15 Minutes of Fame: (Almost) 15 authors of fame
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
15 Minutes of Fame tries to feature as wide a variety of WoW players as possible. It's not only about being famous in the real world, or being a somebody in the WoW community, or playing WoW despite some remarkable circumstance. 15 Minutes covers all those things, yes ... But we also try to talk with players who are representative of the typical player experience -- ambassadors of the Folks Next Door, if you will.
But no matter how we try to balance things, we always seem to end up back at another interview with an author. Writers who game are a particular bunch. They always have a lot to say about the fantasy genre and the game lore and way the world of Azeroth is unfolding; it makes for a pretty interesting interview. So when we realized that we'd pretty much overshot the bottom of our dance card despite the line of authors winding past the punch bowl and out the door ... Well, we decided it was time to give everyone a full helping of nothing but WoW-playing writers. With our common enjoyment of WoW and the fantasy genre, we figure most readers will find something from these authors they'll want to curl up with on the couch.
Welcome, then, to 15 Minutes of Fame's list of (Almost) 15 WoW-Playing Authors of Fame.
As seen in previous 15 Minutes columns
Vampire Empire novelist duo writes games as one | |
Sci-fi and fantasy copyeditor Deanna Hoak | |
Cory Doctorow on gold farming | |
The twisted tales of Caitlin R. Kiernan | |
New York Times bestseller Catherynne M. Valente | |
Pulp sci-fi author shoots 'em up in Azeroth |
More authors who play WoW
Tim Akers, Dead of VeridonDead of Veridon, from sci fi/fantasy author Tim Akers, comes out this month. "It's a fantasy noir thriller, set in the steampunk world of Veridon," he writes. "Trouble finds Jacob Burn: kicked out of his house, out of his comfortable life -- out of everything that is familiar -- even turned away from his circle of criminal friends and interesting enemies. Two years after he saved an ungrateful city from a mad angel, thwarting the plans of every powerful faction in Veridon, Jacob is still trying to pull his life together. And still trouble finds him. A bad job goes worse, and soon old enemies present themselves as allies, and former friends set themselves against Jacob as he tries to put the dead to rest and the living to justice. Things gets even harder when he's appointed by the Council to investigate the rise of the cog-dead, while some hold him personally accountable, and others in the city work to use the chaos to their advantage.
"My second book was more fantasy-specific. It's called The Horns of Ruin and follows Eva Forge, the last paladin of a dead god as she investigates a series of murders in her cult. Betrayal, swordplay, people becoming gods... I think of it as Final Fantasy meets Dashiell Hammett.
"Oh, and World of Warcraft. I've been playing for almost three years now. I started shortly after I got the contract for my first book. My play times fluctuates in accordance with my contracted deadlines, which prevented me from making it to Kingslayer. I recently switched from DPS to heals, so leveling the appropriate character has kept me out of raiding for the last month or so. Soon, though! Soon! My wife and I play together. Raid night counts as family time, right?"
Jon Sprunk, fantasy author "I just read your article on Clay and Susan Griffiths and really enjoyed it!" writes Jenny Sprunk, also a WoW player. "I read their first book and am looking forward to the sequel very much. My husband Jon Sprunk is actually a fellow Pyr author who has played WoW since practically launch, and I know he would be thrilled to be featured on WoW Insider! His current main is a NE DK who MTs for our raid group. We've taken a couple of breaks (the longest after our son was born in 2008), but we always come back, and we're now squeezing time in to raid with our group of friends (after the kiddo goes to bed, of course!). WoW has been such a part of our lives these last 6 years or so."
"My wife and I have been playing since a month or so after release," confirms Jon. "My first character was a night elf hunter (my wife played a NE druid), and we raided with them in the original game. I tried healing with a priest in The Burning Crusade, but later fell in love with tanking, so I rolled up a death knight and he's still going strong today (although I've been flirting with a warrior ...). As a fantasy writer, Warcraft melds my hobby life and my professional life. The beautiful vistas and brutal combats, the sweet savor of killing a new enemy for the first time -- these are what is best in (fantasy) life."
Paul Witcover, genre-bending authorPaul Witcover blends horror, fantasy and sci-fi in a number of titles. "I play on the Hakkar server," he writes. "My main characters are a warlock, Horrig, 82, and a death knight, Acronus, 73. Horde, naturally. My novels are Waking Beauty and Tumbling After, both from HarperCollins, and Dracula: Asylum from Dark Horse. A short story collection, Everland and Other Stories, is available from PS Publishing.
"I play once a week with some old D&D buddies from high school. We are old farts now, spread across the country, but WoW gives us a chance to relive our glory days and make new ones as members of our proud guild, Church of the Subgenius."
Still more WoW-playing authors
Editor Deanna Hoak (see above) put us on the trail of a number of other authors, and still more wrote in, but not everyone was able to get back with us with full comments. Here are a few more WoW-playing authors you might want to sniff out at the bookstore:
Karen Anders, who says her daughter introduced her to WoW, is the author of Five-Alarm Encounter, a Harlequin romantic suspense (May 2011).
Russell Davis is a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Check Russell's website for numerous books from both him and his wife Sherri.
Tara Maya is the author of the epic fantasy series The Unfinished Song.
"I never thought of playing
WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with these players, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Aron "Nog" Eisenberg to an Olympic medalist and a quadriplegic raider. Know someone else we should feature? Email lisa@wowinsider.com.