It is with great pleasure that we bring author, editor, and reviewer Alex James to The Silver Horn Echoes. Alex has released four novels, The Antpod Faction, Roc Isle—The Descent and Tempest, and Marcellus, The Mantle. Living in Leeds, the United Kingdom, Alex is a part of the science fiction and fantasy community, as you may just run into him at various events, or find him signing books.

Alex is also a professional who brings with him a unique perspective as someone who lives with Asperger Syndrome. From his website—

“The condition challenges me to seek understanding of people and situations, and to express myself in writing because I struggle with social understanding and unpredictable environments. I’m a quiet, solitary person, so I see writing as my main outlet for emotional expression. As an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy books, both indie and traditionally published, I’m not often short of inspiration, especially where writing style and familiar settings are concerned.”

Currently, Alex is working on his next fantastic story, Marcllus: Great Barbarism. Alex, welcome to The Silver Horn Echoes!

Thanks again for making time to visit us. Not only are you a blogger, an author and a reviewer, but you are also a professional editor. What lead you to become so deeply immersed in the written word?

It didn’t happen overnight. My fondness for the written word probably began with reading in my early twenties, about nine/ten years ago. I would pop in to my local library and pick up the books with the descriptions and covers that were to my fancy, which were most often science fiction and fantasy. I visited once, borrowed a book, and then kept returning for more. It became a normal part of my life. It didn’t start as an escape—it was an outlet.

Since then I wrote my own novels and I wanted to jump into the author-reader environment by bypassing the literary gatekeepers. As I continued to develop skills to improve my writing, it led to me seeing the immense value copy editing and proofreading can bring to writers. For me, the writing has to come first ahead of any intent to publish.

I mainly review books on my blog, but I don’t handle requests any more. It can be overwhelming being engaged in too many parts of the written word, and so I prioritized my editing. Reviewing started as an extension of my enjoyment of reading.

What cemented your journey into Science Fiction and Fantasy?

You know what? I’m not even sure. It could have been adolescent immaturity – seeing book covers with heroes or spaceships opened my mind to the sense of adventure that I lacked in real life.

A few years later I appreciated the genres’ value in opening the mind to new ideas, and of its flexibility in scope. It became a channel in which I could express myself through writing.

Tell us more about your work.

I published my first book The Antpod Faction in 2012, and it was a science fiction spy story based on a female ‘antpod’ character with traits of Asperger Syndrome. I released a new edition on 2015. At stalls, it’s my most popular title, and the one I feel is unique.

I explored fantasy next and published Roc Isle: The Descent in 2013, which is about Ankah, a young warrior on the road to becoming a knight prentice, who yearns for freedom from expectation and finds it difficult to conciliate himself with the circumstances and rules on Roc Isle. I continued the story with the sequel Roc Isle: Tempest in 2014.

I published a strange piece of space opera science fiction next called Marcellus: The Mantle in 2015. The story is about the enigma of Marcellus, who is a galactic warrior with a cloak called the Mantle. The core ideas from that work continue to inform my current work-in-progress Great Barbarism.

Most of my currently published titles were written 2010—2013, and though I am proud of my achievements I feel the titles no longer represent the writer I am today. I’m currently working on a fantasy story with characters having traits associated with Asperger Syndrome, called Great Barbarism.

Great Barbarism, is to be centered on the theme of ‘fear of difference’, and yet to be set in a fantasy setting where an alien race is locked in a vicious cycle of barbarism. I hope to introduce a new and unusual character into the world called Marcellus, who is born as an adult, which doesn’t ordinarily happen. Marcellus fears soldiery and barbarism, being unprepared and unsuited to adapt. To understand his differences he trains to become a sorcerer. However, his polar opposite Warlord Aerol has a great fear of sorcery, having dealt with it before, and seeks to capture and use Marcellus’s gifts for his own ends.

Why did you decide to become an indie author?

I wanted to take action, and put my books and my name out there, into the sea of readers, and indie publishing had tools that enabled me to do that quickly. Freedom and choice were within my hands.

I didn’t want to sit down for years, sending submissions to literary agents. I knew they were swamped with submissions and I thought the fact many of them didn’t reply made them unaccountable. I suppose at the time I didn’t like the language of the traditional publishing industry either: ‘aspiring authors’, ‘don’t do’s’ and the like came across as patronizing to my young mind. Even if the advice itself was good, I didn’t trust the intention.

In contrast the language of indie authors was often positive, liberating, and empowering. The do-it-yourself idea was very appealing, and I wouldn’t have known what being an author entails or which parts of it I enjoyed if I hadn’t taken the ‘risk’ in the first place and published. It has given me advance knowledge.

Small publishers didn’t really publish the kind of books I wanted to put out there.

Do you have any additional projects in the pipeline?

Great Barbarism is the main project in the pipeline. That being said, it’s not likely to be published any time soon. It has to go through rewriting and self-editing.

I do have a few other drafts of sequels to Great Barbarism, and another fantasy called Kroll, but they’re on hold while I work on Great Barbarism. Experience has taught me I work better when I focus on one writing project.

What final thoughts would you like to leave with us about the most rewarding aspect of being a writer?

The most rewarding aspect of being a writer is the creation phase. The first draft can be euphoric, but there is so much more to writing. There is the reading and self-editing stage. There are the building, understanding, and restructuring stages. There is best practice for writing, but everybody has their own best practice and this shows the diversity and freedom; it’s an art as much as it is a craft.

You can keep up with Alex at http://www.alexjamesnovels.com/