It’s been a pretty busy pair of weeks for me. I’ve been working pretty feverishly on final reviews of the interiors for both books I have releasing in September. I plan to talk about one on Tuesday (work requirements pushed back my planned post on that news), but tonight I want to talk about an important aspect of Quest of Fire: Desperation, which releases September 13th!
Throughout the Quest of Fire series there have been myriad monsters and villains the characters must face: The Grey Scourge, Wirgerd, Elder Ulster, werebeasts, sombra, doppelgangers, direnoir, carrion, etc. Each darkling creature encountered brings special terrors and cruelties which test the characters allegiance to the High King of All Realms and devastate the Lowlands. There’s been a major question at hand, however, as there is a dark force directing these attacks. Who is behind it all? Desperation gives the name of this evil entity’s foremost henchman whose schemes threaten to destroy the Lowlands irrevocably in both Anargen and Jason’s eras and begins pulling back the curtain on the evil behind it all.
And… that’s all I can say for now lest I start spoiling things for Desperation and what comes after it. What I can say is that each monster faced represents something of the harsh realities we face in the real world. We don’t often want to consider it, but there are monsters lurking in our world. Sometimes we feel we can identify them easily such as when you hear about the brutal murders happening in Nigeria as Boko Haram and other groups target Christians there. Other times they’re more insidious in their presentation, lurking among us masquerading even as fellow believers, but secretly preying on widows, orphans, and other vulnerable people in society—the very sort of people to whom we are called to give special care. Then still others swarm around tugging, pulling, battering us back from the path we are called to walk and pulling our eyes off the City we are called to look forward to and instead dragging us into dissolution.
Creatures from Quest of Fire were inspired by those sorts of adversaries faced in the real world. I feel very strongly that fiction can help us to face in story the very sorts of terrors that can be much harder to face in the real world. It can help prepare us, bolster us for showdowns with challenges as we run the race of faith. Sometimes we forget that we’re called to persevere and that we haven’t yet reached the finish, we take for granted that all will be well and easy. Really everything about the broken world we live in strikes out at us, slowing us and if possible, pulling us from the course. My prayer is that the stories I write, whether Quest of Fire or any of the others help give the reader the courage and reminder that dark things can be faced and overcome by the light of the High King of All Realms. That we can hold true even when things seem bleak beyond bearing and the enemies standing against us are vicious and terrifying. That no matter what wicked thing comes across our path if we keep our eyes fixed on the Author and Perfecter of our faith, we will emerge victorious.
UP NEXT TUESDAY: THE BIG REVEAL
Brett Armstrong 
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