How a Historian Writes Fantasy

Years before I even set pen to paper as a writer, I spent many a weekend with my maternal grandfather, Jerome Kaczorowski. While my paternal grandfather introduced me to the Titanic and ignited the researcher within me, it was Grandad who shared with pride his experiences during World War Two. During the depression, he signed up to enlist with his two best friends with plans of staying together and going through boot. However, he got sick at the last minute and his deployment was delayed until he recovered. Just after the attack on Pearl Harbor he learned that both of his buddies were assigned to BB-39, the Battleship Arizona and in his words, “They’re both still on watch.”

Grandad vowed revenge against the Japanese forces that day and when his orders sent him to the Pacific front, he promised his fallen friends he’d give them hell for what happened. During the battle of Iron Bottom Sound at Guadalcanal, he’d earn the nickname of “Trigger happy Harry” because in the midst of the conflict, he chased a kamikaze with his AA gun. He pivoted his gun hard enough to rupture the bolt causing him to rotate a full 360 degrees which he then in turn shot off roughly fifteen feet of his own ship’s funnel!?He participated in the battle of Okinawa and many other major campaigns before arriving at Nagasaki forty eight hours after the A-bomb detonated where he took a picture of civilians in a daze standing on a broken road.

Each Memorial Day, we’d honor the fallen and like many times, Grandad would share the stories of the great ships he saw and served on. We’d hold a quiet ceremony on the anniversary of the attack itself and he’d reflect on times past. Grandad called Pearl before the fiftieth anniversary, he’d suffered the first of what would be eighteen strokes, and wanted to inquire about flying out to see the Arizona and pour a bottle of whiskey across the wreck for his brothers in arms. Being a federally protected vessel, the whiskey factor was not permitted.

Grandad never made it out to the island but, his emotions shifted after sharing with him the first stories of what would become The Chronicles of the Dragons Bane and discovering that one of the main characters I’d created for the story was based off of him.

Latarian is the King of the Landwellers with the head of a jackal and leather armor. In his younger years, he loses his closest friends during a failed raid and after burying them; he collects their fallen axes and creates a five bladed battle axe which he names Retribution.?Like any veteran, he leads by example but, his short temper causes him to act swift without calculating the strategy. ?Later in the story, he sacrifices himself to save his companions and asks his former foe turned ally to adopt his own child and raise the boy in his absence.

Between Grandad’s tales and my overall passion for history, this is a series I’m proudly shopping and sharing for those who enjoy epic fantasy after writing it for the past thirty one years.?