The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (112 page)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Dear Reader,

You have just finished
The Last Hunter – Collected Edition
, a story that is close to my heart, and hopefully, now close to yours. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and that you will come back for more adventures. I have plenty of other novels to entertain you before our hopeful, eventual, return to the realm of Antarktos. If you did enjoy the book, please show your support by posting a review online. Most online stores work on algorithms, meaning the more people review my books, the more those stores will recommend them to other readers. And the more people buy my books, the more I get to write them, which is a good thing for both of us (assuming you enjoyed the book). If you’d like to read more books in the Antarktos universe, be sure to say so in your review. Unlike other authors, I read every single one, and I pay attention to them. So head online and tell the world what you thought of this book.

To thank you for purchasing
The Last Hunter – Collected Edition
, I have included an exclusive short story, “The Children of Antarktos”, which creates the possibility for future Antarktos novels. I’ve also included an interview featuring questions from fans of the series. Thank you!

—Jeremy Robinson

www.jeremyrobinsononline.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH

JEREMY ROBINSON

What was your inspiration for
The Antarktos Saga
?

My inspiration for the
Saga
was actually my previously written novel
Antarktos Rising
, which parallels Book 3,
Ascent
. I created the world of Antarktos for that novel, and I decided I hadn’t explored it nearly enough. There was a whole civilization and thousands of years of history still to explore, not to mention the entire Antarctic continent and all the strange creatures that lived there. If we step back in time to when I first wrote
Antarktos Rising
, my initial inspiration was from the Biblical Nephilim. That these giants, who are recorded in many cultures worldwide, might have existed, is what initially captured my imagination. That they might
still
exist is what fueled my creative fires for
Antarktos Rising
, and subsequently for the entire
Antarktos Saga
and four years of writing. What would half-human, half-demon giants be like? What would they want? And more than that, where would such beings hide for thousands of years? The answers to those questions became
Antarktos Rising
and
The Antarktos Saga
.

The character of Solomon Ull Vincent seems so well rounded and real. How did you develop his personality and unique voice?

Solomon is based on two people I know very well. His childhood, growing up in the 70s and 80s, and living in New England, is basically me. The volcano he got for his birthday, drawing while watching Saturday morning cartoons, the root beer and pepperoni pizza party, even the layout of his house, are all straight out of my childhood. But his look and personality are based on the original Solomon, my son, who has the same hair, physique and intensity as Solomon in the story—well, he’s seven right now, so more like Luca. But most importantly, the fictional Solomon’s personality—his compassion, gentleness, curiosity and his capacity for forgiveness—is based on my son, who is the perfect example of those attributes. I started writing
The Antarktos Saga
when he was four, and I thought those parts of his personality might fade with age, but he’s even more gentle and compassionate now that he’s seven. So when I write Solomon Ull Vincent, it is very easy to get inside his head. In a very real way, he’s inside my head, and I’m probably a better person for it. He’s a good guy. I can only hope I’ll be as good.

The story draws from a lot of different source materials—the Bible, ancient mythology and modern conspiracy theories to name a few. What led to this strange amalgamation?

It’s not as strange as one might think. It was merely a process of connecting the dots. If we assume the Nephilim are real (which many people do) then we have to consider what they are. Not only are they described as giants, but they also sometimes have animal traits. This very quickly brings to mind humanity’s most ancient myths, where demigods—strange creatures and gods who mate with human women—are common. All of mankind’s ancient myths are very easily explained if the Nephilim are real, all the way back to the ancient Sumerians, who have their own Nephilim legends. Taking the description of the Nephilim and looking at cultures around the world, two things became apparent. There are recorded encounters with giants in nearly every culture on Earth. Similarly, those cultures also have global flood myths, which very nearly wiped the Nephilim out. But, as the Bible records, “there were Nephilim on the Earth in those days, and
also afterward
.”

Now we move to the modern day, and if we ignore Bigfoot sightings, what kind of Nephilim presence could there be? To answer that question, we have to consider what the Nephilim of history were doing. Primarily, they were screwing around with genetics, creating twisted variants of humans and animals through the supernatural manipulation of our genes. Who else does that? Greys. The so called “aliens” that kidnap people in the night and take samples for genetic manipulation. They might not be described as giants, but a species can change a lot over several thousands of years, and as I propose in
The Antarktos Saga
, it’s possible that there are simply different classes with different specialties—something that we also saw in
The Man of Steel
, the most recent incarnation of Superman. Story concepts, for me, are all about connecting dots no one even knew existed. If you have an open mind, it’s possible to find connections between what, on the surface, feel like very disparate topics.

Question from Mike Pastore: How difficult was it to seam the adventures together, like mentioning something briefly in
Antarktos Rising
, then going into great description of the event in
The Last Hunter
?

I was terrified when I began
The Last Hunter – Descent
that I would totally space out on the details and screw up the continuity of both books. But I don’t think that happened once, not even in a minor way. Antarktos Rising has always been one of my favorite books (of mine), and the story and characters were still very much alive in my head when writing the
Saga
. The general rule of thumb was that nothing in the
Saga
could contradict
Antarktos Rising
, since AR was already published. But there was also a lot in
Antarktos Rising
that was unseen, including most of the Nephilim subterranean world. Also, until the end of Book 3, when the stories converge, there wasn’t too much to worry about. But the end of Book 3 and the beginning of Book 4 were the trickiest parts. In some ways, I think the stories were always meant to be together. When I started
Descent
, I had no idea that the crustal displacement in
Antarktos Rising
would be caused by Solomon’s powers, but when I started writing that scene, it was like it had always been there. Really, it all just fell into place. Let’s just call it divine inspiration... Man, I really want to put a smiley face after that, but this isn’t Facebook!

Question from Jim Cobb: When you were writing AR, did you already have the longer saga in mind or did that develop later?

I wrote
Antarktos Rising
in 2005, and I didn’t write the first
Antarktos Saga
book until 2010, so there was a five year gap between the writing. During that time, I had no idea I would be expanding the Antarktos world. Really, it kind of just came to me one day—this intense feeling that I would really like to explore the subterranean realm of Antarktos. It started with me daydreaming what the underworld would look like, and what would live there. But it was the realization that my son, Solomon, with his kind heart, heroic ways and gnarly long hair would fit right into the Antarktos world that really pushed me to write the
Saga
. Happily,
Antarktos Rising
was already set up to be continued, so once I finished the first two books of the
Saga
, they zippered together nicely.

Question from Connor James: Can we please get more books set in the Antarktos Universe?

While I haven’t completely dismissed this idea, I’m not yet planning on it either. That said, it’s entirely possible that we could either get more books about Solomon, as King of Antarktos, rooting out the remaining Nephilim around the world. Or we could introduce more characters. But if you really need a little more Solomon, check out my novella,
I am Cowboy
, which is a spinoff of my novel,
SecondWorld
. There’s a little something extra in the book that is making
The Last Hunter
fans very happy.

Question from Cherei McCarter: Did the scientific group that drilled through to the deep lake mess with your stories at all?

Because
The Antarktos Saga
is largely fantasy, there was never really a chance that anything they discovered in Antarctica could hurt the story (though they could confirm parts of it!). They’re just lucky the crustal displacement didn’t happen while they were drilling through the ice. The one story of mine it does mess with a bit, is
Beneath
, which starts out at Lake Vostok, in Antarctica. The characters are preparing to melt through the ice in search of extremophile microbes. So, really, I predicted the future accurately (
Beneath
was first written in 1995). I just got the date wrong.

Question from Jenn Turkette: There are a few characters in
Antarktos Rising
, like Kat Farrell, that also appear in
The Last Hunter
books, so when you wrote
Antarktos Rising
, did you already have the plot ideas for the other books already in your mind?

Nope! Other than (spoiler alert for those who have not yet read
Antarktos Rising
) Kat surviving the end of the book, I had no specific idea about what the future held for her. I wrote her apparent demise vaguely on purpose, because I knew I wanted to someday write a sequel, but I had no idea it would turn out to be a five book epic in which she would become a major character. This is true for Wright, Aimee, Merrill and Mirabelle.

Question from Kyle Mohr: Out of all the Origins Edition stories, what made you choose
Antarktos Rising
to expand?

For those who don’t know, the Origins Edition stories are what I, and many fans, call my first five novels. They are, in chronological order,
The Didymus Contingency
,
Raising the Past
,
Beneath
,
Antarktos Rising
and
Kronos
. All five of them were self-published, and they effectively launched my career. They are my literary origins.

As for the question, I think it’s because the world created for
Antarktos Rising
was so vast and unexplored by the end of the book, that I never stopped thinking about what else could be there. I was, and still am, tempted to write sequels for the other Origins books, but none of them would become the five-book epic story that is
The Antarktos Saga
. There just isn’t a big enough world to explore, whereas, with Antarktos, the potential for stories are essentially limitless.

Question from Cherei McCarter: Do you believe Nephilim ever existed? And if so, why haven’t we found REAL proof of their existence?

In fact, I do. Beyond the fact that I trust the Bible as an accurate historical document, there is a lot of historical evidence for giants outside of the Bible—in the Book of Enoch and in the recorded history of most cultures around the world. If you consider the detailed descriptions of the Nephilim in the Bible and the Book of Enoch, and apply it to other myths, they fall into place. Now, I can’t say for certain whether Hercules was an actual living man, and that he was a Nephilim. I’m just saying it fits. And I believe, whatever they looked like (or still look like), the Nephilim are real. Do they look like the creatures I’ve conjured for
The Antarktos Sag
a? Very unlikely. I kind of went nuts, with the exception of Thinkers and Seekers, the Nephilim races I based on two of the most commonly reported creatures associated with the modern “alien” abduction phenomenon. So, yeah, I’m a weirdo.

Question from Mike Pastore: Is a cataclysmic event of the magnitude that started
Antarktos Rising
an actual possibility or just scientific data manipulated for the storyline?