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The story is a culmination of a series that began with three youngsters who go through their maturation process. Throughout the series, there has been a threat of an invasion from the Island of Darkness led by the evil mage, Vand, who is ageless. He has an army of a million so he can attack all life on the mainland.
"The whole series goes through the building of the characters and trying to unite their chaotic countries, because the countries not only don't deal with each other, they don't deal internally very well," Tuttle said.
Three heroes have to build up each of their countries to prepare for the coming invasion, and Army of the Dead is when the invasion takes place.
"It's really a grand finale, a military chapter, a chapter of faith," Tuttle said.
Until publication, the book was called A Time of Cleansing, which is an old prophecy spoken of three times in the life of man in Tuttle's books. The Time of Calling is when Forgotten Legacy begins. It's followed closely by the Time of Cleansing which is what happens in the final book.
"But because of this massive amount of dead warriors, I ended up changing the name," Tuttle said.
Tuttle has been writing since 1997. It took him six months to finish Army of the Dead, which is two and a half times longer than the original book. This latest book has been electronically published and is available in e-bookstores all over the world. The printed edition will be available in a few weeks. The printed book will be sold strictly through the Internet. The e-book can be downloaded instantly by going to various e-book stores on the Web.
Two other series have been completed for some time. The Targa Trilogy was written in 1997. The Sword of Heaven series is a seven-book sequel to the Targa Trilogy. According to Tuttle, the new series is completely different and not associated with the other two.
Tuttle has been asked many times how he gets the ideas for his stories.
"Ideas sort of sneak in my dreams and sometimes when I'm awake," he said. "I had a dream last week, and I woke up all excited because it's a foundation for a fantastic story, totally unconnected with anything I've done so far."
He explained that ideas are constantly in his mind and he doesn't write them down. All ideas are kept in his head, and when his mind starts to wander during the day, he focuses on the "germ" of the story, and it starts to broaden. He said that by the time he sits down to write it, the whole story is already in his head.
"I have a different memory," Tuttle said. "I've been invited to have a Richard S. Tuttle Author Forum, Science Fiction Fantasy World (SFFW) on the Internet, and I have a lot of discussions with other authors along the same lines of where do the ideas come from, how do I think of them, and how do I lay out my books.
"There are other authors that I can interact with and get to find out how they develop this. But one thing I've come to realize from that forum is that my mind is very strange," Tuttle said. "I can remember almost every scene I've ever written, and yet, of the books that I've read, if you ask me the title or the author, my mind becomes blank. I don't know if I've read that book or not. Then the other authors will talk about a particular character in a novel, and I'll suddenly remember where it came from. So I don't know how the mind works."
Tuttle explained that he doesn't have to write down his stories. For some reason he remembers them and personalizes the memory of them. One thing he does as a writer that, according to him, a lot of other authors don't do, is when he writes, he actually becomes the characters.
"I know a lot of writers look at it as if they are a director and they see the stage before them and they manipulate the characters. When I write the scene, I am the character, and when he's talking to somebody else, I become the other character. So it's a lot like role playing, and maybe that's why I remember," Tuttle said.
Tuttle said his readers range from teenagers to the elderly. Tuttle finds a lot of his readers are not fantasy readers. They either have received the book from someone or talked to someone who knows him. That prompts them to read the book, and then they read the rest of the series.
"One thing about my books is that they're very moralistic," Tuttle said. "My books have no sex in them, no dirty language, some violence, and good and bad characters that readers don't have difficulty in telling apart. Some readers have sort of said the books have a Christian bend to them. I don't feel they do. They're religious, but they're not Christian. A lot of the story begins with polytheism and evolves into monotheism. So I try to write a good wholesome book that will teach good moral value."
His next book is going to be a stand-alone book designed strictly to go the standard publishing route. The story has been developed, but he hasn't started to write it yet. It has a title, but Tuttle won't divulge it at this point.
"My goal has been to become one of the top five fantasy writers in the e-book market by the time e-books really take off, and I think I'm well on the way to that. I'm continually ranked as one of the highest fantasy writers on www.fiction
wise.com with an average of 3.6, with 4 being the highest. I'm encouraged by that," Tuttle said.
To purchase any of Richard Tuttle's fantasy books, go to www.amazon.com; www.bar
nesandnoble.com; www.fic
tionwise.com; www.whsmith.com; www.ebooks.com; www.ebookad.com or search for Richard S. Tuttle or one of his book titles.
