Interview of Julian Egelstaff (cont')

RG: So, if you were cast in the Lone Wolf movie... who would you play? Other than Lone Wolf... =)

JE: I always kind of liked Captain D'Val, but that's just my gut reaction, let me see... Gwynian maybe... Cyrilus, or maybe Rimoah. I'm not being specific here. Let's see... Probably Gwynian if I had to pick.

RG: Why?

JE: Well, he's got an important part to play in the story. He's got a distinct personality. Other than Banedon, he's one of the few pivotal characters in the series I think. A lot rests on Gwynian at times. He kind of follows Lone Wolf through the adventures. I think this is most evident in book 9 where he shows up as the magistrate in Tahou. Whereas Banedon helps Lone Wolf here or there, he doesn't really have much of a life of his own (except when he first "reappears" in book five). Instead he's always just accompanying the hero. But Gwynian really seems to have a life of his own. I mean, there's obviously a story to tell about him between books 4-6, and then 6-9, and so on, so I guess I'm intrigued by him as a character, an enigma and I'd like to be able to explore that.

RG: So if you could take part of the Lone Wolf story and condense it into a two hour movie, which books would be best suited for this?

JE: Oh, books 1 and 2, without a doubt. That's a no brainer. It's such an obviously self contained story. In fact, for a long time, I thought books one and two were it, were the whole story. That idea was only reinforced by the fact that my original copies of books one and two, both original Sparrow Books editions, each only mentioned the other on the back cover. Neither listed any other books in the series.

They make such sense as a complete whole. The other thing is, there's no more dramatic a time in the whole series than books one and two. Sure, book 20 is important, retrieving the moonstone, yeah, whatever. But the thing is, that's all kind of artificial. The thing about book 20, and a lot of the later books, is, they rest precariously on the foundation of the whole struggle between good and evil and the whole universe of Aon, either you buy into that whole deal, or you don't. And if Aon doesn't mean anything to you, if you're not already drawn into the story by having read 19 other books, then book 20 is really kind of meaningless. I mean, Plane of Darkness, what the heck is that?!

But with book one, there's a visceral reaction to the setup. Here you are, single initiate into an order of warriors. Suddenly you're the last hope, you're the last one, you have to venture across country side. We've got a medieval setting. There's instant buy-in from the audience because they can understand and relate to the story, and the story itself is incredibly dramatic. Just when you think you've succeeded, the King tells you that you alone must venture to Durenor to retrieve the Sommerswerd, the last hope for his people. And it's all foreshadowed by Prince Pelathar dying on the Alema bridge. The drama in that story alone is just unequalled anywhere else.

RG: What is your favorite "red herring" item from the books?

JE: Gees, um, I don't know, I know most of the useful ones, not the useless ones. Let's see. The bar of soap in book one is kind of funny. Yeah, that's about all I can think of. The Firesphere is definitely the coolest special item (after the Sommerswerd).

RG: Really?! You know, I never really got into that whole Firesphere thing. I like it, but that's it.

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