S. W. Raine

I’ve always loved pirates. And I mean before Pirates of the Caribbean made pirates cool again. I’ve always been fascinated by the real pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy, like Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, etc., and all the stories that turned them into legends.

But as much as I love learning about what pirates did to become famous, I’ve always been even more interested in the people behind those stories. Where did they come from? What were their lives like before anyone knew their names? And, most importantly, how did they become pirates in the first place?

That fascination naturally followed me into fiction. I love Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Kenway from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and John Silver from Treasure Planet. And Balthier from Final Fantasy XII is still my favorite sky pirate of all time. (Leading-man energy, what can I say?)

So it was inevitable that I’d eventually write a sky pirate of my own. What I didn’t expect was that he wasn’t supposed to matter.

He Didn’t Even Have a Name

When I was writing The Techno Mage, I reached a point where I needed to separate Magaliana from Ikarim and Arteus and get her where she needed to go. The easiest solution I could think of was pirates.

Enter: the pirate captain. That was it. That was his identity. He had a quick job to do in the story, but he was appearing far too often for me to keep calling him “the captain” all the time. He needed a name.

Now, my characters have a habit of telling me things. Names included. Sometimes they’ll flat-out tell me what they’re called; other times I’ll scroll through Behind the Name until they basically go, THAT ONE.

This particular pain in my butt was willing to tell me his name was Captain Keenan…. but his first name? Apparently that was classified information. Eventually, though, I found out it was Benedict.

The moment he officially became Captain Benedict Keenan instead of simply “the captain,” he started asking for more roles. Then started trying to take over every scene he appeared in. I kept mentally telling him to tone it down because The Techno Mage was NOT his story, but he clearly had other ideas.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with him. And by the time he’d finished his job, I didn’t want to say goodbye. I was genuinely sad his part of the story was over.

Then a friend suggested something very dangerous: why not give him his own series?

But How Did He Become Captain Keenan?

Eventually, I found myself asking the exact same question about my fictional pirate that I’d always loved asking about the real ones: How did he become a pirate?

The Keenan readers meet in The Techno Mage is already an infamous sky pirate captain, but he obviously wasn’t born that way. Something had to happen between the person he used to be and the man who eventually crossed paths with Ikarim, Arteus, and Magaliana, and I needed to know what.

That question eventually became Rise of the Sky Pirate, the first book in The Adventures of Captain Keenan, a four-part prequel series set fifteen years before The Techno Mage. And Keenan definitely doesn’t start the book dreaming about a life of piracy.

He gets kidnapped by sky pirates.

Suddenly, the man readers know as an infamous pirate captain is on the other side of the story, forced into a world he never chose and onto a path that will eventually turn him into the man we meet fifteen years later. Exactly how he gets from one to the other? Well… that’s the fun part. 😉

Celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with the Sky Pirate E-Bundle

Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is basically an excuse for me to combine two things I love: pirates and being ridiculous. Yes, I know pirates didn’t actually wander around yelling “ARRR, ME HEARTIES! SHIVER ME TIMBERS!” at each other, but am I going to pass up an opportunity to dress like a pirate and talk like one anyway?

Absolutely not.

And because I couldn’t let Talk Like a Pirate Day sail by without doing something special, I’m celebrating with the Sky Pirate Ebook Bundle Sale through September 30. The bundle includes both The Techno Mage and Rise of the Sky Pirate for $6.99 USD.

Which means you can meet the infamous Captain Keenan in The Techno Mage… and also travel fifteen years into the past with Rise of the Sky Pirate to discover how his story began.

You can grab the bundle here through September 30.

And now I’m curious: Who’s your favorite pirate, real or fictional? Tell me in the comments! I’m ALWAYS happy to talk about pirates.

Raine