Adrian Collins's Blog, page 174

REVIEW: Peculiarities by David Liss

Peculiarities is a celebration of the strange and the absurd. This alternative historical novel poses the question- what would happen if occult magics were real? Author David Liss answers this question in an immersive read that is a fusion of fantasy, horror, and mystery.

Peculiarities takes place at the turn of the 19th century. London’s famous fog has turned sinister, unleashing an incurable ailment known as the Peculiarities. Newspapers report sightings of the unnatural, of werewolves and ghosts lurking within the gloom. Ghastly mutations emerge, including women giving birth to rabbits. Terrifying beings called Elegants are rumored to be concealed within the fog, murderous and hungry for carnage.

The reason for these unsettling events is unknown; however, the impoverished appear to be targeted. Peculiarities examines how government reacts to tragedy striking the more disdained members of society. It is a commentary on how upper-class covers up its own afflictions to their own detriment.

Thomas Thresher, the story’s protagonist, is the youngest grandchild to the founder of Thresher’s bank. He is also an unexpected victim of the fog. The Peculiarities’ ailment is quickly transforming him into a tree. With only a limited amount of time before he is rooted in place, Thomas seeks to solve his friend’s mysterious death, avoid getting married, and save his family’s legacy. He must discover the Peculiarities’ secrets to save himself. As Thomas delves deeper into this dark mystery, every part of his life is threatened.

David Liss skillfully articulated all aspects of Thomas’s life, creating a truly compelling character. Thomas was born into privilege and is alone because of it. Chained to the will of his brother, he has no say in his choice of work and marriage proposals.

I felt immediately invested in this character, wanting him to rise above his drab clerical job. I truly cared about his relationships between his family and friends. Peculiarities is certainly a fantastical story, but it is rooted in human nature, giving it depth and an element of realism that draws the reader in.

I did find some of Thomas’s character developments to be a little too favorable. This did not disturb my overall enjoyment of the book. It is dark and weird, bordering on macabre. It is not a traditional read, rather an exploratory story of what could have been. Peculiarities has a satisfying conclusion, but there are still lingering mysteries that I would love answered in a second installment.

Peculiarities is an adventure of unraveling conspiracies, exposing London’s most hidden secrets, and witnessing the unexplainable. It is Terry Pratchett’s satire mixed into a darker version of Alice in Wonderland. It is the most bizarre book I’ve read this year.

Read Peculiarities by David Liss

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An Interview with Alicia Wanstall-Burke and Graham Austin-King

Two of the biggest legends in the indie author crew are getting married. They write dark fantasy, they are a great laugh, and they are from opposite sides of the planet. I caught up with Alicia Wanstall-Burke and Graham Austin-King to talk about Alicia’s move to England and it’s impact on her writing, Graham’s work on the follow up to Faithless, and much more.

 

 

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EXCLUSIVE: Excerpt from Priest of Gallows by Peter McLean

We loved getting back into Ellinburg, getting back into the Pious Men, and chatting with Peter McLean about his books and this magnificent story he’s building. Peter has built a brilliant world based around these ex-soldiers shoved back into a society that has almost tried to move on without them and now has to deal with their PTSD, their violence, their ingrained horror, and their history. If that sounds a lot like the people brought back from every war we’ve read about in the 20th century (and probably every century before that), then you’d be bang on. And that’s one of the many reasons each book in this series lands like a 500-page hammer blow.

If you haven’t read the first two books, then definitely check out Priest of Bones and Priest of Lies. Either way, get into Priest of Gallows, below.

Priest of GallowsBook 3 of The War for the Rose Throne

Chapter 1

One murder can change the fate of a nation.

I had been governor of Ellinburg for less than four months when it happened. It was a warm spring evening, and I was relaxing in the private drawing room of the governor’s hall, a glass of brandy in my hand and a book open in my lap. Billy and Mina were sitting under the window together, playing some game of cat’s cradle between them. I watched them over my glass, watched the entwining of the cords between their fingers, and I could see in the looks they shared with each other just how fierce their young love was. I knew how strongly Billy felt for her.

We had almost come to blood over it back in the winter, after all. After I had crushed the strike at the factory, Mina had come to me herself to confess what she had done. That was brave of her, I’d had to allow, but it didn’t change the facts of the thing. I remembered how the rebellious workers had known we were coming when they shouldn’t have done, and how Old Kurt hadn’t been there when he should have been. He had known we were coming because someone had told him, and that someone was Mina.

Mina, who was a cunning woman even Billy looked up to.

She’s very strong.

Mina, who couldn’t do magic without spewing obscenities that would have curled the hair of the lowest conscript soldier.

Mina, who Old Kurt had once taken in when she was a little orphan girl on the unforgiving streets of Ellinburg.

That was a betrayal, and I took it ill.

Very ill indeed.

‘Don’t kill her, Papa,’ Billy had begged me, in the end. ‘Please, please don’t kill her.’

‘She betrayed us,’ I said.

The cold fury Ailsa had left me with was still upon me in those weeks, and I couldn’t find it in myself to feel understanding or mercy.

Not for anyone.

Billy got a hard look about him then, and it came to me through my icy rage that perhaps I recognised that look. Perhaps it wasn’t so very different from how I had looked at my own da, the night I killed him.

‘You won’t kill her,’ Billy said, in that way he had when he knew a thing was so. ‘You won’t, because I won’t let you.’

There was something in his over-bright eyes, something that told me he truly meant it. Billy the Boy was strong in the cunning, if still not quite so strong as Mina herself, and he was either a seer of Our Lady or possessed by some devil out of Hell. No one, neither cunning man nor priest, was really sure which.

Sometimes he gave me the fear, and I’ve no shame in admitting that. There are few men in this world who I would fear to face with swords, but I fear the cunning. I fear what I can’t see, what I can’t fight – disease, and magic, but not men. And yet that wasn’t what stayed my hand.

At the time it had been barely four weeks since Ailsa had left us both and returned to Dannsburg. Billy had lost his ma, and I knew that had hit him hard. Was I really going to take his woman away from him too, betrayal or not? Beside that, Mina had saved my life at the sit- down with Bloodhands, her and Jochan. I had told myself then that I wouldn’t forget that, and I hadn’t.

I spent a long night thinking on it, and perhaps I even prayed on it too. Priest I may be, among other things, but I’ll confess that I don’t pray often. Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows doesn’t answer prayers, after all, but perhaps that night she heard one.

I spared Mina’s life, and I found it deep inside me to forgive her too. Family is important, after all, and I understood that Old Kurt had been like family to her. By the end of a long, sleepless night I understood why she had done it. I loved Billy as my own son, although he wasn’t, and since Ailsa had deserted me he was all I really had left. My aunt was distant, my brother mad, and Bloody Anne was so busy running the Pious Men and I the city that we hardly saw each other any more. I wasn’t going to lose my son too, and if forgiving Mina was the price of that then so be it.

Watching them now, I was glad I had.

I’m a harsh man, I know that, but I like to think I’m a fair one.

‘I win,’ Mina said, although I couldn’t make head nor tail of their game.

Billy laughed and leaned forward to kiss her, and I turned back to the book in my hand. I’m no great reader but the governor’s hall contained a library of almost a hundred books, and in Ellinburg that was a treasure indeed. I had resolved to read them all, although I’ll allow that my progress was slow. This one was a treatise on mercantile law, and I understood little of it, but to my mind a city governor should know such things.

I was working my way painfully through a section on the finer points of the rates and levies of the import duty on tea when Salo entered the room and uttered a polite cough.

The house I had shared with Ailsa off Trader’s Row was closed up, unneeded and unwanted. Exactly how I had been to her, in the end. I had kept the staff on, though, and brought them with me to my new official residence in the governor’s hall. I’d known I wouldn’t have been able to trust any of Hauer’s former servants, and Salo was a good steward.

‘What is it?’ I asked, without looking up from my book.

‘There’s a messenger, sir,’ he told me. ‘A rider just arrived from Dannsburg. The guard have her in the downstairs office and they assure me she knows the correct words of exchange. She says she has come from the Lord Chief Judiciar with an urgent message for you.’

I frowned at that. The Lord Chief Judiciar was Dieter Vogel, of course, and he was also secretly the Provost Marshal of the Queen’s Men.

That made him my boss.

‘Aye, well,’ I said, and closed my book. ‘I’ll see her in my study, then.’

Salo gave me a short bow and left the room, and I got to my feet with a sigh. Any urgent message from the house of law was unlikely to be a good thing. I refilled my glass from a bottle on the side table and took it with me, leaving Billy and Mina to each other’s arms. I don’t think they even noticed me leave.

* * *

The woman was thin and dirty and she looked tired half to death, and those things told me she had seen hard riding on the road.

She was grimy of face and her clothes were nondescript, a stained cloak over a coat and britches that any rider might have worn. The Queen’s Men have no uniform, no insignia or badges of rank. We are invisible and officially non-existent, and those who work for us could be anyone – bakers or soldiers or chandlers, farriers or fishwives or whores.

Only a very few carry the Queen’s Warrant, people like Ailsa and Iagin.

People like me.

I wondered if this one even knew who she truly worked for. Many of those who serve us don’t even realise it, after all.

Read Priest of Gallows by Peter McLean

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REVIEW: Threadneedle by Cari Thomas

Visually, the proof of Threadneedle by Cari Thomas is one of the most stunning advance copies I’ve been sent. The cover looks like embroidery, to match main character Anna’s magic, based on threads and knots. Threadneedle is a story of magic, of forbidden witchcraft. Set in a contemporary London, this world is similar to our own but features a number of covens practicing magic. Anna and her aunt are part of the Binders, a group of witches that bind away magic and only allow elders to practice it in a puritanical fear of it. And seventeen-year-old Anna knows that her magic will soon be bound, having lived with the knowledge that magic drove her father to kill her mother when she was but a babe. But then, family friend Selene returns to London, with her daughter Effie and Attis, a boy their age who joins them at their girls’ school. The newcomers shake up Anna’s life and she begins to wonder whether there might be more to magic and her life and history than her aunt had been letting on.

I loved the first hundred pages or so of Threadneedle. I thought the concept was amazing, and really enjoyed the characters and set up. Stories about witches and self-discovery are my jam, and so this was exactly what I needed. I got stuck in the story and my expectations were high. But what I thought this was going to be was not what it was. After the stakes were set, much of the middle part of the book was used for school squabbles. Threadneedle is a good 550 pages long, and a large part of the middle 250 to 300 pages is fluff that could have used a good trim. Much of what happened in that part didn’t actually do much to drive the narrative or build up the characters further, but rather just seemed to be used as filler to use up story time. Towards the end, the story picked up again, and ended in a way that made me curious to continue on, to see where Anna’s future takes her. Nevertheless, the book as a whole left me disappointed, wanting more. The concept had a lot of potential, and much of it was left unrealized. That doesn’t mean that the book doesn’t have its strengths. I really enjoyed the ways magic worked – how binders used knots, how Rowan’s family used plants and how Effie used rituals among others. The characters were interesting and well-developed, and especially Anna and Effie intrigued me, and the character reveals towards the end of the story make a sequel appealing to read.

All in all, Threadneedle is a story that is far from perfect, but if you are into books about witchcraft and enjoy YA fantasy with a big dash of the CW TV drama this might be a good fit for you.

Read Threadneedle by Cari Thomas

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REVIEW: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark writes lush masterworks, his newest book to his collection of stories in The Dead Djinn Universe is A Master of Djinn. And, much like his other short-form works, A Master of Djinn is an intense sensory experience, with engaging characters, dialog, and kick-ass fight scenes.

It is no secret that I am a fan of his novels.  The Haunting of Tram Car 015 and A Dead Djinn in Cairo are gorgeous works of short-form fantasy. He has a knack for describing things to such a degree that you shouldn’t be surprised if the red sands of Egypt poured out between your pages or you start to smell the heady incense of the streets of Cairo. If you listen very closely, you could probably hear drums thrumming while you read. 

“The three of them sat there – A Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

This kind of description is probably not for everyone. It can meander a bit, slow down the plot a little. If you are a fan of punchy stories, this one is probably not for you. 

The story’s plot is a solid murder mystery staring Agent Fatima el- Sha’awari, who works for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. We were introduced to her in Clark’s other novellas, The Haunting of Tram Car 015 and A Dead Djinn in Cairo and the short story The Angel of Khan el-Khalili. We are back in 1912 Cairo. Djinn and all manner of creatures are a part of daily life. Fatima is investigating the murder of a dozen brutally burned people, The Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz. The corpses’ clothes were untouched. It is as if they were scorched from the inside out. 

Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms before vanishing into the unknown. Fatima, her girlfriend Siti, and her new partner try to unravel the case before the supernatural forces kill us all. Of course, things all go pear-shaped. 

“Even a rich man must sometimes eat with beggars.”

One of the aspects I loved was the subtle subtext of defining what feminity is. On the one hand, you have Fatima, badass in a dapper suit in a world full of ultra-conservative people. On the other, you have a couple of characters in the story that are the epitome of what women are supposed to be in 1912 Cairo. Meek and mild. They wouldn’t hurt a fly. I enjoyed the interplay off of the characters with a few twists. And while the ending was of no great surprise to me, I enjoyed the dynamic and the journey getting there. 

Unlike Clark’s novellas and short stories, the characters didn’t completely click with me. Fatima is supposed to be a shrewd investigator. She is no novice when it comes to dealing with the supernatural creatures of Cairo. However, at times Fatima seemed almost bumbling. Plot details that were essential points of interest for the murder case seem to get overlooked for a few chapters. While sweet, Fatima’s romance with Siti lacks the intensity that I think Clark was trying to convey. They had a solid connection, but they seemed to be casually dating rather than be in a relationship. 

“You! You can’t just walk in here! This is a crime scene!” “That would explain the dead bodies, then,” she replied. He blinked dumbly, and she sighed. Wasting good sarcasm was annoying.”

The action sequences were like watching a Michael Bay movie in my head. They were fantastic. His pacing and descriptions get you into the characters while they battle. It balanced well against the story as it slowed down a bit in some sections. 

To my knowledge, this is Clark’s first step into full-length novels. And as such, this first novel has some minor pacing and dialog problems. It feels like he was making himself comfortable in this length of a story. However, in typical Clark fashion, it is generally an excellent story with superb descriptions and an engaging who-done-it plot. Is it perfect? Not quite. But it is enjoyable as hell, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great murder fantasy mystery. I can’t wait to read more works in this series.

Read A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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REVIEW: Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is not a simple story. There is nothing subtle and simple about a middle-aged scientist with prosthesis octopus-like legs, time travel, ecological restoration, and culture dynamics. Nor is there anything subtle about a world in recovery that has been racked by climate change, species die off, and plague. The world Minh lives in is one that is complicated and nursing its wounds and trying to move on.

It sounds like it is a depressing story full of tropes, coming off as a typical apocalyptic novel. But in Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach, it isn’t like that. If anything, Robson has created a world that is recovering and in a lot of ways excelling. We are past the struggle for resources usually associated with apocalyptic novels. The descriptions of technology and how it is intertwined with life are marvelous, but humanity has changed past that. To me, there seemed to be an undercurrent of depression among the plague-babies (those that survived the plague), Minh’s generation. This is in stark contrast to Kiki’s generation, the fat-babies. The characterizations between the two cultures is relevant and interesting.

The story is told in three parts. The first, and most lengthy is setting up the world building and Minh’s life as a world-class ecologist. Her job is to go out and do reclamation on natural habitats in an attempt to find balance again with nature. We meet Kiki, an administrator, and fat-baby – tall, healthy, and robust in personality. All she wants is Minh’s approval and friendship. She goes out of her way to put herself in Minh’s life, almost to an uncomfortable degree. Minh is a cantankerous older woman. Set in her ways and uncomfortable with how forthright Kiki is. A new proposal for a time travel project to ancient Mesopotamia has come up, a proposal that Minh wants badly. Kiki and Minh work to land the bid and enlarge her team with the addition of Hamid. He falls in the middle, personality-wise. The second part of the story is the actual expedition and ecological restoration work. It is fascinating how Robson handles this. She creates a stark dichotomy between the technology of the Lucky Peach(their ship) and ancient Mesopotamia. The third part of the story is what happens after the intial part of the cataloging is done, where cultures clash.

Robson has meticulously constructed a story that is rich and nuanced. Areas that are “old-hat” in science fiction, i.e., time travel, seem restrained and exciting instead of worn out. It is a rigorous story that asks a lot of the audience. Character dynamics, the heart of the story, are done in a way that you empathize with all sides involved. It is obvious why Robson won many awards for this story. This story cements her as a science fiction powerhouse and one to watch in the coming years.

Read Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

originally published on Beforewegoblog.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: The King Must Fall dark fantasy anthology kickstarter

The Grimdark Magazine team and I are incredibly excited to announce our next major anthology project, The King Must Fall. Featuring 14+ stories about kings and leadership figures being deposed, and written by some of the best and brightest (darkest?) minds in fantasy, this project is going to be brutal, bloody, and jammed full with betrayal and jaw dropping moments. You’re going to love it.

We’ll be launching the Kickstarter for The King Must Fall on the 15th of June. Please click on the below image (where you’ll also see a sneak peak of the gorgeous cover we’ll be revealing soon and some of the author list) to register on the pre-notification page. When we go live on the 15th of June, you’ll be the first to know!

Our last Kickstarter project Evil is a Matter of Perspective was our most successful product ever, winning the 2017 Reddit Stabby award for best anthology. I’m looking forward to putting together another premium anthology for you.

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates over the next couple of weeks. The cover reveal, author lineup, rewards, stretch goals–we’ve got a lot of great stuff on the way!

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REVIEW: Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg

I received a review copy of Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to T.A. Willberg and Trapeze Books for the opportunity and for inviting us to the book’s Blog Tour. Minor spoilers may follow.

A colleague asked me today what I’d been reading recently and I described Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder to them as follows: Well, you know Harry Potter has a Wizarding School? Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder has an academy for Sherlock Holmes-esque Detectives and Inquirers. It’s set in the 1950s, in London, and there is an underground secret village where they operate from. The entrance of which is a trapdoor in a bookshop. They are extremely secretive, intelligent, ghost-like crime-solvers, who come to the aid of Londoners when nobody else can assist and they even have their own postal service. Near the start of the novel, there is a murder at the academy. So, that person must have been killed by an agency employee. Marion Lane, a first-year apprentice whose point of view perspective we follow, spends the novel trying to figure out who committed the crime and how it could have taken place. Things get a bit more intense when one of her closest acquaintances is accused of the titular Midnight Murder. After probably wishing they had never asked me, my colleague said they liked the sound of it and then went to their next meeting.

I liked the sound of it too when Trapeze was kind enough to approach me. I was intrigued by the book’s premise and Stuart Turton’s cover blurb sealed the deal. I found the UK cover to be striking yet it does give an impression of the novel being YA. That’s okay though as Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is one of those books that graces the crossover ground of YA and Adult and can be appreciated by both types of readers.

Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a quality mystery thriller, which takes place not long after World War II and is mostly set in a subterranean setting. It’s a fun, clever, and intricate read which includes some intriguing engineering and Steampunk elements. Marion is a likable lead and the supporting cast, which includes students, Inquirers, and professors, are varied and entertaining to follow.

T.A. Willberg is a writer with huge potential and a very readable style. I found this was a story that rewarded me for paying extra careful attention to what was happening. There were a lot of great story elements throughout including characters gossiping about events, strangers following others, motives, ambitions, and the internal hierarchy of the academy, complex character histories, mysterious maps, unwalkable pathways, and a mechanical area-guardian.

On reflection, I had a mostly positive time with Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder and I will happily rate this debut as a solid 7/10. Although that’s the case, I’d say that the first 33% was just interesting enough to keep my attention. If I wasn’t on the blog tour I may have DNF’d this and moved on to something else. After the first third of the novel though, happenings get really interesting. This is when somebody is accused of the titular murder and they must be guilty as nobody else entered the room. Or did they? How is that possible? After this point, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder reminded me of what makes a fine, readable, and memorable mystery novel and why I love the genre.

Read Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg

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REVIEW: Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

Anno Dracula is the modern vampire classic by Kim Newman (The Vampire Genevieve). Set in the Victorian Era, it goes completely off the rails from the beginning as it has Dracula taking over the British Empire after slaying Abraham Van Helsing. He’s made Queen Victoria into his vampire bride and turned a substantial chunk of the upper classes with a decent chunk of the lower classes being transformed as well. However, as the Empire descends into both fascism and tyranny as well as undead horror, a mysterious serial killer starts slaying vampire prostitutes. This proves the vampires are mortal and sparks the seeds of revolt even as the victims are blameless for Dracula’s depredations.

Anno Dracula is a bit more like Alan Moore’s brand of grimdark fiction than Joe Abercrombie’s or George R.R. Martin’s, not the least because it has a lot of similarities to the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The Dracul-Victorian Empire that Kim Newman envision is a place where Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Lord Ruthven, Doctor Jekyll, Doctor Moreau, and many other individuals exist simultaneously. There’s a ton of references that I mostly caught but can be distracting as the author repeatedly attempts to cram as many of them as possible into the narrative versus focusing on the story.

Indeed, one of the stranger elements of the book is the fact that it’s not a mystery at all. We find out who the “Silver Dagger” and later “Jack the Ripper” is within a single chapter. It’s made abundantly clear from the very beginning that it is Doctor Seward from Dracula, driven mad from the events of the novel and his failure to avenge Lucy. The book is more a character analysis of both the surviving members of the original vampire hunting party (Arthur Holmwood having become a vampire) and a few other notable characters.

My favorite character in the book is Genevieve Dieudonné and she’s an adaptation of the character from Newman’s Warhammer novels with the serial numbers not even filed off so much as lightly chipped. A nice vampire who believes the undead are not supernatural, her primary objection to the necrocracy is the fact that Dracula is a complete scumbag. She runs a hospital for poor newly turned undead.

Contrasting her is Charles Beauregard, an agent of the Diogenes Club (that is apparently more like a Victorian MI-6 meets the Illuminati than a club with no talking), that has been hired to solve the Silver Knife/Ripper murders. I liked him because the vampirism element of the story is less important to him than doing his job, fangs or not.

Much of the book’s appeal lies in its atmosphere. The populace has adapted well to becoming undead but the price has been a complete loss of liberty. Dracula is a Medieval tyrant but imposing his cruelty and horror on the pseudo-Modern world has just made it closer to fascism, which may be a deliberate point by Newman. There’s a ghastly scene where a brothel catering to homosexual men has all of its workers gathered up then impaled. People worry about whether or not their careers will be threatened if they don’t become vampires more than if they are going to lose their souls.

In conclusion, Anno Dracula is a fangtastic book (sorry, couldn’t resist) and everyone should check it out. I’m not so sold on the sequels that ditch the Victorian Era and think this works best as a standalone. Still, I had a lot of fun and believe that fans of vampiredom and Victorian Gothic Horror will enjoy this work tremendously.

Read Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

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An Interview With John Gwynne

If you are a lover of fantasy, you will have come across John’s tomes. He is the author of the David Gemmell Morningstar awarded novel Malice which kicked off The Faithful and the Fallen series. Another series you might have seen, Of Blood and Bone, is set 100 years after the concluding events of The Faithful and the Fallen. Now he has released his new series with a new world, The Bloodsworn Saga with the first book out this month, The Shadow of the Gods.

We are very lucky to have John sitting down with us for a chat about his writing and life.

GdM: You were born in Singapore and moved around a lot due to your father being in the RAF. Has your semi-nomadic lifestyle affected the way you write and approach story creation?

Hi Grimdark Magazine, and thanks so much for the invite, it’s wonderful to be here.

That’s a great question. I’m not sure how much moving around has affected the way I write, but I would suspect that it did have an impact on me becoming a writer. Moving around so regularly was definitely a part of why I read so much. Once you move three or four times during your childhood you get used to moving away from friends, and so for a long time books became my friends. For a while I became a bit of a loner and books were my favorite companions.

Not a tragic story, though, I did eventually settle during my mid-teenage years and made wonderful friends for life.

GdM: You are known for your battle scenes and action pacing. How do you approach battle scene creation?

That’s really wonderful to hear, thank you.

I’ve always approached writing combat in the same way, and that approach was very much influenced by an experience I had at the cinema. It was when I went to see the film Braveheart, back in 1995/96?

In terms of how it portrayed combat it felt groundbreaking at the time, stripping away that Hollywood gloss and taking all the glory out of war, showing the horror, terror and agony. And the way it was filmed, this kaleidoscope of fractured images coming at you, swamping the senses, it felt as if you were standing there on the field of battle.

From the moment I began writing I was trying to capture that and put it on the page.

I hope that being a Viking re-enactor has helped, as well. I think it definitely adds layers of detail and authenticity to combat, with so many of those little details that I could never imagine. Like how heavy a shield feels after about 10-15 mins of combat, or how you must remember to put your gloves on last and do up all of your buckles – weapons, belt, helmet chin-strap and so on – before you put your gloves on, as gloves make you fumbled and slow.

Also, those other moments to do with battle and combat that aren’t necessarily to do with actual combat, like how it feels to wear a coat of mail, and how difficult it is just to put it on. Yes, I have been stuck in my mail before, much to the amusement of my family and those around me. Being a Viking is not as easy as it looks.

GdM: What came first for you, rejuvenating vintage furniture or reenactment and practicing with the spear, sword, and shield?

Rejuvenating vintage furniture. And by that, I mean my wife was the brains and I was the one who did the fixing, painting, carrying and sanding

My daughter, Harriett, is profoundly disabled and my wife, Caroline, and I are her carers. Harriett always needs a lot of care, 24/7, but there was a period back when I was working at a local University when Harriett was extremely unwell and so I stepped out of Uni to help more at home. But bills still needed to be paid and my wife already ran a successful vintage furniture business, so I became more involved with that – it was something that could be mostly managed from home, so fitted in well with our circumstances.

I’ve been involved in re-enactment for the last five or six years, and it is an absolute blast.

GdM: I know that you are a lover of books as much as a writer, and you started reading early. What was an early book that affected you greatly, and why?

Probably the book that had the most impact on me and got me hooked on fantasy was Lloyd Alexander’s ‘The Book of Three,’ which is book 1 of his ‘Chronicles of Prydain,’ series. I was seven or eight years old and have a vivid memory of my teacher sitting my class down in a circle around him and beginning to read to us. It was ‘The Book of Three’ and it hooked me so much that the next day I begged my mum to buy me book one and two. After that it was a slippery slope of hobbits and Ringwraiths, of dragons and minotaur’s and Holy Grails…

Without ‘The Book of Three’ I don’t think I’d be writing today.

GdM: Where do you think fantasy as a genre is heading in the next couple of years? Do you think we will stay on a grim path mixing a bit of grit in with our fantasy? Or, bounce to more noblebright type stories as a reaction to 2020 and 2021.

That’s really tough to call. I think there’s a certain level of authenticity within fantasy now that readers expect, on a human, emotional level. But this doesn’t mean that every character needs to be a self-serving anti-hero. In real life there are people who perform heroic acts, such as jumping off of a bridge to save someone who is drowning, just as much as there are self-serving people who tend to usually act in their own interests. I think there are trends in fantasy, but more than that, I see the fantasy genre as expanding, rather than narrowly focusing on some genres and excluding others. I think there’s room for everyone, and every genre, as long as it’s written in an authentic, engaging way.

GdM: Your sons have a great channel on youtube called The Brothers Gwynne, where they talk fantasy and do book reviews. What do you think about that, and have you had a chance to check it out?

I love that they are doing their YouTube channel. They are so passionate about books and it’s lovely to see them sharing that passion and chatting about books. I’ve watched their videos and even been interviewed in one of them

Watching them now, it just reminds me of all those times when I and my wife Caroline would sit and read to them at bedtime, and then as they grew older that I would poke my head into their room to check they were okay and see them sitting in bed with the lamp on and their nose in a book. It’s wonderful that we all share a passion for reading in the Gwynne household, and books are never far from our conversations.

GdM: I recently saw on Instagram that you completed the second book in The Bloodsworn Saga, Dead Gods Rising. Congratulations. Would you be willing to reveal something about that novel that hasn’t been mentioned yet? (If there are any new point of view characters? How many pages it is?)

Thanks so much.

What can I reveal? Not too much without stepping into spoiler territory, I’m afraid. Um, okay. I’ve added two more Points of View, so we have five POV’s in this one, to make sure that the conflicts can be seen from all sides. Also, at the moment it’s a little bigger than book 1 – book 1 weighed in at around 160,000 words, and book 2 came in at 203,000 words (but that’s before my editor has got their red pen out ).

GdM: In The Shadow of the Gods you have three perspectives, Orka, an ex-warrior who lives with her husband and son at a quiet steading. Varg, a thrall who is running to escape his slave masters, and Elvar, a young warrior trying to find battle fame with the monster hunting warband the Battle-Grim. Out of the three, which would you say was the most difficult to write and why?

Difficult? In this book I can honestly say none of them. I had SO much fun writing this book, both the characters and the world. I think because I’d spent a lot of time thinking about the series, researching, constructing the world and characters that when I got down to writing it just kind of fell out of me.

Writing book 2 was a harder experience, but that was because with one of the characters I took much more of a gardener approach than I usually do (usually I do a bit of both – some plotting and some gardening). I could see a scene at the end of the book, and I needed a new pair of eyes to tell that scene, as it couldn’t work with any of the existing characters, so a new character stepped up to the spotlight – they feature in book 1, but not as a point of view. It was a challenge to write this character because I was working out their journey to that end scene as I wrote it. Looking back, though, it feels like they came out okay. I hope. (Fingers crossed.)

GdM: You’ve spoken previously that you did a lot of research into Norse mythology when writing The Shadow of the Gods. I wondered what were some of your other influences that assisted you in the creating of The Bloodsworn Saga and Vigrið? I noticed what I thought were homages to Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories, which I know is a series that you rate highly.

You’re absolutely right, my influences definitely stretch to include some Bernard Cornwell and the Last Kingdom series. That is because I am a HUGE Bernard Cornwell fan, so as a tip of the hat I included a unique insult that Bernard’s character Uhtred of Bebbanburgh uses (one of the all-time iconic characters of historical novels).

Also, the Last Kingdom and my series do have a kind of cross-over point, even though the Last Kingdom is a historical series and my Bloodsworn Saga is a fantasy series. I wanted this series to feel historical, to seep a sense of Norse, Viking-era history, (even though it has dragons, trolls and all manner of other Scandinavian monsters lurking within it), and so I did a great deal of research into that historical period: the ships they sailed, the clothes they wore, how they fought, what they ate, and so on, and of course the Last Kingdom is about the Anglo-Saxon’s and the Danish Invasion during the Viking period, so there is hopefully a similarity between them (at least there is in my mind ).

GdM: If there was a way that your two fantasy worlds could cross over somehow, are there two characters, one from Vigrið and one from the Banished Lands, that you’d love to meet in a scene, and what drama do you imagine would follow? Whilst I was reading The Shadow of the Gods, I kept having visions of Einar Half-Troll arm wrestling with Balur One-Eye to the delight of all around who witnessed this challenge of might and strength.

Ha-ha, I love that thought of Balur One-Eye arm wrestling with Einar Half-Troll.

I think Craf meeting Orka could end up in some amusing conversations.

GdM: Are there any books that you’ve read or are most excited to read in 2021?

One of the ironies of writing for a living is that you get less reading-for-pleasure time – so much of the time I do have is taken up with research. I do manage to squeeze in some reading time, though, and I have recently read The Pariah by Anthony Ryan, which I thought was fantastic. Also, The Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff was exceptional. And right now, I’m reading the Forever King by Ben Galley and I’m enjoying it a great deal. It’s been a good year for books so far.

Check out our earlier interview with John

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