Tag Archives: fantasy

One Last Sacrifice: James A Moore on the Altar

February 11, 2017 greydogtales Leave a comment

Had enough period and classic scares for a day or so? No, neither have we, but it’s time to be modern again. Join us now, dear listener, as we embrace 2017 and bring you grimdark, role-playing games and horror. It took some time to find the right chains, but at last we got that prolific fantasy author James A Moore at our mercy. We say fantasy author, but there’s much more to his work. As you will find out below…

An Interview with James A Moore

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, James. We’re partly here for your latest book, The Last Sacrifice, but we like to drift and potter about as well. So we’ll start with the broader nonsense. For those who don’t know you, tell us a bit about yourself, either as a writer, or as a mostly human being.

james: As a writer I focus on horror and grimdark, on supernatural crime fiction and weird westerns. In other words I write what ever strikes my fancy. I promised myself a long time ago that I would always aim to write the book I would like to read and I’ve stuck to that.

As a person, I am a comic book geek (I’ve written a few of those in my time, too) and I am a movie buff. I work at a local Starbucks so I don’t become a hermit and because I absolutely love medical benefits, having a 401K and stock options, you know, all of the stuff being a writer does not cover. I am a widower who lost his wife seven years ago.

greydog: Although you’ve written all sorts, including horror, a lot of people probably know you as a fantasy author. Fantasy is an enormous genre which covers everything from icky tales of nice fairy-folk to large scale disembowellings and chaotic perversions. Is there such a thing as grimdark, and if so, do you write it?

james: I tend to think that there is such a thing and yes, I write it. I love high fantasy stories, I just don’t really write them. I want swords and anger and bloodshed and fear and humor and the occasional romance (even if it doesn’t work out) and I want to study the human condition in my writings. And I think that, really, the best way to know people is to see how they handle adversity.

greydog: You caught attention with your epic fantasy series Seven Forges, which we think is now up to four books and several short stories. Is this a core work for you, or one that you were just passing through?

james: I love fantasy. I always have. I love horror, too. When it comes to Seven Forges I had an idea that simply would not leave me alone, which is what normally starts me on a book or a series. I loved the idea of seeing a massive, stagnating empire go up against a group that was smaller, but far more dedicated to winning. This is definitely a core for me. I have at least three more novels planned in the series, and likely several more short stories and novellas as well. It’s a big world and it’s going through some seriously violent changes. I love watching that happen.

greydog: You also did an awful lot for White Wolf, on their World of Darkness role playing games and supplements. We remember buying Vampire: Masquerade when it first came out. Does that mean that you are, or once were, an RPGer yourself?

james: Oh my, yes. I used to play D&D and all of the WOD games, as well as Champions (remember, comic book geek). And I was the Storyteller on a lot of the adventures I wrote for White Wolf. My players were my sounding board (or, you know, victims. It’s all a matter of perspective). I ate those games like candy. I don’t have the time to play the games any more, much as I might like to.

greydog: No, those vast chunks of time needed for serious RPGing do seem to get fewer and fewer. So, you’ve worked with writers Christopher Golden and Charles R Rutledge, amongst others. Do you find co-authoring a pleasure, or harder work than being left along to do your own thing?

james: Honestly, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it. I have projects going with Charles and with Chris both, but it might take a while to get to them, priorities being what they are. BLOODSTAINED WONDERLAND is coming out later this year with Chris, and A HELL WITHIN (A Griffin & Price novel) is coming out later this year with Charles.

For me those collaborations are like getting all of my favorite toys and having them get all of their favorite toys and then playing in the sandbox together. Only no sand in the underwear. Later this year I am also part of a mosaic novel with Christopher Golden, Cherie priest, Charlaine Harris, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Richardson, Tim Lebbon, Mark Morris, Kelley Armstrong and Seanan McGuire…THAT is a damned big sandbox.

greydog: As an aside, are we likely to see any more stories in the unpleasant land of Bloodstained Oz, the Stoker-nominated limited edition you released some time ago?

james: Oh yes. BLOODSTAINED WONDERLAND is finished. In the coming months Chris and I will be plotting out and then writing BLOODSTAINED NEVERLAND. They are light and cheerful stories, assuming your mind is a cesspool of violence and urban decay.

greydog: Which piece of work has given you the most personal satisfaction?

james: All of them. But if I have to pick one, it’s the SEVEN FORGES series, because there’s a lot of world building going on there and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. Or maybe DEEPER which was my first ever attempt at a first person novel. Possibly BLOOD RED, which was the fastest I’ve ever written a novel…the list goes on, seriously.

greydog: And which of your works do you wish more people had read, or knew about?

james: That is definitely an ALL of them answer. I’m delighted with the attention SEVEN FORGES has gotten, but I’d love more people to know about it, and while I’m dreaming if HBO or Netflix wants to make a series… The one I think deserved more attention than it got was SUBJECT SEVEN, which is a Young Adult series I did there were plans for more books but the sales simply weren’t there. Lots of great reviews and even some fan mail, but at the end of the day it got lost in a sea of YA novels.

James A Moore on The Last Sacrifice

greydog: On to your most recent novel, The Last Sacrifice, before we forget. It’s a dark and lively piece, with a lot of serious action and a number of key strands. What made you choose to pursue multiple characters, rather than, say, only following Brogan’s misfortunes?

james: I always prefer multiple characters and points of view, because I think it’s fun letting readers see and understand the things that a lot of the characters do not get to see. I’m writing the sequel right now and for a decent portion of the book Brogan is out of the conflict and on a quest. Meanwhile his companions are waist deep in trouble and blood.

greydog: It’s possible to sympathise with the main protagonists of Last Sacrifice, but most of them aren’t exactly innocents. Moderately ‘good’ people do moderately ‘bad’ things, for starters. Is this a moral shadowland that you like your characters to tread?

james: I love shades of gray (not fifty of them mind you). I have seldom met anyone over the age of five who could be called all good or all bad. I think it’s important to show that. Brogan isn’t a bad man. He’s done bad things and he’s been paid for it, but he’s generally a good man who loves his family, he also has to deal with his anger and grief when things go wrong and he does not deal with it well.

We’re introduced to SOME of the 20 men with him in book one, but more of them are met in the second book and the same is true of the slavers who are after him. A lot of them are pretty much like the personnel on the Death Star. They’re just doing their jobs, you know? Is it morally wrong to be a slaver? Not to them. It’s a different world.

greydog: We don’t get time to read a lot of fantasy these days, but the Undying or He-Kisshi are a new one on us (having dubious tastes, we liked them more than some of the people). Their role and their physical nature are nicely brought out through the book. How did they come about?

james: I said before that I love high fantasy, but the thing is, I need to do something different. I love me some elves and dragons and dwarves but for now I want to stay away from the tropes and come up with new threats. The He-Kisshi are some tough characters, they have limitations but they really are undying. They are the messengers of the gods and in this case that means that have the ability to act on behalf of the gods.

One of the things I wanted to do with them is show that they are, in fact, connected deeply with the gods and when the gods start going off the rails, so do some of the He-Kisshi. They get a lot more play in the second book and we get to see some of the reasons that they are so deeply feared.

greydog: We know that Last Sacrifice has only been released recently, but we assume you have many plans. Anything you’d share with us, or tease us with, on this series or other projects?

james: There will be two more books in the TIDES OF WAR series. The Last Sacrifice is only book one. Things in the works? I plan on finishing two horror novels this year, BOOM TOWN and FRESH KILLS, and I want to do a sci-fi horror story that will, hopefully, scare the crap out of people. So many books to write, so little time.

greydog: We look forward to those. Finally, dogs or cats? There is a wrong answer, but no actual penalty, though we do take notes on this sort of thing.

james: The actual answer is simple: Dogs or cats? May as well ask me if I prefer barbarian hordes or stealthy assassins. Both, of course. If given a choice of one and only one, I suppose dogs first.

greydog: What an excellent answer. Many thanks for joining us.

james: My absolute pleasure! Thanks for having me.

You can get hold of a copy of James A Moore’s The Last Sacrifice at the link below, and most of his work is easily available via one or other Amazon site. You’ll like the Undying.

TheLastSacrifice_testfront (1) last sacrifice, amazon uk

Coming during the next couple of weeks: Christine Morgan’s collection of Viking tales, Lurchers for Beginners, more Women in Horror, and lots more goodies. Do join us…

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Zelazny & the Great God Pan – A Goblin for Christmas

December 31, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Are you a kallikantzaros, destined to terrorise your village for the next few days? Or are you impish and troublesome at this time of the year by choice? Today we recommend a novel, recount some dark folklore and suggest baptism in the Orthodox church. We are in the Twelve Days of Christmas, and thus calling in on Greek folk-legends, shadow puppetry and science fiction. Naturally.

Let’s turn to the author Roger Zelazny, who knew that children born at this time run the risk of turning into those blackened, misshapen goblins known to the Greeks as kallikantzaroi.

Twelvetide has many myths and rituals associated with it across the world. We thought about going with the Hunting of the Wren, but the lure of a particular novel, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny (1937-1995), was too great.

The book was serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1965 under the title And Call Me Conrad, with some cuts from the original manuscript. Subsequently released in various forms as a novel, the original text was restored, and it became known under the This Immortal title. Zelazny apparently preferred the Conrad title, but the publishers didn’t.

It’s not Zelazny’s best book, but it does introduce some rather neat ideas. And it’s another work showing his fascination with immortal or extremely long-lived central characters. Corwin of Amber, from the Amber series; Sam from the quite brilliant Lord of the Light; Francis Sandow from Isle of the Dead. We covered the last one at length earlier in the year – roger zelazny – my family and other vorvolakas . Another novel full of great ideas, including a man possessed by an alien god.

So what’s the folklore element here? In Greece they have a rather interesting Twelvetide belief, one which is shared in various forms across Southeastern Europe – Serbia, Greece, parts of Turkey and so on. The kallikantzaros is a mischievous creature, a sort of blackened goblin. These goblins are often portrayed as stunted or malformed creatures of various heights, some with animal parts, others with enormous genitalia, or with mis-matched limbs.

The most curious part is their behaviour, which is governed by light and religion. For most of the year, the kallikantzaroi spend their time underground, sawing at the roots of the Tree of the World and trying to bring it down. Echoes of Yggdrasil, the Norse World Tree, and the dragon/demon Níðhöggur which gnaws at Yggdrasil’s roots.

Spurning the light, it is only during the Twelve Days of Christmas when the sun is at its lowest, that the kallikantzaroi emerge into the world of humans to cause trouble. They’re not exactly the most evil goblins, but tricksters and mischief-makers. And some believe that children born during these twelve days may turn into kallikantzaroi (the Serbs called Twelvetide ‘the unbaptised days’). This was to be prevented by various folkloric traditions – surrounding the child with garlic or straw rubbed with garlic, making sure that a priest had blessed them, and, for some odd reason, singeing their toenails.

After causing minor mayhem, such goblins returned underground with the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, either the 5^th or the 6^th of January. This must have been frustrating, as in their absence the Tree of the World had healed itself and it was time to pick up that saw again.

Roger Zelazny composted a whole bundle of Greek myths when he came up with This Immortal. You can look for connections not only with the kallikantzaros legend, but with Dionysian tales, the Great God Pan and sundry other beliefs. He has a nice observation about the nature of the Greek goblins in there as well:

“So feathers or lead” I asked him.

“Pardon?”

“It is the riddle of the kallikanzaros. Pick one.”

“Feathers?”

“You’re wrong.”

“If I had said ‘lead’… ?”

“Uh-uh. You only have once chance. The correct answer is whatever the kallikanzaros wants it to be. You lose.”

“That sounds a bit arbitrary.”

“Kallikanzaroi are that way. It’s Greek, rather than Oriental subtlety. Less inscrutable, too. Because your life often depends on the answer, and the kallikanzaros generally wants you to lose.”

“Why is that?”

“Ask the next kallikanzaros you meet, if you get a chance. They’re mean spirits.”

In the book, he references Easter, and the possibility that kallikantzaroi are driven from their work on the World Tree by the Easter bells. This would be fitting, given the importance of East to the Greek Orthodox Church. Χριστὸς ἀνέστη – Kristos aneste – Christ is Risen. In the Orthodox Church, Christmas is really a preliminary to Easter, which is the more significant event in the liturgical year.

konrad — our own edition, with not the best of covers

The novel is set on an Earth devastated by war and mostly in ruins, with much of the planet owned by aliens, the Vegans, who come here on sight-seeing trips. Humans live under many stars, mostly as employees or servants of the aliens, who are generally benevolent in their way. Only the Mars and Titan colonies are semi-independent, having had to get along on their own after Earth fell apart. With a disjointed human population, a lot of post-war wreckage and radioactive hot-spots, humanity is not in the best of positions. The Returnist movement has fought, physically and politically, to have their planet back, but with little success.

Enter Conrad. Like Sam in Lord of Light, he has many names. He may be Conrad Nomikos, Konstantin, or the freedom-fighter Karaghios. He avoids being pinned down on that most of the time.

What he is, no-one is sure. He was born during Twelvetide, and may not have been baptised (the priest had a stroke during the ceremony). His girlfriend calls him a kallikantzaros, and as in stories of the imps, he has physical defects. One leg is shorter than the other, and he has a scarred face and heterochromia, appropriate goblin traits.

Conrad’s legendary status is confused between the possibilities of radioactive mutation and mythic origins. Conrad also relates to beasts and to satyrs in the Greek ruins and wildlands, which raises the Pan connection. Zelazny declared that

“I wanted to leave it open to several interpretations—well, at least two. I wanted to sort of combine fantasy and sf… either Conrad is a mutant or he is the Great God Pan. The book may be read either way.”

The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 2: Power & Light

The surname Nomikos means ‘of the law’, but it also links to Nomios, a name for a version of Pan. Nomios was Hermes’ son, and Nomios’ mother was the dryad Penelope. He was an excellent shepherd, a seducer of nymphs, and musician upon the shepherd’s pipes. True to form, Conrad plays the syrinx (panpipes), and has a way with women. Add his odd looks and his seeming immortality, and you have your possibilities.

One of Conrad’s names, Karaghiosis, has a very specific link to Greek folk traditions. Long ago we were rattling on about shadow-puppetry with Richard Mansfield of Mansfield Dark, who produce their own excellent style of silhouette and shadow puppet films ( mansfield dark and hans christian andersen: the shadow out of denmark ). It’s a theme which comes up in a number of modern stories, but its roots are ancient. Karagiozis is a shadow puppet and fictional character of Greek folklore, originating in the Turkish shadow play Karagöz and Hacivat.

Kargiozis is a man of apparently little importance, sometimes ignored or slighted, who uses his wiles to get the better of others. Both a hero and an anti-hero. Like Punch, he often has a humped back and other deformities, which links us again to the kallikantzaroi.

Sadly, the puppetry is less common these days, but the shows are still held.

All the figures that represent the characters of the shows are two dimensional and designed always in profile. They were traditionally made from camel skin, carved to allow light through the image, creating details, but are today most often made of cardboard. Traditional puppets gave off black shadows against the white screen, but some more recent puppets have holes covered with colored silk or plastic gel materials to create colored shadows.

The torso, waist, feet and sometimes the limbs, were separate pieces that were joined together with pins. Most figures were composed of two parts (torso and legs) with only one joint to the waist. Two characters, the Jew and Morfonios had joints in the neck, and had a flexible head. They were moved with a stick attached to their ‘back’, except in the case of the figure of Karagiozis, Stavrakas and a few other characters whose arms or other limbs required separate movement. The ‘scene’ was a vertical white parapet, usually a cloth, called mperntes (from Turk. ‘perde’, curtain). Between the figures and the player (who was invisible), were candles or lamps that shed light to the figures and made their silhouettes and colours visible to the audience through the cloth.

Nicked from Wikipedia to save time typing. We’re shameless

Back when we were talking about Zelazny’s Isle of the Dead, we mentioned that the source of the image of that isle is supposedly the island of Pontikonisi, just off Corfu.

By coincidence, the author Lawrence Durrell (brother of Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals) wrote about Karagiozis and the Corfu Greeks:

Their national character is based on the idea of the impoverished and downtrodden little man getting the better of the world around him by sheer cunning. Add to this the salt of a self-deprecating humour, and you have the immortal Greek. A man of impulse, full of boasts, impatient of slowness, quick of sympathy, and inventive as well as assimilative. A coward and hero at the same time…

Prospero’s Cell (1945)

And the Conrad of Zelazny’s This Immortal shows signs of these characteristics as well. We’ll leave Roger Zelazny and the Greeks with this quote from the novel:

“I’m tired of being a gravekeeper, and I don’t really want to spend from now until Easter cutting through the Tree of the World, even if I am a Darkborn with a propensity for trouble. When the bells do ring, I want to be able to say, “Alethos aneste”, Risen Indeed, rather than dropping my saw and running (ring-a-ding, the bells, clackety-clack, the hooves, et cetera). Now is the time for all good kallikanzaroi… You know.”

It’s worth a read. And possibly checking if you were baptised by a Greek Orthodox priest. Best be safe.

Back in a few days, and on a regular schedule as Twelvetide comes to an end – more lurcher madness, weird fiction and art. Do you join us, and Happy New Year, dear listener, if we don’t see you until then…

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Os Penitens: The Place of Nine Despairs

December 4, 2016 greydogtales 2 Comments

A brief visit to Os Penitens, the Mouth of War, today. I’m clambering through too many strands of writing and editing at the moment, so here’s a fragment of dark fantasy from a longer work which may become a full tale in its own right with time – or may not. The Gynarch alone knows.

It’s my favourite character of that city – the unusual Nemors…

The Place of Nine Despairs

These are not the hands I will use.

These hands are old. They do not straighten, nor do they grip with the strength that will be needed. And my daughter would ask me: Most noble father, is that murder, the shadow which clings to your fingers?

What would I answer? I have never lied to her.

“Yes, child. I have made murder on the enemy of my heart.”

It would not do.

So I go to the Place of Nine Despairs. I go to a meeting which no man should want, which most must surely regret…

She stood on the precipice, the heels of her boots on stone, the toes on air. Lichen-mottled strongholds loomed behind her; a three hundred foot drop lay before her. Down there, choked with travellers, the road called Isaine’s Sorrow snaked through the district of Deuseptis and did its duty.

The Nine Despairs was a terrace of worked stone, less than a spear’s throw wide, but longer than ten brigantines. Looking down, she noticed that the fall-nets were still tended, centuries after the last death here. History paid prentices to scramble up the crags and re-knot the ropes, clear out the nesting gulls, for history remembered cowards and honourable people. There were few of the latter now.

These days there were entertainments at the Nine Despairs, amusements for the sons and daughters of the gens. The iron baskets which had once held watch-fires were stacked high with perfumed woods, and children climbed on the ballista mounts, scraping their knees on rusted bearings.

She turned from the edge. It was late in the Hour of the Grey Snake, and tendrils of cloud were gathering in the east, talking amongst themselves of a dawn which was soon to come. Soon, and they would be grey no longer.

A time and a place for meeting strangers.

And here was the stranger coming, his cloak clutched tight, his head low.

I have need, he had said at a gin stall on Isaine’s Sorrow, five hours ago, and pointed up to the heights. When the Grey Snake ends, he added.

She had no objection to need. It tended to pay well.

He limped as he came, joining her near the edge but not so near. He was keeping to a section where some of the carved stone parapet had survived.

“You are Nemors?” he asked, letting his cloak fall. An old face. A sunken face, knots of muscle withered at the corners of his lips, shadows under almost colourless eyes.

“I carry no mark,” she said.

“No, you wouldn’t. Not if you were her.” He coughed, wiping spittle from the corner of his mouth with his cloak. “Nemors is not like others.”

“You will know who I am later,” she pointed out. “When you pay me.”

“Yes, of course. It concerns…. concerns the gens Malphebes.”

Nemors had nothing to say. The pointless, convoluted politics of the great gens held little interest for her.

“My name is Urien anIscales.” He showed her the intricate pattern of silver etched on the back of his right hand, the pattern which matched him to his name. In Os Penitens, anyone could hide behind a face.

A cousin of a cousin, without even inheritance rights in the gens Iscales. Her time was being wasted.

“There are others,” she said, and turned to leave. She had no interest in the small vendettas and grievances he was no doubt about to raise.

“I have mirifics, some of great age.”

Her robes of ochre and grey swirled as she faced him again.

“What is a great age?” she asked.

“The Thirteenth Year of the Lammergeier.” He coughed again. “And some from the time of Heresen Imperator.”

“I see. You have provenance?”

He smiled for the first time, a bitter twist of his mouth. “If you really are Nemors of the Last Blessing, then you will know them. Would parchment and book really help?”

The Tower of Falling sounded the end of the hour. Its knell was taken up a moment later by the thousand shrines and towers across the city, the brass mouths of guild bells, the horns of militia at the district gates, a wave of time which washed over the city until it was spent. In Os Penitens, there was no single moment, only fragments which followed another’s lead.

The Thirteenth Year of the Lammergeier. There were certain items of that period…

“What do you wish me to do?”

He came closer. “My daughter has been dishonoured.”

“Malphebes will no doubt pay recompense. They’re used to doing that.”

“You think that I would seek out Nemors for a matter of some foolish copulation?”

“It has happened,” she said, beginning to lose interest again.

So he told her why he needed her. She listened. It was a common tale, in its beginning, but it twisted as it went. When he had finished the telling, caught in a racking cough again, she swept back the hood of her cloak.

“Your daughter is alive, at least.”

The old man managed to look at her face.

“We are nothing to them. We are stripped of rights and dignity.”

She tasted rain on the dawn breeze, considered Os Penitens laid out before her. The first few drops of a long morning spattered her face.

“You wish this man, this Tetherian, dead?”

“Exposed, shamed.” he said. “Brought to some sort of justice. The magistrates will not act.”

“This might be done.”

He leant against the nearest crumbling section of parapet, his hand hardly keeping him upright.

“The mirifics,” he said, “Are our last treasures.”

“I heard you.”

“What else must I do?”

“Comfort your daughter, I suppose. I would not know. Tell her that all will be well.”

“Will it? Will all be well?” he asked, tiredness replaced by a sudden eager tone.

“I imagine not. But as for your dishonour, I will consider the matter.”

“Do you not care?”

“Not unless I am paid to do so.”

He levered himself up right.

“They say… they say that you are no longer human.”

They stood in the grey-pink shadows of the dawn. Eventually she smiled.

“Good.”

She was not as I had expected. A hard voice, and a harder face, yes, but she was not so greatly different in height or build from my Cristia.

I could not see her eyes, though. I had heard that there are colours in those eyes which no longer belong in this world, Gynarch protect us. I do not understand this, but I am relieved not to have seen such things.

I must beg the skinbinders. My chest is worse, and they raise their prices every month. There is little money and little honour left to anIscales.

One of these at least might soon be remedied.

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Fight Like a Fantasy Author: An Interview with Joanne Hall

June 4, 2016 greydogtales 1 Comment

We’re going all fantastical, dear listener. As we haven’t yet finished a new lurcher article, we did the next best thing and got you a writer with a greyhound. Indie UK author Joanne Hall joins us to talk about her writing, her editing and acquisitions work in a brand new interview. As an added extra, we also poke a cautious spear at the multi-headed Fantasy-Faction, a major fantasy community on the web, which is looking to extend its scaly reach.

The greydog himself, John Linwood Grant, has more author-type news, but we haven’t room for him today. Maybe we’ll let him mumble something next time. We’d rather get talking to Joanne Hall, who has being scoring multiple hits with her novel Spark and Carousel and then her duology, The Art of Forgetting.

Not content with this, she has recently edited the anthology Fight Like A Girl (with Roz Clarke) and later this year she will be releasing her next fantasy novel The Summer Goddess. Our guest is tragically based in South West England, not Yorkshire, but she makes the best of it, and her website describes her thusly (which saves us typing it in again):

Joanne Hall is the same age as Star Wars, which explains a lot…. She lives in Bristol, England with her partner. She enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, playing console games, watching movies, eating chocolate and playing with the world’s laziest dog.

To the interview-mobile…

greydog: Joanne, welcome to greydogtales. We’ve been looking forward to speaking to you for a while, but now we gain reflected glory because your novel Spark and Carousel is on the Gemmell Award long-list for fantasy fiction, and in grand company. A surprise?

joanne: Complete surprise. Especially considering some of the other names on the list. It’s a really strong longlist this year, so to be on it with people like Joe Abercrombie and Robin Hobb, especially as a relatively unknown indie author, is amazing. I’m a huge fan of several of the authors on the list, so have got this far and to be in their company is not something I was expecting!

greydog: We’ll ease our way in with an old standard. You’ve been at this a while – what first drew you into writing in the fantasy field, rather than just reading the stuff?

joanne: I always knew I wanted to write, even when I was really young. But reading Diana Wynne Jones and David Eddings, and David Gemmell a year or so later, was what made me realise that what I wanted to write was fantasy. It just seemed like these authors were the ones writing all the fun things, and I wanted to write the fun things too.

greydog: Apart from Spark and Carousel, you’ve had quite an impact with The Art of Forgetting – Rider, and then Nomad. Have you any idea what it is about your work that’s caught the imagination of readers? Themes, characters, or a particular style that you’ve used?

joanne: That’s a really hard thing to quantify. I write the sort of books I like to read, so I guess in a way I’m writing for me and people like me. I guess I write characters that are really relatable to a lot of people; they’re flawed and damaged and they make mistakes, but most of them are essentially good at heart, or acting for reasons that they think are good ones. They’re easy to empathise with even if they’re not always likeable.

greydog: We’ve been amusing ourselves by reading some reviews of your work (which are very positive, we should add). They range from complimenting you on the subtlety of your use of more ‘adult’ themes to being shocked but impressed. Is Joanne Hall on a mission to inject reality into fantasy?

joanne: The only mission I’m on is to eat this bag of doughnuts before my boyfriend gets home… I think my fantasy is quite grounded in reality. It’s muddy. It rains a lot. People have vaguely unsatisfying sex and go to the toilet (not at the same time…) I’m not interested in a pristine world. I’ve studied History my whole life and I’m interested in the weird bits, the bits (and the people) that don’t quite fit, so I guess my background interest in history has lent a veneer of reality to the fantasy I write. But it’s not a mission statement, it’s just how the stories tend to come out.

greydog: For people who don’t know your work so well, you started with the New Kingdom trilogy, from 2005 to 2008. How do you think that your writing has changed since then?

joanne: I think I’ve grown more confident. I’m more willing now to try new things and see if they work, and to know to ditch them if they don’t. I think I trust my instincts more now, and I’m less worried about what people might think, having been on the receiving end of some sharp reviews!

greydog: Some fantasy writers obsess on maps and genealogies, others on tiny quirks of personality. We know that they’re not necessarily exclusive, but in general would you say that you’re a world-builder or a character-builder?

joanne: Both, I think. The world shapes the characters just as much as the characters shape the world. I like to be able to create a wider world than the one you see on the page, one with a history and culture shared by the characters that doesn’t have to be spelled out to the reader. Juliet McKenna calls it “writing off the edge of the map” which I think is a good way of looking at it.

greydog: The Art of Forgetting is a duology, a format of which we rather approve (as an antidote to padded trilogies). Is it really one story which turned out to be too big for a single volume, or did you plan it in two distinct sections?

joanne: When I wrote “The Art of Forgetting” I wrote it as one long book, in one massive sprint (I say sprint, it took eight months to write the first draft, so it was more of a marathon.) But it did kind of fall naturally into two halves. When I was submitting it a lot of people where very positive about it but the overwhelming response I got was that at 190k it was just too long. I actually submitted to Kristell Ink because they said they didn’t have a problem with long novels, and it was Sammy’s suggestion to split it into two books because it just made more sense economically.

greydog: You have another book, The Summer Goddess, coming this year. Care to give our listeners a hint or two about what they’ll find there?

joanne: The Summer Goddess is a stand-alone sequel to The Art of Forgetting. The heroine, Asta, is forced to undertake a perilous journey, and forges an uncertain alliance with a pair of assassins, to save her nephew from both slavers, and the deranged worshippers of an imprisoned god.

greydog: Onto other aspects of your work. You recently edited Fight like a Girl with Roz Clarke, not your first time as an anthology editor. Is it a role you enjoy?

joanne: I really do. It’s so nice to be able to work with new authors, and to see them then go on to other projects. That’s the part I enjoy most, being able to give inexperienced authors an opportunity, and being able to edit them and bring them up to the standard of more established writers. And it’s great to be able to bring the stories together, to see what themes develop over the course of putting together the anthology. Roz and I also edited Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion, and Colinthology, and she’s a great editing partner.

greydog: Fight Like a Girl is a great collection, with a fabulous cover. When you started the project, were you looking for strongly contrasting stories, or those which blended in with each other to give a particular feel?

joanne: The cover was by Sarah Anne Langton – have you held it under UV light? It was important to us when we started out working on Fight Like A Girl that women were involved at every stage of the process, from writing to editing to publishing to cover art. Our only criteria when we took on the project was that we wanted stories of combat written by women, or people who identified as women. We never stipulated that the stories had to feature female protagonists, but that’s what we got! I’m really impressed at the range of stories that were submitted to us, and the high quality.

greydog: The UV effect is neat (but we won’t spoil it here). Now, you’re Acquisitions Editor for the publisher Kristell Ink (imprint of Grimbold Books), ploughing through SFF novels. What sort of experience has this been – a lot of doleful head-shaking, or pleasure at the range of potential new authors?

joanne: A bit of both! Though by and large the quality of submissions has been very high, and it was really hard in the end to choose which books we were going to publish out of our final shortlist – contracts are going out pretty much as I type. (I didn’t think it would be just as exciting being on the sending end as it is on the receiving end, but it actually is…)

Most of the books that we rejected quickly were ones that had committed some fundamental error, like sending three completely random chapters when we asked for the first three, or send us epic poetry, which we don’t publish. I’m really happy that we’ve taken on some brand-new authors, and I’m looking forward to working with them!

greydog: Another one of your sidelines is that you’ve been the Chair of BristolCon, the science fiction and fantasy convention, for some time. We used to do some con-running ourselves, and it can be hell. Are you a convention junkie?

joanne: I would go to more conventions if I had the time. Or the energy. Or the financial wherewithal. I really do enjoy them, but then I come home and have to sleep for about a week to recover. They are a great way of meeting people and networking and catching up with old friends, but sometimes they can be full on. Especially the bigger conventions. Luckily BristolCon is a petite one-dayer, and very friendly. You can find out more at www.bristolcon.org.

greydog: Given that this is the home of the weird and the lurcher, we notice you also have a rather lovely four-legged companion of your own. May we have a quick word-portrait to share with our three reprobates?

joanne: That would be Lyra, who is deeply weird even for a greyhound. She doesn’t know she’s a greyhound; she thinks she’s a hippopotamus, and her mission in life is to wallow in every puddle and muddy spludge she can get her feet into. Her main interests are sleeping, scrounging and bullying her best friend Charley in a variety of entertaining ways. Like me, she was last in all her races and, also like me, she has a passion for frozen yoghurt.

greydog: She would fit right in with our odd crew, by the sound of it. Finally, apart from The Summer Goddess, what’s coming up for you in the next year? Do you have any grand plans to extend the rule of the Hall-ian Empire?

joanne: Taking over the world by increments is the general plan… The Summer Goddess will be out at the end of September, all things going to plan. I’m hoping to finish a new novel set in an entirely different world by the end of the year, and I’m sure there will be various projects I happen along on the way, but my main focus right now is on The Summer Goddess. After that I might take a breather for a few weeks!

greydog: You deserve it. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you, and we look forward to reading The Summer Goddess!

You can find out more about Joanne and her work on her own site and at her author page on Amazon:

joanne hall site

joanne’s amazon author page

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Fantasy-Faction

We do love fantasy literature, although we often crouch at the old and weird end of the spectrum. A couple of weeks ago we rattled on about earlier fantasy authors (see 10 classic female fantasy authors), but occasionally we want to read something new. And as we pad through the murky swamps of social media looking for such fodder, we occasionally come across groups and blogs which do not make our heads explode. One such is the Fantasy-Faction Facebook Group, which has two especially laudable aspects:

1) The members are genuine fans, and are always full of interesting suggestions about modern fantasy stories, novels and authors (with a jot of old-style surfacing occasionally).

2) It’s a group which discourages arrant self-promotion – the best discussions are about other author’s books and what might be got from reading those (we writery people have to self-promote, but gods-help-us, not all the time, please)

It’s a great place to get reading recommendations, or to query other fans about what they thought of a particular character, story or book.

That’s not all, though. Behind the Facebook group looms the dark, brooding presence of Marc Aplin, with his Fantasy-Faction team. Marc started the UK-based website towards the end of 2010 after being exposed to too many good fantasy novels. Fired with enthusiasm, he wanted to build a network which promoted quality fantasy and encouraged people to explore the genre. So the website hosts all sorts of reviews, major author interviews and articles related to modern fantasy. And it does have a very positive vibe about it. As they say there:

“Why the name Fantasy-Faction? A faction is basically a grouping of like-minded individuals. Five years later our faction is part army, part family, and all lovers of fantasy books. We are now one of the largest fantasy communities on the web and it’s all thanks to our amazing contributors and our loyal Factioners.”

Access to the Fantasy-Faction site and their huge range of articles is free, but they have now started a Patreon page to help with costs and developing the range of features that they offer. If you’re a fantasy enthusiast, have a look at their site:

fantasy-faction main site

And here’s the direct Patreon link if you’d like to support them:

fantasy-faction patreon

Next week on greydogtales – we bring you up to speed on greydog’s own writing, have an illustrated mega-interview with award winning artist/writer Alan M Clark. drop a few names and throw in a longdog or two…

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Fantasy-Faction

Literature, lurchers and life