The spawn of Warlock adds a fourth instalment to a series of fantasy novels that hail from the Okanagan.
After spending more than two years writing his ideas onto paper, the book has been published, and local author David Korinetz will be sharing a live reading during its launch on Nov. 7 and 8 at the Make It! Okanagan Christmas Craft and Sustainable Living Faire at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre.
In emulating the allure of his favourite fantasy novelists, Korinetz said he takes a down to earth approach, despite how the Chronicles of the Daemon Knights fantasy series are set on another planet.
“It’s a planet like Earth, it has oxygen, one moon, it could be anywhere in the galaxy,” he said. But since the novel is set on a fictional planet, “I can change the rules, and you have to have rules.”
And in creating his own world, he found relief in not having to worry about historical or geographic inaccuracies. As a former aerospace technician however, Korinetz is able to develop harrowing creatures with a convincing amount of accuracy.
“That job helped me a lot on the technical side,” he said.
Like J.K. Rowling, Korinetz writes to appease the patience of younger readers and avoids long descriptions. As he was developing his writing in preparation to become an author in the early 2000s, he wanted to figure out how she found so much success.
“There’s rarely a dull moment – she doesn’t bore readers with too much detail,” he said.
In his first book, FireDrakes, making use of hollow carbon scales, “their weight-to-wingspan makes sense that they could fly.”
Korinetz said a reader will find it helpful to have read the first three books in the series, “But I’ve tried to write it in such a way that you’ve got enough information so that you won’t feel lost.”
The plot of Warlock expands upon the same characters from the previous books, though their adventure has brought them to a new continent. Now that Korinetz is four books deep into the series, he’s gone deeper into exploring characters whose roles were previously minor.
“My stories are very character-driven, you’re getting to know them better with each book.”
Korinetz said he wasn’t sure how deep he would dive into his imagination after the publication of his first book in the series, FireDrakes (2007), which could have ended up as a stand-alone story had his readers not demanded more. To publish a trilogy, he began preparing for two more books, Sorcerus (2009) and Halfling (2011), which he was able to release in intervals of two years.
Warlock has been written as the first installation of his second trilogy, and he said any subsequent ideas for novels will be formulated as trilogies as well.
“I always leave little threads I can pick up on.”
He couldn’t fit all of the ideas from his 10,000-word outline into Warlock, so he’ll be taking some of those themes into the next novel.
Korinetz will be reading from Warlock at MakeIt at 2 p.m. on both days. Plans to launch Warlock last month were pushed back after a fire damaged Hooked on Books in Penticton, where he originally hoped to host the debut.
