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After last week’s popular return of the One Book Interview, I’m happy to say I have another author here to talk about the ‘words behind the words’.

His choice of books are my kind of books – fantasy staples that I have read, reread and am hankering to revisit yet again.

1 – everyone should read

I’m going to go with The Lord of the Rings (and maybe The Hobbit as a starter). It’s a foundation stone of the fantasy genre and pretty much everyone who has written (or is writing) a fantasy book has read it. It was certainly a transformative book for the 12 y.o. me. I am still in awe of the world-building.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be exiled to Mars

An omnibus edition of The Wheel of Time – because I read up to book 10 back when book 10 was as far as the series went. I never finished the series because the wait for book 11 was so long. I would now have to reread to get back into the story and this would give me the chance. Books 8 & 9 were desperately slow as I recall, but I’ve seen multiple claims that the final books are great.

3 – you took a chance on and enjoyed

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey. First book in a contemporary fantasy series set in London with a freelance exorcist as main character. Mike Carey hit it big with The Girl With All The Gifts (also a brilliant book) and is a truly gifted storyteller and a great guy.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

That would be Exile, the first book of the Nandor Tales and my first completed novel. As my reviewers have pointed out it has its flaws, but I still love the way the plotlines mesh.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

I’m not going to name the book(s). They were published by major publishing houses and they were pretty bad. They made me think I can do better than this and I was right.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Writer rather than single book – David Gemmell, particularly his Drenai books, Waylander as a standout.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with.

There are only 3 to choose from. Exile if you want classic secondary world adventure fantasy, Shadows of Faerie if you want contemporary fantasy.

You can find Martin at www.martinowton.wordpress.com

Martin Owton is a UK-based fantasy author. He has 3 books published: the Nandor Tales duology Exile & Nandor (non-epic adventure fantasy) and Shadows of Faerie – a contemporary fantasy set in southern England where he grew up. He has also published over 30 short stories. His real life job is drug designer for big pharma. He is represented by Shiel Land Associates of London.

The One Book Interview is back with a bang.

I picked up The Gutter Prayer (Book One of the Black Iron Legacy) a few months back after a few people recommended it.

I loved it.

So when the author agreed to do an interview, I jumped at the chance.

1 – everyone should read

Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. I’m not going to lie and say it’s an easy read – the early chapters, especially, hit you with untranslated ancient Hebrew, obscure conspiracies and an in media res opening – but stick with it. It’s hilarious, insightful and explains everything from the secret history of the world to the publishing industry.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be exiled to Mars

Something short that I can read in the brief window before I asphyxiate, I suppose. I mean, I love Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, but I’m not going to get through even a chapter or two before I die. Although I suppose it’s thick enough to be used as radiation shielding in a pinch…

3 – you took a chance on and enjoyed

I think John Higgs’ The KLF; I knew nothing about the band, had no interest in them, and only picked up the book on the recommendation of a friend of mine. Since reading it, I’ve evangelized about it everyone. It’s genius. I can’t wait for his book on William Blake.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

The Dracula Dossier – it’s a rewrite of Stoker’s Dracula, turning it into a piece of espionage fiction and the biggest roleplaying handout ever. That was tremendous fun to work on – weaving our own characters and plots into Dracula, uncovering the secret hints Stoker left for us, annotating the whole thing with notes from the 1940s, 1970s and 2010s. An incredibly indulgent playground.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

The Lord of the Rings. So much of my life is bound up in that book. It brought me into fantasy and to roleplaying; I’ve done a lot of work on Tolkien-based games. My mother introduced me to it, and I’m introducing it to my own kids.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, I think. It helped a lot when I was having trouble writing fiction.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with.

The Gutter Prayer, the first book of The Black Iron Legacy series.

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If you would like to read my (Andy’s) thoughts on The Gutter Prayer, you can see them here. Book Two in the series (The Shadow Saint) is already out and Book Three (The Broken God) hits the shelves this month. (May 2021).

You can find Gareth at: www.garhanrahan.com

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan is a writer and game designer. Originally qualified as a computer programmer, he took a three month break to see how “this writing thing” would go. More than fifteen years later, he’s still on that break. The writing thing seems to be going.

Gareth has published more role-playing games and supplements than he can even recall, including the award-winning The Laundry RPG, Adventures in Middle Earth and The Dracula Dossier.

He describes writing as “the process of transforming tea and guilt into words”.

His debut novel, The Gutter Prayer was published by Orbit Books in 2019. Its sequel, The Shadow Saint came out in January 2020. The third book in the series, The Broken God, comes out in May 2021. More books are in the works.

Gareth lives in Cork, Ireland with more dogs, children and fish than he ever anticipated.

I’m not sure you can miss a book. I’m certain you can’t miss a book you haven’t read but that was precisely the feeling I had within a few pages of A Little Hatred.

The book takes the world as it was at the end of the last series, adds a few decades and some coal, and builds on it. There is a new generation of characters, some of their parents, and references back to what had happened in the past. There are twists. There’s violence. There are flawed characters aplenty and a biting takedown both of capitalism and the consequences of revolution. The text is clean and easy to read and, impressively, the use of each character’s ‘voice’ is not just limited to their speech but to the entirety of the text when it is their turn on the page. And there is the rolling point of view Abercrombie does so well – when the protagonist of one section merges seamlessly into the protagonist of the next. (Seen best here when the revolution bites and one character’s actions knock on to the next’s in the subsequent paragraphs.)

All in all, this is a great book. The writing combines grit and glory, humour and horror, beautiful and bitter observations on life and all other manner of alliterating adjectives.

As with The Once and Future Witches, I appreciate that this is not a ‘balanced, critical’ review but I don’t see the point of adding criticism for the sake of it.

That said, I have one issue. I think I missed some of the jokes and references because it’s been so long since I read the First Law books and the stand-alones. The solution? Get the rest of the series and reread from The Blade Itself forwards.

Reckon the books deserve it.

I’m not sure anything else needs to be said about The Warlord Chronicles. A quick look through the reviews section on any store reveals a host of shining praise. But, I’m trying to catch up on my own reviews so here goes.

Essentially, the books are good. Very good.

They detail the life and times of (King) Arthur but are told from the perspective of one of his warriors (Derfel Cadarn) as he looks back from his later life as a monk.

The books chart Arthur’s rise from warlord to something almost like a king. It documents his mistakes and frustrations, his need to do the right thing for the British people (which is usually a sign that something’s got to go wrong), and his mix of generosity and ruthlessness. (A ruthlessness that pales next to that of his wife: Guinevere.)

All of this is set against Cornwell’s evocative backdrop of Dark Age Britain. The detail is woven into the text with meticulous care yet never becomes obtrusive: retting ponds, women constantly spinning wool, the sacrifices, superstitions and omens. In short, their lives. And deaths: disease and, of course, the battles.

The fight scenes are stunning – graphic and realistic (the exhausting sweaty press of the shield wall and the champions’ duels). They never stray into gore for its own sake but don’t shy away from the realities of what the men were facing and what they stood to lose.

There are politics and religious machinations. The most prevalent of which is the ongoing fight between Old Gods and New that is fought by druids and priests and their believers. That age-old struggle culminates in a grisly scene with a cauldron and a death that shocks all the more for it being ‘off-screen.’

And, of course, there is magic. What would you expect with a tale featuring Merlin? Rather than the fantastical type, it is the magic of trickery and deceit, sleight of hand and, essentially, greater knowledge of the world. If you’ll allow me to bastardise Arthur C/ Clarke’s famous phrase —

‘Any sufficiently advanced technology knowledge is indistinguishable from magic.’

Around all of these things are a cast of characters to both cheer for and jeer at: Uther, Igraine, Arthur, Cai, Lancelot, Guinevere, Aelle, Sagramor, Mordred and many others. These people run the gamut of emotions that make a story worth telling: love and betrayal, hate and revenge, loyalty and wonder.

As I said, the books are good. Very good.

If I had one grudge it would the end of the last book: Excalibur.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT!

Derfel retires to a monastery after his fighting days are over and Arthur has sailed into the sunset. Derfel still has an honest naivety to him, which is both endearing and frustrating. (There was many a time when I wanted to shout at the page for Derfel to open his eyes and see what Bishop Sansum was doing.) That, however, is not my issue: it is Derfel’s uncertain fate. His end is only hinted at. It is a good story telling trick but I would have preferred a solid ending for a man who was Arthur’s rock.

The one consolation to that minor grudge is that Derfel was reunited with Hywelbane in the last few pages. Whether he died with his sword in his hand as the once-pagan warrior would have wished, we will never know.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT OVER!

All in all, The Warlord Chronicles are a fantastic depiction of the Dark Ages, and the life, times and battles of one of Britain’s greatest myths. As with Giles Kristian’s fantastic Lancelot, they are not the quickest of books to read but are beautifully written.

Worth reading. Worth savouring.