The Questioning is where everything gets upside down. As part of my blogiversary celebration, I invited 10 authors and 10 bloggers/reviewers who showed great support during my first year as a blogger. Then I pushed them waaaaay out of the comfort zones. Authors had become interrogators and Bloggers got interrogated. Rest assured, no one got hurt (much) and everyone had fun (eventually). You can find every related post on The Questioning page!
Ben Galley is an author of dark and epic fantasy books who currently hails from Victoria, Canada. Since publishing his bestselling debut The Written in 2010, Ben has released a range of award-winning fantasy novels, including the weird western Bloodrush and the epic standalone The Heart of Stone. He is also the author of the brand new Chasing Graves Trilogy. When he isn’t conjuring up strange new stories, Ben works as a self-publishing consultant, helping fellow authors from around the world to publish their books. Ben enjoys exploring the Canadian wilds and sipping Scotch single malts, and will forever and always play a dark elf in The Elder Scrolls. One day he hopes to live in an epic treehouse in the mountains. Ben can be found on Twitter or vlogging on YouTube @BenGalley, or loitering on Facebook and Instagram @BenGalleyAuthor. You can also get a free eBook copy of his epic fantasy The Written at www.bengalley.com.
Would you rather be able to summon an army of rats or an army of pigeons?
I’d go with the pigeons for various reasons. I’m not really a fan of rats for one. Pigeons, however can be pretty handy: they can fly so you don’t need to keep them in place, you only need some ropes to tether them so they won’t escape – saves place and supply. They can be trained to be messengers, so you don’t need to waste people on that. They have beaks and claws, when it comes to fighting they can wreak some havoc. Imagine for example that they attack some poor bugger and claw their eyes out. Not pretty, is it? But damn effective. When things get worse and supplies are low, as last resort you can cook them – I imagine they taste better than rats.
How much work does it take to run a successful blog?
I don’t know, ask me when I’ll be successful. 🙂
The short answer? Shitload. Let’s put it this way: I spend more time running this blog than with my day job. I’m practically paid to play around with blogging (the poor bastard who tells this back to my boss will find themselves about six feet under the earth, or alternatively paying my monthly wages. Whichever you prefer). Seriously though, it’s a pretty time consuming hobby and I wouldn’t be sorry if I could do this full time as I find myself struggling with keeping up sometimes.
Which books are you most excited about this year?
Let’s see, from the top of my head (the list is most probably not complete):
Anything Benedict Patrick has in store for us
the second book of the Raincatcher’s Ballad by Steven McKinnon
We Lie With Death by Devin Madson
Ioth, City of Lights by D.P. Woolliscroft
Priest of Lies by Peter McLean (though I still have to read Priest of Bones)
War of Gods by Dyrk Ashton
Pilgrim’s Storm Brooding by Damien Black.
Favourite childhood book/s?
Oh I love this question! I LOVED fairy tales for starters, which prompted me to learn to read when I was 3 years old. But the first book I remember carrying around and reading about a hundred times is a Hungarian classic, titled Vuk by István Fekete. It’s the story of a fox puppy who becomes an orphan after his family is killed by hunters. It was made into an animated movie as well and is still one of my favourites. I remember bringing this book with me to kindergarten more than a few times. Later I discovered historical fiction and during the first few years of elementary school I’ve fallen in love with The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas as well as Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Géza Gárdonyi. The latter is set during the siege of Eger in 1552. I’ve read both books quite a few times.
You suddenly realise you can teleport, where do you go first?
Oh geez, I could go so many ways with this question. Should I be funny? I would go to where I could find my future boyfriend, lol. Should I be a good fantasy book blogger? I would go to where I could get all the books I want. Should I be a good music addict? I would go to see my favorite band. Or should I be serious? I would start with Tokyo, Japan. I’ve been wanting to visit that country for a while now. From there a world trip, visiting many friends and places.
Would you visit Middle-Earth or the Wizarding World?
Wizarding World. I was late joining the Harry Potter fandom, but I totally would visit that world if I could. The closest I got was the Harry Potter studio tour in the UK last February. And I have pictures to prove it! I give you a few out of about a 100 I made, lol.
Do you prefer paperbacks, ebooks or audiobooks?
I read ebooks mostly – much easier to come across here in the middle of nowhere, I can carry my kindle wherever full of awesome books without weighing down my bag, easier to read it during lunch. But of course it could never replace the paperbacks lining my shelves. Alas, as a non US/UK blogger, getting awesome paperbacks has a much lesser chance than getting ebooks. They are more convenient for me, but what booklover doesn’t love paperbacks? As for audiobooks, they can come in handy every once in a while, but I have troubles stopping my mind wandering away. I need to do something like coloring, or doing some boring job so I can occupy half of my mind. Also listening to books in English needs a little bit more focus from me.
If you could share a pizza with any fictional character, who would it be?
Either Biff from Lamb by Christopher Moore or Daniel Faust from the Daniel Faust series by Craig Schaefer. They both have good humor so we would definitely have fun. Biff and me would talk about religion and his and Jesus’ travels along half the world. With Daniel… I think we would wreak some havoc in Vegas after finishing that pizza 😀
What’s your favourite and least favourite fantasy tropes?
Uh oh, this is a hard question. Least favourite is probably traveling. I think one of the reasons I’m getting tired of epic fantasy is that a lot of books has traveling in some form. Now, this is fine, you need to get from one place to the next but I think it’s really hard to pull it off to be interesting. Sure, some danger always lurks and you need to insert enough action to keep it going, but it can be overdone. When practically nothing happens for hundreds of pages except the characters looking at the landscape… meh. As for favourite, let’s see. Can I go with magic? Does that count? The good thing about magic is that it can have countless forms, and it’s really just up to one’s imagination how it is used.
You get to have a familiar. What creature is it, either real or mythical?
A pixie. I want to have my own fairy, but in a male version. A kick ass rockstar fairy, hmm. I would totally love that.
If you’d like to get in contact with Ben Galley, you can find him on social media:
Ben Galley just released the third book, Breaking Chaos in his Chasing Graves trilogy. Check out all three books! Book 1, Chasing Graves (my review is here) is now on sale for 0.99$!
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