Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Saje Williams. Thanks for being here today and welcome to FAR!

Thanks, Tammy. I appreciate the opportunity to let the readers get to know me a little better.

What’s one thing you would like your readers to know about you?

I'm just getting started. You can expect a lot more from me in the coming years.

How's that? Sword and Shadow is the beginning of the second part of what I'm calling The Infinity Project...three connected series that span over 200 years and multiple versions of Earth.

If you could meet one of your characters, who one would it be?

Wow. That's quite a question. There are so many possible answers to that one. Raven, the hero of Sword and Shadow, would be fun, but a little scary too. He's a vampire and a mage, and has his own ways of doing things.

Another character who'd be interesting to meet would be Jaz, the Lady of Blades. She's one of those people you'd love to have as a friend, but would rather tow a Volkswagen across the English Channel than have as an enemy.

Or Loki, the male protagonist in my first novel, Loki's Sin, would be a blast. As long as I could trust him not to infect me with one of his experimental metaviruses. Being turned into a superhuman being would be cool, I suppose, but some of the other possible effects would be NO fun at all. I have no desire to become a troll, thank you very much.

Then there's Artificer. He specializes in creating items that merge technology and magic. Some of his gadgets would be great to have in your back pocket.

The list goes on and on. I'm not sure I could decide between them. I'd love to have the immortal tycoon, Deryk Shea, as a boss. As long as it was OUR Deryk Shea and not his doppelganger. The alternate Earth Deryk Shea who pops up in Sword and Shadow is NOT a nice guy.

From your website I learned that you rescue and train problem Shiba Inus. What is the hardest part of training these dogs?

Training may be a little bit of an exaggeration. Not to say they can't be trained, but they're fiercely independent and, unlike many dog breeds, don't feel any particular need to please humans. My own Shiba is a rarity in that regard. He actually likes people a lot more than he likes other dogs.

A lot of what we do is socialize them and get them to recognize humans not only as pack members, but as pack leaders. Shibas are a primitive breed, and that means they think more like wolves than your average domestic canine. Humans HAVE to establish themselves as alphas. Once they're able to do that, most of the battle is already won. A Shiba is much more comfortable if it knows and understands its place in the pack.

If someone is looking for a obedient, well-behaved dog, a Shiba isn't necessarily the best choice. They can be wonderful animals, but they have their own ideas of how things work, and can be pretty resistant to human preferences to the contrary.

Of all things you have accomplished, is there one accomplishment you are most proud of?

I decided I wanted to be an author when I was 10. Despite so much pressure from others that it was little more than a pipe dream, I refused to give up. I'm very proud of sticking by my guns and achieving that goal. And even more than that, I'm proud that I'm still learning and growing as a writer. And I'm also inordinately proud that my stuff is uniquely my own. I've never heard of anyone reading something I've written and saying "wow, that reminds me a lot of ________."

Can you tell us more about your book Sword and Shadow?

The metaverse is a big place. Unimaginably vast. Any version of Earth you can imagine probably exists somewhere out there. Places where Rome never fell, or where the South won the Civil War. Where dragons rule, and where creatures other than humans rose to ascendency. If you can imagine it, it probably exists out there somewhere.

A civilization exists that travels between these worlds and tries to establish some order, some rules to govern contact between the different Earths. Each of the Interworld Agencies have their own agenda, and they each employ a variety of different beings to further their goals throughout the metaverse.

They also keep an eye for agents of the deadly and voracious Cen Empire, a race of alien creatures that consume and destroy whole worlds in their never-ending hunger for technology and food.
The enigmatic vampire Raven is an agent of the Crimson Sash, which has dedicated itself to preventing the misuse of magic. He's assigned to a backwater Earth--one so distant from the one we know that none of the civilizations of our history ever existed. Other civilizations rose and fell, and others rose to take their place.

It's almost a perfect post for Raven, who takes it as a kind of semi-retirement after serving as a paranormal cop on Earth, then fighting the war against the Cen when they tried to invade his home. He's enjoying the easy life.

Then he finds a cache of advanced weapons. According to Sash's treaty with another agency, TAU, he is required to contact home base and report his find. TAU sends an agent to investigate--to find where these weapons came from and eliminate the source.

Valerie Winn is the agent they send. She's well-trained, but rather naive. TAU is pretty much the center of her universe, its rules the defining concepts of her life.
Until she meets Raven. Raven's not so big on rules. He believes that justice trumps rules, and sometimes rules get in the way of what's right.

They strike sparks in more ways than one as they find themselves embroiled in a battle to save not only that Earth, but many more besides.

What quality(ies) do you most admire in a person?

In a nutshell? Empathy, compassion, intelligence, and strength of character.

How important is research in your writing?

It depends on how much detail I need to get into regarding the pivot point in any particular world's history. If I'm taking the characters to a world in which Rome never became an empire and actually spread democracy, I need to know where that turning point might have been, and extrapolate how a world built upon its legacy might be different than our own.

How do you keep your ideas fresh and imaginative?

Sometimes I wish I knew how to turn my imagination off! LOL. Seriously, I don't know. The strangest things will provoke a storyline and I'll find myself contemplating how to put it into either a piece on which I'm currently working, or into a piece I have planned for the future.

If you had a chance to go to either the past or the future, which would you choose? Any particular year?

To visit? I'm not sure. It's funny, because time travel, in an odd way, does feature pretty prominently in some of my works. If you travel back in time, and do something significant, you can accidently spawn a whole new universe. It's one of the reasons the immortals banned time travel as being too dangerous. Creating whole worlds willy-nilly is just irresponsible.
That said, I'd have to say there's no particular time I'd like to visit. I'd love to take a tour through time and see various places and answer some of the burning historical questions like "how'd they REALLY build the pyramids?" and "Who shot JFK?"

Yeah, I'd use time travel to satisfy my curiosity. LOL.

What can your fans look forward to in the next twelve months from you?

Next month the second book in my Infinity: Earth series, Of Man and Monster, is due out from Wings ePress. It tells the story of a young man who faces a difficult choice and asks the question--what would you be willing to sacrifice to save the people you love?

Book III of the same series, Freak City is due out in December, also from Wings. It's an action-packed thrill ride of romance, adventure, and urban fantasy featuring a young werewolf, the young mage he's desperately in love with, and a street kid who has the potential to become the most powerful wielder of magic the Earth has ever known.

It is also possible that, sometime in the next twelve months, Inara will be publishing another serial of mine which is also the beginning of a series. It will be called Tales from the Magitech Lounge, and will feature a bar on a future version of Earth where strange characters meet and share their lives. Tales will be the first offering from my third series, called Infinity: Empire.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us today?

I LOVE to get feedback from readers. If someone reads something of mine and has any comments or questions, they're more than welcome to drop me a line. I'll happily answer e-mails at the earliest opportunity. Just use the link on my website.

I'd also like to point out that my Yahoo Group is a great place to read some of my unpublished work for free, as well as a place to get updates about upcoming releases and the chance to win free copies of various short stories and other works.

Thank you for taking time to speak with me today Saje.

Thanks, Tammy. It was fun.

As for the rest of you...be seeing you somewhere in Infinity. :)

Readers can visit Saje on his website.

Interviewed by: Tammy