I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the CONQUIST by Dirk
Strasser Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Title: CONQUIST
Author: Dirk
Strasser
Pub. Date: September 1, 2024
Publisher: Roundfire
Books
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 360
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/Conquist
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Capitán Cristóbal de Varga's drive for glory and gold in 1538 Peru leads
him and his army of conquistadors into a New World that refuses to be
conquered. He is a man torn by life-long obsessions and knows this is his last
campaign. What he doesn't know is that his Incan allies led by the princess
Sarpay have their own furtive plans to make sure he never finds the golden city
of Vilcabamba. He also doesn't know that Héctor Valiente, the freed African
slave he appointed as his lieutenant, has found a portal that will lead them
all into a world that will challenge his deepest beliefs. And what he can't
possibly know is that this world will trap him in a war between two eternal
enemies, leading him to question everything he has devoted his life to
- his command, his Incan princess, his honor, his God. In the end, he
faces the ultimate dilemma: how is it possible to battle your own obsessions .
. . to conquer yourself?
Reviews:
Finalist Aurealis Award Best Fantasy
Novel
"An original and riveting read from start to finish, An action/adventure
fantasy novel raised to an impressive level of literary excellence by the
storytelling talents of Dirk Strasser as a novelist, Conquist is
an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended pick." —Midwest Book
Review
"Conquist is the perfect fever dream of conquistadors, magic,
and portals, alongside conflict, drama, and gold-mad lunatics." —SFF
Insiders
"Strasser tells a riveting odyssey of conquest, magic, and redemption that
fans of historical fantasy will devour." —Aurealis
"The combination of history and fantasy, along with the rich,
thought-provoking, character development, made Conquist a
memorable experience. Conquist is well worth the
read." —Literaria Luminaria
Interview Questions – Dirk Strasser
For the readers:
can you tell us a little bit about your book and the characters?
Conquist is a historical fantasy set at the time of the
Spanish conquistadors in South America. It starts with the discovery of a diary
written by Cristóbal de Varga, the leader of a conquistador army that
disappeared without a trace while searching for the golden city of Vilcabamba. Conquist
is the story of what happened.
Cristóbal is a man frustrated by a lifetime of watching others gain
wealth and glory. He knows he is running out of time to achieve the dreams that
have driven him since his boyhood in AndalucÃa. What he doesn’t know is that
his Incan consort Princess Sarpay has her own plans.
His campaign stalls in a remote region of the Andes and his lieutenant,
the freed African slave Héctor Valiente, is missing on patrol. Cristóbal is
facing an open revolt when Héctor returns with a dead soldier, and a tale of a
royal Incan messenger who escaped through a curtain of light that causes those
who pass through it to vanish.
Cristóbal leads his company through the curtain into a strange new world
of crimson skies, fire fountains
and a morality that proves to be less black and
white than it initially appears. When both the conquistadors and Incas find themselves trapped between the warring forces
of demonic natives and angelic beings, Cristóbal is forced to make
an impossible choice and face his own angels and demons.
What are you
working on now?
It’s called The Myriad.
I usually like to play around with back cover blurbs to see what might intrigue
potential readers. Here’s the current version of the blurb:
Many cities are spoken of as
lost. The city of Myriad is the only one that is truly lost, not just to our
world, but to all worlds.
There is a place between the
worlds where all things are held in abeyance, where a pregnant nothingness
reigns. This is where the lost city of Myriad drifts with the tides of chaos.
Every now and again the city
comes into contact with a new world. A momentary juncture. This is the only
time the inhabitants of Myriad can leave the prison of their walls. And leave
they must, because nothing truly lives within the city’s walls bar the
inhabitants themselves – and some say even they do not truly live as we do. All
food and water must be taken from these worlds that randomly adjoin Myriad for
a time.
Yet there are dangers in
these worlds that are totally unknown to the inhabitants of Myriad. And when
the nexus with these worlds is broken and an inhabitant is outside the walls,
they will never be able to return because the city will vanish from that world forever.
And there is danger far
greater than this for the unfortunates lost to their city in this way. Within
the walls of Myriad, the inhabitants are immortal. Outside they become mortal.
So, the immortals inside the
walls are doomed to eternally travel between a myriad of worlds, seeking to
return to the world of their origin, to right the wrong that exiled them into
the restless void, to find final peace.
The Myriad is the story of the mortal-born woman who brings
them to that peace.
Were any of the
characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?
I think it’s less common for
fantasy writers to draw characters from their own life, but in historical
fantasy like Conquist, there are often characters drawn from history. For
example Lieutenant Rodrigo Benalcázar, with his lean frame and pinched features
teeming with energy, is modelled on the real-life conquistador Francisco Pizarro
who conquered the Inca Empire. Benalcázar like Pizarro comes from Extremadura,
the poorest region of Spain, and has a ruthless chip on his shoulder and
something to proof.
The character of Capitán Cristóbal de Varga definitely has a bit of me in
him. As I was writing Conquist over many years, I began to wonder
whether my obsession with it—first as a short story, then as a novella, then a
screenplay and now a novel—was as destructive as the conquistadors’ fanatic
pursuit of gold. I asked myself whether we are all trapped by what we desire
most. Where is the border between determination and obsession? I came to the unavoidable
realisation at one point that the diary that Cristóbal writes in Conquist
is an analogue of me writing the novel. Cristóbal says in his final diary entry
I was once given to consider that which in life I most fervently strove
for. In the honesty of my old age, I now understand with the certainty of all
my glorious and pitiful experiences that I value above all else that my words
are heard.
Who was your
favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?
Sarpay was a fascinating character
to write because she is arguably the most successful character in the novel in
terms of achieving her aims, and those aims are noble ones, and yet she ends up
being conflicted. She takes her obsession with saving the Incan Empire from the
Spanish to extremes and to her own detriment. She schemes against Cristóbal with the same intensity as he pursues his
obsessions. Sarpay recognizes this in a scene towards the end of the novel
where she explains her betrayal by saying “You of all people should be able to
understand, Cristóbal.”
Interestingly, because Lieutenant Rodrigo
Benalcázar was directly modelled on the real-life conquistador Francisco
Pizarro, there was less to play with from a writing point of view, so I guess
that makes him my least favourite character. He was also unrelentingly brutal,
and although he was following the Pizarro playbook, it didn’t work out quite
the same way for him, and he was too inflexible to change his tack.
What is your
favorite passage/scene in your book?
This is hard to answer
without selecting a spoiler, but I’ve chosen the scene of the first nightfall
in the new world:
When the sun started to set, turning the sky the purple of bruised skin,
silence fell across the company. A strange silence in a strange land. The
standard-bearer staked the Cross of Burgundy flag into the ground at the
entrance to the pass, and soldiers erected a large wooden cross next it.
Cristóbal then stood in front of his men and spoke the words that he had
long dreamt of saying. Words that only a true conquistador could say. ‘I,
Cristóbal de Varga, claim this land of Nueva Tierra and all who inhabit it in
the name of His Imperial Majesty Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman
Emperor.’
As a blood-red moon hung in the sky and the wind howled around the
assembled soldiers, Cristóbal was no longer certain that God could hear his
words.
What kind of
research did you have to do for the story?
Historical fantasies need a
lot of research. If you’re a writer who doesn’t like research, this isn’t the
sub-genre for you. Fortunately, I love reading about history and I was
fascinated by the Inca Empire and the Spanish conquest of the New World. I
wanted Cristóbal’s diary entries to
feel authentic, so I read actual diaries of conquistadors such as The
Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz. I also read about the rise and fall
of the Inca Empire in a number of books, plus books on Incan culture and
beliefs. I wanted to make the battle scenes feel as real as possible, so I paid
particular attention to the weaponry and tactics of both the conquistadors and
the Incas.
The trick, of course, is to
work these details into the story to make everything sound authentic without cluttering
the narrative. The Incas didn’t use money, they had no written language, and in
many ways, they treated the mummies of their ancestors as if they were still
alive. The Spanish guns were not the effective weapons that they became in
later centuries, and the conquistadors’ real battle advantages were their
horses, dogs and armor. I think it’s also important for historical fantasy to
fit into the known events of the period. Conquist had to be set
precisely in 1538 because the search for Manco Inca and his hidden city of
Vilcabamba happened that year. All these sorts of things become important plot
points in Conquist and are not just window-dressing.
Lightning
Round Questions
What
are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to
read?
I’m
just finishing The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. It’s a historical fantasy set
in Spain at roughly the same time period as Conquist, but the two books
are poles apart in plot, feel and pace. I knew her name from the excellent Netflix
series of her Shadow and Bone YA books, but this is the first book of
hers that I’ve read.
Favorite
social media site?
It
used to be Twitter, but not anymore.
Favorite
Superhero or Villain?
You
know, I think I’ve been over the Superhero/Villain trend for some time now.
Maybe Deadpool because of his sense of humor.
Favorite
TV show?
Outlander
Sweet
or Salty?
Both
Any
Phobias?
I’m
not a fan of cockroaches.
Song
you can’t get enough of right now?
Unstoppable
by Sia
2024
Movie you’re most looking forward to?
Inside
Out 2
About Dirk Strasser:
Dirk
Strasser's fantasy trilogy The Books of Ascension (Zenith, Equinox and Eclipse)
was published in German (Heyne Verlag) and English (Pan Macmillan), and his
short stories have been translated into several European languages. ‘The
Doppelgänger Effect' appeared in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology,
Dreaming Down Under (Tor). Dirk was born in Germany but has lived most of his
life in Australia. He works in educational publishing, has trekked the Inca
trail to Machu Picchu, and studied Renaissance history.
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Giveaway Details:
2 winners
will receive a finished copy of CONQUIST, US Only.
Ends
November 19th, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
Week Two:
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Week Four:
