Seven I six at fifty five air c DE talk station, A very happy Friday to you, please, Welcome to the fifty five PERC Morning show. Author and local author, most known for being the wife of Taya shue Ma. Because she's awesome and she's a great homeschooler. What Joe, oh, husband of Yeah, I had that backwards, Steve apologies. Steve Shuemake is a local author of a trilogy, the Dark World Saga Trilogy, which apparently began decades ago when he
was a teenager. He wrote one hundred pages or so that ultimately become his first book, and at the prodding of his better half, put pen to paper and actually churned out these these books. Welcome to the program, Steve. It's a pleasure having you on. How is your better half doing? If I can ask that first, you sure can.
And I gotta say that my wife Taya absolutely loves your show, Brian. She's on here, we are in Tennessee, and she is still dialed in every single morning.
I'm still pleased to know that I think the world of her and all the things that she's done on behalf of homeschool and just a true advocate for true education. Of our children. So she's one of the pioneers and along those lines, and it's not easy to do, but she certainly put everybody toget in touch with the resources that allowed them to pursue what she had done and what you had done. So God bless her, and good morning, Taya. I'm glad to know that you're listening. I appreciate that, Steve.
These books are fantasy books, am I correct and categorize them? It's not nonfiction, it's fiction, but within fiction there's multiple different subgenres. So how would you characterize these books?
Yeah? Correct, it's epic fantasy in the same lineage, if you will, as Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or anything along those lines.
Okay, I was just gonna I was gonna comment, I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy there's the last fantasy books I read. I honestly, I'll be honest with you, the the genre has never compelled me. There's just so much just classic literature that I love, and you know, all kinds of other like nonfiction, and just never gravitated gravitated toward fantasy. I think that series I read when I was in junior high school. But beyond my comments. This is what you're here to do, is help us
through this. What was the purpose of the first book is something beyond just telling a fantasy story. I mean, I presume that there's messaging in there, as there usually is in literature.
Yeah, for sure. I sought out to set out to create what I hoped was an interesting story. But the way that I went about doing it was I took for inspiration three attributes that most people around the world ascribed to God. And so the first was about wisdom, and Book one is called in Pursuit Wisdom, and the second is security or protection, and so book two is
in Need of Protection. And then I got pretty busy at my building a firm here in town, consulting firm, and it took about an eight year hiatus, much to the dismay of some of my readership. But finally book three has come out, and I chose justice, which I think is a fairly timely, fairly relevant to our culture today attribute the people look for from a higher power. And so the book three is called in Search of Justice, and that is coming out in print on April seventh.
Oh, congratulations on the new one. I'm pleased. Another that you're still hard to work on. I guess you're a fan of CS lewis work, then it sounds like it's got shades of C. S. Lewis for sure.
Yeah. I took inspiration from a lot of different authors. I think most authors would admit that, but CS. Lewis is certainly high among them. Tolkien. I think everybody has to tip their cat if they're going to write in this genre to Tolkien. But even some of the more recent works, like I love some of the you know, I love some of Stephen King's sudden plot twists in his Horror. I hate his endings. I think a lot
of people do. Yeah, and even some of the other authors, like Susan Collins, they wrote pretty strong female characters without turning the men in their stories into into Mellie mouthed whimps, and so I like that aspect too. I mean, a lot of my female characters are pretty strong, but not at the expense of the male characters either. So I just took inspiration from a lot of different areas.
Fair enough. Well, In Pursuit of Wisdom, the first book in the series, you create this this realm, you have this other world. It's not a place in the United States. It's not a place on our globe, for example, it's it's a different land, somewhere, a fiction land.
It is. Yeah, so the the indust think tidbit there. For a lot of the Catholics in the Cincinnati community, you may be familiar with a around around Easter or not Easter, but though sometimes around Easter a tenebrae service, which is a dark lights out service on Good Friday. And Tenebra I took his inspiration as the name of the world because it is the dark World saga and
Tenebray is Latin for darkness. And so that's actually the whole theme of this book, these this this trilogy is it's a world that has fallen away from the One True God and and what that entails. And in part it's it's a it's a quest to kind of rediscover a little bit of the light.
And I was just going to ask you, this is a quest book. It's like the quest. And I don't mean to be loose with this. For the Holy Grail, you have been issued a challenge. There's something that the main character is after or in search of.
Yeah, there's a there's several main characters and and and several main villains. But yes, there is a quest that is part of the part of the motor that drives the narrative forward. But I would say that it's a lot more about the interactions and the and the character arcs, if you will, of the various protagonists involved, for sure.
But yeah, there's definitely quests. For I took, for example, each of those attributes of God and I embodied them into an artifact, and so getting that artifact, the Staff of Insight, the Shield of Life, and then in this book the Blade of Righteousness are are just objects if you will, that they compel the characters action moving forward.
Gotcha parallels though with the divine for sure? Okay? And in need of protection, I note that the notes in the cap when war comes, where do people turn for protection? And I am going to anticipate that we should be a little introspective and kind of learn to swim on our own and maybe with the help of God. Yeah.
I don't want to give too much away for us, but yeah, there is you know, at the core of this. I think that each book, uh you know, I think provides a perspective and should force you to think. I mean, there's a little bit of philosophy. Hopefully it's an entertaining story regardless of your religion, but it would be impossible to read these and not pick up some threads of philosophy.
Good well, philosophy is another area of a literature that I'm very very much a fan of, so I good to get something out of this. Steve Shuemake, author of the trilogy.
And finally, timeless questions, I mean, if they're you know, the the hook for book one was if there is a God, why do things happen to good people?
Ah, the eternal question.
That's a question that's been asked by people for thousands of years.
Brian, you know, am I going to response to that? Don't get out in dark passage here? But he doesn't you know, God doesn't NeSSI, you know, not gonna let you win the lottery or make you win the lottery. I think the people who use prayer as a mechanism to ask for stuff and things or on a bad parallel or on a bad path. You're supposed to use prayer.
You're supposed to use prayer for introspection. You're talking to it all seeing, all knowing power who can see through your bs if I may be so bold, so you can't lie to them. And it challenged you to find out you know where you are in your life and why things are going on in your life that sometimes have a negative impact, and perhaps learn from them. And
that's the point I wanted to make. Bad things do happen to good people, but maybe they provide a vehicle for us to learn something like, for example, spend a lot of time with the people you love because the world's an imperfect place. They may get hit by a train tomorrow. You know, that's just one little lesson. I wish I had spent more time with them. So start doing that. Call your mom up every day, you know what I'm saying exactly, or don't do stupid stuff, Steve.
Oh, but these are the these are the These are the types of questions that I think make the book compelling, whether you're a fan of this genre or not, because it's they've been asked in there. Everybody goes through life and they ask these types of questions.
Well, and the second one is fed by the where do we find protection during perilous times? And again I think people people quite often look to leaders, which of course is part of your next, your third book that's coming out, When leaders fail? Who administers Justice? But where do we find protection during perilous times? What's the sort of tease on that component of the second book?
Yeah, a great question. You you really need when when times get tough. This is you know, my philosophy is, you know, we we all should seek virtue. But what happens when the people in charge don't have virtue? What happens when the leaders and the characters in my book, in my world involved aren't always the most virtuous and you uh, and and governments fall, kingdoms fall, and you're left with chaos. You know. Hopefully what people take away from that is that you know, you you look to God.
I mean, you should be looking towards something that is a little bit more stable than what you know, who's president today and who's gone tomorrow?
You know, well, also there's provided, there's there's his times provide opportunities for us to reflect on not repeating the mistakes of others. Another interesting lesson. We can learn from the bad things that happen to good people. Don't do that.
Uh.
And of course that the third book, When leaders fail, who administers justice? There couldn't be a more timely book for your third release, Steve, For.
Sure, everybody is. I think everybody has been. You just look at the results of the last election. I think every but he has been craving some semblance of justice for you know what has been done to this country over the last several years.
So certainly timely, amen, Steve. I hope you have a wildly successful writing career, and I encourage my listeners to head over to fifty five case dot com, where Joe Strekker has updated my page. You include a link to the Dark World saga. You've got your personal link, You've got you on x per Se how people can follow you, and then of course the links to the Amazon pages where they can buy the books. Steve, it's been great talking with you, and congratulations smart men Mary Smart and
you clearly did that with Taya. Love her and keep up the great work when the other books come out. You've got a place to talk about him.