How do you indulge yourself?
I play computer games. I just bought 'Age of Empires' and I play it constantly. Mind you, I can't play it without the cheats. It's so infuriating. I kept getting killed, so after a week of being massacred I nipped on to the Net and went into a Games chat room. A twelve year old was talking about how it took him an hour to figure out you can't get very far without building several storage pits. An hour! I could have shot him!
Do you have a motto?
The louder he spoke of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons.
What was your first job?
Labourer, digging foundations. Then I moved to working for Pepsi Cola as a lorry-driver's mate.
Who makes you laugh?
Any politician talking about honour, morality, decency or courage.
Which of your novels did you most enjoy writing?
LEGEND. It was a golden time in my life. I could write it better now - and yet it wouldn't be as good. LEGEND has all the flaws you expect in a first novel, but it has a heart that wouldn't be bettered by improving its style. I am as proud of that book as I am of anything I've done in my life.
How would you describe yourself?
Tall and flawed.
What was the first piece of fiction you wrote?
THE MAN FROM MIAMI, a novel about an assassin. It was so bad it could curdle milk at fifty paces.
What qualities do you most admire in others?
Loyalty, with courage coming a very close second.
What's the best thing about being an author?
Being your own boss.
What's the worst thing about being an author?
Being your own boss.
Who is your hero?
Currently, it's Ronald Reagan. After years of politicians seeking to remove morality from the question of East-West relations he had the courage to set out to destroy communism, describing it as an evil empire, and setting in place all the elements that would later smash the Iron Curtain.
If you were a superhero, which powers would you like to have?
The Flash. I could write faster.
What are you doing at the weekend?
Desperately trying to meet the next deadline.
Del Rey Interview with David Gemmell
| Source: Del Rey Online | 
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Ravenheart is the third book of your Rigante series, following Sword in the Storm and Midnight Falcon. One of the distinctive characteristics of this series is that it spans a lot of time; decades pass between Sword and Falcon, and hundreds of years between Falcon and Ravenheart. It's as though you're writing not just the stories of individual men and women, but of an entire people.
I tend not to have a master plan when I set out to create a novel. When I began Sword in the Storm I was not even aware that it WAS going to be part of a series. Initially it was just the story of a man who would change his people's destiny. Then I began to be fascinated by how thatman's actions would be interpreted by--and affect--history. Every action we take begins a chain of events which will continue down the centuries, endlessly moving outwards. A man a thousand years ago saves a child from a swollen river. The child, who might have died, has children of his own, and they go on to have families. Eventually one of the descendants becomes a George Washington or an Abraham Lincoln. The entire formation and philosophy of the United States might be due to one man lifting a child from the water.