Brian Parsons
asked
James Islington:
James - huge fan of all your work. The Licanius Triology really got me back into reading and truly opened me up to the sci-fi & fantasy genres. What are the biggest influences to your work and the worlds you create (authors, video games, movies, etc)?
James Islington
Thank you, that’s awesome to hear.
I tend to think of authors as my biggest influences – for Licanius I’d say it was Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time was the series when I was a teenager) and Brandon Sanderson, and for the first-person storytelling of Hierarchy, probably Patrick Rothfuss and Pierce Brown (with a bit of David Farland’s Runelords series thrown in, on the magic system side of things).
I definitely draw from a wide range of inspirations, though, and I think plenty of movies / TV shows / video games have triggered a somewhat unconscious love of certain types of story or well-executed tropes. For example, off the top of my head, I’ve always been a big fan of the movie 12 Monkeys (time travel), and the Bourne trilogy (amnesiac gradually remembering his cool abilities / terrible past) – but I never really thought of those, specifically, while I was writing Licanius. And I’ve always loved stories in all forms, not just books – so my work’s an amalgam of all those influences, for sure!
I tend to think of authors as my biggest influences – for Licanius I’d say it was Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time was the series when I was a teenager) and Brandon Sanderson, and for the first-person storytelling of Hierarchy, probably Patrick Rothfuss and Pierce Brown (with a bit of David Farland’s Runelords series thrown in, on the magic system side of things).
I definitely draw from a wide range of inspirations, though, and I think plenty of movies / TV shows / video games have triggered a somewhat unconscious love of certain types of story or well-executed tropes. For example, off the top of my head, I’ve always been a big fan of the movie 12 Monkeys (time travel), and the Bourne trilogy (amnesiac gradually remembering his cool abilities / terrible past) – but I never really thought of those, specifically, while I was writing Licanius. And I’ve always loved stories in all forms, not just books – so my work’s an amalgam of all those influences, for sure!
More Answered Questions
Kelvin
asked
James Islington:
In Will of the Many you referenced the “Catalan Games” and that Ianix was the champion. Since there is a Catalan region in our world, is this a reference to that, or is it an Easter egg, or am I over thinking it? Loved this book so much and counting down the days to SOTF!!
ShandyT
asked
James Islington:
Hi James! My question pertains to Ashalia from Licanius. Without getting into any specific spoilers, I wanted to say that I greatly enjoyed that she always seemed to do the cleverest thing in every scenario, finding smart, efficient solutions to her problems—basically, everything I as the reader was rooting for her to do. How did you go about balancing that competency with keeping her character grounded?
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