With The Tunnels Of Buda (paperback, Kindle), author Don Sawyer is completing the urban fantasy story he started last year with The Burning Gem, which was the first book in his Soul Catcher duology.
In the following email interview, Sawyer discusses what inspired and influenced this second half of the story, as well as how it might not actually be the end…
For people who haven’t read The Burning Gem, the first book in the Soul Catcher series, or the interview we did about it, what was that novel about, and when and where did it take place?
The Burning Gem is an urban fantasy story that revolves around a gem maker who creates jewels that encapsulate a portion of his subject’s soul. Unbeknownst to the gem maker or his customers, these gems are connected to a sophisticated ancient order dedicated to promoting the idea of the legitimacy of, if you will, the divine right of wealth and power. In other words, they use every means available to convince us that there is an aristocracy intended to rule over the rest of us, the slaves, along the lines of both Plato and Nietzsche’s philosophy.
That may sound a little ponderous, but in fact, it’s a pretty exciting book, as Barbara, the housewife who is living an empty life in an empty house in an empty suburb, encounters the mysterious gem maker and, seemingly motivated by her magnificent red jewel, seeks out its creator. That takes her through the subways of New York to an abandoned terminal that has been made into a utopian syndicalist community that acts as a refuge for misfit geniuses, carriers of ancient knowledge and skills, and even physicists working at the cutting edge of science, all helped along with magic that may actually be out there.
Barbara and Zoltan’s attempt to find the master of the jewels and the forces behind him takes them to Budapest and the ruin bars and the meat market district of London in a desperate race to find the truth and to neutralize the Mester before he kills them.
And then for people who have read The Burning Gem, and thus can ignore me writing SPOILER ALERT, what is The Tunnels Of Buda about, and when does it take place in relation to Gem?
We pick up the story from Zoltan and Barbara’s escape after their violent showdown with the Mester. The Mester is dead or maimed and the black stone used to control his network of gem makers is in Barbara and Zoltan’s hands. But as Zoltan discovered in the ruin bars of Budapest from a former associate, who turned up beheaded and his hands cut off, the Mester was just a small part of a much larger cabal, an ancient Order dating back to Aristotle and beyond. The Order has one goal: to convince the populace that there are masters divinely intended to rule and slaves meant only to obey.
Using magic and sorcery, both ancient and modern, they will stop at nothing to protect the rule of the aristoi.
But this time the “slaves” are fighting back, drawing on the knowledge and skills from many traditions and backgrounds, including magic of their own, to battle this shadowy cabal and its message of fear, division and hopelessness.
In The Tunnels Of Buda, Zoltan, the 110-year-old gem maker, and Barbara, empath and gem wielder, are drawn to the lair of the Justin, so powerful he controls the minds of all around him and commands the Company, a hidden underground futuristic complex that serves as the hub of the Order’s monstrous conspiracy to enact the darkest of Nietzsche’s Weltanschauung.
Barbara and Zoltan find new allies and diabolical enemies as they fight for their lives in the mines and ancient tunnels deep below Buda Castle in Budapest.
When in the process of writing The Burning Gem did you come up with the idea for The Tunnels Of Buda, and what inspired this second book’s plot?
That’s kind of a funny story. I wrote the two books as a single, very long novel over a period of several years. Not surprisingly, I suppose, I had trouble finding a publisher (or agent for that matter) willing to take on a 190,000 word manuscript (which works out to over 600 pages) from a relatively unknown writer. So, I hired an excellent editor to help me, but I simply could not get the page count down to a reasonable level.
When I had honed it as much as I could, I ended up dividing the one book into two. That’s not as easy as it sounds; you can’t just end chapter 35 of one book and start the next with chapter 36. But it actually worked beautifully, as there was a natural break between the two books that led to two rather than one exciting urban fantasy adventures with a kick.
As you said, The Burning Gem was an urban fantasy story, and The Tunnels Of Buda is the second half of the story. I assume that means Tunnels is an urban fantasy story as well.
Yes. As indicated it is a direct extension of The Burning Gem. However, the nature of the fantasy, both in terms of setting and characters, changes dramatically.
Moving on to the questions about influences, are there any writers, or stories, that had a particularly big influence on The Tunnels Of Buda but not The Burning Gem?
Would you believe Homer? As I constructed this world, with Barbara seized and dragged to this high-tech hell by a terrifyingly powerful mag, I was reminded of the myth of Persephone and Hades and later the attempt by Theseus to rescue her. As much of the action takes place deep underground, the parallels with the Greek underworld — from the River Styx to Theseus’ escape — kept popping up. I incorporated elements, but so subtly that I doubt anyone will see the connection. But I do think myths like that of Persephone are deeply imbedded in our collective psyche, and conscious or not, I think readers will feel the dread and power of Hades in the character of Justin and the Company hidden deep in the mysterious maze of tunnels under the Buda Castle.
What about non-literary influences; was The Tunnels Of Buda influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games?
Pan’s Labyrinth deeply affected me when I saw it years ago. In some ways, it is the Spanish retelling of the Persephone myth. But it is also about the struggle against the twisted fascism of the Franco regime.
Perhaps more importantly, del Toro’s dark tunnels and haunting labyrinthine caves made a lasting impression. Consciously or not, I drew on his astounding world just under our feet.
As we’ve been discussing, The Burning Gem and The Tunnels Of Buda are two halves of the same story. But do you think people should read them back-to-back, or is there some reason why you think people should take a break in between?
As discussed, they follow each other pretty seamlessly, and I hope readers will be anxious to see where the plot of The Burning Gem goes after what has been learned about the network of evil behind the gem making project.
Having said that, I worked to make the two self-standing novels, so they can be read separately and still be enjoyed.
Though, as you said in the aforementioned interview we did about The Burning Gem, “I have left the door open for a third book.” Is there going to be a third book?
Yeah, good question. Since I had written the books as a single novel, I thought, “well, that’s that.” But in fact, several readers said “Hey, you can’t just leave it there. The Company is still alive; the order has been identified but hardly nullified. What’s the story behind this ancient cabal? Is Tesla really involved somehow?” So, I am well into a third book now. Whether I will go on after that, I don’t know.
Cool. What can you tell us about it?
It is tentatively titled The Order Of The Golden Soul. I’d like to finish it for the fall so we can continue to release a book each year around May.
In this book, Barbara, Zoltan, and their companions are back at the Market, but the Company is not done with them. The Market folk discover that Meyers is organizing the denizens of the subways for a raid on the Market, but in the process the gem holders learn about a mysterious book that describes the ancient Order Of The Golden Souls, now centred in the Company compound. The book holds the secrets to the origins of the Order, extending back to Herakles and Plato, and its stunning connection to the Nazis during WWII. The companions believe that it may also hold the secret to maximizing the powers of their gems.
Barbara and Zoltan rush to Budapest to find the book while the rest of the companions prepare for the coming battle, which turns out to be only a prelude to a far greater conflict.
So, is there anything else you think a potential reader might need to know about The Tunnels Of Buda or the Soul Catcher series?
As a species, we are facing existential challenges such as climate change. To combat them, we must get past our primitive and counterproductive instincts to default to tribalism, which evolutionary biologist David Samson says is “the greatest threat of our species in the 21st century.”
The Burning Gem and The Tunnels Of Buda suggest the origins of these outdated attitudes and how they can be overcome. As one reviewer put it, “The book is a deep and magical allegory.” I want readers to come away reflecting on the forces in society at work to promote the worst of Nietzsche’s Weltanschauung and how they can be combatted.
But more than that, I want them to enjoy an urban fantasy series that combines vivid worldbuilding, rollicking adventure, dark and dangerous places, richly developed characters, romance, sorcery, shadowy cabals, monstrous villains, courageous protagonists, intrigue, Budapest ruin bars, and both utopian community and dystopian communities.
Finally, if someone’s read The Burning Gem and The Tunnels Of Buda, what urban fantasy novel or novella of someone else’s would you suggest they check out next?
I think Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is the finest urban fantasy novel written in many years. Besides an exciting, engaging classic duel between magicians fighting to the death through their apprentices, the book is elegantly written and enormously compelling. The world Morgenstern creates is ominous, unsettling, and utterly convincing. This is the kind of urban fantasy I attempt to write: not sword and sorcery played out (often awkwardly) in a contemporary urban setting, but stories where the world we live in fits seamlessly into — and serves to enhance — the magic and mystery of the novel.
