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| Connecticut Vampire Series, Book 1 |
Richard DeVere, the time-travelling vampire from A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur's Court, interviewed by Kevin Turvey.
Me; Hello, and welcome to the newest edition of Kevin Turvey Investigates. I’m here today to interview Richard DeVere, who claims to have gone back in time to “Olde England”. Yeah, really. Richard, it’s a pretty far out claim. How many times do you say you’ve been back in time?
DeVere; That’s a tough one, I mean, I’ve been back more than sixty times, but at this present time I’m not sure I’ve kept an accurate count.
Me; Well there have been three novels written about your exploits; it’s all recorded, written down, that should make it pretty easy to count.
DeVere; Three novels right now, yes, but there’s been sixteen written altogether.
Me; Sixteen? Wow, your writer friend has been busy. Why haven’t they all been published?
DeVere; Because right now they’re not written yet, of course.
Me; Not written yet?
DeVere; No, it takes a couple of years for his writing to catch up with my exploits, but he does it quite well; roughly a novel every three months for four years. We finished four years from now.
Me; Eh, you used the past tense there, you said ‘finished’.
DeVere; Yes, in your present, which is my past, they’re not finished yet. In my present day, which is about four years from now, they’re finished.
Me; So you say right now, here in the studio, is actually in your past?
DeVere; Yes, my past and present. You see, I wasn’t actually consulted when this interview got scheduled, I was in 1709 at the time, and a bit of 1553 again. So when I found out about the interview, basically I had to travel back as shallow as I could, then just float forward to your present day, to arrive here on time.
Me; You travelled back in time to get here… to live to my ‘Present Day’.
DeVere; Yes, just to 1716 as it turned out, so not long to wait in the giant scheme of things. It’ll all sort itself out; time-travel constantly throws up these inconsistencies.
Me; So with all this time-travelling, and waiting, eh, floating, how old are you? How many years have you ‘lived’ through?
DeVere; Oh, many thousand probably.
Me; And yet you don’t look a day over twenty-five.
DeVere; One of the benefits of being a vampire.
Me; Eh, okay, I’ll press on. The first novel; “A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur’s Court”, you didn’t go back to Arthurian times. So why ‘King Arthur’ in the title?
DeVere; Publisher’s decision, I’m afraid; we needed to keep close to Mark Twain’s title as we could, so it’s a kinda play on words. King Henry the Seventh’s eldest son, Arthur, never actually got to be ‘King’, but I tried everything I could to change history.
Me; So you actually tried to change history?
DeVere; Yes.
Me; Isn’t that dangerous?
DeVere; We’ll never know. Every time we look back, we see a fixed history; it doesn’t change. But every time I did manage to ‘change’ history, we never see what I’ve done, the past fixed history still looks fixed.
Me; But you’d know the changes.
DeVere; Yeah, but I wouldn’t admit them to anyone. I’d just look silly.
Me; Try me.
DeVere; Okay, eh, Queen Elizabeth didn’t always beat the Spanish Armada, she lost three times before I got involved.
Me; But there’s no mention of that anywhere.
DeVere; That’s because we put it right again, a Spanish speaking world is not a easy place for me to live.
Me; Why not?
DeVere; Because my Spanish is terrible.
Me; (laughs) You could have just made all that Spanish Armada stuff up.
DeVere; And that proves my point. Any changing of history has to be kept secret by me. There’s no point in telling anyone. You either think I’m just being smart, or don’t believe me because there’s never any proof. That’s why I don’t mention it.
Me; Okay, I’m beginning to catch on. What’s the main difference between Tudor England and the present day? Eh, my present day.
DeVere; Electricity, and showers.
Me; Ah, ye olde one bath a year thing?
DeVere; Precisely.
Me; And yet despite their lack of cleanliness, you claim to have had sex with most of the ladies of the day?
DeVere; Only the ones further up the food chain, and you have to remember I’m a vampire, so sex is part and parcel of what I am.
Me; But the Queens…
DeVere; Wait! No spoilers for those still to read the books. Let’s not let my sex-capades out of the bag.
Me; Of course. Who’s the most impressive person you’ve ever met, you know, back there?
DeVere; Without doubt, Queen Elizabeth the First.
Me; And why’s that?
DeVere; She’s just a fantastic woman, such a strong character in such turbulent times. Her presence of mind in her later years was a joy to watch.
Me; And the most evil person? The worst bad guy?
DeVere; Wow, evil’s a big word. Probably Oliver Cromwell, he had a darker side than any of the history books ever let on to. Although a couple of Archbishops of Canterbury have run him close at times.
Me; You’ve met Oliver Cromwell?
DeVere; Yes, in volume eight.
Me; Published when?
DeVere; About two years from now, if I remember rightly, same year as the movie rights were bought by Disney.
Me; Movie rights?
DeVere; On the big screen for Christmas. My Christmas, not yours.
Me; Of course. Wow. Do you think it will go well?
DeVere; It already did.
Me; In your present day.
DeVere; There can be only one. The first movie went blockbusters. We even beat the Silmarilion Two into second place.
Me; Silmarilion?
DeVere; The newest JRR Tolkien franchise; the whole history of middle earth in six volumes. Peter Jackson didn’t want to do it, but when they offered him $100 million, he caved.
Me; Okay, let’s get back to Tudor England, shall we? You can’t actually travel very accurately, can you?
DeVere; No. It’s not a precise science. I just have a rough idea of when I’m going to, and sometimes I’m early, sometimes late.
Me; And that means that you bump into yourself from time to time?
DeVere; Yes, quite a lot really. I’ve helped myself a few times, you know, when the timeline needed straightening out.
Me; Ever thought of going back and killing Hitler or Stalin or someone equally as evil?
DeVere; I can’t seem to go back that shallow, I’m afraid. The latest I’ve even been to is 1746. So no to the Hitler question, unless you want me to go back, then hang around for two hundred years and just drift forward in time normally. I could do it that way. Just like I did for tonight’s interview.
Me; So this interview is more important than killing Hitler?
DeVere; Oh, yes.
Me; What’s the farthest back you’ve gone?
DeVere; That would be 56AD. Lady Jane and I wanted to see Pompeii erupt, but we went back too far. We had a good time as we waited for it. We saw a lot of the Roman Empire at its best. It took five jumps to get that far back; time-travelling takes it out of you, we’ve not done it since.
Me; And which book is that in?
DeVere; We never wrote that part; just too far-fetched, you know, too much out of the plot of the book. In the middle of number eleven that was.
Me; Do you always land in England?
DeVere; No, but I try to keep myself centered there; the accent’s easy, and I know the country well by now.
Me; What’s the furthest from London that you’ve landed?
DeVere; Morocco, I think. I wasn’t really certain of where it was; just sand and desert, until I got a ship to Spain.
Me; You’re not scared of giving spoilers?
DeVere; It’s written on the back of the book for everyone to see.
Me; Volume number?
DeVere; Book three, I think.
Me; But we’ve only got books one and two right now.
DeVere; It’ll be in the shops before Christmas. This Christmas, your Christmas.
Me; (laughing) In my present day?
DeVere; (laughing) In your present day.
Me; And there we close. “A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur’s Court”; in bookstores and eBooks now. We thank you, Richard for coming along, sorry, for making the time to travel back in your time, then hanging around for three hundred years, just to see us tonight.
(Music, then fade)
Me; Okay Richard, Microphones are now switched off, thanks mate, that was a good interview.
DeVere; I enjoyed it immensely. And it passed so quick too. But why just concentrate the questions on the time travel aspect of the books? Why didn’t you ask me about being a vampire?
Me; Well mate; that would just have been silly, wouldn’t it? Everyone knows there’s no such thing as vampires.
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| Lights dim, Kevin Turvey turns away. |
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