I first encountered Henry Ram’s writing when I was looking for submissions for sword-and-sorcery anthologies. The story Henry sent me, “Honour Served,” was purely historical without any supernatural elements. It was so damn good I didn’t think twice about including it in Warlords, Warlocks & Witches. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good viking story. Let’s learn more about this talented author.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your background as a writer.
I mostly write historical fiction. Specific genres are adventure, S&S, horror, steampunk, Westerns, humour, science-fiction and sometimes a mix of two or three different genres in the same story. When I employ fantasy or a supernatural element, it's usually done sparingly. I was born in Denmark, but I've lived most of my life in the US and UK. At the moment I live just south of the Scottish border near what was once the northern frontier of the Roman Empire.

Your historical story "Honour Served" deals with Norsemen serving the Byzantine Empire. How much of this story was based on real events?
Nothos, the chamberlain who temporarily rules Byzantium in "Honour Served," is loosely based on Basil Lekapenos, the illegitimate son of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos and one of his concubines. Basil Lekapenos, also known as Basil the Nothos (or, Basil the Bastard), was reputed to have been castrated as a child. This was a not uncommon practice at the time for aristocratic families with ambition. The thinking was that as a eunuch, someone well-connected like Basil Lekapenos could attain power and influence without fear of being killed or imprisoned by unscrupulous rivals, since eunuchs were automatically excluded from ruling as emperor and therefore not seen as a direct threat to their interests.

Although Basil Lekapenos wielded considerable behind-the-scenes power during the rule of several emperors and amassed an extraordinary amount of wealth, his power was never as absolute as depicted in the story. The real Nothos lived to be at least sixty, dying in the year 985 after falling into disfavour with the new emperor and being stripped of his wealth and exiled. It wasn't actually until the year 988 that Norsemen began to serve as bodyguards in Constantinople, so that was actually a few years after his time. I didn't specify an exact year in the story, but it's probably around the year 1000 AD or the late 990s. This is the time period that other exploits of Thorbrand, the Norse leader of the Varangians, fall into.

What are the most prominent influences on your writing? How do you incorporate those influences without being derivative?
I've never quite been able to get Edgar Allan Poe out of my head, even when I'm not writing something that's related to horror. Robert E. Howard, Harold Lamb, Rafael Sabatini and David Gemmell, for example, also probably lurk at the edge of my mind when I'm writing heroic fiction. I suppose that all authors, to a greater or lesser extent, are a product of what they've read. And I guess the trick is to learn what you can from authors you admire yet at the same time try to follow your own path. Actually, I hadn't given much thought to this subject before now. Maybe if I were asked this same question a year or so from now, I might give a different, and probably better, answer.

Many authors say marketing is one of their biggest challenges. What tactics have you found to be most effective for getting your name out there?
I've been lax when it comes to the promotion of short stories. About the only marketing I can think of that I've done is --well-- to answer the questions in this interview and maybe one or two previous interviews. When it comes to novels --I write Westerns under a different name-- I've got a publicist to do the promoting. We're on a first-name basis, so there's that.

How much do your audience’s expectations factor in to what you write? Does this ever cause you to hold back from experimenting?
I'm not sure what to say to this. I think I write partly for myself and partly for my audience. As with the earlier question about prominent influences, I don't think I've given this much thought till now either. In part, this might be because I only started to become serious about writing fiction in 2010. Maybe I could benefit from going away to the coast or mountains for a month and do some deep thinking and self-reflecting.

Have you had any new stories published recently? Are you currently working on any?
I have a couple of stories that should be coming out soon in two different Rogue Blades anthologies. One is about a medieval lord who invokes the jus primae noctis, which means the right of a lord to carry off a bride on her wedding night. The groom seeks to rescue his bride from the lord's manor house but first must evade guardsmen and various concealed traps that await. The other story, as with "Honour Served," takes place in Byzantium and again features Thorbrand. This time he's charged with guarding the brother of the emperor against assassins. Well, guess what? It again somehow ends badly for the person he's sworn to protect. So, as heroic and resourceful as Thorbrand is, he just can never seem to get the job done. I really don't know why wealthy Byzantine aristocrats keep hiring him when they always end up being brutally killed.

In answer to the second question, at the moment I'm working on my third novel. I'm under contract to produce an initial five Westerns. After that, I think I'll probably turn my attention to writing something in a different genre.

Name one newer and one older book you have read and enjoyed recently. (“Newer” meaning from the past year or so, and “older” meaning written before 1980.)
Death Dealers & Diabolists and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Moon Maid.

Any final words?
I really like it when a pied wagtail visits my garden.