Author Christopher C. Doyle always makes it a point to meet his fans when he is in the city and he did it again when he was here for work the last time. The Calcutta members of Quest Club dropped in at Storyteller Bookstore in Ballygunge, the venue for the meeting, and got up close with the author behind the science-meets-mythology series The Mahabharata and The Pataala Prophecy.
“There have been some Quest Club meetings in other cities where the meetings have lasted beyond the stipulated time. Even in Calcutta, once the meeting lasted three hours. There were 12 people, we started discussing some aspects of the books and we started at six and finished at nine,” said Doyle whose last meeting at the VIP Bazar branch of the bookstore in the winter of 2022 was a packed one.
Meeting with fans and getting their direct feedback has been a mainstay in Doyle’s career as an author and underscoring its importance he said: “I think it’s very important for two reasons. One is, of course, I get to know what they like, and what they don’t like and that’s very important for me because then I’m getting feedback directly from the people who are buying the books and reading them. And the second is the whole process of engagement. I think that relationship with the readers is also very important. I don’t think, especially in today’s world, any author can be sitting in an ivory tower and remain disconnected from his readers.”
Doyle’s Quest Club wasn’t planned rather its formation was quite organic. Reflecting on its genesis Goa-based Doyle said: “So my first book was published in 2013 and this whole idea came up very haphazardly. In 2015, The Secret of the Druids was supposed to be released as per my contract but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it in time because I was doing some very deep research on that and since I’m not a science graduate, I had to read a lot, understand a lot. So instead in the last quarter of that year, I decided to release an e-book, something for the readers to look forward to. But they wanted a hard copy. Also, a lot of the readers had queries and wanted to know about my research and that’s what led to the club.” The physical meetings started soon and now the Quest Club has a strong membership of 16,000 across the world. “I did one Quest Club meeting for a group of members in Belgium. Some members joined in from Puerto Rico, from the US, from Australia,” said Doyle.
Did it help towards improving his craft? “Yes, I think... like I said, there’s constant feedback that keeps coming. Even in the online meetings, I feel good that people feel that they have the liberty to express what they want.”
In terms of the new release, book number three of the Paatal Prophecy series will be launched in the second half this year, said Doyle though he did not give a date. He is also working on an Audible audio show. “This is my second Audible audio show. The first one was the Magad Mystery, which was released in January 2022 and it did pretty well. Audible wanted another one so I’m writing the first season of a series and let’s see if this does well, then we’ll go ahead with the rest of the seasons as well. I haven’t done a series in an audio format before so this will be different from the books, and an exclusive one. Later on, I may decide to bring it into a book format,” signed off Doyle.