BOOK TITLE: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice:
book two of The Merlin Chronicles
AUTHOR:Daniel Diehl
RELEASE DATE: May 2014
BOOK GENRE: Fantasy/ Urban Fantasy/ Adventure
DESCRIPTION OF BOOK (1):
After being accidentally thrown into the modern world of the 21st century the wizard Merlin teams up with archaeology student Jason Carpenter to aid him in his battle against the evil sorceress Morgana le Fay. In this second book of The Merlin Chronicles, Merlin braves the mysterious depths of Morgana’s underground lair in search of the alien device with which she communicates with the Dragon Lords.
Meanwhile, Jason is forced to battle his way across war-torn central Africa in search of a legendary gem that holds the key to closing the dragon gate forever. When Merlin is captured by Morgana’s thugs, Jason and his friend, Beverley McCullough, must risk their lives and the future of mankind in a desperate effort to save their friend.
Jason Carpenter, American archaeology student, inadvertently discovered a fifteen hundred year old crystal sphere in which the legendary wizard, Merlin, had been hiding from the wiles of the evil Morgana LeFay. According to Merlin’s unlikely explanation, ever since she attempted to seize control of Camelot from her half-brother, Arthur, LeFay had been plotting to overrun the world with the aid of an army of dragons. Book two of the Chronicles of Merlin picks up the tale immediately after Merlin and Jason’s return from Mongolia where they have killed their nemesis’ pet dragon and put her nefarious and corrupt international conglomerate temporarily out of commission.
Upon the pair’s return to England they strive to unravel the riddle of an ancient Gnostic gospel presented to them by the monks of a Buddhist monastery. The answer to the riddle sets them off on another quest, wherein they hope to find the means of destroying Morgana and the Dragon Lords once and for all, sealing the scaly legions permanently inside whatever dark dimension they hail from.
For the first time since the beginning of book one, the team of student and wizard split up, Merlin hot on the trail of the communications device by which Morgana has remained in contact with her evil allies for a millennia-and-a-half, and Jason searching through the Coptic churches of Ethiopia to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. According to Biblical legend, the Ark holds two precious stones once used by Hebrew high priests to divine the difference between good and evil; if Merlin’s theory is correct, these same stones, the Urim and Thumim, also hold the key to sealing the portal used by the Dragon Lords and their armies when they destroyed Arthur’s Camelot and which they intend to open again in an attempt to overwhelm the world and place Morgana in power as their regent.
While Jason is hot on the trail of the ancient, Holy Ark, Merlin and Jason’s girlfriend, Beverly McCollough, follow Morgana to a cave used in the eighteenth century by the degenerate Sir Francis Dashwood and his Hellfire Club, a cave now owned by Morgana and used as the new center of her communications network. While attempting to steal the massive golden disk through which LeFay stays in contact with the Dragon Lords – and which Jason has now realized is a missing piece of the Ark of the Covenant – the wily old wizard becomes Morgana’s prisoner, but buys enough time for Beverley to escape with the disk which she must get to Ethiopia - and Jason - if he is to open the Ark and find the magical Urim and Thumim.
Hearing of Merlin’s plight, and Beverley’s treasure, Jason hurries back to England where he and Beverley mount a rescue mission to save Merlin, and the world, from Morgana and the dragons. Although their mission succeeds, the cost is one which our heroes, and the readers, little expect. In his attempt to save Jason and Beverley from being captured by Morgana’s guards, Merlin pushes the sorceress through the now-open portal and into the dragons’ realm, but is pulled through with her. When the door closes behind them, one of the magic stones, previously placed in the lock by Jason, seals it forever, trapping not only the dragons and Morgana, but also Merlin, inside - apparently for all time. In this classic cliff-hanger ending, the fate of the world’s most famous and beloved wizard is left undecided…at least until the third - and presumably final - volume of the trilogy.
DESCRIPTION OF BOOK (2): (Alternate content, please.)
After being accidentally thrown into the modern world of the 21st century the wizard Merlin teams up with archaeology student Jason Carpenter to aid him in his battle against the evil sorcerous Morgana le Fay. In this second book of The Merlin Chronicles, Merlin braves the mysterious depths of Morgana’s underground lair in search of the alien device with which she communicates with the Dragon Lords. Meanwhile, Jason is forced to battle his way across war-torn central Africa in search of a legendary gem that holds the key to closing the dragon gate forever. When Merlin is captured by Morgana’s thugs, Jason and his friend, Beverley McCullough, must risk their lives and the future of mankind in a desperate effort to save their friend.
The Buzz
* This modern-day battle between ancient rivals made it impossible for me to put this book down. ~ Hippie Bookworm.com
* OMG what a book!! I have never wanted to slap a book character as much as i wanted to slap Morgana Le Fay – she is a brilliant baddie . I was gripped from the start and can't wait for MORE. This is bloody awesome!! ~Nicola @ OrchardBookClub.com
* If you like history, legend, myth and Merlin... you are going to love this book. It's magical, just like Merlin. ~ Lillian @ Ask David.com
* We made great strides in the first novel but the promise of the next is staggering. The storyline is wildly creative [and] Morgana le Fay is a brilliant baddie. ~ Rabidreaders.com
* If you like history, legend, myth and Merlin... you are going to love this book. It's magical, just like Merlin. ~ Lillian @ Ask David.com
Author Bio.
Daniel Diehl has been a full-time writer, author and lecturer since 1995. He has written twenty historical based, non-fiction books whose subjects range from medieval warfare to cannibalism and from inventions to pirates. His current book is a fantasy novel, “Revelations: book one of the Merlin Chronicles”. The second book in the Merlin trilogy, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” will be released by GMTA/Mythos Publishing in May 2014.
Hard Fact to Fantasy: An Author’s Journey by Daniel Diehl
Lord Byron once wrote "I hate things all fiction...there should always be some foundation of fact". As a writer who spent two decades churning out twenty non-fiction books and more than 170 hours of documentary television scripts I know a fair amount about the ‘foundation of fact’ part of His Lordship’s statement. For the non-fiction writer, research is a way of life. But it was only when I began writing fantasy that I learned that a factual foundation is one of the best allies a writer of fiction could ask for.
My recently released book “Revelations: book one of The Merlin Chronicles” (GMTA/Mythos) is a marvelous case in point. The basic plot line – which brings Merlin the magician into the twenty-first century – is about as far removed from anything factual as you can get, but the vast majority of people and places which appear in the story are based on real (or at least well established) locations and individuals and, as such, required a substantial amount of background research.
The locations part was easy. Much of the early story takes place in the city of York, England and since I lived near York for nearly a decade I knew the old, medieval city pretty well. A map and the occasional trip to Google filled in the blank spots. Similarly, locations as far flung as the Russian/ Chinese border and the Mongolian wastes of the Gobi Desert were pretty easy to research. This information provided me with the physical landscape against which my fictional characters would play-out their make believe adventures. It was only when I started researching the characters and things got a little weird.
My twenty-first century characters are, as fictional characters tend to be, conglomerates of characteristics taken from real people. This part was easy – no research necessary. Among the remaining characters, one is based loosely on Sax Rohmer’s marvelously evil character Dr Fu Manchu and another was the gloriously wicked sorceress (and half-sister to King Arthur) Morgana le Fay. Ms Le Fay, like many Arthurian characters, was created by the twelfth century Welsh cleric Geoffrey on Monmouth in his Vita Merlini, written about 1150. Then I started working on Merlin who, I assumed, was also a complete fiction based on ancient Welsh sagas and expanded on by everyone from Monmouth to Roger Zelazny. I mean, how many wizards are there in the historical record?
Exercising the same frantic research methods I used during decades of non-fiction research, I came to learn that Merlin the magician – that most implausible of characters – was actually based on at least one, possibly two, very real people and it is on one of these - Myrddin Emrys ap Morfryn - that I based my own character. Although I researched the Merlin character extensively online my best information came the old fashioned way: out of hardcopy books. Particularly important were ‘The Quest for Merlin’ by Nikolai Tolstoy and ‘Chasing Merlin’ by Sarah White.
So what did I learn about Merlin and how did it help me to create a believable fantasy character? The real Merlin, like my character, was Welch. He lived roughly between 480 and 570 A.D. and he was either a Christian monk or a priest or one of the last of the ancient Celtic holy men known as druids.
It would seem that he attended a battle to give spiritual support to his liege lord and that the sight of the slaughter drove him mad. What, precisely, he raved about as he wandered through Wales, northwestern England and southwestern Scotland is unknown but villagers were frightened by this half wild man and drove him off in a hail of sticks and stones, calling him Myrddin Wyllt, meaning Merlin the wild. Supposedly, in his madness, Merlin gained the ability to ‘see’ or make prophecies and the belief in his power to foretell the future brought him to the attention of many people in high places.
Whatever it was that the old man was raving about it seems to have hit too close to home for a petty Scottish war lord named Rhydderich Hael (translated as Roderick the Generous, which he obviously was not) because it appears that Hael ordered the old man’s murder.
There are numerous surviving, prophetic writings supposedly uttered by Merlin but there is scant evidence to support these claims. But that’s ok. The vast amount of sound research into the origins of Merlin gave me the foundation I needed to make him live again as a fully rounded human being with roots deep in historical fact – and a solid basis in fact always makes fiction a lot more believable.
Approaching the Writer’s Craft and the Fantasy Novel
People have been led to believe that writing – as opposed to almost any other profession with the possible exception of painting pictures – is somehow magical. According to most sources – most of which are my fellow writers – writing is ‘inspired’, it takes endless amounts of time (possibly augmented with alcohol, pot, insanity, or some other outside stimuli) to ‘get in the mood’ or to ‘be inspired’. Playwright George Bernard Shaw once said of the Victorian romantic poet, Algernon Swinburn, “Algernon could only write once he had found his muse; unfortunately Algernon’s muse lived at the bottom of the second bottle of port”. Seriously, folks, this is all a lot of propaganda put out by writers to make their job look somehow magical.
There is nothing magical about writing. Being a writer is a job just like any other skilled trade or profession; you have learn your craft through a lot of study and hard work and you have to practice for years to get it right. Obviously it helps if you have a real flair for storytelling, in the same way that the difference between being a good cook and a great chef is having a built-in affinity for creative cooking. But both the competent cook and the great chef had to start out learning how to boil water.
If writing is not magical it is certainly mythical – at least in the way non-writers seem to imagine it. People think writers can work when they want, take endless vacations lying under palm trees and drinking tall, cool Cervesa beer. Wrong. Writing is done in private and if you are not a self-starter who can spend days and weeks on end shut off from the world you will never be a serious writer.
Writing is lonely, generally badly paid and most people who know them think writers are more than a little ‘weird’, but the fact is I write because I love writing. I enjoy writing more than I enjoy anything else I have ever done. Where else can you invent a world, or an entire reality, of your own choosing and then sculpt it and mold it – along with all of the people in it - into whatever shape you want? The only other place I am aware of that you can shape your own reality is during a psychotic break from reality and while writing probably won’t ever make me rich it does pay a lot better than insanity.
While writing is a serious undertaking, the writer’s work need not be serious in tone – indeed, if you are writing fantasy it is my humble opinion that your characters should never take themselves too seriously. The characters in a fantasy novel probably don’t have much to say that is really important to life in general, so they need to have the capacity to laugh at themselves and the absurdity of their world. At least, that is my view of fantasy literature.
I am not going to name names of those who suffer from the malady of over-serious fantasies, because that would look like sour grapes, but in my humble opinion any writer who dips into the vast and fun-filled well of fantasy and can’t find a few jokes has probably had their funny bone surgically removed. Fantasy is GREAT. It is just designed to poke fun at itself and the whole real world on which it is based. I think my three favorite living fantasy novelists are Terry Pratchett, author of endless dozens of DiscWorld novels, and the less known but just as weird Christopher Moore, author of such mind bending wonders as ‘Practical Demonkeeping’ and ‘Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove’ and Malcolm Pryce author of some of the weirdest Welsh fantasies ever to crawl out of a human mind. These guys, along with dozens of other contemporary fantasy writers, really know how to have fun.
I have tried to bring this sense of fun to my latest novel ‘Revelations: book one of The Merlin Chronicles’. Sure, there are times of serious peril, desperate situations, more adventure than you can shake a stick at; and in the person of Morgana leFay we have a wonderfully vile baddy that you will just love to hate; but more than anything this is a book about having fun. Real life, particularly in today’s politically, economically and environmentally uncertain world doesn’t offer a lot of chuckles so we all need somewhere to hide from the ugliness and enjoy a ripping good yarn with a few good laughs. Today’s prescription to overcome reality-induced melancholy: Read two chapters of ‘Revelations: book one of The Merlin Chronicles’ tonight and call me in the morning.
Which Merlin is this?
Students in one of my writing classes asked me if any of the characters in the Arthurian romances were based on real people. While the standard answer is ‘maybe, but we just don’t know’ there is really a lot more to it than that.
Arthur himself may or may not, be based on any one or more people, and others like his adulterous wife, Guinevere, and his numerous knights are certainly fictitious the most implausible of all, Merlin, was actually a very real person and it is on this man that I based my Merlin. Much frustratingly incomplete work on tracking down the historical Merlin has been done but, briefly, this is pretty much what we know.
The real Merlin, like my character, was of Welch origin, was named Myrddin Emrys ap Morfryn (Myrddin, or Merlin, translating as Eagle), lived roughly between 480 and 570 A.D. and he was either a Christian monk or a priest. Among the verifiable historical characters that he seems to have known was the Saxon warlord known as King Vortigern, whom we will meet in the second book of the Merlin Chronicles. Merlin would have been just a boy when he encountered Vortigern sometime around 490 – 510 A.D.
It seems that, like my own Merlin, he attended a battle to give spiritual support to his liege lord and that the sight of the slaughter drove him mad. What, precisely, he raved about as he wandered through Wales, northwestern England and southwestern Scotland is unknown but, like our own Merlin, villagers were frightened by this half wild man and drove him off in a hail of sticks and stones and calling him Myrddin Wyllt, meaning Merlin the wild. Supposedly, in his madness, Merlin had gained the ability to ‘see’ or make prophecies and the belief in his power to fortell the future brought him to the attention of many in high places.
Whatever it was that the old man was raving about it seems to have hit too close to home for a petty war lord named Rhydderich Hael (translated as Roderick the Generous, which he obviously was not). Hael fancied himself king of Strathclyde and kept his ‘castle’ – actually a fortified hill fort – at what is now Dunbarton, Scotland and seems to have been, at one point, a friend of Merlins, possibly inviting him to court as an advisor. What Merlin might have said, or why it upset Hael, we will never know but there is some surviving evidence that Hael ordered the old man’s murder which took place near the mouth of a Strathclyde river at the point where it emerged from an underground cave.
There are still numerous writings which purport to have been executed by Merlin but unfortunately there is scant evidence to support these claims. But the historical Merlin retains deep roots in his homeland of Wales. The oldest inhabited town in Wales is named Carmarthen, which is a corruption of two words; the first being ‘caer’ often used to mean castle but actually translating as ‘place of refuge’. The second part of Carmarthen came from, as you may have guessed, Myrddin. Hence, Carmarthen literally means Merlin’s place of refuge.
To learn more about the real Merlin I recommend the following two books in the order they are presented ‘The Quest for Merlin’ by Nikolai Tolstoy and ‘Chasing Merlin’ by Sarah White.
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