the head, armpits, privates, and beards--even the females have those.



U.L. Tell me about what brought you to the style of writing in Hollow Road. Let me convolute the question. Do you consider yourself a fantasy writer or did you happen to have this fantasy trilogy ready to go?

DF: I have always loved reading fantasy and playing fantasy-based RPGs, but I wrote urban crime novels for quite a while before I tried my hand at fantasy. And honestly I was inspired by the fact that I love role-playing but in D&D and the like, it often ends up being more about the fighting than the narrative and the interactions.

And when I asked my D&D group for suggestions for fantasy books to read, the books they suggested were very old-school, very traditional. There were no queer characters; there were evil races; misogyny was rampant; everything was really over the top epic. I wanted to write something that represented a low-level D&D campaign, with all the gritty, real danger, all the wonder, the limitless possibility, but with less fighting and more role-playing.

When I signed with Shadow Spark last March, Hollow Road was pretty much ready to go, The Archive was drafted, and I was halfway done drafting The Place Below. That’s why I was able to publish all three within the space of six months.

U.L. Your three main characters bring a unique skill to the story. Tell us about them and their skill, and what they add to the novel.

DF: The three childhood friends who come together when they are hired to bring an old friend’s body home for burial are named Carl, Sinnie, and Finn. Carl is a soldier, Sinnie is a circus archer, and Finn is a fledgling mage specializing in a discipline called Bodily Control.
Carl is the straight man of the group, both literally and figuratively. He is in some ways the weakest character, or the least obviously interesting at least. He has some complexity buried beneath his grumpy exterior, but he’s a basic fighter at heart. No reader has said Carl was their favorite character, but he’s the glue that holds the group together. He’s the perfect foil for the other two characters. Without him, this journey would never have begun, and his expertise helps them survive.

Sinnie is a free spirit who never stops moving. When she heard about the job, she was glad for a change of pace from the circus. She’s damned good with a bow, but that’s not what defines her for me. It’s her determination and sense of empathy that make her maybe the main character.

Whereas Carl leads the group from the start, once things get messy after the group encounters the Maer non-combatants, Sinnie takes charge of the situation, and no one’s going to get in her way. As a side note, she's the first asexual character I have written, and I was inspired to write her as aromantic asexual because of the many ace folks I met on Twitter and some novels I read based on their recommendation. I did get some help reading passages where her identity is most relevant, and I was nervous as hell about it, but it seems to have come off well, based on the reviews.
Finn is the most popular character among readers, which I find interesting, since I felt his character development was the weakest. I think it’s his magic that interests people the most, and I’m proud of how that came out. I am a yoga practitioner, and I wanted a magic discipline based on yoga and martial arts. He can control his body to an extent beyond what is possible in the real world, but I wanted it to feel almost plausible. So, he can harden his skin to repel blows, leap great distances, and push back opponents with an invisible force that extends a few feet beyond his body. But at the beginning of the book, his powers are a little unreliable and they take a lot out of him. I can’t stand overpowered magic, so I don’t write it. I will say that by the end of the trilogy, his power is quite impressive, but he’s still quite vulnerable, as events in The Place Below show.

U.L. When you say “overpowered”, do you mean when the magic seems like too much for the content or that it’s too much power for a character to have? I have a loose magic system in my upcoming novel, so I’m curious about this.

DF: I’m talking about large-scale magics, huge, showy, impressive stuff. World-affecting magic. It’s just not my cup of tea. It can be done well—I like the Eye of Sauron for example, because it’s a little nebulous, and still limited despite its great power. But I’d rather read a character punch a hole in a wall with magic than bring the whole wall crumbling down. Human-level stuff.

U.L. Nicolas stood out to me. He’s the one who seemed to represent something negative in our real world. Am I close, or just making it up in my head?

DF: Nicolas’ actions definitely show the worst in us, but I hope we can also empathize with him a little. He lost several close friends to the Maer, and he sees them as murderous monsters, so his actions should make sense, even though we see them as morally wrong. Another side note: he is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, step up and be a man, defend his village, all of that, but he’s like 16 years old. He’s a fool—a dangerous, deadly fool, but he’s still a kid in some ways.

U.L. Craft question. I mentioned in the review that I felt in the pacing that I could feel when I knew it wouldn’t be wrapped up after this novel. Now, my impression is that Hollow Road was written as a first act, rather than meant to stand alone. What went into making that decision?

DF: The Maer Cycle is called a cycle for a reason. There is a larger story, and Hollow Road is definitely the first act. The main story is complete: humans meet Maer, some fighting and killing ensues, and there is some level of reconciliation. But the larger story of the Maer has just begun. Over the course of the trilogy, the humans fade into the background a bit as the Maer become more important. There are 13 POV characters in The Archive (I know, but trust me, I do the work to help keep it manageable), and only three of them are human. We also get to see that the Maer, who are seen as monsters by the humans, have other groups they discriminate against and see as the other. Because that’s what the trilogy is about: examining how we see difference, and how it can be turned around, with great effort, and some blood and tears shed on all sides.

Race is the elephant in this room, but as we know it’s as much about power, culture, and history as it is about pigmentation. In the real world, our specific history has defined how we perceive race and how people of different groups have been treated throughout history and into this very day. I know I’m going off topic here, but I think it bears discussing, and I’d love to hear your take on it. I’m a 50-year-old middle-class white man in America, so I have all the privilege in the world. I think about and care about how discrimination is born, how it plays out, and how it can be combated. So, on some level, this is my sideways look at race and history, from a completely fictional world, where the specifics of the fictional history may show parallels to our own history, but hopefully give us the distance to look at things differently.

I don’t know how well I handle this topic in my books, but it’s first and foremost in my mind, and if you eventually read the whole Cycle, I’d love to have the conversation again with the end of the cycle in mind. There are probably some things I’ve done that show my biases, and I’ll need to hear about those too. I would rather try, and fail, and learn from my mistakes, than never try or risk anything at all and learn nothing.

U.L. Discrimination is a hell of a thing. Insidious. I find combating discrimination more difficult than doing something for its opposite. There are righteous individuals who FIGHT AGAINST racism, and I stand next to them in spirit. But I find wisdom and friendship in those who struggle FOR equality. Doing something for an issue versus against it sounds like simple wordsmithing but they are different approaches.

As an example, imagine going into a relationship with the goal of not getting hurt by this person. Now imagine going in with the intent to give the best part of yourself, despite everything imperfect. No, you don’t need to stay, but you arrive differently. It’s an approach and a mindset.

I’ll tell you what bothers me. The whole, we need to sit down and talk about racism. No, we don’t. For me, the discussion is over and been done. You’re either moving to help others or you’re not. Sometimes there’s really not a lot to talk about.

U.L. Do you have any interesting news to share? Hell, it doesn’t even need to be interesting.

DF: I just signed a contract with Shadow Spark for a duology called the Weirdwater Confluence, which will be independent of the Maer Cycle but also with some subtle connections, so a reader of the Maer Cycle will pick up a few Easter eggs, but a new reader will hopefully just enjoy the wild ride. It involves a meditation-based magic system, alchemy, and a magical form of social media, among many other things.

U.L. Did you want to add any comments about The Maer Cycle Trilogy?

DF: Each book is very different. The first book is small-scale stuff. The Archive ramps up the scale, and it’s also structured differently with the POV handoffs and the wide-ranging cast. It also has some pretty heavy sexual content, compared to Hollow Road. There’s a mystical surrogacy, so that scene is pretty intense, and once that happened, the other sex scenes became a little more intense too. Because I have different types of couples, and I didn’t want the straight sex scenes to have too much more detail than the queer ones. It’s quite a departure, but one I hope readers will appreciate. It was hell to edit, and even though I worked with a sensitivity reader and two excellent editors, it still keeps me awake at night sometimes worrying about how it will be perceived.

The 3rd book is totally different too—The Place Below switches POV between the protagonist, a half-Maer half-human scholar, and the antagonist, who is an undead thing like the Ka-lar in Hollow Road, but intelligent, and curious, and with goals. And there’s no sex at all in that book. I really wanted readers to have three different experiences in each book, but still with the same intimacy with the characters.

U.L. Can you do me a favor and add an links that might add to your lore? Social media, website, anything like that?

DF: My website is www.danfitzwrites.com. It’s got buy links, maps and art (which you linked above), a blog, and some reviews and press releases.

To buy the books one would go to https://shadowsparkpub.com/dan-fitzge..., where one can get paperbacks, signed or standard, or ebooks in various formats.
My Twitter is https://twitter.com/danfitzwrites?lan..., and I do mostly writing and reading related posting there. It’s my home away from home.

My Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/danfitzwrit..., and I do a ridiculous amount of photography posting, mostly nature stuff, and a little bookish stuff as well.
Thans for taking the time to interview me! It’s been a pleasure, and I love your format. It’s nice to have a proper conversation in a print interview.


Legends describe the Maer as savage man-beasts haunting the mountains, their bodies and faces covered with hair. Creatures of unimaginable strength, cunning, and cruelty. Bedtime stories to keep children indoors at night. Soldiers' tales to frighten new recruits. The Maer have long since passed into oblivion, lost to the annals of time. This is the story of their return.

Carl, Sinnie, and Finn, companions since childhood, are tasked with bringing a friend's body home for burial. Along the way, they find there is more to the stories than they ever imagined. Their travels are fraught with dangers at every turn and discoveries that will change them forever.

Is there truth to the legends? Are the Maer the darkest threat in the mountains?
Travel down Hollow Road to find out...