The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

Question from Steve Webster: Did you have all your ideas for the entire series (including creature design) or did bits fall into place while you were writing mid series?

Well, the Nephilim had been created for Antarktos Rising already, as were the cresties (Crylophosaurus). I can’t take credit for the cresties, though, since their fossils have actually been found on Antarctica. For the most part, I created the creatures living in Antarktos’s subterranean realm as I wrote. That’s generally the way I write my stories too. It all just kind of comes to me, either as I write, or while I’m daydreaming in the shower, or in bed. I don’t go through drafts of creatures, they just kind of spill from my subconscious, which is great fun, but also a little freaky. Where does all this dark stuff come from, anyway?



Question from Jim Williams: What ever happened to the Antarktos Rising movie?

Well, that’s something both of us would like to know! For those that haven’t heard about this, the mass market paperback of Antarktos Rising was published with a “Soon to be a major motion picture” star on the front cover, with basic info about the project at the back of the book. I’ve always felt horrible about including that on the cover, but I was assured on several occasions that the movie had been given the green light and that I should have no fear about announcing it on the book cover. Clearly, that was incorrect. The way I understand it, everything was going great, and the movie was about to start production. Then the banks went nuts, the economy tanked and all of the investors, whose other money was suddenly at risk, pulled out. Antarktos, along with a few other films, were dropped.



Question from Kyle Mohr: How much research did you have to do to ensure the accuracy of the story (from the archaeology, geography and military tactics) stayed in place? And also, how did you manage to make sure the story stayed realistic without muddling it up with monotonous detail?

I did research throughout the book, as I wrote it, but only when it made sense. While the series takes place in the modern world and is based on recorded history, a large part of it is fantasy. So while I researched things like Crylophosaurs, crustal displacement, Sumerian gods, McMurdo Base, and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis’s life (yeah, Ninnis was real guy!) I was also free to create most of the subterranean realm straight out of my head. Even the topography. Most of Antarctica is still covered in snow and ice. Who know what could be beneath it! In terms of realism versus boring detail, I think this is something I’ve worked on over the course of my writing career, not just for the Antarktos Saga. But it has never been a case of cutting detail for me, it’s remembering to add detail. I have to remember that the reader can’t see what’s in my head. At the same time, I’m very careful to not go into too much detail. I’m conscious of my own short attention span, but I also want to give the reader some imaginative freedom. I think my job is to lay down the blueprints and give the reader freedom to fill in the details, based on the limited suggestions provided by me. I think most readers prefer this, and it keeps the story moving at the pace I like best: fast.





BONUS SHORT STORY

Introduction

At the end of The Antarktos Saga, we’re treated to a look at the future, where Solomon is King, characters have passed away, Kainda is a mother and Ninnis is received as a hero. This all takes place twenty years after Nephil’s demise and leaves a large window of time in which to tell more stories about Solomon, Kainda, and other characters of Antarktos, as they build a new world, raise and train children hunters, and scour the underworld for Nephilim in hiding. This story takes place fifteen years after the end of Onslaught and introduces some fun new characters as well as visiting an old friend, while creating the possibility for future adventures in the Antarktos realm. I hope you enjoy The Children of Antarktos, a short story, which is only available in this collected edition.





—JR





THE CHILDREN OF

ANTARKTOS



The air is thick and clingy, like a hot summer day in my home state of Maine, if it weren’t now just a frozen wasteland. But it’s not July, August or even September. It’s November. Here on Antarktos, there are no fallen leaves to rake, no turkeys to baste and no pilgrims to remember. We’re tropical, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Fifteen years ago, Antarctica was still at the South Pole, covered in ice. Fifteen years ago, the world still made sense.