My author introduction

I remember sitting on my grandma’s frazzled couch, staring doggedly at an old Tarzan movie. I must have been some six years old and her TV was black and white, which was fine since the movie was of a like mind. I remember being both scared out of my young wits and excited as a fish in a feeding frenzy. I also remember resenting the fact that I could not finish the movie, since mother picked me up, entirely unheeding of my reasonable requests of wanting to witness the inevitable rescue of the gorgeous girl by bleeding Tarzan from the dangerous, ravenous beasts and even more dangerous locals who had a curiously furious way to treat their unsuspecting and under armed quests.

Later on, I gorged myself on the fine stories of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy, the Black Tulip by Dumas, and the many adventures set in the medieval and Renaissance setting with the fiercely panty hosed Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn in Captain Blood? Just great, hard to beat. I loved the American westerns, like Rio Bravo as much as a dashing story by Jules Verne in the Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar.

I quickly discovered reading as TV in those days was showing something worthwhile perhaps twice a week and I needed my dose of excitement. Soon, I had a bookshelf full of comics of many kinds and still wish to thank Robert E. Howard for brutally cunning Conan and Edgar Rice Burroughs for likely the best of the best in adventure stories: the gentleman of the south, John Carter of Mars.

As I discovered that the simplified movies and short comics were just a part of the original stories, I moved from comics to books, loving the aforementioned heroes and historical stories specifically, but also sci-fi by Asimov and fantasy of the Forgotten Realms. My all time favorite story is by the Noble winning Henryk Sienkiewicz, the Deluge, which is a gripping story of Polish wars against Sweden, and the dashing young knights struggling against impossible odds and women stealing traitorous lords. I mean can it get any better than that? And if you never read Švejk’s adventures in the First World War, you missed out on much mirth.

Being a Finn, I somehow managed to grab both American and European writers to my bosom, and as our family loved books, I never had any opposition for wanting to acquire something specific, though this magnanimous attitude did not perhaps extend to my lust for comics, which was frustrating.

I loved adventure. I did, I do and I will, always.

And how did I end up trying to spin my own stories?

At first, I grew up and got a real job. I have masters in the international politics, I was to serve my country in some weirdly official role, but somehow found myself making mobile games in Nokia Corporation, having betrayed my earlier studies. I stayed stubbornly in the company even after most gaming minded people moved to other gaming companies after the N-Gage disaster and I moved on to more mature product management roles for web services in a company that could never shed it’s device oriented thinking. Not really. But I digress and swallow my urge to go down that path and talk more about it. Let us just say I’m one of those stubborn people who worked long years in sweltering open offices and many hazy nights at various seedy airport lounges around the world, making power points and products for a major company, fighting to create something that would matter.

Then, one day, some eight years down the path this company was bought by another, even larger company and I was offered a position that was lucrative in theory, though I had a theory of my own of Nokia’s dark future back then and it turned out to be right. However, that day I stopped to stare at my vast, bulging collection of silly power points, and as it was very late, I was drop-dead tired, I hope I hallucinated as my computer pointed a quivering, accusing finger made of miserably failed power points at my nose, it’s eyes bulging with anger. “Are you doing what you always wanted to do? Eh? I wish to retire, so I do. You are getting old and grizzled, you dumb….”

I tried to lie. I simpered and cried and begged, hoping to hide from the plain truth, but the finger did not quiver, the laptop was heartlessly merciless and I could not deny the truth for long.

No. That was the answer. I was not enjoying what I was doing. And I was getting old, in bones and mentality, perhaps. Jaded, certainly.

So, I resigned. It took a lot of guts and some spilled blood to do so (I fell on some slippery stairs), but I did. I gave away my unhappy laptop, my fine company car and said goodbye to the fairly great cafeteria as I decided to write.

Yes, to write.

Now this is usually something people love. They “ooh” and “aah” and nearly every one of them are sure to tell you they have thought about writing a book when they eventually retire to enjoy their well-deserved peace and riches. Gods, that made me feel old, still does.

Well, most of the entertainment we so enjoy is made by non-retired people who take the pain like the most prized boxer, can withstand most wretched criticism, overcome savage man-eating giants and still smile when someone has utterly kicked your ideas around the gutter, while laughing in derision. I did that for Nokia for years, and now, after some extended practice in the art of getting humiliated, I managed to push out two books. Four in fact, but two of them are the second books for these two series, so let’s just go with two.

On retrospect, the past year has been quite a roller coast. I am happy to say my children still know who I am, my wife is not loathe giving me a hug and I still have some friends left. I think I learned how to start learning the art of storytelling.

I am not saying I won’t go back to “the real jobs” people have before they write something at the twilight of their lives, but I wanted to do this now. I obviously have a lot to learn, but it is refreshing to feel like I did while watching that Tarzan movie some 37 years ago.

My books will be furious adventures. They will be long, for I am one of those people who hate when book is nearing its end. There will be simple and complex plots both and the characters will be sometimes terribly flawed. It is not a Disney prince or princess that I write about, but people like you and I, people who make a multitude of mistakes and people who are not always likable in every aspect of their life. I also try to make the books accessible to many cultures, by not going overboard and playing overmuch with words and complex structures, but keeping them simple enough to be enjoyable across a wide spectrum of history and adventure freaks.

Enjoy!