The Story Behind the Chronicles
Me, working in my marvelous van.
I’m Mike Carmel, the writer behind The Dark Razor Chronicles, a dark epic fantasy podcast adapted from my original novels.
Before it became an audio series, this world lived in handwritten pages, role-playing adventures, and decades of early mornings at a keyboard. Its beginnings were considerably less organised.
Start Listening to Episode One →
They banned the games. We kept playing.
I grew up in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with two younger brothers, good friends down the street, and more imagination than school knew what to do with.
During my years at a private boys’ school, a few friends and I spent our free time playing fantasy role-playing games. Eventually, the ruling authorities banned them—for reasons I still don’t understand.
So we adapted.
We developed a version small enough to fit in a pocket, playable while walking the grounds in what appeared to be ordinary conversation. No dice. No obvious evidence. Just a group of boys quietly getting on with saving—or endangering—imaginary worlds.
That restriction became an unexpected education in creativity.
So… thanks, ruling authority.
Early reviews were mixed.
I started writing in grade eight, putting stories on loose-leaf paper, napkins, and anything else within reach. An encouraging English teacher helped those scattered ideas begin to take shape.
Not everyone was quite so encouraging.
“Who wrote this crap?” —Dad
A difficult review. Especially from someone who knew the author personally.
Still, I kept writing. The worlds grew. Characters made decisions. Those decisions caused problems, which was fortunate, because problems give a writer something to work with.
A friend who remains part of the story.
Walter Alex Solski—Walex, as I called him—was one of the friends beside me during those secretive school adventures. He remained a close friend long afterward.
When Walter died in the mid-1990s, I found myself returning to old drafts and reshaping them into something bigger.
His influence runs deep in my work. Those early adventures are distant echoes now, but occasionally a line or an idea brings me straight back. A remembered moment. A familiar bit of mischief. Something that still makes me laugh.
Some of those memories continue to find their way onto the page.
From the page to your headphones.
Over nearly forty years, those beginnings grew into The Dark Razor Chronicles: a world of magic, ancient technology, demons, fractured timelines, and choices that rarely stay simple.
The podcast brings that world into audio, adapting my original fiction with new side stories, introductions, conclusions, and commentary from the author and the characters.
It’s one unfolding story, best experienced from the beginning.
And behind it all, I’m still the fellow getting up early to write before heading out to work as a self-employed computer technician. I’ve lived on Vancouver Island with my family for more than three decades. By day, I untangle computer problems. By early morning, I create problems for fictional people.
Even Dad’s reviews eventually improved.
“I really enjoyed that.”
“When is the next one coming?” —Dad
I’ll take it.
Now hear their story.
You’ve heard a little of how mine began.
Start The Dark Razor Chronicles with Sharael Maldeen, Season One, Episode One—and step into a world I’ve spent much of my life imagining.
Walter Alex Solski and I'm the grinning one.