Special Challenge Participant Feature – Jamie at Mithril Wisdom!

One of the highlights of the A to Z Challenge included visiting Jamie Gibbs at Mithril Wisdom every day. A fantasy and metal dude, Jamie’s theme just rocked! So I asked him to join us today and give us a little insight…

Your Challenge theme involved fantasy and metal music. (Which I thought was wicked cool.) What made you merge the two together?

I've been listening to power and folk metal since I was 17, and it's given me a lost of inspiration in my writing. There's a whole lot of imagery in the music of that genre that other musical styles can't reach, but it's pretty niche and doesn't get a whole lot of recognition. It's very similar to fantasy as a literary genre - it tends to get sneered at by 'more established' genres but it's got such huge potential in terms of imagery and imagination.

Which song and band comprised your favorite post?

Ooo, don't make me choose! *quickly rilfes through A-Z posts*. That's a really hard one to nail down. I'm going to go for my M is for Mithril post (before anyone says anything, my blog's name did not influence the decision at all). The song is Durnir's Forge by Dragonland. The song itself is pretty badass (a hero venturing into the bowels of a dwarf fortress to gain the help of the dwarf king in order to overthrow an evil tyrant? What's not to love) but the entire album is amazing.

What usually grips me most of all about these kinds of albums is that I can perfectly imagine them being performed on the stage, like a rock opera/heavy metal musical. That's when you know you've struck gold, and this album Under the Grey Banner has all those qualities.

You mentioned science fiction once or twice – think you might want to tackle science fiction and metal music next year?

Sci-fi would be pretty sweet; there's definitely a good number of sci-fi inspired power metal songs out there (like one called Ironhead about an alien cowboy robot. It can get pretty crazy). The genre can go to some pretty dark places though, so maybe a sci-fi/horror theme is on the cards. People seemed to get a kick out of the fantasy songs, so it's possible!

You’re a D&D geek, aren’t you? Favorite type of character to play?

Oh boy, I suppose this is confession time. I've never actually played D&D. I played the kids version years ago, but real D&D I've never touched. I've always wanted to try it out, and I'm a big Warhammer geek as a way of compensating. Right now, though, Skyrim is taking up most of my life. I tend to opt for assassins when I play video games and mages in any other kind of RPG. Hurling fireballs at unsuspecting folk is definitely the way to go.

What do you blog about the other eleven months of the year?

I do my best to whittle down the massive pile of books on my to be read shelf, and I like to share the things I find online that tickle my geek bones. I've recently started writing fiction again, so expect to see more of that and some writing tips and tricks I find along the way.

You studied Egyptology in college. Any interesting stories? Find any mummies?

There's a long story involving beer, a jacuzzi, grenades, a 7 day ban from Egypt and a schizophrenic geologist, but I don't want to bore the readers with that. I didn't find any mummies, sadly, but I did help uncover a burial chamber in Luxor. I was lucky enough to be part of the team that helped excavate the tomb at the time (and my camera was the only one to hand when they broke in, so I got all the photos!) Getting into the burial chamber did involve belly crawling through a narrow gap filled with limestone chips and a 40 foot drop on the ricketiest ladder known to humankind. It was totally worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

You’re engaged – does the future Mrs. Jamie Gibbs like fantasy and metal music?

Not as much as I'd like :) She's much more eclectic than me when it comes to music so she's more tolerant of my musical tastes than I am of hers. She's just as big a geek as I am, though, and almost as big a fantasy fan too (I'm hoping she's not reading this!). She takes more from the music side of things than the imagery, so I need to wear her down a little more before she likes some of the weird bands I show her.

Jamie, you rock!

Co-host Ninja Captain Alex is the author of CassaStar and CassaFire and his blog can be found HERE