How are you doing today, sir, and we'll go to absolutely here you
here, yeah, here you go again. It's it's time to talk about
Zeus the Mighty. Well, I'm excited. One of the things that you've
always done, and I've loved this because my wife is a school teacher,
is that you have made a connection with students and you give them reason to
have hope for tomorrow. We know that this is a seven book series,
so therefore you you're giving them something to look forward to. Oh gosh,
thanks, yeah, I hope. So you have done. This is the
fifth book that's out now, and they come out once a year, and
I've had, you know, young readers tell me they read in the day
so they can read it and then they just have to wait three hundred and
sixty four days till the next book comes out. But you know, Chrispin,
it doesn't feel like a year. It really doesn't feel like a year.
No, I know, I know, And yeah, I write when
I write these books. I've finished this book about a year ago, so
it's always like I've got to sit down and catch up with where I left
off with the characters because I'm always working on the next book. But That's
the fun thing about these characters too, is they're just always They're always moving.
They're always in motion, these pet pet rescue characters who believe they're Greek
gods, and even whenever they're one adventure ends, they immediately go right into
the next adventure. And you don't even need to read these books in order,
really did. You can kind of pick up whichever one has a cover
that's the most appealing for a young reader, and they can read it and
get familiar with the characters right away and getting used to the world right away,
and then if they like it, they could pick up previous books in
the series. Yeah, where did you get the idea to come up with
a tentacle soothsayer? I mean, it's it's a cool way to just kind
of bring something into the story. But but I mean, as an adult,
I'm still going, oh my god, it's an octopus. Oh my
god. Well, that's the big challenge with this because it does take place
in a pet rescue center that's the real world, but these animals bull believe
they're in ancient Greece. So I needed the villain in this installment to be
a character from the mythologic Proteus, who is a shape shifter in mythology,
can change into any other form, And the only way to get the Southsayer
to tell the future is to capture Proteus when he's sleeping. So I just
think, Okay, what kind of animal might be at a pet rescue center?
They can shape shift, and you know, having a national geographic connection.
I've written a lot about wildlife and history and animals too. I know
that there's an animal called a mimic octopus that can change in nature. It
can change its shape and its texture and its color and turn into so it
makes itself look like a starfish or a lion fish or various other fish.
So I said, this is a perfect candidate to be the villain in this
book. Will make Proteus a mimic octopus, and it can be an animal
that's on loan to the pet rescue center. So once I get all of
that, my head wrapped around all of that, then I can just write
the story and base it off Greek mythology. Part of that story the illustrations.
I love the way that you evenly balance out the illustrations inside this book.
Oh thanks, Yeah, that's a big part of it. You know,
just writing the book is only a small task. Then I collaborate with
the the artist. There's really great it bringing this world to life because some
of these concepts are kind of hard to explain, and so his illustrations make
it kind of take away some of the heavy listing to have to explain,
Oh, they're fighting a hydra monster that in real life is actually a toilet
that's stuck on flush. So the artists can go in and kind of combine
the two ideas, and you know, and there's also more appealing to young
readers because in that way, it's almost like a graphic novel. As they
took the pages, they could see these characters, and it's not quite a
comic book, but it's certainly a fast read. It feels like it's sometimes
you use the earthquake in a way because I mean, especially today, there's
a lot of earthquakes today. Kids know that story. Now you've put it
into a story. Now they can see how there's a lot to be discovered.
Yeah, I mean, once again, it comes down to how can
I shake things up at the pet rescue Center? And honestly, an earthquake
is the easiest, the easiest way to do it the kind of it does
it changes the world that expands their ocean. That the agency which is in
the pet center is actually the aquarium Um and this an installment actually, so
Zeus gets to spend most of it exploring under water, and he does that
by walking around inside of a little hamster ball. That's because it's attached to
an air supply like a little dive helmet. And you know, it maybe
bends the laws of physics a little bit. But we're talking about the hamsters
and cats and dogs that talk to each other and going Greek. We live
Greekness every night, So I think it's it's forgivable. Now when you when
you write about animals like that, do you find yourself in real life when
you're walking in on the streets that you're talking to animals, Because I do.
I love talking to animals all the time. Well, I actually live
on a farm. And one of the animals in my book series, Hermes,
is a hen, is based on one of our one of our hens.
The artists based her look on the hen, and so yeah, I'm
always and I call Hermes is what is my favorite hand? I call her
my minion. We have like I don't know at this point over thirty chickens,
but she's my favorite. And you know we've got Unfortunately, the other
animals we have, we got donkeys and towels and sheep. They don't quite
work in a head center environment. So I don't think they'll be starring in
the series. But I trust me, i'd just like you. I talked
to the animals all the time. Oh, and chickens were my thing when
I was a kid. What we would do is before we go out and
feed the cattle, we grab we go in and grab a hand and then
we would take the hand with us to put up on the haystack because they
would all if there was a snake or if there was a rat or a
mouse up there, they would get that before we would be startled by them.
That's awesome. That's a great idea. Yeah, they That's one of
the things I love about them is they will eat the scary insects and the
stinging insects and the rats and all that are scared them away. Yep.
And before when I actually not too much with a sideboy. When I lived
in Mexico, we had chickens and I would put a chicken on my shoulder
and they would eat all the mosquitoes and feeries. They're kind of like mosquito
force field. Yeah, I mean, I mean, and even in this
forest that I live here, we've got chickens and someone someone's got a rooster,
so it's fun to be walking through the forest and you hear that rooster
making it sounds. I mean, there's such a story with chickens, and
I just and I just love the fact that you love chickens as well.
Oh yeah, and that's I had to put one into the series. You
know. It's Backyard Chicken is such Backyard Chicken such a push and phenomenon right
now, so many people in the chicken, especially when the prices of eggs
went out. Yeah, that I think a lot of people now can relate
to seeing a hen in a pet rescue center because why not, there's just
like having any other bird, and this one might make you breakfast. Are
you going to turn this into a podcast series in the way where you can
do episodes that are thirty five forty minutes long so you can have many episodes,
or are you going to do something because I mean, it's it's like,
I love the fact that this is book number five, but it's like,
Okay, now I want to see it in action. Well gosh,
yeah, you know, Disney bought National Geographic a while ago and they have
their own TV channel, so I'm always hoping that they might turn it into
like a Disney Plus show, something for young viewers. But right now there's
no plans. There is a podcast where they take the miss and it's called
Breaking Out and it's very popular. It was actually started in the book series
and now it exists outside of the book series. But yeah, I would
actually love to see if they would turn the books into something into another format,
like, you know, a TV show or yeah, it could be
like an audio adventure and a podcast, but right now, unfortunately there's no
plans. Wow. Well, congratulations on Zeus the Mighty The Voyage of the
Oddest. See I love that the oddest. See that's a good word there
for you, Crispin. Thank you, Thank you very much. Please come
back to this show. You know, the door is always going to be
open for you. Dude. Oh, I'd love to come back. I'll
come back next year when the next one come. Batter. Oh, thanks
for having me. You'd be brilliant today. Okay, thank you as do
my best,