16 | Friday, May 28, 2010 l WEEKLYNews
Local author pens new fantasy books
By Lory McKay
THE WEEKLY NEWS
The vampires are back.
Dartmouth author David Rhind has recently published the second and third novels in his
series that sees vampires living among us in HRM.
The 53-year-old fantasy/adventure writer said he thought the books would be something
people would get a kick out of because its based in Halifax.
“I’m having fun,” said Rhind.
The first book, Once A Samurai, begins with a death in the family, which brings the protagonist, Mike, back to Halifax, where vampires are secretly an integral part of local society.
In his second book, Always a Samurai, the CSIS sends Mike to Afghanistan to rescue a missing agent.
"The books required a lot of research,” said Rhind. "The last thing you want is for someone
in the “know” in the U.S. to say ‘the CIA would never do that.’ I’ve had to work out a lot of
details regarding CSIS.”
Rhind says he does much of his resarch via Google.
"It's amazing You can be on the ground level and pan 360 to see a certain area. They're not
doing much of that in Afghanistan though.”
Halifax is the backdrop of much of his books, but Chester and Mahone Bay have been
worked in as well.
“Overall,” Rhind says, “things are going well with the books.” He's writing full time, but manages to take some time off to go sailing.
His website is approaching 3200 hits, he's sold about 1,000 books, and the royalty cheques are coming in.
He also recently published a medieval fantasy series called Calebra through the U.S. self-publishing firm, VirtualBookWorm.
Currently he's working on the fourth book in the Samurai series, and expects there might be
a fifth as well.
Rhind will host a book reading at Perks Gallery (FerryBoat Landing) on June 1 at 7 p.m. and at Morrigan LeFay's in Dartmouth on June 2 at 6:30 pm. For more information on Rhind,
visit http://dcrhind.ca
10 | Friday, May 22, 2009 l WEEKLYNews
Traveller returns to face Vampires
By Lory McKay
THE WEEKLY NEWS
There are dangerous vampires living among us in HRM. Well, not really, but there are plenty of local vampires - both good and evil - in Dartmouth's David Rhind's new book, Once a Samurai.
The 52-year-old fantasy/adventure author has recently moved back to Dartmouth after years of traveling, and has settled down witl his new wife to write a series of vampire novels.
A Prince Andrew High School gladuate, Rhind spent time living in Florida, the Bahamas, and Bermuda, working various careers as a biology teacher, a kung fu instructor, a musician, and a sailor, which can also be looked at as years of research for his book.
“There's a lot of my own experiences in the book,” says Rhind, noting the main character, like himself, lost his first wife to cancer.
Of course, the getting attacked by vampires part is fiction.
OnceA Samurai, published by the U.S. self-publishing firm VirtualBookworm, begins with a death in the family, bringing the protagonist, Mike, back home to Halifax, where he opens a martial arts studio. Vampires arc secretly an integral part of local society but are limited to working the night shift. Some are renegades, preying on humans.
At first, Mike is reluctant to get involved, but then it becomes personal. He's been marked as a target and a vampire is sent to kill him. He later finds out a long-time family friend is actually a vampire, and discovers why the martial arts always came so easily to him, and why he's so fast ...
Most of the book tales place in Dartmouth or Halifax, and Rhind uses local hangouts throughout, but changes the names.
“People will still recognize them,” he said.
Rhind gives much of his research credit to Google, saying if he needed to find a particular house, or building, he’d use Google Earth and find exactly what he needed, without leaving home.
“Any time I needed something technical, I Googled it. When it came to knowing different weapons, I just found them on Google."
Rhind said the recent spike in popularity of vampire books, brought on by Stephanie Meyers’ national best-selling series, Twilight, has not gone unnoticed.
“This book was something I had been thinking about writing for many years,” he said. “The timing is good. But, this isn’t Twilight. It’s action and mystery.”
Rhind says his target market is his teenage son and jokes that he strives to keep his novels PG14.
“I want my son to be able to read it and want to read it, but women seem to like it too,” he said.
Rhind says he gets his wife to read pages and sometimes she’ll offer suggestions, “Like, ‘You should add more romance.’ And I listen,” he said with a laugh.
The book’s sequel, Always A Samurai, is nearing completion and Rhind says there will be a third book, too.
The book is available to order online from Amazon.ca.
For more information on D.C. Rhind, visit http://dcrhind.ca
DAVID RHIND'S FAVOURITES:
INCLUDE:
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
P N. Elrod (The Vampire Files)
Ann Rice (author)
Cornelia Funke (author)
TRACY HARRISON RECOMMENDS:
L.J. Smith (The Vampire Diaries)
Kelly Armstrong (The Awakening,
The Summoning)
L.J. Smith (The Secret Circle)
Linda Lael Miller (author)
RHONDA HALEY-MCKINNON'S TOP
VAMPIRE MOVIES/SHOWS:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
True Blood (Season two.begins on
HBO June 14)
Underworld Series
D.C. Rhind brings wizards, warriors, and vampires to McConnell Library
When author D.C. (David) Rhind was growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s, his favourite authors foreshadowed what he would write about in his novels.
“I was a huge fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs — the Tarzan Series, the Martian Series, then Lord of the Rings and Patricia McKillip’s RiddleMaster Trilogy,” Rhind recalls. “I still like Burroughs, even though my various editors taught me early on that his writing style isn’t the best.”
Rhind was born in Sydney, left in Grade 5, and lived in various parts of the Maritimes until he completed an education degree in the mid-1970s. Since then he has lived and taught in Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the United States, before returning to his home province.
As a teenager, Rhind began a lifelong association with the martial arts, gaining proficiency in kung fu, judo, karate, and as a junior master in kenjutsu (katana or long sword).
And the martial arts play a huge roll in his two series of fantasy novels, the Agent Samurai vampire-hunter series, and the Calebra medieval fantasy adventure series.
“The Calebra fantasy series is set in a fictional world,” Rhind explains. “I wanted to do something different than the standard medieval setting, like having the main race in the story rely more on the powers of their wizards than technology, leaving them less savvy in tech areas.
“Setting in reality (Agent Samurai, Vampire Hunter series) requires much more research,” he notes. “Google Earth is great for getting a feel for mountainous regions of Uzbekistan, back streets of Venice, etc. You can get away with a bit on issues like CIA and MI6 protocol (movies are full of that), but I was lucky enough to have an inside into CSIS and the RCMP.”
The popularity of Rhind’s novels made him the celebrity guest author at the 2010 Hal-Con conference. Rhind’s books are available for sale on his website (dcrhind.ca) along sample excerpts from both series.
Rhind is looking forward to launching (with a showing of a video book trailer) “Revenge of The Wolf,” the next novel in the Calebra series, at the McConnell Library in Sydney on Friday at 7 pm. Teens and fantasy fans are welcome.
“The roots are strong but the ties are limited to a handful of cousins,” Rhind says. “Still, …Cape Breton will always have a strong pull on my soul. It’s those deep Scottish roots.”
Ken Chisholm lives in Sydney and has written plays, songs, reviews, magazine articles. He can be reached at kchisholm@auracom.com.