Splendid. Glad it worked.







One of the toughest things I ever had to balance was the Christian material in my two-volume novel St George and the Dragon. How does on write a saint?

Fortunately, George starts as a rather reluctant saint in this story, well over a decade off his hagiographic martyrdom, and pretty pissed with God over the execution of his Christian martyr parents by the Emperor. He's not in any mood to be saintly. He's Han Solo in 3rd century AD Roman Africa.

The actual Christianity comes from George's sidekick, a young monk who "believes in George's sainthood until George can" and who represents his faith in very humble and helpful ways. He's there to drag George into saving people - in fact he believes he has been sent by God to do exactly that.

That juxtaposition, plus the pre-Christian Roman provincial setting, plus Christian doctrine that hasn;t quite "set" yet into medieval let alone modern understandings, plus a heroine who is a "pagan" princess (allegedly descended of Apollo and a River Nymph), plus a scheming mastermind Dragon who plans the utter eradication of humanity's morality and free will, gave me lots to play with but required quite a balancing act.







I think he probably works best as a supporting character.