Recently I had a chat with Eric R. Asher. Eric is a former bookseller, cellist, and comic seller currently living in Saint Louis, Missouri. A lifelong enthusiast of books, music, toys, and games, he discovered a love for the written word after being dragged to the library by his parents at a young age. When he is not writing, you can usually find him reading, gaming, or buried beneath a small avalanche of Transformers.
1. What inspired you to delve into the worlds you create? How did you come up with the concept for each of your three series?
Steamborn came from my love of anime. Especially older Miyazaki films like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. You can see some minor parallels in the giant bugs and creatures that inhabit both worlds. Vesik was a more winding path to inspiration. A mashup of my love for history, urban fantasy, and folklore. You’ll find a lot of large pivotal scenes from the series take place on former Civil War battlefields and other places of significance. It was both a way to harness inspiration and make excuses to travel for research. Mason Dixon is similar in that way, but extremely focused on Missouri folklore. The strange creatures and places in those stories are almost entirely based on local mythology and folktales. Right down to the hinge tailed bingbuffers!
2. Your books cross several genres; how do you keep them fresh in each installment?
The answer is in the question for the most part. By being able to hop between genres, I’m always excited to come back to an older series after writing in a different world. The more excited I am, the deeper I dive into worldbuilding and lore and I’ve found that jumping across genres always helps keep that excitement level high.
3. In the Vesik series, your characters are in the Vampire community. Are there any unique twists or interpretations you’ve introduced to the traditional vampire lore?
There are different bloodlines of vampires in Vesik. So some are more traditional, some are daywalkers, others can survive the sun but are weakened by it, and others will die when exposed. It’s fun mashing them up so you never quite know what the characters are really getting themselves into.
4. Your Urban Fantasy features a blend of the supernatural and the modern world. Can you share some insights into how you create the settings for your books?
Working on settings for urban fantasy is a lot of fun. It needs to be fairly grounded to maintain that connection to the real world. While I do break that sometimes, especially when characters visit other realms and the like, I love working on the real world settings. Whenever I can, I’ll visit the location to get a feel for it, walk the area, make sure something I’m saying will be a five minute walk in the book isn’t actually an hour walk because I read a map wrong. That’s had a major impact on some books, like the battle scene at Stones River in book two had to be rearranged to make any kind of sense with the real world layout of the battlefield.
5. What’s coming soon, and can you share any hints for your readers about what they can expect in the next installment? Did anything surprise you with your characters in the coming books?
Next up will be book 8 and 9 of Steamborn. They’re both written and deep in editing. I’m hoping to get a release date sometime this winter, but we’ll see how the schedule unfolds. It will be soon though! After that I have an entirely new world I’m working on, which will hopefully see a release next year as well.
To check out more about Eric, CLICK HERE.
Want to meet him in person? Come to the Coastal Magic Convention HERE!
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