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Author Bio (Short)

Wally Waltner is a genre fiction author whose work blends the grandeur of epic fantasy with the pulse of pulp-era adventure. His Muses' War series, published by Raconteur Press, is set in the kingdom of Breheimen — where creativity itself is power, and that gift is being corrupted from the inside out. A Saint Olaf College music graduate, certified Kansas City Barbecue Society judge, and worship musician, Wally lives in Kansas City with his wife Mechelle.

Author Bio (Long)

Wally Waltner is a genre fiction author and storyteller whose work blends the grandeur of epic fantasy with the pulse and punch of pulp-era adventure. His stories explore the transformative power of creativity — where art and imagination aren't just themes, but elemental forces that shape worlds, destinies, and the people caught between them.

Born and raised in rural South Dakota, Wally's roots are grounded in wide skies, hard work, and a deep appreciation for the quiet stories that unfold far from the spotlight. That upbringing taught him the value of listening closely — to people, to landscapes, and to the myths that live just beneath the surface of everyday life. It also fed an active imagination, where a discarded pipe fitting becomes a ray gun, the bed of a rusted-out pickup truck becomes a sailing ship's deck, and a fallen tree branch Excalibur.

Wally holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he studied brass performance, voice, and composition. Though his creative medium has shifted from music to the written word, the rhythmic sensibility and harmonic structure of his early training continue to shape his storytelling today — whether orchestrating the politics of a fallen kingdom or the inner lives of Muse-touched heroes.

Beyond the page, Wally has spent his career as a leader in the management consulting world, where he helps organizations solve complex problems through clarity, structure, and strategic insight. That same mindset flows into his writing, where story architecture, character purpose, and thematic resonance are treated with the same rigor he brings to executive leadership.

Among other things, Wally is a certified Kansas City Barbecue Society judge, a volunteer leader for Paizo Publishing's Organized Play Program, and a worship musician for his local church. He lives in Kansas City with his wife of 33 years, Mechelle, and they are the proud parents of a grown daughter. With plans to relocate to North Texas in the near future, Wally is looking forward to planting new roots, meeting new readers, and finding new stories in the heat, hum, and cultural crossroads of the Lone Star state.

Author Quick Facts

Born: Freeman, South Dakota
Raised: On a farm outside Marion, SD
High School: Marion High School (1990)
College: Saint Olaf College, Northfield, MN (1994) — B.M., brass performance, voice, composition
Lived: Twin Cities, MN · Overland Park, KS (since 2002) · relocating to North Texas
Other Hats: Management consultant · KCBS-certified BBQ judge · Paizo Organized Play volunteer leader · worship musician

Series

Muses' War

What we illuminate, we become.

Publisher

Raconteur Press

marketing@raconteurpress.com

One-Page Synopses

Cliffs-Notes overviews — start to finish. Spoilers included; intended as conversation starters for interviewers.

Overture of Shadow (Book 1)

In the kingdom of Breheimen, creativity is not just celebrated, it is sacred. Those born with the "Muse-touch" are elevated as cultural icons. Among them is Dorian Silversong, a bard of notable acclaim. When he is summoned to the Collegium Bardica by his former mentor Sonoran Cathal, he arrives to find the man murdered — and himself thrust into a mystery far deeper than he imagined.

Muse-touched craftsmen are vanishing. The capital whispers with tension. The silver-tongued rhetorician Locrian Heartcaller has risen to dangerous prominence, and behind his polished rhetoric lies an agenda to rewrite Breheimen's cultural hierarchy and elevate art not as a gift, but as a weapon.

As Dorian unravels the threads left behind by his mentor, he uncovers a truth long buried: the Muse-touch is the result of a bond with the Musae — aethereal beings who feed on the essence of creativity while amplifying their hosts. A rival force, the Tenebrae, seeks to disrupt that balance, and they have found a willing vessel in Locrian.

Allied with Lydian Gleamingharpe, Mixolydian Thornecrest, Phrygian Eobanus, and the acolyte Revan Aethelstan, Dorian races to stop the opening of a rift between the mortal world and the aethereal realm of the Auroraen. The rift is sealed — but at a cost. The boundaries between worlds have thinned, and the war between shadow and inspiration has only just begun.

Fugue of Fire (Book 2)

In the aftermath of the battle at the Coronet Peaks, Breheimen is wounded but not healed. Locrian is dead, the portal is sealed, the enslaved Muse-touched artisans are freed — but Eagle's Wing, the kingdom's ancient sword of state, has been destroyed, and the Sundering has let both Musae and Tenebrae enter the world in unprecedented numbers.

King Siegfried Vestalis orders a new sword forged. Dorian, now mentoring his apprentice Revan, joins master smith Ilmarinen Steelhammer on a kingdom-spanning quest through Ironmount, Ferrendell, and the severe political order of Silea to gather the rarest materials and the greatest Muse-touched artisans. Ilmarinen carries a hidden danger: a dormant Tenebris, subtly twisting his pursuit of beauty and perfection. The new blade — Eagle's Talon — is completed, but not wholly safely.

In the capital, Praeceptor Phrygian Eobanus seeks repentance for the Church of the Muse's most dangerous secret: the existence of the Tenebrae. He nails thirty-five theses to the doors of the Musae Seminarii — a scholar's seal, not a hammer's nail. The Ecclesiasticum responds with containment, not confession; Praeceptor Summa Lucian Varastel chooses exile over open inquisition. But Phrygian's later Epistle slips beyond institutional control.

Meanwhile, Seraphina Ravenscroft watches her daughter Rosalind waste away under Tenebris possession. Guided by the mysterious Denmor and the healer Elisabeth, she learns the darkness might be transferred to a stronger vessel — and chooses to take it into herself. By the end, Breheimen has the appearance of order: a new sword, a surviving crown, a silenced reformer. In truth, the war has only deepened.

Character Snapshots

Protagonist

Dorian Silversong

A gifted bard who would much rather tell stories than become part of one. Witty, compassionate, and deeply capable, Dorian carries a long-standing aversion to institutional politics. His central struggle is accepting that his gifts are not only personal talents but public responsibilities — that beauty is not an escape from danger; sometimes it is the only weapon that can face it.

Ally & Love Interest

Lydian Gleamingharpe

A gifted performer, principled idealist, and one of the most revered voices in Breheimen. She carries not only the weight of her Muse-touch but the expectations of a kingdom that idolizes beauty without questioning its cost. Her journey explores integrity, loyalty, and the quiet courage it takes to remain kind in a world slipping into control and cynicism — light seeking form, striving not just to be brilliant but to be true. Dorian's equal, his conscience, and the slow-burn answer to feelings he has carried far too long.

Key Ally

Phrygian Eobanus

An elderly theologian who has spent his life serving the Church of the Muse. Devout, disciplined, and intellectually honest enough to recognize when loyalty to an institution has begun to conflict with loyalty to truth. His arc is one of repentance and reform — calling the faith he loves back to humility, transparency, and courage.

Overarching Antagonist

The Corruption

The real antagonist of the series is corruption itself: the twisting of inspiration into control, beauty into appetite, and power into domination. The Tenebrae feed where the Musae inspire — and they have always preferred to wear a human face.

Antagonist (Book 1)

Locrian Heartcaller

A celebrated orator whose voice once inspired a kingdom — and whose gift has become his undoing. Seduced and subtly corrupted by the Tenebrae, Locrian believes he is liberating Breheimen from its illusions. His power lies not in brute force but in persuasion: he bends truth, beauty, and art itself to his will. He embodies the central fear of the series — that creativity, severed from virtue, becomes a tool of manipulation. His fall is a warning that even the brightest can become instruments of darkness in disguise.

Antagonist (Book 2)

Seraphina Ravenscroft

Noble, proud, and dangerously determined. Seraphina is not evil for lack of love — she falls because her love becomes possessive, desperate, and finally willing to bargain with darkness to save her daughter Rosalind. Believing herself strong enough to master what is destroying her child, she takes the Tenebris into herself, and emerges a far more dangerous vessel than the shadows have had in generations. Tragic, formidable, and the most patient threat the kingdom now faces.

Topics & Themes

Creativity as power
Art and vocation
Religious reform and disputation
Imposter syndrome and identity
Mentorship and grief
Slow-burn romance between equals
The cost of beauty
Free will vs. control
Possession and bargain
Light vs. shadow

Direct Inspirations

✦Mercedes Lackey — Valdemar (vocation, connection, bardic magic)
✦C.S. Lewis — Narnia (moral clarity, allegorical depth)
✦J.R.R. Tolkien — The Lord of the Rings (the soul at stake on a journey)
✦Robert Heinlein — The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (consistency of worldview)
✦Larry Correia — Grimnoir (genre fiction with conviction)
✦Star Wars — myth, music, and the romance of adventure

Marketing Hooks

The Gap Hook

If you've been waiting for the next great bardic fantasy since The Wise Man's Fear, this is the answer — complete, satisfying, and with the next book already on the way.

The Magic-System Hook

A magic system where art is power. Bards, smiths, scholars, and theologians channel inspiration through the work of their hands. Performances are political. Craftsmanship can change a kingdom.

The Series Promise

Conspiracy in Book One. Reform and reckoning in Book Two. Open metaphysical war from Book Three (Scherzo of Madness) onward. Each volume resolves cleanly.

Sample Interview Q&A

What makes the world unique?

Muses' War is built around the idea that creativity is not merely expressive — it is power. Artists, musicians, scholars, and craftsmen can be 'Muse-touched,' forming a supernatural bond that lets their work shape hearts, societies, and even the boundary between worlds. The magic is cultural, spiritual, and moral before it is tactical. A sword, a song, a sermon, or a sculpture can carry power because art has always been one of the ways human beings reach for the divine.

What themes does the series explore?

Creativity, stewardship, temptation, reform, and the difference between power and goodness. If inspiration is a gift, who owns it? If art can move people, when does influence become manipulation? What happens when institutions meant to guard truth begin protecting themselves instead? The goal is not to preach, but to dramatize the cost of truth.

Where is the series going?

Overture of Shadow uncovers the ancient corruption beneath Breheimen's understanding of the Muse-touch. Fugue of Fire shows the kingdom trying to respond — reforging what was broken, reforming what was hidden, and surviving what slipped through the veil. From there the war goes hot. Book three is Scherzo of Madness.

What element of the story are you most proud of?

The way the magic system is tied to vocation. A blacksmith, a bard, a theologian, a jeweler, and a luthier might all be Muse-touched — but their gifts manifest through the work of their hands, minds, and voices. That lets the most important moments be performances, arguments, acts of craftsmanship, or quiet choices made before anyone understands their consequences.

Who has inspired you as a writer?

Tolkien and Lewis are foundational — for moral seriousness and the conviction that a journey matters because the soul is at stake. Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar shaped how I think about vocation and connection. Heinlein — especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — taught me about consistency of worldview and characters who stand firm when the odds say they should break. Larry Correia's Grimnoir is in there too.

Cover Art (High-Res)

Right-click any cover to save the high-resolution file.

Overture of Shadow ↓

Fugue of Fire ↓

Interview Availability

Wally is open to live video interviews, podcast appearances, and bookstore events. He's especially happy to talk shop with shows that dig into craft and creativity as well as promotion. If you can help organize a local bookstore appearance, he's interested. He is also available for convention appearances as a panelist and guest.

Press & Interview Inquiries

For ARCs, interviews, or appearances, please contact:

Email Wally Email Publisher