BookView Review

Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we talked to Demitrios Lopez about his writing and his recently published book, Thumos Rising, a thought-provoking mix of SF and high fantasy. (Read the review here).

How did you go about building the world Thumos Rising is set in?

ΣI:Thumos Rising started out as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe fanfic. If you are a child of the early ‘80s, or loved He-Man as a kid, the world of the Σ Series, Ninivon, will look very familiar. As a kid I was struck by the mingling of spaceships and laser guns with dragons and magic. Something about the mixture of traditional sci-fi and fantasy images very much spoke to me. It opened up so many doors. I mean, what would happen if a dragon took on a starship? Secondly, I wanted a world that mimicked ours in respect to human civilization and culture. I’m a student of history, and military history specifically. I was intrigued by a world in which Spartan-style hoplites could take on Commanche-style light cavalry. All the peoples and cultures in Ninivon are based off some pre-industrial historic group. Collectively, that’s what the reader can expect to find in Ninivon: dragons and spaceships, knights and samurai. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.

Tell us about how you crafted the cast of characters that populates Ninivon.

Again, there is very much a mix of tropes that provides for what I believe will be some interesting scenarios. The main conflict of the book is between my protagonist, Zeno, and the villain, the Vampire. Zeno is very much a Superman styled character and is heavily based off the Zack Snyder version of Superman. He feels deeply and spends a lot of time thinking about the limits of his power and how responsible he is for the unintended consequences thereof. In many ways, the heart of the entire series is whether or not Zeno can command the power of a god without losing his humanity. My antagonist, the Vampire, is very different. He has a name and back story but we don’t get that until book three in the series. He’s the only one of his kind on Ninivon and has immense power. I don’t follow all the traditional vampire lore with him. But my hope with the character was to show how lethal a creature like that could be if it really existed. The Vampire is the inverse of Zeno. He revels in his destructive power and sees humans as a lower life form whose only purpose is to be a means to his ends. In a world full of Edwards from Twilight and Bills from the Sookie Stackhouse books, I wanted to make vampires scary again. The female lead is Alexandra. Her inspiration was the character of Psyche from Greco-Roman myth, Bêlit from Robert E. Howard’s Queen of the Black Cost Conan short story, and of course Teela from Masters of the Universe. Her character has a mystery and arc that should leave readers on the floor.

What has been the most rewarding thing about publishing your first book?

I think there is a peace that comes with knowing you have done right by your characters. Homer’s Iliad starts with an invocation of the Muses. And supposedly, during his own lifetime, Alexander the Great lamented that there was no such Homer to sing poetry of his exploits. Once characters are born in a story teller’s soul, much like children, they grow and take on a life of their own. They surprise you sometimes with the decisions they make. I’ve found that sometimes what I wanted them to do from a narratological perspective wasn’t true to their journeys and personalities. I think I owe it to Zeno, Alexandra, and even the Vampire to tell their story and get it in front of as many readers as possible. With the release imminent, I’ll never have that sinking feeling that I let my characters down, or didn’t do everything I could have so that their songs could be sung. There’s a story about Robert E. Howard, the creator of the Conan character, that when he felt he was getting lazy with his writing, a specter of Conan would appear to him in the night, ax in hand, and demand that Howard properly honor him in his work, or else. In my case, I know now I’ll never have a nightmare of Zeno coming for me with an ax!

Your bio mentions that the Classics have saved your life. Can you tell us a bit more about that, and how the Classics have inspired Thumos Rising?

Wow…so much I could say here. I grew up relatively poor, raised by a single mother. I’ve still never met my father. As such, I very much struggled to find myself as a child and young man. I got lucky to make it to college, and someone gave me a book called Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. It’s a fictional retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. After reading that book, I became obsessed with the Spartans; later, all the Greeks; and finally, the Romans. I found myself reading Herodotus’ Histories for fun. Finally, someone said, “if you’re reading ancient Greek historians for fun, maybe you belong in grad school.” That book planted a seed in my soul. It led me to the Classics and they gave me so much truth and beauty. They gave me discipline and purpose. It set me down a path and more than my time in the military, or my time living overseas, which are both life changing experiences, the study of the Classics made me the man I am today. I somewhat shudder to think what path may have found me had Plato and Homer not reached back from the past and opened my eyes. I tell my students all the time, be careful what books you read, you never know how they will change your life.

What are your favorite books/who are your favorite authors?

Well, many of these have come up already. Robert E. Howard, Steven Pressfield. I also have a great appreciation for Madeline Miller, Neil Gaiman, and Lovecraft. All of these authors have fingerprints on the Σ Series in some way.

As for books, I really love all of Howard’s and Pressfield’s stuff, not just the titles aforementioned. Circe reminded me of my mother and made my cry. American Gods was as fun a book as I’ve ever read. And The Color from Outer Space scared the hell out of me.

Thumos Rising is the first in a new series. Can you give us a sneak peek of what to expect in the next book?

The next book is titled Thumos Furens, and as the title suggests, Zeno is going to descend into madness. Can he defeat the Vampire and still retain his humanity? Can he submit his power to temporal governments and constitutions? And to whom is he most responsible: the Republic, or Thumos? It’s going to get dark. We’re also going to see how truly depraved the Vampire is. Ultimately, Zeno will have to decide if he is going to submit his power to the consent of the governed, or if he is going to use all his power with no restraints to kill the Vampire and create a utopian world. There will also be some great new characters and readers will get to explore much more of Ninivon.

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