Wings, Words & Worlds: Gordon Lazarus Unchained

Hey, it's Benji Cole, son of Al Cole from CBS Radio and host of the syndicated talk

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Now sit back and strap in because on the line with us today, we have the impressive

Gordon Lazarus.

And we're going to be discussing his impressive novel, Chasing Fate, a Snow Dragon's Odyssey.

It's Amazon.

It's Barnes and Noble.

It's a lot of other places.

SnowDragonTale.com.

That's where you got to go, man.

It's a one-stop shop for it all.

Amazon Barnes and Noble great resources.

But if you want to gather more information on him, on this book, but get more information

on the two other novels he's written as well, many again.

It's SnowDragonTale.com.

And listen, it is an absolute pleasure to have Gordon here on the line.

People the moment you start to do research on his book, Chasing Fate, you are.

May you're in for a roller coaster, okay?

You know you got to sit back and strap in.

This is a non-stop page churner unlike any other epic fantasy that has been written,

okay?

Upon first glance, you may look at it and you're like, oh, this kind of seems like what

we've already grown accustomed to in pop culture, right?

With all of the Lord of the Rings, Sagan, all of the Harry Potter, now, man.

This is completely different and on its own and it's going to be an adventure for adults

that you're not going to want to put down.

And by the time you've concluded, you're going to look into the other two.

Now, although it is a series, they don't necessarily need to be read in chronological order.

So you can head on over and you can purchase any one, but I recommend start with Chasing

Fate, all right?

Sit back.

Let's get it started.

Gordon, first and foremost, welcome to the network and thank you very much for being a

guest.

How are you doing today, sir?

Great.

Thanks for having me.

Well, Gordon, listen, man.

It's a pleasure.

I think your novels are something incredibly unique, so much fun, a wonderful roller coaster

for your readers, but definitely something that we're going to enjoy showcasing.

And to our audience as well.

Let's start off at the foundation, man.

Tell us a little bit more about yourself in your background.

Who is Gordon Lazarus?

Well, I've always been my living as a classically trained musician and I taught at several colleges

and I love music, but I enjoy all the arts and I didn't get into writing until my 50s.

I just finally decided I was going to try my hand at a epic high fantasy novel.

Love that.

I'm a late bloomer on that account.

Well, listen, it doesn't matter how long it takes you, Gordon.

All right.

You got to that destination, you know, later rather than sooner, but you got there.

Let's jump into the book now, man.

Tell us a little bit more.

Give us a brief synopsis of your novel.

Well, it starts out following Snow Dragon custom when Loki hatches a suit devines his future

from the shell.

He warns that someday he will bring doom to end of his own kind and urges his mother to

keep him far away from the other Snow Dragon.

Naturally, his mother doesn't like that shocked.

He grinds his shell to powder and rejects the prophecy and vows to make her own.

He tells Lurgy he has the power to prove good luck for himself and others and he believes

there.

Eventually, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you'll have to read the book

to get it all in all the details, but there's on a very long, harrowing adventure and his

mother comes taking effort and trying to find him.

And before they get home, they have changed the world for the better.

Well, Gordon, listen, let's dive back a little bit, okay?

A moment ago, when we first began, you hinted towards embarking upon this writing journey

later in life.

Well, I'm curious, man.

Now, if you're learning a little bit more about the book, learning about your particular

path, what inspired this book, man?

How did it even come to fruition?

Well, I've always loved it, the Xanacy.

And I wanted to create something a little off the beaten path.

A lot of people have kind of done the same very similar things, which is great, but I

wanted something different.

I wanted to make up my own creatures and inhabitants and not rely on elves and dwarves

and shadows and fates and stuff like that.

So it's not magic driven either.

It's people driven, character driven.

So that was my inspiration.

The whole world is fair game inspiration, whether you're at the car wash or shopping

from produce and grocery store or just over and he's dropping on somebody's elves' conversation.

It's all great, it's all fair game.

You know, I want to add in a question here, man, because listen, it perfectly transitions

here.

You talk about how you purposely wanted to stay away from more popular, more mainstream

topic points and creative journeys that we see in books, we see in movies and television

series and not here to say one thing or the other with it, but it's obvious that you

steered clear of that.

Well, as we now go into a little bit more of the writing process for you, what creative

challenge did you find most rewarding in constructing cultures and creatures and a full

map?

Well, listen, you have an entire map of the world that has been constructed, which I'm

sure was no easy feat.

Talk to us about that writing process and what you found most rewarding.

Oh, well, that's a big question.

A big question.

I started with an outline, but I threw it out after two days because it was kind of

restricting my creativity.

So I love not knowing where we're going and you know, life doesn't sit in a box, why

we should fix it.

So it's just sort of grew on its own.

Man, that's a mic drop right there.

I love when characters take the reader out of themselves and when they surprise the author

and then take the scene and run with it and kind of leave me running the catch up to

them.

Yeah.

And listen, what a great line, right?

Life doesn't fit in the box.

Fiction shouldn't either.

Man, clip that.

I love that.

That's such a great line.

Well, listen, you got to head on over to Amazon Barnes and Noble.

Make sure to check out the personal site snowdragontail.com.

Pick up your copies of Chasing Fate, a snow dragon's Odyssey today while you're at it.

Look at the two other books that have been written so far and hopefully a lot more on

the horizon.

You know, follow up questions now, Gordon, that I want to go into and slightly tied to

the previous one.

So we talked about the challenge of what you've constructed, but also what was probably

most rewarding or gratifying along that same vein.

I'm curious to know what was the highlight for you in this writing journey for bringing

the book from conception to publication.

That's a hard one to answer because I had many highlights.

If I could ask you somebody their favorite movie or food or something, I need categories.

You know, my first highlight was probably throwing out the outline and discovered right

away that I don't do well with outlines to do better, just flying along.

You know, I've got to see to my pants as it were.

And then anytime the characters, they take the scene away from me and they have their own

ideas.

And then as they wrote the book and I'm just taking down the notes, also completing a book

is always a highlight.

Yeah.

It's a sense of completion and your satisfaction being it through, you know.

Absolutely.

Listen, I was going to say that.

I mean, it's interesting because we, you know, we have a lot of authors that are guests

on our network.

And that is generally a question that will come up periodically, right?

Is this what was a highlight for you?

And so often people will talk about everything else aside from the fact that they just completed

this monumental task, not only of writing the book, but getting it published, getting

it dispersed.

I mean, that's, that's, that's quite the feat.

That's quite the accomplishment.

So I'm glad you put that in there.

Listen, my follow up question.

We know that this is a series, okay?

We talked about book one in it.

And I also mentioned that the, the series, at least thus far, does not have to be read

in chronological order.

So dealer's choice here, Gordon, you got two other novels, man.

We know it's a series.

Tell us about another one of your books.

Okay.

Well, the second one, um, Casing Doom, Dragon's Brew, in that book, Logan comes to terms with

his nemesis, the tear dragon of Mons, the biggest baddest worst tear dragon that ever lived.

And um, eventually you guess that he defeats the tear dragon of Mons in that book.

And also gets rid of several despots there and, and liberates people as, there are revolutions

or, there's war, there's peace, the world is again transformed for the better.

And Logan makes some powerful friends and that gets him ready for his third book where

he decides to adopt an older brother, something unheard of in most cultures, but he does it.

And um, they go on an adventure together and I have a lot of fun writing the two of them

kind of balancing each other out.

I'm sure.

Okay.

Well, listen, we know that there's three books thus far in the series.

Let's focus on the future, man.

What's next?

What's upcoming?

Are there other books that we can expect in the series?

I'm half, I think I'm half way.

You never know.

I think I'm halfway through the fourth book.

That would be the third sequel.

The title will come later.

In fact, the title often is the last thing that comes to me after everything else is

done to be totally honest there.

But I also have a prequel which is finished.

I just haven't published it yet.

It does have one of the same characters in the first book, but it takes place 200 years

earlier.

The snow drag is with a long time.

The prequel will be titled Fortune in the Age of Dragons.

People, listen, but there's, there's a lot more left.

You know where to go.

You got enough to keep your hands tied for a little bit with these three books.

So I'm going to say it again, Amazon Barnes and Noble Snow Dragon Tale.com, pick up copies

of Chasing Fate, a Snow Dragon's Odyssey, check out the other two that are available at

this time.

But make sure you're looking back frequently to get the rest.

I mean, these are amazing novels that, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show,

Roller Coaster Ride, non-stop page turner.

And something that, in my opinion, is really unique, right?

Because in a genre that is saturated with the chosen ones and ancient evils, like

Gordon took the risk of building a world where every victory is earned through nothing

more and really nothing less than human ingenuity, right?

And will.

And that risk pays off, man.

I'm telling you, it starts here, but you're going to want to continue on.

Head on over there, purchase your copies today.

Gordon, this has been an absolute pleasure, man.

Such an honor.

Keep up the fantastic work and once again, thank you for being a guest on People of Distinction.

Thank you for having me.