With The Burning Gem (paperback, Kindle), author Don Sawyer is kicking off an urban fantasy series called Soul Catcher.
In the following email interview, Sawyer talks about what inspired and influenced this first installment, as well as this series.
To start, what is The Burning Gem about, and when and where is it set?
Zoltan is a 110-year-old gem maker who lives an existence of opulent bitterness. Along with a network of other agents, his job is to catch souls and form them into magnificent jewels. He works with referrals only, and how his clients — rising CEOs, ambitious politicians, vainglorious religious leaders — are selected is of no concern to him. While Zoltan’s contract with the hideous Mester, who may or may not be human, promises him wealth and extended life, it also prohibits him from touching another person, or even sharing his true name
Barbara has always had an uncanny ability to read others, but her full empathic skills emerge only after a part of her soul is crystalized into a flaming red gem. Desperate to escape her empty suburban life and philandering husband, she makes her way on foot through the terrifying New York subway tunnels to find a station abandoned for 60 years — and possibly the mysterious man who made her gem.
Zoltan’s life changes dramatically when Barbara bursts into his life. She breaks the spell he has been under, and he risks everything — including his life — to discover the true nature of the sinister cabal he has unwittingly been part of.
Their base of operations is a long-forgotten 1873 subway terminal, now transformed into the Market, a hidden community of seers, shapeshifters, artisans with extraordinary skills, keepers of ancient knowledge. From here Barbara and Zoltan follow leads that take them to Budapest in a desperate race to find the truth and neutralize the Mester before he kills them.
Where did you get the idea for The Burning Gem? What inspired it?
The Burning Gem and its sequel wrestle with a fundamental question: “As a species, are we really so unevolved, that when facing existential challenges such as climate change we can only fall back on primitive and counterproductive responses such as tribalism, distrust of the Other, and a demand for simple answers to increasingly complex questions?” I find that truly troubling, and The Burning Gem suggests that these reactions may be more than simple limitations in imagination and adaptation but actively cultivated by a cabal of shadowy figures to dedicated to securing their rule by sowing confusion and greed through the use of a wide array of strategies, including using “influencers” armed with their magic gems.
So it’s a metaphor, but hopefully a compelling adventure as well.
And is there a reason why you set this in New York City as opposed to London or Tokyo or some other city with a subway system?
Probably because I am more familiar with the New York system. I’ve been enchanted with the idea of abandoned subway stations a portal between worlds since reading Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere many years ago. There is something essentially otherworldly about stations that once teemed with commuters and families now forgotten, lost and discarded. And when I researched the New York system and found that the City Hall Station was abandoned in 1945, that a secret track left over from the Roosevelt Days still operated deep beneath Grand Central Station, and that a mammoth underground terminal was built and abandoned in 1873, well, New York it was.
It sounds like The Burning Gem is a fantasy adventure story…
It’s an urban fantasy. Quoting my usually reliable source, Wikipedia, “urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy, placing supernatural elements in an approximation of a contemporary urban setting.” What I love about it is that, when well done (see Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus), being rooted our reality while exploring alternate worlds just beneath our feet (in my case, literally) challenges the reader’s comfortable sense of reality, of what is and the limits of what can be. I worked hard to ground even the most magical elements in the story in to factual history, metallurgy, wave transmission principles, medical research.
The Burning Gem is not your first novel. Are there any writers, or specific stories, that had a big influence on The Burning Gem, but not on anything else you’ve written?
Yes. While I’ve written a bunch of books in several genres, this is the first time I tackled an adult fantasy. But I have always loved fantasy. Growing up in my own suburban desert, Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy transported me magical. (I love a comment by Ursula LeGuin, one of my favorite authors: “When you are reading, you are temporarily psychotic. You have lost touch with reality and are living in another world.”) I mentioned Gaiman and Erin Morgenstern, but also a Pueblo writer who has been largely forgotten, Leslie Marmon Silko, whose book Ceremony turned my world upside down.
How about such non-literary influences as movies, TV shows, or games? Did any of those things have a big influence on The Burning Gem?
Great fantasy films use the magic of cinematography to create almost tangible worlds. Their world-building can be clumsy and so out of kilter with your own vision (The Hobbit) as to be off-putting, or deeply affecting and engrossing — Pan’s Labyrinth, the Harry Potterseries, Lord Of The Rings.
And what about your dog, Farley? How did they influence The Burning Gem?
Oh, man. My dog, Farley. He was my best friend. A slightly errant brother. I loved that dog. He had been found wandering in rural BC, and when we first met I knew there was something special in him. We were buddies for 14 years. When he was dying and couldn’t make it up the stairs, I slept on floor with him in the living room. On one of his last nights, he put out his paw over my hand, and then went to sleep.
Yeah, maybe he helped me believe in magic. Maybe I was able to bring some of that magic — real magic — to the book.
Farley
Now, you’ve already said that The Burning Gem is the first book in a series called Soul Catcher. What can you tell us about this series?
The sequel to The Burning Gem, The Tunnels Of Buda, is complete. It too has gone through a complete two-phase editing process, and I am looking forward to seeing it in publication as soon as possible. I am pleased to report that Castle Bridge will be bringing it out in May 2025.
The Tunnels Of Buda completes this story cycle and is filled with sorcery and terror as well as bravery and the emergence of new characters. The confrontation with the dark Company is fought out in mines and ancient tunnels deep below Buda Castle in Budapest.
It is an exciting story with a kick, and I am looking forward to seeing the books read and promoted together.
And, although The Tunnels Of Buda completes the first two volumes of the Soul Catcher series, the ending provides a solid foundation for more clashes between the remaining gem makers and their allies and the forces determined to implement the darkest of Nietzsche’s Weltanschauung.
So, does that mean the Soul Catcher series is a duology?
The two books complete the story arc I originally envisioned, and in fact I wrote them at them at the same time.
But I like the worlds I have created, as well as the characters, and since it is so darned hard to eradicate evil, I have left the door open for a third book (trilogies seem to be all the rage). I hope the current books will find an audience that enjoys the adventure as well as the provocative questions it asks about who we are and why we are here.
I asked earlier if The Burning Gem was influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think The Burning Gem could work as a movie, show, or game?
I’ve been very gratified by the number of people — okay, one was my sister-in-law — who have commented on the vividness of the description and how they could see the book as a film. As well, I like to use dialogue (which sometimes drove my editor nuts) that lends itself to script adaptation. And Castle Gate is a multi-media company, so we will see.
So, if someone wanted to make The Burning Gem into a movie or show, who would you want them to cast as Barbara, Zoltan, and the other main characters?
Scarlett Johansson [Black Widow] is Barbara and Robert Downey, Jr. [Iron Man] is Zoltan. The Mester will take some serious special effects make-up artistry.
Finally, if someone enjoys The Burning Gem, and it’s the first novel of yours they’ve read, which of your other novels would you suggest they read while waiting for The Tunnels Of Buda to come out?
If they’re interested in a “moving tale of two novice teachers who find themselves in a place like no other, facing challenges many teachers can only imagine,” Tomorrow Is School is a Canadian bestseller and was widely used in teacher training programs across the country. My YA novel Where The Rivers Meet sold 20,000 copies and was called a “little-heralded masterpiece” by BC Bookworld that was “perhaps the first Canadian book for young readers that realistically portrays racial prejudice and teen suicide in a First Nations community.” Still a good read.
