About the Author - Kregg Gabor

Since my teens, I’ve had two enduring passions: technology and books. Around age twenty, I began collecting antique volumes, and one in particular—a 1639 King James Bible—sparked the earliest seeds of Paleon. Over centuries, this Bible had witnessed history, with generations leaving behind their ABCs, family names, dates, and even the remains of a dissertation bound in between the Old and New Testaments. Its original binding is long gone, replaced with a Masonic-engraved cover, bearing the scars and mystery of its long journey. While this Bible itself never appears in the novel, it directly inspired the mysterious Evangélion at the heart of Paleon.

Before I began writing, I had already spent years immersed in Medieval and Byzantine history, including several college courses. But my fascination deepened about twenty years ago, when I fell in love with Byzantium’s cultural and political world. For a long time, I avoided studying the fall of Constantinople. The final years and battle felt too tragic. Yet legends like the “Marble Emperor” drew me in. I began to ask: What could have sparked such a rumor? Could there be a thread of truth? That curiosity pushed me deeper into research, studying 15th-century harbors, the surviving stretches of the city’s walls, and even odd questions, like whether mercury could preserve flesh (I was wisely advised never to test that theory!). Each layer of research gave the story its backbone, allowing my imagination to work atop a foundation of authenticity.

The coronation stone fascinated me from the moment I first read about it. I had known of Mystras for years, but writing Paleon meant diving deeply into its history, how it became a haven for Byzantine intellectual and cultural life, even after the Empire’s fall. That persistence of a world in exile still resonates with me. Of all the places Nick visits, two stand out most personally: the haunting Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and the evocative ruins of Mystras. Both feel alive with echoes of the past, and each became essential in shaping the novel’s sense of discovery and legacy.

Exploring the tunnels beneath Istanbul became one of my favorite experiences in writing Paleon. The atmosphere, the tension, the sense of mystery, and the growing bonds between characters seemed to write itself in that subterranean world. I also loved incorporating the Medusa heads within the Basilica Cistern, a 6th-century underground marvel. Two Roman-era Medusa carvings serve as column bases there, one laid sideways, the other upside down. Historians debate their purpose, but for me, they became a vivid symbol of the pagan past literally pressed beneath the weight of a Christian empire. That mix of history and mood made those scenes especially rewarding to craft.

There’s more of me in Paleon than I’d probably like to admit. I’ve never been one for easy answers or polished platitudes. I’m reminded of a scene in Miracle on 34th Street where the little girl says, “It’s silly, but I believe.” That’s never been my way. As C. S. Lewis noted, real things are not simple, and I’d add that while they aren’t simple, they are natural. The interplay of cultural and theological threads in Paleon reflects over thirty years of my own wrestling with God, meaning, and human purpose. My aim wasn’t to preach, but to let those complexities emerge as naturally as they do in life itself, sometimes unresolved, giving readers a story that feels layered without slowing its momentum.