Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Mark Smylie?
Let’s see. I was born in Florida; my mother was Japanese, she had come to the States to study piano at Julliard, and my father is a Presbyterian minister who worked for the Church’s national body as their liaison to the United Nations (now long retired). I grew up in New Jersey and have lived there on and off for most of my adult life (with stints in New York and California). I’ve worked mostly in comics publishing, both as a writer/artist and as a publisher (I founded a company called Archaia that is now an imprint at BOOM! Studios).
Your debut novel, The Barrow, was published by Pyr Books last month in the US and this week in the UK. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? Is it the first in a series?
The novel was written as a stand-alone but Pyr has agreed to publish two sequels so, yes, for better or for worse I’m afraid it’s yet another fantasy trilogy. The novel is part epic fantasy, part horror story, and I guess what could be termed part undercover detective story. At first glance it’s about a group of criminals and adventurers of few if any scruples that are following a map to find a fabled lost sword, but nothing is quite as it seems.
