Why Is Storm Runner Darker than Wolfwalker?
Because it deals with dark issues. It’s easy to find stories that trivialize suffering in an action plot; and sometimes, when all you want is superficial entertainment, that kind of story can be perfectly acceptable. But in Storm Runner, my characters had to deal with the same issues and realities I have had to deal with. Abuse of power, enslavement, terrorism, tyranny–those are not superficial issues, and it would have been cheating to allow my characters to live their lives without having to consider the physical and philosophical consequences of their actions. Storm Runner requires each person to take a stand, to make the decision. The decisions were not trivial, so the story, like Wolf’s Bane, is darker than the stories told in Wolfwalker, Shadow Leader, Grayheart, and Lightwing.
