Newmarket resident and author Bryan Cole has made his book debut with the recent publishing of his fantasy fiction, Beginning of Arrogance.
Cole works full-time in IT and found that his particular role involved a lot of content creation. When he suddenly found himself with a lot of free time and with the encouragement of his friends who said he was a good storyteller, he began writing his book in June 2021. A year later, in June 2022, it was published.
The story, which follows a paladin named Krell who has to face a rising threat, is fantasy, a genre that Cole has enjoyed for most of his life.
Growing up, he said he was the right age to fall "head over heels" for the Star Wars franchise, recalls watching Battlestar Galactica with his uncle, and loving other shows like Star Trek. But the real deep dive into fantasy came when one of his friends in grade school gave him the first book of the Dragonlance Chronicles, a fantasy trilogy.
“I read that book and immediately fell in love with the characters, the idea of the hero’s journey, all of that kind of stuff. That started pretty much a lifelong passion for the whole genre,” Cole said.
He also has a love of reading and is very familiar with staying up almost all night long reading, getting hooked on a book and not being able to put it down.
"I’ve been reading non-stop now for years," he said.
Playing Dungeons and Dragons, other board games, video games and attending conventions rounds out Cole's experience in the realm of fantasy and all this contributed to writing his book.
One of the author's main goals with Beginning of Arrogance was to properly portray a paladin, which is a common character in fantasy. Krell is called by a tempestuous god of the sea to deal with a threat coming toward their land. Cole wanted to show what that would look like, especially with a dark and horrifying god rather than the heroic, justice-seeking paladins he often sees in other stories.
He said the feeling of having this book come together and seeing it published is hard to describe.
"Holding the book in my hand and actually looking at it my first thought was ‘oh, it’s so pretty.’ I was just thrilled to hold onto it, this tangible piece of art that I created that people seem to like,” he said.
So far the book has received mostly four and five star reviews on sites like Goodreads and Amazon.
However, Cole said the biggest challenge in the author experience is marketing his work and he wants to expand the audience further. That has included the creation of an audiobook that is underway now.
He is also well on his way to finishing the second book in the series and said while it's harder to find time to write while still working full time, he making progress everyday.
