Character Interview with Matt Xell

I read and reviewed Matt's Tower of Parlen Min books a couple of months ago. My original review is Here

His is one of the rare stories that I have gone back and decided to re-star. Every once in awhile I will read through a book and give my initial thoughts for review here on the blog. Every so often a story sticks with me. I can't get it out of my head and I see others reviews on it and decide that I should give a new look at how many stars I originally gave it. Now my thoughts on the actual review rarely change, just the star ratings. But Matt's book is one that I will be picking up again sooner rather than later. I originally rated 3 stars but have changed to 4.
One of the things I really enjoyed about his book was the animated stone statues he has been kindly enough to do a guest post today regarding those characters.
- Animated Statues

Hey guys, it's a pleasure to meet you (albiet electronically) and thanks a lot to Krista for having this Matt Xell do a guest post thingy for her blog!

In my book Tower of Parlen Min, the main character Ves Asirin and 19 other children are chosen to compete in an event known as The Sword Challenge by Jacobius Trent, the fictional world of Everlon's wealthiest inventor. The Sword Challenge is a basically a series of puzzles, games and tasks that the children must complete in groups of 3 in order to discover the hidden location of the Sword of Belsaris and win a cash prize of $12 million dollars.

When I designed the challenge, I decided that the 3 tasks which each group had to complete would have a specific theme or element that was crucial to the discovery of this hidden sword. And for Ves, Vikey and Jerod's group this theme was interacting with the life-like and animated statues that were found at the Tower.

Jacobius inherited the Tower at the young age of 16. But before he could claim his inheritance, and as was the tradition with every Tower heir before him, he was to be tested by the family's lawyer -- tasked to search the entire Tower for an object known as the King's Bone.

After weeks of searching through over 200 of the Tower's rooms and reading thousands of books, looking up whatever the King's Bone could be (the internet was in a very primitive state at the time), Jacobius came across a rare book titled Lost Kingdon Legends. It was from this book that Jacobius learned of the four Wunder Knights, whose statues were located around the Tower's yard. And it was after learning of their importance and a further investigation of how and why these statues had come be at the tower, that Jacobius found out that the Trents were in fact decendants of one these Wunder Knights, and soon after that he found the King's Bone.

At age 21, when the Tower and the Trent family fortune were legally and soley his, Jacobius and best friend, Susanor Blut, turned the Wunder Knight statues into robotic machines and progammed them with an advanced A.I (artificial intelligence) that was years ahead of its time. This A.I allowed to the statues to think, talk and act like the original Wunder Knights.

Jacobius used this same technology on other statues like those of the angelic glass sculpture that stands in the center of the Tower's clositer, four water-nymph statuettes that control and regulate the machinary of Parlen Min Dam and the Tower's underground water supply, and the statues of the greek gods, Helios and Selene, that stand guard outside the Tower's observatory, watching over one of Jacobius' most prized possesions, a telecope which he bought with his first hard-earned million dollars.

Cheers and thanks for readin' everyone,

Matt


Matt's facebook http://www.facebook.com/Towerofparlenmin?sk=wall
Amazon Link http://www.amazon.com/Parlen-Narrow-Escapes-Asirin-ebook/dp/B0058EALC0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319665281&sr=1-2

His books are only available now in ebook from several sites including smashwords. The story was really a great adventure and will keep you thinking about it long after you read it. They are also very lengthy which for the price they are well worth your money, I suggest you pick them up.

Comments