Speaker 1: Seven I six at fifty five air c DE talk station,
Speaker 1: A very happy Friday to you, please, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: fifty five PERC Morning show. Author and local author, most
Speaker 1: known for being the wife of Taya shue Ma. Because
Speaker 1: she's awesome and she's a great homeschooler. What Joe, oh,
Speaker 1: husband of Yeah, I had that backwards, Steve apologies. Steve
Speaker 1: Shuemake is a local author of a trilogy, the Dark
Speaker 1: World Saga Trilogy, which apparently began decades ago when he
Speaker 1: was a teenager. He wrote one hundred pages or so
Speaker 1: that ultimately become his first book, and at the prodding
Speaker 1: of his better half, put pen to paper and actually
Speaker 1: churned out these these books. Welcome to the program, Steve.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure having you on. How is your better
Speaker 1: half doing? If I can ask that first, you sure can.
Speaker 2: And I gotta say that my wife Taya absolutely loves
Speaker 2: your show, Brian. She's on here, we are in Tennessee,
Speaker 2: and she is still dialed in every single morning.
Speaker 1: I'm still pleased to know that I think the world
Speaker 1: of her and all the things that she's done on
Speaker 1: behalf of homeschool and just a true advocate for true education.
Speaker 1: Of our children. So she's one of the pioneers and
Speaker 1: along those lines, and it's not easy to do, but
Speaker 1: she certainly put everybody toget in touch with the resources
Speaker 1: that allowed them to pursue what she had done and
Speaker 1: what you had done. So God bless her, and good morning, Taya.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know that you're listening. I appreciate that, Steve.
Speaker 1: These books are fantasy books, am I correct and categorize them?
Speaker 1: It's not nonfiction, it's fiction, but within fiction there's multiple
Speaker 1: different subgenres. So how would you characterize these books?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Correct, it's epic fantasy in the same lineage, if
Speaker 2: you will, as Lord of the Rings or Game of
Speaker 2: Thrones or anything along those lines.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was just gonna I was gonna comment, I
Speaker 1: think the Lord of the Rings trilogy there's the last
Speaker 1: fantasy books I read. I honestly, I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 1: the the genre has never compelled me. There's just so
Speaker 1: much just classic literature that I love, and you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of other like nonfiction, and just never gravitated
Speaker 1: gravitated toward fantasy. I think that series I read when
Speaker 1: I was in junior high school. But beyond my comments.
Speaker 1: This is what you're here to do, is help us
Speaker 1: through this. What was the purpose of the first book
Speaker 1: is something beyond just telling a fantasy story. I mean,
Speaker 1: I presume that there's messaging in there, as there usually
Speaker 1: is in literature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I sought out to set out to
Speaker 2: create what I hoped was an interesting story. But the
Speaker 2: way that I went about doing it was I took
Speaker 2: for inspiration three attributes that most people around the world
Speaker 2: ascribed to God. And so the first was about wisdom,
Speaker 2: and Book one is called in Pursuit Wisdom, and the
Speaker 2: second is security or protection, and so book two is
Speaker 2: in Need of Protection. And then I got pretty busy
Speaker 2: at my building a firm here in town, consulting firm,
Speaker 2: and it took about an eight year hiatus, much to
Speaker 2: the dismay of some of my readership. But finally book
Speaker 2: three has come out, and I chose justice, which I
Speaker 2: think is a fairly timely, fairly relevant to our culture
Speaker 2: today attribute the people look for from a higher power.
Speaker 2: And so the book three is called in Search of Justice,
Speaker 2: and that is coming out in print on April seventh.
Speaker 1: Oh, congratulations on the new one. I'm pleased. Another that
Speaker 1: you're still hard to work on. I guess you're a
Speaker 1: fan of CS lewis work, then it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: got shades of C. S. Lewis for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I took inspiration from a lot of different authors.
Speaker 2: I think most authors would admit that, but CS. Lewis
Speaker 2: is certainly high among them. Tolkien. I think everybody has
Speaker 2: to tip their cat if they're going to write in
Speaker 2: this genre to Tolkien. But even some of the more
Speaker 2: recent works, like I love some of the you know,
Speaker 2: I love some of Stephen King's sudden plot twists in
Speaker 2: his Horror. I hate his endings. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people do. Yeah, and even some of the other authors,
Speaker 2: like Susan Collins, they wrote pretty strong female characters without
Speaker 2: turning the men in their stories into into Mellie mouthed whimps,
Speaker 2: and so I like that aspect too. I mean, a
Speaker 2: lot of my female characters are pretty strong, but not
Speaker 2: at the expense of the male characters either. So I
Speaker 2: just took inspiration from a lot of different areas.
Speaker 1: Fair enough. Well, In Pursuit of Wisdom, the first book
Speaker 1: in the series, you create this this realm, you have
Speaker 1: this other world. It's not a place in the United States.
Speaker 1: It's not a place on our globe, for example, it's
Speaker 1: it's a different land, somewhere, a fiction land.
Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, so the the indust think tidbit there.
Speaker 2: For a lot of the Catholics in the Cincinnati community,
Speaker 2: you may be familiar with a around around Easter or
Speaker 2: not Easter, but though sometimes around Easter a tenebrae service,
Speaker 2: which is a dark lights out service on Good Friday.
Speaker 2: And Tenebra I took his inspiration as the name of
Speaker 2: the world because it is the dark World saga and
Speaker 2: Tenebray is Latin for darkness. And so that's actually the
Speaker 2: whole theme of this book, these this this trilogy is
Speaker 2: it's a world that has fallen away from the One
Speaker 2: True God and and what that entails. And in part
Speaker 2: it's it's a it's a quest to kind of rediscover
Speaker 2: a little bit of the light.
Speaker 1: And I was just going to ask you, this is
Speaker 1: a quest book. It's like the quest. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be loose with this. For the Holy Grail,
Speaker 1: you have been issued a challenge. There's something that the
Speaker 1: main character is after or in search of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's several main characters and and and
Speaker 2: several main villains. But yes, there is a quest that
Speaker 2: is part of the part of the motor that drives
Speaker 2: the narrative forward. But I would say that it's a
Speaker 2: lot more about the interactions and the and the character arcs,
Speaker 2: if you will, of the various protagonists involved, for sure.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's definitely quests. For I took, for example,
Speaker 2: each of those attributes of God and I embodied them
Speaker 2: into an artifact, and so getting that artifact, the Staff
Speaker 2: of Insight, the Shield of Life, and then in this
Speaker 2: book the Blade of Righteousness are are just objects if
Speaker 2: you will, that they compel the characters action moving forward.
Speaker 1: Gotcha parallels though with the divine for sure? Okay? And
Speaker 1: in need of protection, I note that the notes in
Speaker 1: the cap when war comes, where do people turn for protection?
Speaker 1: And I am going to anticipate that we should be
Speaker 1: a little introspective and kind of learn to swim on
Speaker 1: our own and maybe with the help of God. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give too much away for us,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there is you know, at the core of this.
Speaker 2: I think that each book, uh you know, I think
Speaker 2: provides a perspective and should force you to think. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of philosophy. Hopefully it's an entertaining
Speaker 2: story regardless of your religion, but it would be impossible
Speaker 2: to read these and not pick up some threads of philosophy.
Speaker 1: Good well, philosophy is another area of a literature that
Speaker 1: I'm very very much a fan of, so I good
Speaker 1: to get something out of this. Steve Shuemake, author of
Speaker 1: the trilogy.
Speaker 2: And finally, timeless questions, I mean, if they're you know,
Speaker 2: the the hook for book one was if there is
Speaker 2: a God, why do things happen to good people?
Speaker 1: Ah, the eternal question.
Speaker 2: That's a question that's been asked by people for thousands
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 1: Brian, you know, am I going to response to that?
Speaker 1: Don't get out in dark passage here? But he doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, God doesn't NeSSI, you know, not gonna let
Speaker 1: you win the lottery or make you win the lottery.
Speaker 1: I think the people who use prayer as a mechanism
Speaker 1: to ask for stuff and things or on a bad
Speaker 1: parallel or on a bad path. You're supposed to use prayer.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to use prayer for introspection. You're talking to
Speaker 1: it all seeing, all knowing power who can see through
Speaker 1: your bs if I may be so bold, so you
Speaker 1: can't lie to them. And it challenged you to find
Speaker 1: out you know where you are in your life and
Speaker 1: why things are going on in your life that sometimes
Speaker 1: have a negative impact, and perhaps learn from them. And
Speaker 1: that's the point I wanted to make. Bad things do
Speaker 1: happen to good people, but maybe they provide a vehicle
Speaker 1: for us to learn something like, for example, spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time with the people you love because the
Speaker 1: world's an imperfect place. They may get hit by a
Speaker 1: train tomorrow. You know, that's just one little lesson. I
Speaker 1: wish I had spent more time with them. So start
Speaker 1: doing that. Call your mom up every day, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying exactly, or don't do stupid stuff, Steve.
Speaker 2: Oh, but these are the these are the These are
Speaker 2: the types of questions that I think make the book compelling,
Speaker 2: whether you're a fan of this genre or not, because
Speaker 2: it's they've been asked in there. Everybody goes through life
Speaker 2: and they ask these types of questions.
Speaker 1: Well, and the second one is fed by the where
Speaker 1: do we find protection during perilous times? And again I
Speaker 1: think people people quite often look to leaders, which of
Speaker 1: course is part of your next, your third book that's
Speaker 1: coming out, When leaders fail? Who administers Justice? But where
Speaker 1: do we find protection during perilous times? What's the sort
Speaker 1: of tease on that component of the second book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a great question. You you really need when when
Speaker 2: times get tough. This is you know, my philosophy is,
Speaker 2: you know, we we all should seek virtue. But what
Speaker 2: happens when the people in charge don't have virtue? What
Speaker 2: happens when the leaders and the characters in my book,
Speaker 2: in my world involved aren't always the most virtuous and
Speaker 2: you uh, and and governments fall, kingdoms fall, and you're
Speaker 2: left with chaos. You know. Hopefully what people take away
Speaker 2: from that is that you know, you you look to God.
Speaker 2: I mean, you should be looking towards something that is
Speaker 2: a little bit more stable than what you know, who's
Speaker 2: president today and who's gone tomorrow?
Speaker 1: You know, well, also there's provided, there's there's his times
Speaker 1: provide opportunities for us to reflect on not repeating the
Speaker 1: mistakes of others. Another interesting lesson. We can learn from
Speaker 1: the bad things that happen to good people. Don't do that.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course that the third book, When leaders fail,
Speaker 1: who administers justice? There couldn't be a more timely book
Speaker 1: for your third release, Steve, For.
Speaker 2: Sure, everybody is. I think everybody has been. You just
Speaker 2: look at the results of the last election. I think
Speaker 2: every but he has been craving some semblance of justice
Speaker 2: for you know what has been done to this country
Speaker 2: over the last several years.
Speaker 1: So certainly timely, amen, Steve. I hope you have a
Speaker 1: wildly successful writing career, and I encourage my listeners to
Speaker 1: head over to fifty five case dot com, where Joe
Speaker 1: Strekker has updated my page. You include a link to
Speaker 1: the Dark World saga. You've got your personal link, You've
Speaker 1: got you on x per Se how people can follow you,
Speaker 1: and then of course the links to the Amazon pages
Speaker 1: where they can buy the books. Steve, it's been great
Speaker 1: talking with you, and congratulations smart men Mary Smart and
Speaker 1: you clearly did that with Taya. Love her and keep
Speaker 1: up the great work when the other books come out.
Speaker 1: You've got a place to talk about him.