Big Cranky: Fall Into Darkness by James Pyne - Book Tour + Giveaway

Big Cranky: Fall Into Darkness

by James Pyne

Genre:
Dark Mythological Fantasy, Action 

Forget everything you think you know about myths and legends, James Pyne’s
Big Cranky connects them all in an epic web of deceitful betrayal,
love, and loyalty. A capricious tale of gods, showing human quirks
are not only wasted on the mortals. A tale of many deities treading
lightly around a superior as the world begins.

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What inspired you to write this book?

I started posting fragments to Big Cranky on Facebook around late 2014 into 2016, along with tons of short stories. My dying friend Elle made me promise to put those fragments into a novel and write the rest of it. She saw a book there before I did. And here we are.

What can we expect from you in the future?

After the next two books of Big Cranky are out there, I have another series called Fuel in the works. The first book finished, gathering dust for one final draft. It’s my vision of Hell where everything is fuel for something. I figure that will run from three books to thirteen, we’ll see how chatty the Misses (Muse) gets. I also am working on a literary zombie book. So far, it feels fresh so I will continue with it. If it starts feeling like other living dead literature, I will abandon it.

Do you have any “side stories” about the characters?

Some of the female characters are a product of challenges where female friends would send me a photo along with the name of a goddess and challenge me to write a story to go with both.

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in (Big Cranky)?

El is the ruler over angels who are the gods of our myths worldwide. He is Big Cranky, a nickname Aphrodite gave him without his knowledge, but he’s all knowing so I’m sure the Big Guy knows what’s up. There’s El’s son, Lucifer and his wife Lilith, both have ambitions to rule as a pair. And there’s Lucifer’s sister, Calliope, who’s the voice of reason in the House of El. There’s Zeus and Poseidon and the rest of the usual suspects. Lucifer’s next in command the archangel Michael, Gabriel and Muerte of the Death Dealers. Along with a few surprises, and while we’re at it, throw in my version of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu that I hope diehard fans don’t hunt me down and do unnatural things to me.

How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?

It just comes to me in different ways. I’ll research the characters after the fact and paint them in better, but generally, I could be watching a Youtube video of a pantheon of gods with none doing anything for me until for example the Australian god Baiame comes up and his story starts playing out in my head, leading to him plugging in a vacant spot that needed to complete a sequence of events. Other times I will write a chapter with no real character names, then I’ll go through pantheon of gods and see which gods match up with those stories needing a face. Sometimes I will see art on Pinterest that will inspire story on the spot and that new Big Cranky fragment plugs another spot or begins a new sequence of events. These are a few examples how this trilogy has come about.

Where did you come up with the names in the story?

From mythologies on every continent. Some represented more than others. Big Cranky fleshed out to be a multicultural trilogy with so many pantheons represented. I didn’t plan it like that. It just played out that way.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Everything. Every draft has been a pleasure to work on because every time a character would stand up in my minds’ eye and demand their story be told? Or something new would come up about some characters, or a mystery about one becomes answered by another character. It’s been a wild ride and just hope others enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed writing the trilogy.

Tell us about your main characters- what makes them tick?

Well since everybody loves Lucifer out of them all, with Lilith and Michael a few steps behind, I’ll flesh Lucifer out a bit. He never knew his mother and that is something he is determined to learn about much to his father’s annoyance who forbids talk of her. He considers himself to be a fairer ruler than his father if given the chance. The only one who truly has his ear is his wife Lilith, they are an inseparable pair, they against the world if need be type.

How did you come up with the title of your first novel?

In one of the fragments I wrote and posted on Facebook, Aphrodite thinks up El’s nickname up, Big Cranky, never saying it. Folks commented on it saying how much they liked the name Big Cranky. So, I went with it.

Who designed your book covers?

Jeffery Kosh. The dude gets better with every cover he does.

https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.kosh

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

After Book 2 was written and ready to send to Dead Light Publishing, with new things learnt about older characters, I was wishing I had known these things when writing Book 1. As for Book 1, I tried to read it but I would stop and be like, I should have written in that way, or did this instead of this, I decided that I would never be happy and will always want to change something. Advice to any writer out there . . . once your baby is published, don’t go back and read it or you’ll find something that stinks.

Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

Yeah, that I might be a tad mad in the head.

If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

Christopher Walken playing El. That would be real.

Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

Thanks for giving it a shot. And I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

What is your favorite part of this book and why?

I have two. When Cthulhu makes his appearance. And any scenes with Gabriel and Muerte.

If you could spend time with a character from your book who would it be? And what would you do during that day?

I would hang with Aphrodite, of course. I won’t go any further with that . . . and keep it PG.  😉

Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?

I honestly don’t know in most cases. The stories pop up in my head and I either get them down or I don’t get any sleep until I do. Without a doubt people throughout my life influenced pieces of characters.

Do your characters seem to hijack the story, or do you feel like you have the reigns of the story? Convince us why you feel your book is a must read.

I’m nothing more than a scribe. The characters whisper their stories in my head. As for why I think this is a must read for you folks. I really don’t know if it is but I will say this, if you like action, if you like romantic characters, if you like horrid ones, if you like strong male characters, and bad ass female ones, if you like literary, there are parts of that, too. If you want something different to read, this book is it. I can’t promise that you will like it but can say this, so far, all positive reviews.

Have you written any other books that are not published?

Big Cranky Book 2. And 3. Book 1 of Fuel. Some older ones: The Concert Mistress. Pop and Circumstance. Conspiracy Tales. A novel about a character with hysterical blindness. The Black Thorn. Zombie Tales. And a very old end of times novel never finished.

If your book had a candle, what scent would it be?

Hopefully every scent there is.

What did you edit out of this book?

A few scenes just were too ridiculous and had to be rewritten. I kept the originals in one file.

Is there any writer which brain you would love to pick for advice? Who would that be and why?

Clive Baker. I find him a fascinating man. He’s quite the talent in many areas of the Arts. If he was still alive, Joseph Campbell. What a mind he had.

Fun Facts/Behind the Scenes/Did You Know?'-type tidbits about the author, the book or the writing process of the book.

Further explained in the Afterword, this book would not have happened if it hadn’t been for one incident. On a dating site, I contacted a local woman, Christina. We eventually added each other on Facebook, and on her wall, I saw a picture of Death carrying a dead woman that symbolized Life. I wrote a story to go with that photo and posted it and people enjoyed it, and that’s how the lovers Gabriel and Muerte came into being, leading to the whole Big Cranky series.

James Pyne hails from Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been a scribe for the
Universe much of his life. He's a firm believer in being able to
write in every genre, to make his world building and characters
hopefuly come out genuine. No matter what he writes it will have some
form of darkness, nothing is pure light in any worlds James creates
and rumor has it, his surviving characters are plotting his demise.
When it comes to his past time, much of it is spent learning the
craft, but he does enjoy gardening and playfully tormenting those he
loves. When he's not writing, or working his day job, he's traveling.
The Andalusia region of Spain the last place that tolerated him. 

Favorite authors: John Gardner (Grendel, Sunlight Dialogues). Fyodor
Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov). Clive Barker (Imajica,
Weaveworld, Books of Blood). Terry Pratchett (Good Omens, Bad Omens).
J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings). And all the scribes who carried
on the tradition of myths throughout the ages.

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