Three Questions with Van Heerling. My Guests Today are Janet Morris and Chris Morris.

Welcome to Three Questions with Van Heerling. This is where you get to meet authors, actors, painters and anyone else that is bent toward the arts, but on a more personal level.

I am honored to have Janet and Chris Morris on my blog today. Between them they hold over sixty copyrights, and have many used titles on Amazon and B&N.  Janet's first fantasy series, "High Couch of Silistra," (four volumes) had over four million copies in print in the late 1970s and early 80s.  

Let's get started.

VH: If you could change one thing about our world, what would it be and why?

Janet:  The world we inhabit is not the thing I wish to change:  it is the humanity that inhabits this world.  The world on which we live is consistent, honest, and fair.  Humans are not. The sun rises; the wind blows; then seasons turn:  all in right proportion.  It is the improportionate behavior of humans that threatens all species on our world. The world doesn't single out one group or any different group as its enemy.  Humans do.  The world does not lie nor cheat nor steal.  Humans do.  If humans could share a secular ethos, take a long-term view, hold themselves to a common standard of mercy, honesty, loyalty, courage and trust, then humans would deserve the beautiful world on which they live.  As things stand now, we are a killer species, destroying all, including one another, to serve our short-sighted goals.

Chris:  I would change the human tendency to adopt and follow thoughtlessly and mindlessly the religious and political dogma touted by others in preference to what one's own experience has shown.  We have legions of "life potatoes," those who sit back and watch, rather than join an effort to which they could contribute.  The one-hundred-fifty character comment mode of web-based social discourse is exacerbating, rather than ameliorating this problem.  The greatest adventure is your individuality.

VH: If you had two years left to live from this moment, what would you change about your life?

Janet:  I try to live every day as art, but the mundane concerns of modern times often intervene.  If I had but seven-hundred thirty days yet to live, I would spend it writing the books and music I still want to write and helping the animals with whom I live to assure their survival.  I would try to aid the worthy people who are within my reach.  Certain truths still draw me, and some of those I can broach in fiction.  Other problems still attract me in the human realm, problems that cannot be solved but by direct action:  for these problems I would try to establish legacy groups to act when I cannot. 

Chris:  I often imagine a world without me in it.  It's a Zen thing.  I'm okay with it, so I wouldn't change much.  I'd do the things I like to do and be available when needed.  Like one of our characters in The Sacred Band, I need to strike a "balance" between my inner goals and the necessities pushing on me from without.  "Balance"  is my greatest achievement in life, and I find it in music and writing.  Balance makes possible my ability to follow my natural course without being swayed, diverted, or tempted to try to manipulate circumstances beyond my control.

VH: For what are you grateful?

Janet:  I am grateful for the grass and the sky and the rain and the snow and animals and the joys of being human, most especially for our triumphs as a species in thought and literature.  I am grateful for the works of those who have gone before me:  for the Sumerians and the Hittites and the ancient Greeks; for the philosophers and the cosmologists and the poets and the playwrights; for the philosophers and storytellers who have given us so much and who reach across time to help us define ourselves and our future.  I am grateful for Heraclitus of Ephesus and Einstein, for Milton and Marlowe and Shakespeare, for Bach and Corelli and Chopin and Coltrane; I am grateful for Rubens and DaVinci and and Michelangelo.  I am most grateful for the myths and music of the ages, for the stories that make us better humans, for the insights that are our legacy from history, and for the common values in those myths and insights and music and art that are transmitted from generation to generation through the miracle of language and song.

Chris:  I am grateful for the opportunity to be close to animals, to engage in communication not based on deceit. Animals teach me every day:  they do not make light of their problems, nor overstate them; they face each day with enthusiasm but with caution; they live in the present, but remember their past and look forward to their future.  They take leave of this life with grace and dignity, when we allow them to do so.  They trust Nature.  They trust us, if we deserve it.  I am grateful for the chance to try, every day, to deserve that trust.  Most of all, I am grateful for a partner who has helped me find these wonders and share them.

VH: Janet regarding your answer to the first question, I felt as though you were in my head. I couldn't agree more. 

I enjoyed getting to know the two of you better.


Thank you again.

VH: I invite the readers of this blog to engage in a dialog with Janet and Chris. Normally I am not so blatant in requesting comments, but today is an exception. It isn't everyday one meets an author with four million books under their belt.  

Note from the authors:

We'd like to say that we write the book we want to read.  We write about the human condition.  Sometimes we write under pseudonyms, but most often under our names or one of our names.  We most often write fantasy or science fiction, although we have written nonfiction books such as "The American Warrior" and strictly historical novels such as "I, the Sun."

Whether writing about the past or the future, we always write strong heroic themes and strong female characters as well as male characters who face the eternal questions of life and death and loyalty and morality and courage.  Our characters are often pansexual, and in general are intelligent people facing intransigent problems.  We love the ancient world and what it can teach us, and often our characters have an ancient view of humanity and its relationship to the universe, the gods and Nature, as well as to human nature.  We do this because it is often easier (and more compelling) to deal with these large themes in a backdrop different from today, in a milieu where contemporary politics do not warp human behavior.

Our ancient characters have the morality of their times, and we do not try to dress up modern people in ancient clothing:  the anicent world has much to teach us.  Sometimes, however, we write a contemporary novel or a "high-tech thriller" or military science fiction.  Our stories are written firstly for ourselves, to take us somewhere else, to entertain us, and to take us where we can see problems more clearly and posit solutions. 

And, finally, we want to say that the Sacred Band, with their horses and their lovers and their ethos and their trials of courage, are our favorite characters.  They found readers in the 20th century and are finding new readers in the 21st.  For those readers and ourselves, new adventures lie ahead.  The Sacred Band takes us places we have never been before and we are the better for it.

(Janet) First, The Sacred Band, a mythic novel (c) by Janet Morris and Chris Morris (copyright 2010, 2011) on Amazon and on B&N , in trade paper, e-book, and hardcover:

The Sacred Band 

The Sacred Band of Thebes lives on, a world away, in this mythic epic of love in war in ancient times. In 338 BCE, during the Battle of Chaeronea that results in the massacre of the Sacred Band of Thebes, Tempus and his Stepson cavalry rescue twenty three pairs of Theban Sacred Banders, paired brothers and lovers, to fight on other days. These forty-six Thebans, whose bones will never lie in the mass grave that holds their two hundred and fifty-four brothers, join with the immortalized Tempus and his Sacred Band of Stepsons, consummate ancient cavalry fighters, to make new lives in a faraway land and fight the battle of their dreams where gods walk the earth, ghosts take the field, and the angry Fates demand their due. 


Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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(Janet) Next in this series is "The Fish the Fighters and the Song-girl."

The Fish the Fighters and the Song-Girl

New blood and old warriors face unforeseen challenges as one war ends in triumph and another conflict looms. Stories you'll love to hear again and stories you've been hoping to hear for the first time in a brand-new Sacred Band anthology that takes the Stepsons where they've never been before...

Tales of risk and glory, past, present and future, among the Sacred Band of Stepsons cavalry in The Fish the Fighter and the Song-girl, the second Sacred Band anthology:

Tempus and his Sacred Band won the battle of their dreams, but now the time has come to count the cost and face the consequences in fifteen tales, old and new, of the iconic Sacred Band of Stepsons, including the last six classic Sacred Band stories from the million-copy bestselling shared universe of Thieves' World® and nine new adventures.

Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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(Janet) We have two newly -published "Author's Cut" (revised and  expanded) editions in ebook and trade paper of two other seminal books in this series:   First of these is "Tempus with his right-side companion Niko" by Janet Morris.

Tempus with his right-side companion NIKO (Sacred Band of Stepsons: Sacred Band Tales)

Relive the iconic adventures of Tempus, the Riddler, and his Sacred Band through the eyes of Nikodemos, his right-side companion, as Niko seeks his spirit's balance on Bandara's misty isles. 

Five pivotal Sacred Band stories from the earliest adventures of the Stepsons in a world of thieves. Ride with Tempus and his Band once again, for the first time. 

All the early adventures that made The Sacred Band of Stepsons cavalry a legend, collected in one volume. AND MORE:

RISK. REDEMPTION. RESURRECTION.

"AN END TO DREAMING" -- a rare tale of the dream lord and Cime, the sorcerer-slayer, before Tempus forms the Sacred Band;

"A MAN AND HIS GOD" -- the much-anthologized life and death of Abarsis, the Stepsons' patron shade;

"A BETTER CLASS OF ENEMY" -- on Bandara, Niko struggles for insights to justify all the blood shed and lives lost in the Riddler's service;

"DREAM LORD" -- when the entelechy of dreams comes calling, worse always comes to worst.

Ride with Tempus and his Band once again, for the first time.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Parts of this work have been published in substantially similar form in several volumes of the Shared Universe Series, Thieves World®.

Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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Beyond Sanctuary

In Beyond Sanctuary, the immortal Tempus and his ancient cavalry squadron take the war between magic and the gods to the mages of Wizardwall. Tempus and his Sacred Band of Stepsons begin a series of new adventures that start in Sanctuary(R) but go far "beyond," pitting some of Thieves World's(R) most canonical characters against unforgettable villains and their own frailties while souls hang in the balance. Love and war mix in a heady mix of ancient history and mythic fiction, love and hate, philosophy and ethos. Sacred Band pairs are forged in the crucible of the wizard wars: lovers and warriors win and lose as the hurly-burly of battle tests all loyalties. Some of Thieves' World's most popular characters stretch out and new characters are introduced in this fast-paced tale that's lyrical and lucid: the immortal Tempus and his sister; the allergic mageling Randal; the Froth Daughter Jihan, join the Sacred Band of Stepsons, fighting for freedom of the human spirit. Beyond Sanctuary marks the emergence of the Sacred Band series of novels, as well as the first authorized and independent Thieves' World(r) novel. Two iconic Thieves' World stories lead naturally into this trek into farther realms of body and mind, so new readers are well grounded. Although Beyond Sanctuary stands alone, it begins a major epic and is the first of the author's three "Beyond" novels. Janet Morris stretches out and plows new ground, exploring unknown realms with Tempus and his hand-picked band of paired fighters. Demons and warlocks, witches and fiends, enemies human and inhuman clash at every turn while allegiances fracture and reform. Ancient warfare becomes reality and gods take the field with their favorites. Passion, philosophy, and high adventure make a heady, vivid mix as armies use magic and gods use the weather to harry opposing forces. When the Sacred Band and its formidable female allies finally join with the local high-peaks bandits and the storm god of the armies to assault Wizardwall itself, anything can happen -- and does. War and witchery abound in this mystical adventure of love and death Beyond Sanctuary.

Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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(Janet) In our "Heroes in Hell" series of shared universe volumes, we have two new titles.  The first of these brand-new volumes is "Lawyers in Hell"; the second is "Rogues in Hell."  "Lawyers" was published in 2011; "Rogues" is new this week and not yet available in trade paper on Barnes & Noble but will be available by the time you use this interview.

Rogues in Hell (Heroes in Hell)

Janet Morris leads her writers back to Hell.

Hot on the heels of Lawyers in Hell, the New Hell Sinday Times bestseller, comes ROGUES IN HELL...

The war heats up, Satan antes up, and rogues go adventuring as Hell's landlord faces off with Heaven's auditors.

Veteran Hellions sin again and new writers fall from grace:

Shirley Meier, Bradley H. Sinor, Michael Z. Williamson, Deborah Koren, Julie Cochrane, Bruce Durham, Janet Morris, Chris Morris, Richard Groller, H. David Blalock, Nancy Asire, Michael H. Hanson, Sarah Hulcy, Michael A. Armstrong, Larry Atchley, Jr., Bill Snider, Edward McKeown, John Manning, Jack William Finley, David L. Burkhead and Allan Gilbreath

Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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Lawyers in Hell 

Heaven lays down the law and Hell gets more Hellish in Lawyers in Hell, marking the return of Heroes in Hell™, the greatest shared universe of all times. The Commandments weren't merely suggestions - and there were over three hundred of them. And now, as the Higher Powers send auditors through the underworlds to dispense yet greater injustice, heroes and villains from all of history are about to be reminded that sin doesn't pay ... and in Hell, neither does virtue. All this and more peril in Perdition await in 22 tales that will make you fear for your immortal soul...

Amazon Ebook
Amazon Paperback
Barnes and Noble Ebook
Barnes and Noble Paperback

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Bio:
Click here for Janet's Wikipedia page. 

Writing Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 20 novels, many co-authored with her husbandChris Morris or others. Her first novel, written as Janet E. Morris, was High Couch of Silistra, the first in a quartet of novels with a very strong female protagonist.

She has contributed short fiction to the shared universe fantasy series Thieves World, in which she created the Sacred Band of Stepsons,[2] a mythical unit of ancient fighters modeled on the Sacred Band of Thebes.

She created, orchestrated, and edited the Bangsian fantasy series Heroes in Hell,[3] writing stories for the series as well as co-writing the related novel, The Little Helliad, with Chris Morris.

Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Her 1983 book "I, the Sun", a detailed biographical novel about the Hittite King Suppiluliuma I was praised for its historical accuracy; O.M. Gurney, Hittite scholar and author of "The Hittites,"[4] commented that "the author is familiar with every aspect of Hittite culture."[5]

Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

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Bio:
Click here for Chris' Wikipedia Page. 

Christopher Crosby Morris (born 1946) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a lyricist, musical composer, and singer-songwriter. He is married to author Janet Morris.[1] He is a defense policy and strategy analyst and a principal in M2 Technologies, Inc. He writes primarily as Chris Morris, a shortened form of his name, but occasionally uses pseudonyms.

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