In the twenty-first century, magic has advanced with the times and gone digital, and Ravirn, a direct descendant of one of the three Fates, is a talented sorcerer—and computer hacker extraordinaire. Now that Ravirn has come into his own as a minor chaos power, he’s partying with Zeus, playing hard-to-get with a gorgeous Fury…and trying to stay one step ahead of Nemesis, the unstoppable goddess of vengeance.

But now Necessity—the sentient computer that runs the universe—has caught a virus that crashes most of the magical internet, and Ravirn is tasked with fixing it. And Ravirn hasn’t missed the fact that whoever repairs Necessity will, for that moment, run the universe, able to remake the worlds (and everything else) to their liking.

Unfortunately for Ravirn, some very dangerous beings have figured that out, too…

CodeSpell is set in a world where magic has advanced with the times and gone digital, and sorcerers use computers to cast spells. Of course, where there are computers, there are also hackers, and the series features the adventures of hacker / sorcerer Ravirn and his laptop familiar. A lot of fantasy involves a pseudo-medieval world and a bunch of people running around with swords and horses. How did you come up with the idea of combining computers with magic? Do you have a background in computer technology yourself?

I don't have a personal background in computers but I kind of soaked it up through the skin. My mom is a bug-fixer and programmer, and until she retired my grandmother worked on computer hardware test equipment for early mainframes. The idea itself came out of my first experiences with the web in the late 1990s. As I was playing with the web I couldn't help thinking of all these pages as sort of parallel worlds connected by the structure of the internet and the browser I was using. In turn that reminded me of some the parallel worlds stories I'd loved as a young reader in the 80s, stuff by H. Beam Piper and Andre Norton–a lot of ACE titles actually. From there it was a short step to the basic idea of a mutliverse connected by a supercharged version of the web.

I decided to go for a fantasy world rather science fiction because I hadn't seen anyone doing anything with magic and computers or magic and crosstime stories and I really wanted to try something new. Once I had that, the character of Ravirn was a natural. If I was going to tell a magical computer story I wanted someone who knew the ropes, and who better than a hacker/sorcerer hybrid? Melchior came next. I've always loved the idea of familiars and a smartass shape-changing laptop/ goblin seemed a perfect foil for Ravirn.

In addition to being a hacker / sorcerer, Ravirn is the umpteenth descendant of one of the Three Fates of Greek mythology. Why did you decide to combine Greek mythology with cyberpunk and contemporary fantasy in this series?

The Greek mythos architecture was added when I started trying to figure out what sort of entity would have built a huge interworld web. I tend to think along classical lines and the idea of the Fates upgrading their operation to make use of modern technology struck me as a great framework. That gave me instant conflict too, the Fates are the ultimate determinists and they're going to absolutely hate the whole free-spirt do-it-yourself hacker ethos.

I decided that I wanted Ravirn to be an actual member of the family of Fate and not just an outside hacker opposed to the Fates because I thought the added tension of making it an interfamily conflict really raised the stakes on the situation and complicated it. As a reader I love high fantasy and battles between real good and real evil, but as a writer I'm more interested in the gray areas where both sides believe they're doing the right thing and where fair arguments can be made that they aren't wrong to believe it.

I love how you've "updated" mythological characters and thrown them into the series. One of my favorites is Eris, the goddess of Discord. Eris is also one of the only deities to use Apple computers, so I have to ask—what's your answer to the age old question: PC or Mac?

Oh, I'm a diehard Mac fan. We had an Apple IIe when I was a kid and the very first computer I ever owned myself was a first generation Mac with OS I—I've actually still got it in the original box. I wrote my first novel, which was widely and wisely rejected, on it with MacWrite.

Do you have a favorite mythological character in CodeSpell? Who is it, and what role does this character play in the story?

It's a tough call. I dearly love Eris who often plays an advisory role for Ravirn, but I think that Thalia, the muse of comedy edges her out for me in CodeSpell. Very early in this book we discover that she is Ravirn's other grandmother, making him in a very real sense the end product of the embodiments of Fate and Slapstick. It actually explains a lot about his character. The reason I like her so much is that I think humor is often underrated in terms of its power. Satire and mockery can be incredibly strong tools against tyranny, and there's nothing better than laughter to beat back despair. There's an exchange between Thalia and Hades in this book that I'm particularly pleased with.

Can you give us any hints of what'll be coming next for Ravirn after CodeSpell?

I actually just finished the manuscript for another Ravirn book last month. It's tentatively entitled MythOS and it should be out May/June 2009. Among other things readers will be seeing a lot more of Tisiphone. They'll also to catch up with the webtroll Ahllan and find out the universe is a much bigger place than Ravirn thought it was. Instead of being the only game going, the Greek mythos is more like one partition on a very big hard drive...Loki and Fenris and Odin...oh my. After that, I don't know. Ravirn and Melchior are a lot of fun to write and I have some ideas for at least one more book beyond MythOS, but that's a long way off.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Just this, the WebMage world has been a great place to hang out the past couple of years. I'd like to thank Penguin and Anne Sowards for giving them a home, and also my readers for helping convince them it was a good idea on an ongoing basis. I hope those who pick up CodeSpell have as much fun with it as I did.