A. J. Grimmelhaus debuts with Angel’s Truth, an epic fantasy quest that takes the reader across icy territories. In it we follow Tol Kraven in his attempt to evade death (only occasionally at the unseen hand of the Traitor within the Knights Reve) and deliver an important message. Nothing in Epic Fantasy life is simple. But, with a twinkle in the voice in which it is told, Grimmelhaus does turn Angel’s Truth’s grim and cold, setting into an enjoyable tale.
The Blurb.
The Truth is Never Painless
The church is betrayed, and in the midst of an assault on a remote stronghold, it falls to Tol Kraven, the church knights’ most troublesome apprentice, to deliver a cryptic message to a distant convent.
Pursued by the world’s most notorious killers, Tol’s journey will take him across the frozen north in a desperate race. His path will take him to the prize the church’s enemies seek, and the terrible secret at the heart of the church, a secret inextricably linked with his own family’s dark past.
A secret men will kill to keep.
A secret men will kill to learn.
A secret that if revealed could destroy an entire religion.
The greatest truths, he will learn, are never painless.
A.J Grimmelhaus’ debut novel is a fun read, fantasy fans will recognise many things they love about the genre.
Congratulations on the release of Angel’s Truth, and thank you for joining us here at SFFWORLD. A.J Grimmelhaus is a name fit for fantasy; is it a pseudonym?
Hi, and thanks for inviting me, it’s a pleasure to be here. Yes, A.J. Grimmelhaus is a pseudonym, although the initials are my own. I wanted something that felt personal to me, but wasn’t too similar to an existing author, which turned out to be harder than I expected. I tried using my initials alongside the name of roads where I lived, the place where I was born, my maternal grandfather’s surname, all to no avail. So, I just made my own and tried to craft something memorable that might hint at SFF leanings. I’m not saying I’d ever change my name, but if I did…
Where did the germ of the idea for the Angelwar Trilogy come from?
It began innocently enough with the novel’s protagonist, Tol. I wondered how someone who came from a family with the blackest name in history would cope if they were then thrust into a situation where he might be the only person who could save people who would otherwise hate him on sight.
Typically when it comes to plotting I’m what’s called a “pantser” (from the expression “fly by the seat of your pants”, I assume) or “discovery writer” and most of my plotting is done as I go, rather than writing an outline before starting that first chapter. So, from that initial thought I began musing on the situation. At the same time I was watching a lot of Supernatural on TV (I still love that show!) and the combination of that and a Lynx advert showing angels hammering down out of the sky got me thinking about writing something involving angels and/or demons in a Fantasy setting. Once I put that together with Tol I started writing and the rest surprised even me – I thought I was writing a single book, not a trilogy!
There are numerous advantages to reading self-published novels over traditional, but also cautions which continue to haunt the format. What caused you to self-publish?
Well, this may muddy the waters, but I think of myself as an Indie author rather than an author who’s self-published, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a permanent description – just the best way to describe what I’m doing with this book right now. I’ve set myself up so I can continue to release books independently in future, but I haven’t ruled out other options for a book or a series such as releasing through a small press or working with an agent. For me, it’s more about finding the best option for each book that works for me.
With Angel’s Truth and the wider Angelwar trilogy I had a clear vision for the whole product – the covers, the timing of each release (I hate waiting a year for the next book in a series I’m reading!) –and I was also determined to release something in 2017. The need to retain creative control over these aspects lent itself better to an indie solution than trying to go the traditional route, especially when you consider it can take years for a book to reach publication once a deal’s been struck.
There’s such variation in terms of both self-published novels and traditionally published novels that I find the whole thing one giant grey area – I’ve read great books published independently that look as good as anything from the likes of Orbit or Penguin, but just as often I’ve read books from traditional publishers that were so full of spelling mistakes I couldn’t read them, or formatted so badly they looked amateur. Also, people self-publish for a variety of reasons – not everyone wants to be the next J.K. Rowling – and for some people it’s just a hobby, or they’re publishing a relative’s diary or memoir. They’re all just as valid to me, but it’s easy to forget the inclusivity and ease of independent publishing options with companies like Amazon also means there can be a lot of variation in terms of appearance, content, and presentation.
At the other end of the scale, I’ve seen some publishers hike up kindle prices so they’re more expensive than paperbacks or hardbacks. Personally, I won’t pay more than £5 for an ebook no matter how good it is, so I wouldn’t want people paying more than that for any of mine.
As for why I did it all so quickly over about 9 months… Well, details of the whole totally realistic project can be found on my website. It was so realistic and achievable I called it, ah, Project Insanity.
There are a lot of personable characters in Angel’s Truth. Which character annoyed you the most as you were writing it?
Well, some characters were definitely more fun to write than others – Kartane and Stetch in particular were a joy to write – but both Tol and Katarina were difficult to write in the first dozen or so chapters. Tol in particular had me shaking my head a few times – he needed to start the story particularly blind to what’s going on in the wider world, so although he learns relatively quickly once he’s on the road, he really doesn’t help himself at first.
Tol Kraven, your protagonist, doesn’t think much of himself. Was this self-doubt something that grew through the development phase?
To some extent, yes, but there was a degree of it from the very beginning. Tol is very much a product of his environment and unique situation, although much of this doesn’t become apparent until later in the book. Because of that, when I wrote the early chapters I knew how he would react in certain situations, but hadn’t quite got to know him – his quirks and personality – although that came pretty quickly. Once he came to life, much of the development was honing those first chapters.
In scenes like the one in which Katarina encounters Tol for the first time, the humour is balanced against the dire situation Katarina is in. Do you like comedy fiction or prefer to watch a show?
Between the two, comedy fiction would win every time. Sue Townsend and Douglas Adams blew my mind when I first discovered them as a teenager – I didn’t know fiction could be not just humorous but hilarious and dark and biting all at the same time. I don’t read much pure comedy fiction now (though I’m always open to recommendations) but I also like authors like Robert Rankin, Tom Holt, and Christopher Moore. There are some great authors writing Fantasy with that kind of humour, but it seems to me like this kind of genre crossover doesn’t get the publicity it deserves.
Angel’s Truth was never really intended to be heavily comedic, and I’ve never thought of it that way. It’s dark though – especially early on – and using humour seemed not only to fit the characters, but give everyone a break from some of the grim events taking place. That kind of gallows humour felt to me like how the various characters would handle stress, but it was just as much a case of it being my own kind of humour too and gave me a laugh as I wrote it.
What is your favourite scene in Angel’s Truth?
That’s a surprisingly easy one, although tricky to explain without spoilers…
I loved writing a lot of the action scenes, but my favourite scene is when Tol eventually comes face to face with an angel. I’d delayed it for a while – since, I think, Tol meets Katarina – to build tension so by the time I wrote it I had a clear picture of the scene in my mind. Tol’s got himself in a major scuffle and when the angel comes hurtling out of the sky the opening to Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song began playing in my head – just the opening bars up to the primal scream. It felt perfect, and fitted with the Norse-like themes, so that moment became something of a touchstone for me. After that, every action scene I wrote I kept humming the opening bars as I typed. I love music, and although I could probably do a whole soundtrack to the book, Angel’s Truth really has just one tune – not even a full song, just a few seconds repeated indefinitely – that perfectly suited the spirit, energy, and epicness of what I was aiming for. The lyrics of the rest of the song also fit with the mythology of Angel’s Truth, which has parallels between Norse Valkyries and the book’s own angels.
If anyone wants to get the full experience, those opening bars on repeat are what was playing in my head for every major action scene I wrote from that point in the book onwards.
If you lived in a world of ice, how would you pass your cold, bleak evenings?
Curled up by a fire reading a good book. And now I think about it, I’ve done pretty much that. I’ve lived in Cambridge long enough to lose my accent, but I grew up in the North of England and I remember winter nights as a kid with heavy snow outside while I was curled up inside, lost in a good book.
As a self-published author you are responsible for all aspects of your book. Once written, what part of bringing the book together did you enjoy the most?
It was surprising, because for me I’ve always loved the writing most of all, and I didn’t expect to enjoy anything else that took me away from that, whether it was editing, formatting, or anything else. Because of that, I’d set quite a punishing schedule for this year, but found that once the manuscript was finished, I also enjoyed a lot of the other aspects. Working with a cover designer was great, but so was a lot of the organisational stuff I did – project planning, paperback and kindle formatting, making maps, setting up the infrastructure for a full-on Indie publishing business model. I’m a bit of a geek at heart, so setting up systems to make book publishing quicker in future was a lot of fun. And – most surprising of all – I even got quite into the editing process.
I already have another novel – a Fantasy jailbreak adventure – nearly finalised for release in 2018, so next year I can take things a little slower knowing that the publishing process will be much smoother and quicker.
Fantasy fans will be pleased to know that the sequel, Angel’s Deceit, is already available and your entire series will be 
available by the end of 2017. Did you find it hard to complete the edits in time?
Yes, it was pretty tough. I went pretty much lone wolf with this so between January and now I’ve done final revisions on 3 novels, line edits on all 3, interior formatting for kindle and paperback versions, proofreading, and nearly everything else except the cover art. The project’s almost over, but things are moving quickly now and the last leg is particularly tough as I’ve staggered release dates over a couple of months. Angel’s Deceit is just out – that’s how fast this is moving! – and the final chapter in the trilogy, Angel’s Knight, is coming out on the 16th October.
I kind of got distracted after the first book’s release, because the series has been received far better than I could have hoped for: I’ve received a lot of great reviews, sold copies in parts of the world I’ve never visited like Brazil and Japan, and found that a lot of people who don’t usually read Fantasy novels really enjoyed it, which was particularly nice to hear. Lots of people have got in touch to say how much they enjoyed it, and after taking a moment to enjoy the whole thing I kind of forgot that I’ve still got a few bits left to do before the final release date.
There are more details on my website, but I guess when you decide to do the whole thing in a few short months and call it Project Insanity, you kind of have to admit that you knew the last leg might be a sprint for the finish. Even so, if not for a month of illness earlier this year I’d probably have finished already!
Thank you for answering my questions, and good luck with the upcoming release. Angel’s Truth is available now on Amazon. You can follow A J’s shenanigans on his website, stalk him on Good Reads, and find him on Amazon too.
*****
Interview by Shellie Horst – SFFWorld.com © 2017
I was interested in this interview to see some mention of the comedic element in A J Grimmelhaus’ work. As someone who has read the trilogy, I found that the streak of humour brought a welcome counterpoint to the darkness of the tale and enriched the experience of reading these books. For this reason, and others, I’d put the Angelwar trilogy squarely into the region of Grimdark fantasy. The other thing I thought was interesting was the author’s strategy of trying to find the right kind of publishing process (indie, direct to small press, via agent…) for each title. I think we’re going to see more of this from indie or ‘hybrid’ authors in the future, especially those who are able to navigate the options available to smart authors these days.