Name: Sean Ellis
Date of birth: April 3, 1967
Place of birth: Corvallis Oregon, USA
Job (as in are you a full-time writer or do you have a job that supplements your writing?): I am presently a student (Physical Geography major) but I have held many jobs.
Location: I currently live in Saint Helens, Oregon, USA
Current Works: Not working on any books right now, but I am trying to get my backlog published.
Past Works: Magic Mirror, a supernatural mystery thriller (available on Amazon) and The Shroud of Heaven, which is scheduled for a March ebook release and features the hero that is the source of my screen Nick--Nick Kismet.

A quick overview of the story:
The story opens in New York City, where artifacts recovered from the tomb of Tihocan are now on display. Over Lara's objections, the Scion of Atlantis is part of the collection, and it proves to be a temptation impossible for an unknown villain to resist. At the gala opening of the exhibition, the lead curator is assassinated and Lara herself engages in a battle with the killers that wreaks havoc in the museum and ultimately diverts attention from the real objective: the theft of the Scion. Lara's investigations reveal a single scant clue: a map in the possession of the murdered curator that points to an area off the coast of remote Patagonia. At that distant locale, in the sunken remains of a Nazi submarine, Lara discovers an artifact that defies comprehension: a piece of the Scion. The relic is in fact part of a second Scion--a Scion belonging to the prehistoric civilization known as Agartha, which existed at the same time as Atlantis and like that other city, rose to power because of the strange triune talisman known as the Scion.
Pursued by a gang of ruthless killers, who are already in control of the Atlantean Scion, Lara races around the globe, from a hidden Nazi fortress in South America, to a lost city deep beneath the Himalayas, where she will battle an undead villain with the powers of a god.

I guess naturally the first question has to be – Are you a huge Tomb Raider fan and have you played the games, if so which ones and of course which is your favourite?
I'm not a hard core gamer, but as a fan of the action hero genre (in books and movies) I was naturally drawn to the Tomb Raider series. I actually started with TR III, but when I realized just how much thought the designers had put into the creation of both the character and the overall storyline, I knew I had to go back and start from the beginning. To be honest, my interest in the games kind of stalled with AoD, and I haven't played any of the newer games mostly because my computer isn't up to the challenge. Someday, when consoles are dirt cheap, I'll probably go back and pick up the games I haven't played yet. I'm not familiar at all with Legend or Anniversary, but my novel most definitely takes place in the first continuity. If I had to choose a favorite game, it would probably be my first--TR III.

What was the major inspiration that drove you to create The Second Scion?
Back in 1999, when LC was very much (more so than today) a public icon, with future games and a movie on the horizon, I predicted that there would eventually be a mass market paperback novel series. It had already been done with licensed properties from syndicated television series and other video games--Myst and Doom come immediately to mind--and I knew it was just a matter of time before someone cashed in on LC; so I figured--erroneously it seems--that I had as good a chance as anyone.
Once I actually put pen to paper, the games themselves were my chief inspiration; my mantra was "what would Lara do?" Obviously, there had to be a lot of action, remember, Lara runs everywhere. There would have to be puzzles to solve, switches to find, blocks to be pushed or pulled out of the way; I mapped out my action scenes as if they were game levels.
Two major themes of the games, at least the three that were available when I began, were transformation and betrayal. In #1 and #3, Lara is set forth on her quest by the characters that ultimately emerge as the villains, and in all three of those games, the villain undergoes a transformation that changes him or her into a monster. I knew from the outset that I was going to have to go over the top on those themes. The original game provided a rich backstory about Natla, but the Scion's history and properties were barely touched on, so I made that my starting point, both conceptually and literally; the novel opens with Lara arriving at a museum event celebrating the treasures recovered from Atlantis, including the Scion.
By the time I finished writing, the first movie had been released, and while I wasn't sure whether to consider the events of the film as canon, though I did include the characters of Bryce and Hillary in a brief cameo in the interests of bridging that gap. Suffice it to say, as much as I did enjoy the movies, AJ will never be Lara Croft to me.

Although The Second Scion was originally rejected for publication are you still determined to pursue this? If so, what drives you to see it through?
Originally rejected? Try time and time again. Actually, it wasn't so much rejected as ignored. Over the course of the years, my literary agent spoke to countless representatives at Eidos, Simon & Schuster/Pocket (the publisher of the movie tie-ins) and Bantam DelRey(publisher of the novel series) but each time, he was turned away before anyone actually read the manuscript. Let me repeat that for emphasis: the people who published Tomb Raider novels refused to even read my manuscript. Eidos was enthusiastic about promoting the franchise, but basically said 'Talk to the publisher,' Pocket was initially only interested in the movie novelization, and by the time I discovered that DelRey had commissioned the novel series, they had already more or less given up on it. My impression was that the editors at DelRey never took the franchise very seriously and I think the quality of those novels bears that out. Ironically, the last thing I heard from DelRey was that they had no plans to continue the series, nor were they willing to relinquish the rights to the character. Dead end.
At this stage in the game, I've moved beyond any hope that the Second Scion will ever get published in any sort of conventional way. For about a year, I had a deal in place to get an authorized "fan-fiction" version put out in limited release, but somewhere along the way that fell through. Mostly, I just want to share the story with the fans.

What were your thoughts as you wrote the book, how did you research the storyline?
It's difficult to remember exactly what was going through my head back then, but I know I was playing a lot of Tomb Raider "for research purposes." There was already a well established fan base on the Internet, and this also was an invaluable resource, especially for double-checking facts about the Scion.
Research is actually on of my favorite activities and I like to check on EVERYTHING! I'm a stickler for details and I think it's unconscionable when a writer or moviemaker ignores the facts, especially when they are so easy to check beforehand. The average reader may not particularly care about whether I describe a particular gun the right way, or get the details of a German U-boat just right, but since it is within my power to get that information, there's no reason not to. And more than once, that extra bit of research has helped me expand on the action in unexpected ways.

Did any personal experiences come into play whilst developing the book ie the locations/events?
There's a reason that the story starts in New York at the Museum of Natural History. I lived in Brooklyn for 3 years and developed a real affinity for the museum. Beyond that, nothing in the story reflects on any personal experiences (outside the game environment) but there are a lot of things in there that I'd love to do before I die: SCUBA diving, trekking in the Himalayas, and rock climbing immediately come to mind.