About Charles W. McDonald Jr.

The Author of A Throne of Souls

For those of you who want to know more about me than a couple of paragraphs on the Biography and Contact page, this is for you...  I grew up in a family of five preachers.  Yes, you heard me correctly, FIVE preachers.  So, if you're reading my content and saying to yourself, 'man that sounds like scripture or has a Christian ring to it,' now you know why.  However, I can assure you, with a thousand-percent certainty, this is NO CHRISTIAN story.  If you're reading it because you think it IS Christian, boy are you going to be disappointed.  Neither is this an Atheist story, nor Pagan, nor Occult.  I'm going to leave my religion and my beliefs out of this story.  I'm just going to keep writing the most compelling and entertaining story I know how and keep my personal beliefs out of it.  Be sure and read the disclaimer on the Impressum page at the front of each book and notice how carefully I worded that.  This whole Christian vs Pagan vs Occult thing has a lot to do with why that is worded so carefully.

 

I grew up in Oklahoma City, OK, and went to the University of Oklahoma after turning down opportunities to go to the Air Force Acadamy and Princeton.  Yep, you heard me right.  I turned down a full ride to the Ivy League and I was working with then-Senator David Boren (now President of OU) to arrange a full ride to the Acadamy.  What can I say, I went to Princeton and it didn't feel right to me.  I went to the Air Force Acadamy and it didn't feel right to me.  I am an intellectual, but I go off my gut a lot too and I've rarely regretted it.  At OU, I screwed around a LOT and made a mess of things.  Went to Kentucky (of all places) to get my head screwed on straight, came back to OU and kicked ass.  This was mid 90's and that's when I discovered The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and it literally changed my life.  From that moment forward, I've thought of little else but telling the story you're likely reading right now.  Sure, there were long stretches of time where I didn't work on the story at all, but I can assure you I was always thinking about it.  I was always developing the story and characters in my mind.  And, don't think that A Throne of Souls is going to read or feel like The Wheel of Time.  It will not!  About the only thing in common A Throne of Souls has with The Wheel of Time is the fact that there is iconography at the beginning of each chapter.  Other than that, A Throne of Souls is about as unique as you can get.

 

It takes a very long time and an immense amount of thought to assemble a story like this.  And, I'm certain my wife would call it an obsession.  But, that should tell you a little about me... I am an obsessive person about certain things.  I'm careful and fastidious about my writing or pretty much any kind of work that has my name attached to it.  There's a certain pride of craftsmanship that I learned from my father and never could let go.  Whether it's computers, writing, carpentry, golf, etc.  If I'm spending time doing it, I usually care about how well it's done.