The first installment of the series, Zan-Gah: a prehistoric adventure tells the story of Zan-Gah. The hero, Zan-Gah seeks his lost twin in a savage prehistoric world, encountering suffering, captivity, conflict, love, and triumph. In three years, Zan-Gah passes from an uncertain boyhood to a tried and proven manhood and a position of leadership among his people.
The story continues with the second installment titled, "Zan-Gah: a Beautiful Country." In this story, Zan s troubled twin brother, Dael, having suffered greatly during his earlier captivity, receives a ruinous new shock when his wife suddenly dies. Disturbed and traumatized, all of his manic energies explode into acts of hostility and bloodshed. His obsession is the destruction of the wasp men, his first captors, who dwell in the Beautiful Country. When he, Zan-Gah, and a band of adventurers trek to their bountiful home, they find that all of the wasp people have died in war or of disease. The Beautiful Country is empty for the taking, and Zan s people, the Ba-Coro, decide to migrate and resettle there. But the Noi, Dael s cruelest enemies and former tormentors, make the same migration from their desert home, and the possibility develops of contention and war over this rich and lovely new land.
About the Author:
ZAN-GAH author Allan Richard Shickman conceived Zan's adventure after thousands of miles of travel through mountains, deserts and forest land. The idea for this exciting story was born in a cave deep beneath the earth— in the company of hundreds of bats.
Allan is an artist, teacher, actor, author, historian, gardener, and former Boy Scout. He has published articles in The Art Bulletin, Art History, English Literary Renaissance, Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900, Notes and Queries, and Colby Quarterly. He was also Art and Music Bibliographer for Shakespeare Quarterly. He has had many letters in various newspapers, including a dozen in The New York Times. Allan taught the history of art at the University of Northern Iowa for three decades. He now lives and writes in St. Louis.
How would you describe the Zan-Gah series?
I think of the Zan-Gah books a counter to the prevailing tendency in young adult novels toward fantasy and reveling in the impossible. Zan-Gah is notable for its harsh realism and basic problems. No vampires, no magic wands, no dinosaurs even. The problems are those of survival in a difficult and dangerous world. Even in these brutalizing circumstances—especially in them—love and human feelings are important and essential
What inspired you to write a prehistoric adventure?
Survival could be difficult in any period, but the prehistoric era must have been particularly challenging. I like elemental circumstances: hunger, thirst, dust, bare feet.
What is the main thing that you hope that readers will gain from reading the Zan-Gah series?
The Zan-Gah books are distinguished from so many others (if I may say so) by words such as "honor," "character," "noble," "wisdom," and "integrity." And yet I try mightily not to seem preachy. Still, the books do contain messages about growing up and what it means to be a man. I hope my readers will enter into the dilemmas of the characters and care about them. I want the reader to think and feel more deeply because they have read my stories.
Did any of the characters surprise you while writing?
I never dreamed there would be a Rydl, but he suddenly appeared and grew as a character through the course of both books. Every step of his development was unplanned and took me by surprise. He is my favorite character.
When you began writing Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure had you already planned a second book or did that come later?
The second book came quite a bit later. The kids said "Write a sequel; you have to have a sequel." So I did.
How much research went into writing this series?
As an art historian I had a rough idea about people and their lives in the late Paleolithic period. Still, I did some research. I had to visit a real cave, and because my state of Missouri is rich in caverns, I visited one—Onondaga. It was a magnificent experience, and I was furiously taking notes. (I was the only guy in the whole cave who was taking notes.) I had to read up on twins in primitive societies, and made the useful discovery that some of them were terrified of twins, and would kill them at birth. I had to research hand fishing and slings, and some other things.
Which book(s) had the greatest influence on your writing?
There are a lot, and they are almost all classics. Shakespeare's language, Milton's thunder, Dostoyevsky's complex characters, to name some.
What book do you wish you had written?
My favorite book of all time is The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. That's a book I wish I had written, but I would have been satisfied to have written Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.
What advice can you give budding writers?
Find some other line of work. But if your are one of those people who can't stop writing (or painting or composing), and do it every chance you get, then you are destined to be an artist and have to accept your fate.
Take notes on note cards immediately any time you get an idea, however small or great. Ideas come at random, but cards can be arranged. Don't think you will remember. You will forget all your best ideas in ten minutes if you don't write them down.
Rewrite and rewrite. Even Shakespeare rewrote his stuff.
Read good books. Remember, you are what you eat.
What books are on your bedside table?
It changes, you know. At the moment it‘s Plays by Tennessee Williams. Nobody could write about love like Tennessee. I was in one of his plays a few years ago, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I had to tell Big Mama that Big Daddy had "can-suh."
What does it mean to be a writer?
Oof! Hard question! To be a writer is to be a dreamer who organizes, articulates, and embellishes his dreams.
What projects are you currently working on?
I have begun writing a third Zan-Gah book. It concentrates mainly on Zan's twin, Dael, who is seeking in his self-imposed exile to repair his shattered life. He will go to live with the crimson people (already introduced in the second book). I am going to call it Dael and the Painted People. But first I have to write it.
To learn more about Allan Shickman and his work visit EarthShaker Books or your local library.
