Photo courtesy of James Maxey

Roanoke-born author James Maxey released "Dragonforge," the second book in his fantasy series, in July.

"They were several hundred feet above the ruins of Big Lick. The mountain here was a series of rocky shelves and overhangs, some quite deep. They walked up a wooden ramp toward the great gaping mouth of the mountain. Judging from the picks and shovels laying around, this was the entrance to a mine."

No, the above isn't a description of Roanoke 150 years ago. It is a scene from "Dragonforge," a novel that takes place in a world 1,000 years into the future, cultivated from the imagination of Roanoke native and fantasy author James Maxey.

While "Dragonforge" is a fantasy/science fiction epic, Maxey's fictional world may not be far from imagination for Virginia readers. In fact, his inspiration for many of the places in his dragon-inhabited world is pulled from the Richmond and Southwest Virginia area.

"You write what you know," Maxey said. "I knew whenever I was writing about the distances and I knew the towns. I had a mental map, I knew the scenery."

It took Maxey 10 years to get his fantasy project "Bitterwood" published. After that success, it's been a nonstop writing fest for the 44-year-old, who now resides in Hillsborough, N.C.

It started with games

Maxey was born in Roanoke and attended school here until age 14. His cousin, Tony St. Clair, a pastor at New Beginnings Baptist Church in Vinton, refers to him fondly as Jimmy.

When the pair were kids, they used to walk up and down Courtland Avenue, back when there was a general store on that road.

"And we used to play a lot of games: pirates, superheroes, make stuff out of cardboard," St. Clair, 43, said. "I was one of the first people to play Dungeons & Dragons around here. He was always artsy, better at drawing and writing. ... And always a creative thinker."

He added that their grandfather "was very into books and did a lot of reading. That's where we got our reading side from -- the Maxey side."

Maxey released his first book "Nobody Gets the Girl" through Phobos Books in 2003. The foreword of the novel was written for St. Clair. It's still St. Clair's favorite of Maxey's novels, because it's more of a comic-booklike story (though he has yet to read "Dragonforge.")

After that, Maxey partnered with an agent, still hoping to sell someone on "Bitterwood." After a year of waiting, good news came from across the Atlantic. Solaris Books, based in England, had interest in the project.

Drawing on the familiar

"Bitterwood" was released in June 2007 and became a hit, forcing Maxey to begin a quick turnaround for the second installment, "Dragonforge," which was released in July.

The majority of the novel follows characters in a world 1,000 years in the future. Created by a goddess to prevent humans from destroying the planet with increasing technology, dragons have secured control of the Earth.

The human struggle to survive at the bottom of society is pitted against their desire to once again reign supreme. Maxey throws in a good number of twists, using advanced technological thinking to explain the world in the year 1100 DA (Dragon Age).

Maxey's father was a coal miner for a time, and used to regale his son with stories of working in the mines. The stories stuck with Maxey, and there is an entire underworld in his writing that reflects what he imagined the mines would look like from his dad's descriptions.

"I was always very intrigued by my father's stories of working in a coal mine," Maxey said. "I spent time imagining vast underground kingdoms."

There is a system of secret tunnels in the story that, again, is based upon actual underground waterworks that cut across Southwest Virginia, where water is pumped in huge tunnels.

"Dragonforge" shifts settings slightly from its prequel to a location in the mountains, based on the Shenandoah Valley.

"The name Dragonforge to me had a very mountainous name," said Maxey, who liked the idea of a forge because of proximity of Clifton Forge, Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and even Valley Forge in Pennsylvania.

Maxey lived in Richmond for a number of years. Not by accident, a city where humans reside in his book is named Richmond.

Burke's Tavern, a small human town in the novel, is also a real place on the map, located on Virginia 360 heading south from Richmond.

Of humans and dragons

The book, though branded as a fantasy novel for marketing purposes (fantasy novels outsell science fiction works nearly 5-to-1, according to Maxey), is "science fiction in fantasy drag," he says.

Sci-fi aspects often try to obey the laws of earthly biology and science, which Maxey embeds in the story but tweaks as he needs to.

The story constantly argues which species makes the more intelligent/moral decisions -- whether it's the main character Jandra, a dragon-raised human with special powers and an overworked conscience, or Hex, an apathetic dragon unsure of what he's fighting for. In fact, the main romantic thread woven throughout the story is about two dragons.

"I try not to simplify things," Maxey said. "All characters can be sympathized with to a degree. I didn't want to make all the dragons bad and all the humans good."

A third and final "Bitterwood" installment is in the works. Slated for release by Solaris Books next July, it will be called "Dragonfeed."

Readers can look for a conclusion to the human-dragon war as well as a romance for Jandra, one of the most popular characters.

Said Maxey, "A huge percentage of the mail from readers is from women, and they seem to appreciate that she is a pretty strong and effective character."