Usually when you ask the writer of an epic fantasy novel who influenced their tale, they’ll mention J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and other people with a bunch of initials in their name. But in the following email interview with writer Mike Brooks, author of the epic fantasy novel The Splinter King (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — which is the second book in The God-King Chronicles trilogy after The Black Coast — he doesn’t cite a person but a place…and not one from another fantasy novel, either.