Oliver chats with Philippine author Dariel Quiogue about his sword & silk novel, “Sword of the Four Winds”!
Their discussion covers portrayal of war elephants in history and stories, Alexander the Great being a war criminal to some, Carter & De Camp (and Nyburg) Conan tales, Howard Lamb’s Khlit the Cossack stories (a huge influence on Robert E Howard), drawing from Asian history for his stories – including an intriguing alternate path for Genghis Khan, wanting to write more fiction based in where you’re from, being anxious about a lack of experience to the world limiting your fiction, how late in history Dariel feels you can set a story and still have it feel like sword & sorcery, the “Sword & Sorcery attitude”, portrayal of sorcery in fiction and childhood fears, the cynicism of some classic S&S, Shōgun by James Clavell & Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Howardian cycle of civilization and barbarism, “can you be better than a monster?”, how his work as a photographer influences his writing, playing the Conan soundtrack while writing, gore levels in S&S, Homer, how much detail to put in a fight scene, how Conan is often misrepresented as one who triumphs through strength rather than wits, what makes a grand military battle scene captivating, Mount & Blade: Warband, staying in the zone when you write, The Age of the Warrior by Hank Reinhardt, playlists to write by, writing on paper vs screen, Scrivener, the fantasy writing scene in the Philippines, Charles Saunders, the Savage Sword of Conan, and more!
Dariel’s author website.
Dariel’s Ko-Fi which, as of this blog post, is funding toward the goal of commissioning cover art for his next novel.
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, which Dariel mentions, free on Gutenberg
Those comic links we promised in the interview:
https://www.wizards-keep.com/index.asp?Page=alfredo-alcala–62810916
https://www.wizards-keep.com/index.asp?Page=nestor-redondo–3242129
www.wizards-keep.com/index.asp?Page=alex-nino–99372500
www.wizards-keep.com/index.asp?Page=rudy-nebres–32795352
The artist who illustrated SOFW for Dariel, Raymund Bermudez: https://www.deviantart.com/mccat
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So I'm Writing a Novel... 
Woot! Thanks for this, Oliver!
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By the way, here’s an example of the way I think magic and the supernatural should be handled to make a story feel properly S&S, in my review of the story Broken Ritual https://swashbucklingplanets.wordpress.com/2022/02/25/hare-raising-sword-and-sorcery/
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Oh, cool! Usagi Yojimbo has been high on my to-read list for a while. I should at least get a trade collection from the library.
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