Brian Godawa’s The Dragon King

posted in: Articles, October 2016 | 0

I’ve been enthralled with Brian Godawa’s book series Chronicles of the Nephilim. I reviewed his latest book in the series Jesus Triumphant for Down the Line and was really looking forward to the next book in the series and was surprised that his latest book was not the next in the Chronicles of the Nephilim series but the first book in a new series. The new book is called The Dragon King and the new series is the Chronicles of the Watchers. Since I reviewed the last book, I thought an interview would be in order to catch up with Brian.

Mike Indest: Brian, the new book The Dragon King starts a new series. Why did you feel it was the right time to start a new series?

Brian Godawa: The Chronicles of the Nephilim was based on the premise of retelling all the stories in the Bible where giants appeared or were crucial to the theological War of the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman. In that series, I included the “Watcher Paradigm,” that is, the understanding of Deuteronomy 32:8-10 and Daniel 4 and 10, where the nations are ruled over by supernatural divine beings or “gods,” by the decree of God himself.  Chronicles of the Watchers, then focuses on stories that may carry that paradigm into the Gentile nations to show how that spiritual reality may look in what is normally the unseen realm of history.

The Dragon King actually started out as a standalone story about the first emperor of China from a spiritual perspective. It wasn’t until we were developing the story that we realized that this would fit perfectly into the Watcher Paradigm and warrant its own series.

So what is the setting and basic plot of this story and why did you think this was an important story to tell?

It’s 220 B.C. The ancient Western Empire is crumbling.  In a desperate bid to save his throne, the Greek king over Babylon sends his son, Antiochus, a dishonored warrior, into the mysterious land of the Far East to capture a mythical creature that will give him absolute power: a dragon.  What he finds is an exotic world ruled by a brutal emperor on a mad quest to find the elixir of immortality.

We wanted to write this story because we had discovered certain historical oddities surrounding the first Emperor of China, Ch’in Shir Huang Di (or Huang Di), that were significant from a Christian perspective.

First, was that before Huang Di, the Chinese people worshiped a single God, they called Shang Di, without images. This was very peculiar because there was no other religion on the face of the earth that did that, except one: the Jews. Yet, the Chinese had no known connection to the Jews. So where did that come from? Some argue that the Chinese people came from the Tower of Babel incident and kept the knowledge of the past in a less corrupt form than other pagan cultures did.

Another fascinating evidence of this possibility is that the ancient Chinese language is a pictographic language, whose words reflect some of the spiritual truths of the book of Genesis, a thousand years before Genesis was written.

The Watcher paradigm comes in with the fact that the emperor banished the worship of Shang Di, and the worship of the “lesser gods” began around this time.

This was also the time period where the Dragon became a ubiquitous symbol of China. From a Christian perspective, the Dragon is Satanic, so it makes spiritual sense to see a bigger picture here of the very kind of supernatural gods of nations that are bent toward deception and evil.

But of course, that’s only the tip of the ziggurat of fascinating facts and myths we found.

The book is credited to you and Charlie Wen. Is this a co-write? What started this partnership?

Charlie was the co-creator of the visual development department at Marvel Studios. We met at church. He enjoyed my Nephilim series and I LOVED his illustration for Marvel movies like The Avengers, Captain America, Thor and others. Charlie and I had been talking about working on a project together. We both come from the movie industry. He told me that he had always wanted to tell the story of the first emperor of China, because of his heritage. When I heard how “Game of Thrones” Huang Di’s life was, I knew this would be a fascinating story. As we did research, we realized that if we created this first as a movie, the likelihood was very high that Hollywood would strip out the most important spiritual truths we had discovered and layered into the story, so we decided to write the novel first and get our version out there no matter what.

This book is just as fast paced and suspenseful as any of the Chronicles of the Nephilim books and reads like an action movie. I know you are a screenwriter and now are working with Charlie Wen, (Co-founder/Head of Visual Development for Marvel Studios) on this project.

Are you pitching this to movie production companies, or is this just the way you like to write?

We will try to pitch it to Hollywood companies because there is a BIG interest in anything Chinese, and ours is an East meets West story. But it’s not a kind of story that makes one culture superior to another. Rather, it compares and contrasts the good and bad of both kingdoms by the standards of a higher kingdom than both.

Were there any surprises you came across while researching and writing this project?

Yes, and unfortunately, I can’t tell you the best two surprises because they are tied to the very surprise solution of the whole story. We had a conundrum to solve of two MAJOR plot points that would embody the theme of the entire story. When we did more research to find an answer, we discovered another Biblical connection that not only answered the plot, but exploded the theme with rich and truthful imagination. I will only say this: One could say that this story is like Raiders of the Lost Ark in China. But it’s not about the Ark itself.

You’ve had commercial success in both the “Christian” world and in the mainstream. Do you have any advice or words or encouragement for Christians trying to make an impact and achieve success in the mainstream world?

The secular world of entertainment is still very anti-Christian. Sure, there are some who aren’t. But they are by and large hostile to the Gospel, because of its moral demands and authority. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. You must find your voice somewhere between preacher and coward and trust God to protect you as you obey his voice, not the winds of cultural acceptance. Place Jesus first in your heart, not your work, your success or fame. Be sure to be accountable and plugged into Christian fellowship at a church for empowerment. And don’t be afraid to speak “true truth” to power.

So what is next, book two of Chronicles of the Watchers or book nine of the Chronicles of the Nephilim?

As I said, The Dragon King can stand alone as a novel. So I am taking a break from it to write my next series, my magnum opus, Chronicles of the Apocalypse, a series about the apostle John writing the Book of Revelation in the first century during the Neronic persecution of Christians. Everything you know about the End Times will change. This ain’t your father’s Left Behind.

And there will be Watchers. It really is the sequel to the Chronicles of the Nephilim, but you can read it separately from that series.

How can people get a hold of your books and find out more about what you are doing?

All sold exclusively at Amazon in paperback, kindle and audiobook. Godawa.com has tons of cool artwork, videos, fascinating articles and detailed information. Sign up for the Godawa Chronicles Newsletter for special articles, discounts and opportunities for fans only.

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