Oak Bay resident and emerging Viking fantasy author Ian Stuart Sharpe recently returned from what he calls a reverse invasion of the Jorvik Viking Festival in York, England.
While there, he not only immersed himself in the festival among Norse history fans and Viking reenactments, Sharpe also launched his newest book (also his second book), Loki’s Wager, to an audience that was sure to embrace it.
“Jorvik is recognized as the largest event of its kind in Europe, and so if you want to launch a new book about Vikings, it is the place to be,” Sharpe said. “The key thing for me all these years after Leif Erikson landed on Canadian shores was to give something back to the Norse community. The Beatles and the Vikings invaded North America, I was just doing it reverse.”
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Loki’s Wager is the sequel to Sharpe’s 2018 debut novel the All Father Paradox, published by Outland Entertainment. Thanks to online sales, the books have sold in Canada, the U.K., U.S.A., Slovenia, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Colombia, the Ukraine, Australia, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Sharpe’s books are for fans of Norse history and Vikings who are looking to dive into the next level of a Norse universe where the Vikings prevailed in Europe rather than succumbed to Christian rule. As Sharpe explains, if you are a fan of the television drama Vikings, that is a “good jumping-off point.”
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All this to say, publishing books about Vikings is a second passion to Sharpe’s successful career in online streaming technology. Sharpe runs Promethean.tv, an online platform for interactive video. He also lives a fairly “Oak Bay” life with his wife, two children, and a dog.
His company has grown from more than a promising startup to picking up major clients in Asia. It embeds overlays onto live sports streams such as statistics or social media posts (the idea is the user can choose from a plethora of options).
But when he’s in between pitching major telecommunication representatives in Thailand, Sharpe goes back in time to his own Viking universe.
Since completing Loki’s Wager, Sharpe has started a graphic novel series – The Jotunn War – through Kickstarter that has nearly reached its goal. For Sharpe’s catalogue visit vikingverse.com.
