And now for something completely different...

Even though I'm known as a women's fiction/chick lit author, I tend to read books outside that genre. So it seemed reasonable that I would feature such an author(s) as well. This is probably about as far from my genre as I've ever strayed, but that's what makes it so interesting! Here's one more guest post using the blog hop questions, by author Michael Tinker Pearce and his wife, Linda Pearce.

Michael Tinker Pearce and Linda Pearce are a husband-and-wife writing team from Seattle, WA.  Michael is a knife and sword maker and Linda was an IT professional and project manager for over twenty years.  You can read more about them here.  This is their first full-length novel.



Q: What is the title of your book?

A: 'Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman'


Q: What genre does your book fall under?

A: In some ways we've bent the fantasy genre pretty hard here, though in other ways it's classic heroic fantasy, so I think that if I had to classify it that would do.


Q: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

We actually never considered a movie-version of this book and none of the characters were written with the idea that an actor would play them.  I really don't want to answer this because I want readers picturing the characters themselves, not imagining how a specific actor or actress might portray them.


Q: What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A: Louis L'Amour meets JRR Tolkien


Q: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A: I spent a year building the world in my head, but once we actually started writing it took roughly three months. Since it was being edited and proof-read as it went along the final draft was actually ready the week after the first draft was finished.


Q: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

A: This might be a failure to read enough on my part, but I cannot think of any.  This is a medieval-ish  fantasy novel written by the rules for 'hard-science' science fiction.  Everything in the book is scientifically plausible except the 'magic,' but even that follows 'science-like' rules. To complicate things even further the main character is very much a Louis L'Amour hero; Determined, honest, deeply competent and not overly introspective, but not perfect or invulnerable.


Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

A: Somewhere in the lore of 'Warcraft' there was a mention of 'regiments of Dwarven Riflemen.'  That stuck in my head and one day the title 'Diary of a Dwarven Rifleman' popped into my brain.  Everything else proceeded from questions that this brought up, like 'Why are the dwarves the only people with guns?  Where do they live? How do they survive? Where did they come from?' 


Q: What else about your book might pique a reader’s interest?

A: It's a different take on Dwarves, goblins and humans.  The book has strong, likable characters, a bit of romance, lots of action.  The hero, rather than personally saving the day, contributes to the book's resolution just by being who he is.  The book also tackles some interesting and atypical problems and issues for a fantasy novel.


Q: When and how will it be published?

A: We actually published on February 26th, 2013 as a Kindle eBook and a Print-on-Demand Trade Paperback through Amazon.com.