Since the beginning of my followings within kaiju fandom, non-film media has taken a rise amongst community members alike. Comic books, of course, being gigantic pillars of fan and independent creations, having a colorful roster of talented artists and writers attached to them. However, in 2014, kaiju novels began exploding in popularity, with titles such as Jeremy Robinson’s Project Nemesis series, and the focus of today’s interview, the author of the kaiju novel series Realm of Goryo, Dane G. Kroll!
Dane is an author, writing his own fun books out of pure love of cinema, and a strong, innate desire to return to classic stories featuring non-stop action, and pure adventure adrenaline. Dane’s series has stood the test of time, and we at at Kaiju United were thrilled to sit down with him for an interview. Previously on the site, we had covered the first book in the series, The Four Pillars, and as of publication of this interview, are burning through the rest of the series!
Being an author isn’t the end of Dane, though. He is the co-host of a Nebraskan morning news talk show, went to film school, and began his independent career writing screen plays! Dane is full of fun energy, and that definitely translates into his books, etched within every page. In fact, he added the G. to his pen name because it’s much, much easier to chant! Read on, Kaiju United readers, as we dive into the whos, whats, wheres, and whys behind Mr. Dane G. Kroll!
The full, unedited version of this interview will be featured on our YouTube channel.
Interview:
Jacob Lyngle (Interviewer) – Bold
Dane G. Kroll (Interviewee) – Italics
Hello everybody, I am here with Dane G. Kroll. He writes a lot of books, a significant portion of them about kaiju. You might know him from the Realm Of Goryo series of books. They started publication in 2014, and the newest one released in May! Dane, did you want to introduce yourself a little bit?
Hello everybody! Of course, Dane G. Kroll here. You did a pretty good job of introducing me right there! I do indeed write lot of kaiju fiction, also sci fi, horror, fantasy… kind of whatever floats the boat at that time. But kaiju has been the main passion for a lot of these years.
Are you a big kaiju fan? I know you’ve gone to G-FEST, and have tabled there in the past. Is it something more nostalgic, or are you one of the bigger fans of the genre?
Of course! I have all the Godzilla movies. It’s kind of funny. I consider myself a Kaiju fan. Then I went to G-FEST, and I realized that you guys blow me out of the water!
No, no, no. If you’re a fan, you’re a fan. That doesn’t matter. Like if you just like the Gamera movies, for example. It’s all good. It’s great to hear how passionate you are about Godzilla!
Dane G. Kroll
I appreciate that. That is true. In terms of my personal fandom experiences, I’ve seen the Godzilla series, I’ve seen the Gamera films. I’m trying to get into Ultraman, but unfortunately, not as big of a fan of that as I feel like I should be.
That’s totally okay. The mantra here at Kaiju United is just love what you enjoy, and just be positive about that.
Your author bio states that you wanted to write stuff that harkens back to old pulp adventure stories. Aside from kaiju media, what are some of your influences in writing and developing genre books like that?
Some of my other influences are like more movie-based, with a lot of older Steven Spielberg type of stuff — Jaws, Indiana Jones. Adjacent to Indiana Jones, of course, the original Star Wars films is hugely influential to me. I want this giant world that you can just kind of get engrossed in. It’s action, adventure fast-paced, and, good guys versus bad guys. Like I feel like we’ve lost some of that exciting storytelling that we used to have back in the day.
Would you say it’s a lot more like pulpy adventure, kind of like George Lucas used to watch? It’s pretty well-known that Indiana Jones is based on those Charlton Heston movies from the 50s with the big brimmed hat, doing all sort of crazy adventrous stunts, like hopping on trains from horseback, or something. Super pulpy.
I definitely would say make it very pulpy if it can be! It can totally be a little bombastic, and kind of ridiculous a little bit. Personally, I follow the rule of cool. It’s not realistic, but it sure is cool!
I want to be like, all right, let’s roll. I’m here with you; take me on a trip!. I would try to keep it somewhat, at least structurally within your own rules, but at the same time, go wherever you want to go.
Totally. What led to you be wanting to write for the medium of your choice? What made you want to specifically be an author?
It’s been a childhood dream of mine forever, even back in grade school I dreamed about it. I always wanted to write books, comic books, I think originally, which I still want to do comic books. And as I got older, it would kind of switch over to movie writing. I went to film school. So if you read my books, they’re so fast paced. They read like a movie script, because that’s what I was schooled in. And after college, I started just kind of writing on my own and, and it switched over to prose novel writing, essentially, because I didn’t need a crew for that. It could just be me, hire an artist to get the cover going and we can get a project done.
That makes so much sense! As I was reading Realm of Goryo, i was like “This feels like a movie, that *had* to be planned!”
I definitely try to set myself up for success. But also, I like movie scripts. So that’s how my books end up getting paced out and formulated. Not just with Goryo too, even some of my other horror like Black Friday was originally a movie script. Later on, I transcribed it over into prose. I just released a book instead. So that one’s even more of like a straight slasher horror genre book.
Speaking of your other work, we definitely are here at Kaiju United for Realm of Goryo, but let’s highlight some of your other books for a minute. What other books do you think people should check out of yours?
Defintely the one I mentioned, Black Friday. Check it out if you like horror movies! also like kaiju and horror. Actually, I have a couple of right here. There’s another one I did — Coming of Age Day. It’s slasher giant monster! It’s a team up, too. I partnered with the Kaiju Assault Card Game guys. They have their own card game with their own monsters now, and so I gave one of the kaiju, Stan, his own origin in this book. In terms of pulpy fiction like we discussed a moment ago, Lariat Rhodes and the Perils of the Fantasy Stars is one of those kinds.
All sorts of genres! It’s really cool to have such a diverse bibliography there. I was going to lean into the first book a little bit, The Four Pillars, of course referring to the main 4 kaiju that end up in a war for the fate of Earth at the climax of the book. I know there’s a couple of lesser-tiered named kaiju that get killed here and there, but I really wanted to talk specifically first about Goryo. He’s such a realized character, despite us not knowing about his origin, of which I would presume we wil find out later on in the series. Where did his design come from?
Goryo, for those of you who are not familiar with him, is the big guy with the tusks. In term of design, Goryo actually came from a couple of my artists friends. Honestly, it’s mostly for the supporters who have followed me since 2014. They’ll realize that he’s changed; his look is modified as new artists come up and add their own flair to it. For example, on the coloring book we had Christopher Roca Jr. Chris has more of like that manga kind of style going on. So he started drawing the big brute guy that I envisioned. A huge, hulking, humanoid type figure. Roca then added the huge teeth. And then another friend of mine, Christopher Haller, drew it, and he turned the teeth into these more of a tusk thing, and so the rest started really defining themselves. That’s kind of how the ball got rolling. It really has been a work in progress visually for Mr. Goryo. We always knew he was like this black fury, though. He’s just determination, anger, and rage just wrapped up into this black furry monster that’s just running around smashing things.
Jacob Lyngle
I especially enjoyed how there were a few elements taken from kaiju stuff, but with its own spin on the trope. Like, you gotta have Robo Goryo. Come on.
If you’re going to do a Kaiju story, you gotta have your robotic doppelganger mech character… and then there’s Tengi, the Swan kaiju, with her psychic human-sized friends she can communicate with. It’s Mothra, of course, but with more added to it. One thing I really want to praise you for, though? Thanks for not having a gigantic T-Rex looking monster with spines on his back.
Honestly, I am trying to avoid doing that. It’s a pet peeve of mine to see to see new kaiju get created, and they’re always the bipedal T Rex type of things with spikes on their back.
Personally, for me, I see a lot of original kaiju that are just big red dinosaurs. And I’m like, Why are they all red?
You will love Lord Tatsumi, then!
I did love him! His intro scene was spectacular. I was like, Oh my gosh, of course the Mu undersea kingdom have their own kaiju. But like, this guy kind of operates on his own, which is kind of cool. I like it.
I love Lord Tatsumi as well. As a character, he’s gotten very faceted over the over the book series. His origin, too. he was the protector of the world at one point. But then mankind came around, and balance of power started to change. And all of a sudden, he finds himself weaker. He still has the same goals; that drive to protect, but he needs to protect his people and not *other* people. And so it becomes a whose side are you on type of thing?
Jacob Lyngle
Morally complex kaiju antihero. Haha.
Yup! So many shades of grey.
What are some of the other kaiju that appear later on in the series that you like? I’m only on the third book, but before our interview started, you compared your cat to a kaiju from one of your books. I gotta know about that!
Oh yes, that kaiju is based on my black cat, Charlie! He’s my little devil. But yes, book three is the debut of Reisha, a giant cat with wings. He’s also got powers of the rain and electricity. So basically what you read book one and two all lead up into book three of Reisha descending down and the world kind of not being ready for it. We’ll learn later on that this kaiju is an extraterrestrial from another planet who has gone mad over the millennia, and now has returned to Earth. In the lore, he has has been an Earth before, and is part of the destruction of the ancient world. I don’t want to leave too many spoilers, there’s a big death in number two. But now the world needs to kind of deal with Reisha without the powers that were around back in the day.
Were there any other kaiju that were “spins” on classic monsters?
This actually goes back to the origin of Realm of Goryo. Obviously, I was writing books, and I wanted to write Godzilla, you know, why not? IDW just began writing Godzilla comic books, and was like like, how am I getting in there as well? Of course, they’re not going to give me the rights to Godzilla quite yet, so I decided to write my own kaiju. At one point I had written in a spec script for a Godzilla comic book. It didn’t go anywhere, but I still have this script. And what that became was the beginnings of Realm of Goryo! Just as you were saying, not quite a direct translation, but inspired by the placements of power. Godzilla kind of became the Goryo type character. Mothra kind of morphed into this Tengi, you know, peaceful, I’m here to help everybody. Interestingly, Lord Tatsumi actually came from Megalon. And with the other characters, you got like the Kidada, the Seatopians, people in the sea at the bottom of the ocean, right there. On the human side, you got Robo Goryo, which is a famous staple.
How interesting! My interpretation was off. I got that wrong. I got it totally wrong. That is awesome to hear!
I’m so curious now.
Goryo felt more akin to King Kong to me. He was just kind of a silverback gorilla kind of guy, big, brutish, defensive, and angry.
Dane G. Kroll
He’s definitely a combination of Kong and Godzilla! I wanted to take those kind of familiar characteristics that you see from multiple popular kaiju, and bring them in there. Even in the origin itself, you’ll see a little bit of Kong influence as well, so you’re not completely wrong there.
With Lord Tatsumi, I was like “Yeah, that’s Godzilla. He is coming out of the water. He’s a force of destruction.” That’s super cool. That was Megalon. Of course. Now I see it!
Megalon would have been a key note kaiju in that spec script!
I’m here for the Megalon representation, though. That is fantastic. I was like, oh, yeah, it’s Kong with Gamera’s, teeth, rounded out by Mechagodzilla, Mothra, Mr. Big G. I think it’s super cool that I was wrong!
How far are you going with Realm of Goryo? When is the series done? Like, can you reveal that at all? Or is it just until you get tired of it?
It’s kind of until I get tired of it. I didn’t want to set myself stuck with a certain number of books. Because this series has evolved so much. I have an outline that kind of tells me where I’m going, that there’s still so many stories, and a number of monsters I want to bring in and reveal. But as we’ve gotten to, I believe book four, things begin going a little crazy. Some new developments are happening, the characters and the monsters have kind of taken on a life of their own. So at that point, I’m really glad I haven’t said oh, this is going to be 10 books, or something like that. Because there’s so much more to go. So like a comic book. It’s just ongoing, it’s ever evolving. At this point, I will get to the end, maybe we’ll get to the end. Maybe there’s another idea that will pop up. It kind of depends on the readers If more people start taking to it, buying the books, and supporting the series, the faster I can get them out, essentially.
You just did your Choose Your Own Adventure book that released in late May, just a few months ago. I thought it was really surprising and neat that you went from standard prose, to a CYOA book, because I don’t think I’ve seen a Choose Your Own Adventure book get a really big push like that since I was a kid!
They have fallen out of fashion a little bit. But it was just a bit of inspiration. I watched Galaxy Toys do a retrospective video on it. And I was watching this going you know what, that’d be really cool to make a giant monster book like this. You have to escape the city while giant monsters are attacking! At the time, I had just finished book six, which is kind of the end of season two for Goryo. And I just kind of like let’s take a little break here real fast. Let’s look at some other projects and this one was just something that was I was inspired to do.
What are the biggest differences in writing prose versus writing a choose your own adventure where the pages are out of order? How do you write something that skips around and isn’t in a specific order?
It was a little tricky, but not too bad. To start, I took a maze, and I used that as my key, essentially. So I started with the story. And then I would write like, in this chapter, you’re in your apartment, basically. When you open the door, you are inside this hypothetical maze. After you exit, when you get to a turn in the hallway, that’s when I would decide, okay, so this is a either a, you stay, or B, you leave through the next doorway. And then I would write the next chapters piggybacking off of both. Somehow, it all made sense in my head!
I remember the Goosebumps Choose Your Own Adventure books of all things. And it was like, if you choose this, go to page 55. And I’ve always been like, why did they pick page 55?
That part is actually more random! So once I had the plotlines kind of mapped out, I took those chapters, and then just started shuffling them around. And they ended up where they ended up at one point or another.
Do you plan on doing more of them? Or are you just kind of gauging how this one is receptive to your readers?
I want to gauge how this one does, because it’s not in the main Goryo continuity. If you go through the book, you’ll see certain corners and facets of canon that you would recognize from the previous stories, but like, what actually ends up happening, with the titular villain, Khulandra, is totally different. You won’t see Khulandra in the main series quite yet. Or if at all. I don’t know if I’m going to do another, or what’s next with that specifically quite yet. I do have some other ideas. I would love to go to make one where they’re in space.
OF COURSE! Jason goes to space…. Leprechaun goes to space… now GORYO goes to space!
Later on in the book series, they kind of go up there, to see the Manlins that we only kind of briefly touch upon in the earlier books. Upon their arrival, there’s obviously giant monster kaiju chaos going on up on the Space Station. It’s probably one of my favorite scenes that I’ve written.
That sounds great. One of my favorite scenes early on in the books was . the idea of skydivers that are thrill seeking to go look at a monsters by parachuting in. What an idea! I was like, why hasn’t anyone done that? I think the closest we got was like the HALO jump in Godzilla 14?
Oh, yeah, People are trying to get to Tokyo. They’re just going to jump in no matter what, so see you later! Good luck in there.
That’s one of the standouts in Goryo for me. Interesting nuggets like that. Here’s another one: the fact that they did a peace treaty, like you took the idea of communicating with this divine creature represented by a pair of twins, and have them sign these treaties, where you can’t attack these kaiju without them hitting you first. And I just thought that was a really original idea, truly.
Thank you! It was what really helped build the world for me. I was going back and watching a bunch of the Godzilla movies, especially the Showa era with like the pulpy kind of adventures that you could have, there was so much great material in there, but I felt like they never really capitalize on well, what would you do with that world then? So that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to take in this world where you have these giant monsters, and you have this being that can speak to the giant monsters and the humans. Clearly, someone’s going to try to take advantage of that. You have alien species that are aligning with other humans and you have time travel, and all of that crazy stuff. How does that build and bounce upon each other? That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to put it all together and have these people survive somehow.
That’s so cool. I just think those two especially stood out when I began reading the series. Unfortunately they are in the first book for people that haven’t read it. I just I guess I liked the first book the most so far. I will clarify though, my favorite Lord of the Rings movie is Fellowship of the Ring, my favorite Indiana Jones is Raiders of the Lost Ark. First installments always captivate me.
I love the first installment, it’s a lot of fun. Personally, book four is one of my favorites. I also like book six, because we’re kind of getting to where I’ve always wanted this world to be now. So we got like cyborgs, you got the aliens. You got so much stuff going on. We got the amphibians, everyone’s got an alliance. It’s kind of like Game of Thrones. There’s all different kinds of power groups going on. They’re all vying for control.
I can’t wait to read that! I have friend that works with those Kaiju Assault guys and draw some of their cards. He’s a contributor for Kaiju United. He did show me some of the glorious stuff that he was working on. So you’ve done the card game. Are there any other that you can reveal plans for? Where you want to take Goryo outside of his books?
I would love to take Goryo anywhere and everywhere. . Video games, more books, podcasts movies, TV shows, whatever it is. Why not? Right now my limited sources keep me to books, but you never know what’s gonna happen next. Obviously, we got we’re in the card game where we work well with Brandon and them, and love working with those guys. So yeah, there’s like, three expansion packs of Goryo characters. If someone else wants to join in, like, let’s talk.
What advice do you have for people that want to do what Dane does?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Writing your first book is probably the hardest. I think it’s the hardest because you’re going to be your own worst critic. But keep pushing through and finish that first draft. I’ve always told myself that fixing a bad first draft into a good one is easier than writing a perfect first draft. Get that first try written out. And then look at it again, rework it, keep reworking it, sleep on it if you have to. And just come back with fresher eyes and keep at it. That’s the best advice I can give— don’t give up! I’ve hit so many hurdles, so many stop gaps. But I love writing. And I won’t stop writing. As long as I can keep doing this, I will keep writing these things. I just hope that readers out there will follow along.
I know you have tabled at G-FEST in the past, and you will be there this year (2023). How’s it been doing these tables, selling books, and just having that community interaction of this specific community?
I love it. I love G-FEST. And every year, it’s getting even better. More people start coming back to my table. They’re like, oh, yeah, I read book one, where’s book two? Or book three? Where’s the next one after that? And so it’s been great interacting with them and talking to people, especially when you can reply with, “What did you like about the book? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong?”.
That’s what this site for us is all about– that community focus. So it’s really awesome to hear that. I love that all these independent creators have started making their own stories. On our end, we just got through all these wonderful comic book guys. And now we got authors talking to us. And it’s just so wonderful to see this renaissance and revolution of original kaiju stories. Goryo was published in 2014, and it is STILL ongoing, perhaps one of the few kaiju novels that still is. That is a feat!
I appreciate it! I really do love this series, and I cannot express that enough. I hope to keep doing it. Book 7 will come eventually! I have to wrap up a few projects first, but we’ll always come back to Goryo.
We’ll wrap things up here with my standard closer question — what does Godzilla mean to you? Or what does kaiju mean to you?
I think it represents my childhood, in a way, because I grew up with it, and then returned later on in adulthood. I obviously had Godzilla movies, I had that 90’s Godzilla figure that you buy at Toys R Us and whatnot. The series itself was what me and my dad would used to watch together, too. And then I got older, I kind of fell out of it for a little bit. But then I remember in college, when I started writing screenplays, I looked back and I thought to myself, what did I love about movies? What did I enjoy back then that I’ve lost? And Godzilla is what it started kind of going towards. I was like oh, yeah, These movies were awesome. And it helped me kind of find that inner kid in me that I’ve held on to ever since. Or, again, it can be ridiculous. The story can be you know, there’s a giant monster running around, but it can be heartfelt. It can be sad, it can be scary. It can be everything. I think the Kaiju genre is amped for that. And I absolutely love it.
Awesome! All right, Dane, thank you again for jumping on and talking with Kaiju United For those of you that are late to the party, or are scrolling right to the bottom for some reason, Dana is an author, he writes Realm of Goryo, and many, many other different types of novels. If you like pulpy adventures, if you like slasher movies, or if you just like retro movies in general, I think you’d really like Dane’s work. So again, thank you, Dane!
Thank you. Hey, thanks again, Jacob. Great to talking to you.
Check out Realm of Goryo on Amazon!
Go visit Dane G. Kroll’s Official Website!
About Dane G. Kroll
From hosting television to writing books, Dane G. Kroll is a passionate author whose love for giant monsters, horror, and adventure knows no bounds. Frustrated with the endless stream of re-runs and remakes, Dane took matters into his own hands, and embarked on a journey to create enthralling stories that would captivate and entertain him. Little did he know that his creative endeavors would win the hearts of readers worldwide.
Dane’s ongoing series, “Realm of Goryo”, presents a world hanging by a thread, threatened by colossal monsters, extraterrestrial beings, and enigmatic amphibious creatures. In these action-packed books, readers are thrust into a high-octane battle for survival, where every moment counts and the fate of humanity rests in the balance. With relentless pacing and heart-stopping suspense, Dane ensures that once you start reading, you won’t be able to put the book down.
