{"id":4116,"date":"2017-08-25T11:29:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T11:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2017-08-25T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T11:31:58","slug":"interview-with-mercedes-lackey-by-crystalwizard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/industry-news\/interviews\/interview-with-mercedes-lackey-by-crystalwizard\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Mercedes Lackey, by CrystalWizard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Mercedes-Lackey-Author-Photo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4117\" src=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Mercedes-Lackey-Author-Photo-189x250.jpg\" alt=\"Mercedes Lackey Author Photo\" width=\"189\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Mercedes-Lackey-Author-Photo-189x250.jpg 189w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Mercedes-Lackey-Author-Photo.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 189px) 100vw, 189px\" \/><\/a>As you bring the Hunter story line to a close, are you feeling sad that it&#8217;s over or are you happy to have finished? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sad that it&#8217;s over.\u00a0 I really enjoyed doing this story, and it was a great change from my usual high-fantasy setting.\u00a0 Joy is a great character to be inside the head of, and I loved the Hounds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who is your least favorite character of this story line? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Abigail Drift.\u00a0 She&#8217;s an evil, manipulative psychopath, and smart, so it was very hard to trip her up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you could have dinner with any of your characters &#8211; either from this story line or some other &#8211; who would it be, what sort of dinner would you have, and who else would you invite?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d have dinner with Joy&#8217;s uncle; it would be casual, probably pasta and salad or pizza and salad, and I&#8217;d invite my husband (of course), Vickie Victrix and Red Djinni from\u00a0<em>Secret World Chronicles,<\/em>\u00a0Beatrix Leek from\u00a0<em>Study in Sable,<\/em>\u00a0and Mags and Amily from my Valdemar books.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do your characters ever argue with you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not so much anymore, as I&#8217;ve got a lot more experience in getting them right the first time, but at the beginning of my career, yes they did, a lot.\u00a0 Usually about wanting more of the spotlight!<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the most rewarding thing about being a best selling author?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That it feels as if I have finally &#8220;leveled up&#8221; after a long, long grind!<\/p>\n<p><strong>What frustrates you most about writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The biggest frustration is that I don&#8217;t have the physical energy I did 20 years ago, when I could make do on five or six hours of sleep.\u00a0 The challenge is finding new plot twists, things I haven&#8217;t tried yet, and ways to write when I&#8217;ve got 129 books under my belt.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know how Jane Yolen does it; she has over twice my output!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have any thoughts or comments you&#8217;d like to share with your fans about this story line or anything else?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no one true way.&#8221; \u00a0I said that in the first book I ever wrote, and I&#8217;ll say it again now.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24pt;\"><strong>PRESS RELEASE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The riveting conclusion to the #1\u00a0<em>New York Times\u00a0<\/em>bestselling Hunter trilogy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4118\" src=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey-165x250.jpg\" alt=\"APEX, by Mercedes Lackey book cover\" width=\"165\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey-165x250.jpg 165w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey-768x1160.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey-678x1024.jpg 678w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey-953x1440.jpg 953w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/APEX-by-Mercedes-Lackey.jpg 1688w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 165px) 100vw, 165px\" \/><\/a>APEX,\u00a0<\/strong><strong>by Mercedes Lackey<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Fans of Suzanne Collins\u2019s The Hunger Games series who like a little more magic and fantasy with their dystopia will appreciate this new series.&#8221; &#8212;\u00a0<\/strong><strong>VOYA on <em>Hunter<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Throne of Glass series meets The Hunger Games in <strong>APEX<\/strong> (On Sale September 5, 2017 | Hyperion) by critically-acclaimed and award-winning author Mercedes Lackey. In this spellbinding close to the #1 <em>New York Times<\/em> bestselling Hunter series, fierce and scrappy heroine Joy must uncover a deadly conspiracy at the heart of Apex City&#8211;and risk everything to end a brutal war. With heart-stopping action and perfect pacing, this is high-action, inventive fantasy at its best.<\/p>\n<p>Joy\u2019s life is imperiled every day thanks to her position as a member of the Elite Hunter Command. The corrupt and powerful PsiCorps is determined to usurp the Hunters as chief defenders of Apex City, and Joy is now squarely in their cross-hairs. Unused to playing political games, she has very few people she can truly trust&#8211;not even Josh, her first friend in Apex City.<\/p>\n<p>Then after their estrangement, Josh comes to Joy for help. He fears that Abigail Drift, the head of PsiCorps, will soon use him in her twisted experiments designed to empower PsiCorps and render Hunters superfluous\u2014a scheme that\u2019s already killed off dozens of his fellow soldiers. Joy manages to smuggle Josh to safety, but he cannot evade Drift forever. As Joy faces ever more powerful Othersiders, she is helped by the most surprising ally imaginable\u2014can Joy trust the most cunning and treacherous of all Othersiders?<\/p>\n<p><strong>With nuanced characters, life-or-death stakes, and the artful writing of living-legend\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Mercedes Lackey, APEX is a fresh, futuristic, and utterly addicting dystopian young adult novel.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MERCEDES LACKEY<\/strong>\u00a0is the #1\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0best-selling American fantasy author behind the Heralds of Valdemar series, the Elemental Masters series, the 500 Kingdoms series, and many more. She has published over one hundred novels in under twenty-five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>APEX<\/strong>,by Mercedes Lackey<br \/>\nHyperion | On Sale September 5, 2017<br \/>\nHardcover ISBN: 9781484707869| $18.99 US | $19.99 Can. | 304 pages | Ages 12 and Up<br \/>\nEbook ISBN: 9781484748596<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you bring the Hunter story line to a close, are you feeling sad that it&#8217;s over or are you happy to have finished? And why? I&#8217;m sad that it&#8217;s over.\u00a0 I really enjoyed doing this story, and it was a great change from my usual high-fantasy setting.\u00a0 Joy is &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[763,1059],"tags":[765,328],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4119,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions\/4119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}