Interviews from the Void- Walter Rhein
Interviews from the Void- Walter Rhein
Hello, Donny here. Today I am super excited to bring you another interview. This time Walter Rhien sheds some light on himself, his novels, and his thoughts behind creating them. Walter is the kind of author that really turns heads… not away from the pages he writes, heavens no. I recently read his novel “The Reader of Acheron” in around a week. It is a page-turner start to finish. I usually read in my down time, so this novel cost me sleep. I did not care. It is that good. You can read my review here. But I talk too much, so without further ado…
Meet Walter Rhein:
Walter, could you tell us about yourself?
I was born in northern Wisconsin, which I suppose led to my joy of cross-country skiing. To date, my most popular novel has been “Beyond Birkie Fever” which is a humorous travel memoir about skiing adventures. I graduated with a degree in English Literature and a minor in Physics. After graduating, I moved to Lima, Peru where I had to teach myself Spanish. I lived there for ten years working as a teacher, writer, and translator. These days I’m back in Wisconsin raising my two beautiful daughters helping to promote CyclovaXC. My latest novel was published with Perseid Press which is owned by Janet Morris of Thieves’ World fame. If anyone wants to chat about fantasy writing, they should swing by my Heroic Fantasy Facebook group. There’s probably a review copy of a novel or two to be found!
In your newest novel, “ The Reader of Acheron ” there are several dynamics, the one that struck me was the undertone, the sometimes unspoken, but heart-wrenching societal system, which endorsed slavery, controlling the masses to such a brutal severity that reading was outlawed. You made this work remarkably well, could you shed some light on your thought processes?
I actually conceived of that aspect fairly late in the writing process. Initially my focus was to write about an escaped slave who becomes an assassin. I needed for him to exist within a corrupt society, and so I thought of outlawing the ability to read. That idea presented a lot of problems, the biggest one being to avoid the themes that had already been addressed in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ (thisand thisreviewer both comment on my effectiveness there). As you can tell from the title, although reading is outlawed there are still people who practice the skill. It’s not like there is a police force that goes from door to door testing people for reading aptitude, the ruling structure is pretty lazy actually. But they like to have a “catch-all” excuse for executing people whenever they feel like it. It’s been fun dealing with the problems that arise from a reading ban, it’s an endless well of inspiration.
The slave Kikkan was my favorite character. I have occasionally felt like he did, oppressed, and knowing what was happening to me was wrong, I rebelled. Maybe not with a metal pipe, though I have. Did anything occur in your life that inspired you to create Kikkan? Or are you just that good?
Whew...that’s a tough question. Well, nothing has ever happened to me that is as intense as what Kikkan goes through, but I think all people have been in a situation where they knew something wasn’t quite right, but they couldn’t articulate what it was. We’ve all been in bad relationships, or in bad work environments. We’ve all had somebody tell us, “yes, this is painful, but it’s for your own good” when the truth is that “it” wasn’t for your own good at all. If people don’t have an experience that makes them identify with Kikkan a little bit, I don’t think they’ll enjoy the character.Something interesting to note is that Janet Morris told me that Kikkan is the hero of the book (I thought it was Quillion). I’m kind of fascinated by that. Based on the response so far, it sounds like she’s correct, although I don’t think I will allow that to change how I feel about Kikkan. I’m concerned that if I start writing Kikkan as if he’s the hero, I might lose whatever it is about him that is drawing people. The second book is going to focus a lot on the tensions between Quillion and Kikkan. They want the same things, but they go about getting them in radically different ways.
Cassius was fascinating to me, I could not see his motives. Was this to show that we never truly can understand the intentions of those who assert authority over us?
Well, Cassius is pretty strategically advanced. If you run around declaring what your intentions are, people can put obstacles in your way. Cassius is so disciplined, he doesn’t let his mask slip even when he’s around people who are not in a position to do anything to him. A lot of what might make Cassius confusing is that he’s obeying a set of social rules that are higher up on the ladder than anything Kikkan or Quillion can comprehend. Cassius might start making more sense the more you learn about Erafor.
Who is your favorite character that you have created and why?
I’m partial to Quillion, he’s a survivor and he’s very pragmatic. Kikkan has a very strong sense of what’s right and wrong, but Quillion sees only gray. As I said before, it’s going to be fun to have these two get on each other’s nerves.
When you write a novel, do you write an outline, or keep the word count in mind?
I usually conceive of a couple scenes that I think would be pretty cool, all within the context of a larger theme, and then try to figure out ways to connect them. When writing, sometimes an author finds himself or herself bored with a chapter because s/he really wants to be working on something that happens later on. When that happens to me, I just skip ahead and write the later chapter. The way I see it, if you were bored writing it, people are going to be bored reading it. Above all, I think it’s important that people can tear through your book at a frantic pace...no lagging plot moments.I usually end up with a dozen or so short stories that I then have to connect. Assembling the book is like putting together a puzzle. However, I’ve been inclined to rely on outlines a little bit more lately. This series is getting complicated (after only one volume) and there’s a lot of ground that has to be covered, and things to be kept straight.
What are you working on now?
I have a lot of projects: Another humorous travel memoir about my ten years living in Peru. A collection of short stories from authors on my Heroic Fantasy Group. A sequel to my first published novel “The Bone Sword” (soon to be re-released with Harren press). A compilation project with Shane Porteous of “The Battle of Ebulon” (you can download that one for free, my story is the second in the compilation). There’s also a sequel to “Reader” coming!
I want more. When is the next book for the “Slaves of Erafor” arriving?
Click to Buy
I’ve got about 15 pages written and a general idea for how the story progresses. I should have it done around November, and hopefully we will release it in January of 2015.
Click to buy
Tell us about your other novels.
Visit Page“Beyond Birkie Fever” was selected for the Chippewa Valley book festival a couple years ago. That was a nice experience. It’s quite a bit different than my fantasy writing. “The Bone Sword” is an action fantasy that has only found a small, but dedicated following. I’ll be looking for some new reviewers when Harren publishes the new version (it needs a better cover, which Harren will provide).
I noticed you split your residency between Peru and the USA, would you like to tell us about it?
Click here to learn moreWell, these days I spend more of my time in the US just because it’s getting harder to stay mobile with the kids. However, we do have to go down there with relative frequency because grandma lives in Peru. My wife is Peruvian, and you can’t separate grandma from her grand kids for all that long!
Click to BuyPeru is awesome, but maybe the best thing about it is that my cell phone plan doesn’t work down there, so I get some time off from the constant ringing!
Click to Buy
What inspires you? My kids.
Why do you write?
It’s a compulsion I suppose. Most people who write have no other choice in the matter (or why would they do it?). I find that if I don’t make the effort to express myself I get a headache, that only gets worse the longer I don’t write. Too many thoughts piling up I guess, it’s like draining a wound.
Do you ever get to the point where a project is not working? What do you do about it?That used to happen, I have a bunch of things that I started and got about twenty pages into only to stop and never go back. Although, sometimes those “sprouts” do turn into novels later on. I started “Birkie” about four or five times before I finally got it right. Likewise with this Peru book I’ve almost finished up. I guess the best thing to do is to just put a project on the shelf when it starts to become a struggle. The answers might come to you while you’re working on another project.
How many novels do you have floating around in your head?
I’m so busy with the four or five that I’m currently working on that I can’t imagine any more. But I suppose once I start finishing those off, some new ideas will jump in to take their place. You never get completely caught up, which is good!
Here’s the toughest question. If you could say one thing to convince people to read or review your books, what would it be?
First and foremost I believe a book should be an easy read and very entertaining. Lately I’ve been trying to layer my work with some stuff that will make you stop and think a bit if you want to, but never at the expense of being entertaining. It takes a lot of time to read a book, and I would never ask that time of somebody unless I thought I could make it worthwhile. Time is precious, and I respect my readers’ time above all things!That being said, it's time to wrap up the interview. Thanks for having me!
Wow! Walter’s responses were fantastic… I want to thank him for taking the time to share his experiences here. Walter Rhein is not only a great author he is an awesome person. If you have not read his work, please do so. As he mentioned at one point in the review, he has a few review copies of “Reader of Acheron” available. You can message him through his Heroic Fantasypage. I hope you enjoyed this interview, I know I did.
In closing, let me thank you, my beloved readers. You make this all possible!
Yours truly,Donny Swords
Hello, Donny here. Today I am super excited to bring you another interview. This time Walter Rhien sheds some light on himself, his novels, and his thoughts behind creating them. Walter is the kind of author that really turns heads… not away from the pages he writes, heavens no. I recently read his novel “The Reader of Acheron” in around a week. It is a page-turner start to finish. I usually read in my down time, so this novel cost me sleep. I did not care. It is that good. You can read my review here. But I talk too much, so without further ado…
Meet Walter Rhein:
Walter, could you tell us about yourself?
I was born in northern Wisconsin, which I suppose led to my joy of cross-country skiing. To date, my most popular novel has been “Beyond Birkie Fever” which is a humorous travel memoir about skiing adventures. I graduated with a degree in English Literature and a minor in Physics. After graduating, I moved to Lima, Peru where I had to teach myself Spanish. I lived there for ten years working as a teacher, writer, and translator. These days I’m back in Wisconsin raising my two beautiful daughters helping to promote CyclovaXC. My latest novel was published with Perseid Press which is owned by Janet Morris of Thieves’ World fame. If anyone wants to chat about fantasy writing, they should swing by my Heroic Fantasy Facebook group. There’s probably a review copy of a novel or two to be found!
In your newest novel, “ The Reader of Acheron ” there are several dynamics, the one that struck me was the undertone, the sometimes unspoken, but heart-wrenching societal system, which endorsed slavery, controlling the masses to such a brutal severity that reading was outlawed. You made this work remarkably well, could you shed some light on your thought processes?
I actually conceived of that aspect fairly late in the writing process. Initially my focus was to write about an escaped slave who becomes an assassin. I needed for him to exist within a corrupt society, and so I thought of outlawing the ability to read. That idea presented a lot of problems, the biggest one being to avoid the themes that had already been addressed in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ (thisand thisreviewer both comment on my effectiveness there). As you can tell from the title, although reading is outlawed there are still people who practice the skill. It’s not like there is a police force that goes from door to door testing people for reading aptitude, the ruling structure is pretty lazy actually. But they like to have a “catch-all” excuse for executing people whenever they feel like it. It’s been fun dealing with the problems that arise from a reading ban, it’s an endless well of inspiration.The slave Kikkan was my favorite character. I have occasionally felt like he did, oppressed, and knowing what was happening to me was wrong, I rebelled. Maybe not with a metal pipe, though I have. Did anything occur in your life that inspired you to create Kikkan? Or are you just that good?
Whew...that’s a tough question. Well, nothing has ever happened to me that is as intense as what Kikkan goes through, but I think all people have been in a situation where they knew something wasn’t quite right, but they couldn’t articulate what it was. We’ve all been in bad relationships, or in bad work environments. We’ve all had somebody tell us, “yes, this is painful, but it’s for your own good” when the truth is that “it” wasn’t for your own good at all. If people don’t have an experience that makes them identify with Kikkan a little bit, I don’t think they’ll enjoy the character.Something interesting to note is that Janet Morris told me that Kikkan is the hero of the book (I thought it was Quillion). I’m kind of fascinated by that. Based on the response so far, it sounds like she’s correct, although I don’t think I will allow that to change how I feel about Kikkan. I’m concerned that if I start writing Kikkan as if he’s the hero, I might lose whatever it is about him that is drawing people. The second book is going to focus a lot on the tensions between Quillion and Kikkan. They want the same things, but they go about getting them in radically different ways.
Cassius was fascinating to me, I could not see his motives. Was this to show that we never truly can understand the intentions of those who assert authority over us?
Well, Cassius is pretty strategically advanced. If you run around declaring what your intentions are, people can put obstacles in your way. Cassius is so disciplined, he doesn’t let his mask slip even when he’s around people who are not in a position to do anything to him. A lot of what might make Cassius confusing is that he’s obeying a set of social rules that are higher up on the ladder than anything Kikkan or Quillion can comprehend. Cassius might start making more sense the more you learn about Erafor.
Who is your favorite character that you have created and why?
I’m partial to Quillion, he’s a survivor and he’s very pragmatic. Kikkan has a very strong sense of what’s right and wrong, but Quillion sees only gray. As I said before, it’s going to be fun to have these two get on each other’s nerves.
When you write a novel, do you write an outline, or keep the word count in mind?
I usually conceive of a couple scenes that I think would be pretty cool, all within the context of a larger theme, and then try to figure out ways to connect them. When writing, sometimes an author finds himself or herself bored with a chapter because s/he really wants to be working on something that happens later on. When that happens to me, I just skip ahead and write the later chapter. The way I see it, if you were bored writing it, people are going to be bored reading it. Above all, I think it’s important that people can tear through your book at a frantic pace...no lagging plot moments.I usually end up with a dozen or so short stories that I then have to connect. Assembling the book is like putting together a puzzle. However, I’ve been inclined to rely on outlines a little bit more lately. This series is getting complicated (after only one volume) and there’s a lot of ground that has to be covered, and things to be kept straight.
What are you working on now?
I have a lot of projects: Another humorous travel memoir about my ten years living in Peru. A collection of short stories from authors on my Heroic Fantasy Group. A sequel to my first published novel “The Bone Sword” (soon to be re-released with Harren press). A compilation project with Shane Porteous of “The Battle of Ebulon” (you can download that one for free, my story is the second in the compilation). There’s also a sequel to “Reader” coming!
I want more. When is the next book for the “Slaves of Erafor” arriving?
Click to BuyI’ve got about 15 pages written and a general idea for how the story progresses. I should have it done around November, and hopefully we will release it in January of 2015.
Click to buyTell us about your other novels.
Visit Page“Beyond Birkie Fever” was selected for the Chippewa Valley book festival a couple years ago. That was a nice experience. It’s quite a bit different than my fantasy writing. “The Bone Sword” is an action fantasy that has only found a small, but dedicated following. I’ll be looking for some new reviewers when Harren publishes the new version (it needs a better cover, which Harren will provide).I noticed you split your residency between Peru and the USA, would you like to tell us about it?
Click here to learn moreWell, these days I spend more of my time in the US just because it’s getting harder to stay mobile with the kids. However, we do have to go down there with relative frequency because grandma lives in Peru. My wife is Peruvian, and you can’t separate grandma from her grand kids for all that long!
Click to BuyPeru is awesome, but maybe the best thing about it is that my cell phone plan doesn’t work down there, so I get some time off from the constant ringing!
Click to BuyWhat inspires you? My kids.
Why do you write?
It’s a compulsion I suppose. Most people who write have no other choice in the matter (or why would they do it?). I find that if I don’t make the effort to express myself I get a headache, that only gets worse the longer I don’t write. Too many thoughts piling up I guess, it’s like draining a wound.
Do you ever get to the point where a project is not working? What do you do about it?That used to happen, I have a bunch of things that I started and got about twenty pages into only to stop and never go back. Although, sometimes those “sprouts” do turn into novels later on. I started “Birkie” about four or five times before I finally got it right. Likewise with this Peru book I’ve almost finished up. I guess the best thing to do is to just put a project on the shelf when it starts to become a struggle. The answers might come to you while you’re working on another project.
How many novels do you have floating around in your head?
I’m so busy with the four or five that I’m currently working on that I can’t imagine any more. But I suppose once I start finishing those off, some new ideas will jump in to take their place. You never get completely caught up, which is good!
Here’s the toughest question. If you could say one thing to convince people to read or review your books, what would it be?
First and foremost I believe a book should be an easy read and very entertaining. Lately I’ve been trying to layer my work with some stuff that will make you stop and think a bit if you want to, but never at the expense of being entertaining. It takes a lot of time to read a book, and I would never ask that time of somebody unless I thought I could make it worthwhile. Time is precious, and I respect my readers’ time above all things!That being said, it's time to wrap up the interview. Thanks for having me!
Wow! Walter’s responses were fantastic… I want to thank him for taking the time to share his experiences here. Walter Rhein is not only a great author he is an awesome person. If you have not read his work, please do so. As he mentioned at one point in the review, he has a few review copies of “Reader of Acheron” available. You can message him through his Heroic Fantasypage. I hope you enjoyed this interview, I know I did.
In closing, let me thank you, my beloved readers. You make this all possible!
Yours truly,Donny Swords
No comments have been added yet.
