The Book that Changed my Life (3) Daniel Colter

Continuing my series on Really Interesting Authors inspired by literature

A very warm welcome to U.S. author Daniel Colter who I’ve recently met in an author group I belong to. When I read Daniel’s novel, Brotherhood of Wolves, I knew I had to chase him down and find out where the heck that came from. It was that good. Here’s what he told me…

I was a voracious reader as a lad. Adventure fiction, mostly. Robert E. Howard, a Texan, was a favourite. He wrote adventure stories, historical and fantasy, and I read everything he wrote (except his Westerns, which upon reflection is a strange omission for an American living in the West). Howard’s words crackled with energy, colours, sounds. Harold Lamb, from New York, wrote in a similar vein, though with more craft and less “purple prose.” Howard’s stories on the Crusades, compiled into Sowers of the Thunder, fired my imagination, as did Lamb’s Crusader tales in Swords from the West.

Their writing set off a life-long fascination with Medieval warfare. Desperate battles. Daring knights. Fallen kingdoms. The religious fighting orders held a particular allure — monks, who killed for God, and were blessed for it. The notion seemed… sinful.

Fast forward several decades. A passion for prehistoric cultures led to degrees in archaeology and anthropology. I was nearing the end of a career as an archaeologist; days in the field recording sites, nights in a dingy hotel reading historical fiction. Bernard Cornwell. Tim Willocks. Christian Cameron.

Then I read Robert Low’s The Whale Road and this, more than the others, shoved me in a new direction.

He had me at the opening line.

“Runes are cut in ribbons, like the World Serpent eating his own tail. All sagas are snake knots, for the story of a life does not always start with birth and end with death. My own begins with my return from the dead.”

How could one read that and not be hooked? The tale follows Orm Ruriksson, who accidentally kills a polar bear, then falls in with a brotherhood of Vikings on a quest for Attila the Hun’s tomb. Low’s writing was gritty, at times dark, spared no gore, but flowed with a lyrical beat missing from other writers’ work. He kept a heady pace. He also slathered on the black humour, a common balm amongst brothers of war, and the banter helped lighten dark moments.

Low researched what he wrote. He devoured books about a period, or people, or region, which as an archaeologist and anthropologist further drew me into his work. What idioms would folks use? Who did they worship? What did they wear? Those details were woven into his fiction yet, to his credit, were never boring regurgitations. He also wasn’t afraid to kill off characters – a novel should mirror real life, and real people die, and often in horrible ways.

Daniel with his well-thumbed and annotated copy of The Whale Road. Click on the image to go to his author page.

In Low’s band of Vikings I saw a crusade, though not the Crusade. Brothers united in common cause, thrown into a foreign land, forced to live or die by their cunning and gumption. Not long after reading Low, I stumbled upon the Annals of Roger de Hoveden (or Howden), one of the few histories of 1100s-era Jerusalem. Howden claimed an English Templar, Robert of Saint Albans, along with six of his knights, defected to Saladin and converted to Islam.

An idea took root. A tale of brotherhood, and war, and exotic lands, and… Templars, on a quest to kill other Templars. Low would approve, I thought, especially if woven with enough history and culture to re-create Twelfth Century Outremer.

I had always itched to try my hand at fiction and, upon retirement from archaeology, had time to give it a whirl. The inclination to research was there, as was a fascination with medieval history and ancient cultures. And I had authored or edited hundreds of archaeology reports (which are as dry as the name implies), thus was no slouch at the technical side of writing.

I wanted to write something rugged but authentic, a tale Low would enjoy, and set in a foreign land rather than the American settings I grew up with. The Crusades were a ripe period; they were a violent collision of different religions, ancient cultures, and old grudges. The Templars were an obvious candidate. They were the most revered military unit of their day and knights came from all over Europe – France, England, Normandy, Scotland. The multi-national aspect gave common cause, but also brewed conflict within the Order, as well as conflict with enemies outside.

But could I weave Templars into a gripping, textured tale, as Low had done with Vikings? Several bad attempts ensued, along with months of research, followed by months of re-writes. Sapere Books saw something they liked in the result and Brotherhood of Wolves was born — a Crusader tale of brotherhood, few fighting against many, loyalty, betrayal.

And so it is to Robert Low, at the top of a crowded list, that I owe the impetus to a budding career as a writer and creator.

Robert Low (1949-2021) was a Scottish journalist and author of 15 novels. Buy The Whale Road here.