March 21, 2024 • 51 mins
Today we have another Spotlight! This time, I interview author Karl Forshaw about his fantasy debut book, Renia, part one of the Luna Ruinam series. Full disclosure: there are spoilers in this podcast, but more importantly, they only cover Renia, and no subsequent books.
Wanna get bite-sized bookish deep dives? Join to my newsletter: https://liviajelliot.com/newsletter/web/
FIND KARL:
- Purchase Renia @ Broken Binding: https://www.thebrokenbinding.co.uk/product-page/renia-karl-forshaw
- Purchase Renia @ Silverstones Books: https://silverstonesbooks.com/product/renia/
- Website: https://www.karlforshaw.co.uk/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lunaruinam
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lunaruinam
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/karlforshaw.bsky.social
READ LIVIA'S INTERACTIVE STORIES:
- On Android: https://bit.ly/unearthedstories
- On iOS: https://apple.co/48IcnYm
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to Books and Done. I'm your host, Livia J. Eliot, and today we
(00:16):
have spotlight number three. I'm delighted to introduce you to one of my reading highlights
of the year so far, self-published fantasy debut author Carl Forshaw. Carl, thank you
so much for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Livia, and thank you for those kind words.
Before we start, let me do the usual disclaimers. First, there are spoilers in the podcast,
(00:38):
but they only pertain to the first book in the series of Luna Ruina, Drenia. We won't
delve into spoilers for the incoming book number two or any subsequent ones. Second,
this podcast is, as usual, focused on themes and meaning and our subjective interpretation
of them. Therefore, you are allowed to disagree even with the author. That said, and for context,
(01:02):
will you tell us a bit of how you designed Drenia's world?
That's a big question, but I suppose the least satisfying answer possible would be that it
just popped into my head.
That's enough.
And, you know, I have to be apologetic for that because I know it's not a very satisfying
answer, but we were building a computer game and I had to dream up the world for it. So
(01:24):
I guess it was a mixture of all the things I thought were cool ideas over the past, it
must have been 20 years. So you'll find a lot of video game influences in Drenia's world
building because it was intended to be a computer game. Well, the Luna Ruina series was, and
the game we were building was much later in the timeline. So I think if we do revisit
(01:45):
that story, it'll be around book seven. But yeah, there are things like the moon falling
from the sky, which is obviously a reference to a Zelda game, you know, and the magic system
is a reference to a Final Fantasy game and there's lots of stuff in there like that.
And then there's lots of other ideas that either popped into my head or came from films
that I've watched or books that I've read. I think when you're writing your first book,
(02:07):
you just tend to throw everything in there and hope that it works because you're super
excited and you just want, you know, you're writing a book and it's a huge deal. So that's
how a lot of it came about.
One theme I felt that's quite central to the storyline are consequences, both at the individual
level, which we see in characters like Rhenia herself on Doratos, Vitor, Vedora and Stane,
(02:31):
but also at the world level in terms of how the prior events continue to ripple into the
present. Can we start with Rhenia in particular from all the characters that I mentioned?
She had quite an abruptly ended childhood and even in her young adulthood, we can see
her suffering from the consequences and how she's affected by guilt and in fact, much
(02:53):
of her decisions felt guilt driven. What inspired you to explore this concept of consequences
and guilt?
I think that was a natural, maybe it's because I'm getting closer to 40 and I think over
the past few years, with us having the lockdowns and things, there's been a lot more introspection
in my own life. Obviously having children as well, cause it makes you a lot more aware
(03:18):
of your actions and how consequences can ripple forward through their lives, which then leads
you to think about things that your parents did that have consequences in your own life
and how we navigate those traumas as adults. That's not just speaking from my perspective,
that's from lots of people that I know and love. I started to notice, cause I pay attention
(03:39):
a bit more now, I'm a bit older to other people and why they do the things they do. I just
got really interested in how trauma from childhood revisits itself upon your adult life and your
children's lives and also how some people are defined by that guilt and carry it with
them and allow it to influence their choices and the things they do and say and how some
(04:02):
people seemingly break out of that guilt spiral and then manage to carry it, but also not
allow it to affect the decisions that they make or the things they do. I think that's
where the quote, you either happen to life or life happens to you comes from. And that
is the central theme of the book. And I sort of reached that unintentionally. I think initially
it was just, I didn't set out to write Renia with a theme in mind. It just sort of came
(04:27):
from the character and how I imagined her to be. And it just sort of blossomed from
there and I was quite happy with how that theme came across. Hopefully it landed with
some people.
If we follow up with what you were saying, I felt that Renia was a bit unconscious on
her guilt driven decision making at first until that point in which she's talking to
(04:49):
her quote unquote partner, but that you can see that before she was doing it very unconscious.
In particular, what were you wanting to explore or how did you manage to get it because it
worked? At least for me, it felt realistic. As a reader, I could feel that she was making
these decisions because of both, even if the character didn't realize.
(05:10):
Again, that was a happy accident. And the fact that that moment I think you're talking
about is where she's having a physical fight with. Yeah, I think that the fact that that
lands right in the midpoint of the book as well is a good thing because it sort of does
give us a nice pivot point to move into this new version of Renia where she's like, okay,
I'm done being led around by the nose. It's my turn now. I get to be in control and I
(05:34):
get to drive. And I think because I spent all that time in a childhood showing how she
was very, very much punished from her perspective for her agency or decisions that she'd made
because she didn't understand fully what the consequences would be. She sort of lived her
entire life then fearful of consequences and not doing anything that she hasn't been told
to do or advised to do out of fear that the consequences were somehow out to get her and
(05:59):
that she'd be slapped if you like the way she was in childhood for making them. I really
enjoyed that moment where she just stands up and says, no, this is it. I've had enough.
I think the realism in that, I think we've all had that moment in our lives where we've
realized that life has been leading us or that we've allowed other people's will to
drive our narrative and then just thought, no, I'm going my own way. And I think naturally
(06:22):
that that usually happens for people in their early thirties where they just decide they
don't really care anymore what people think of them and they're going to do things their
own way. And I think that's one of the better parts of turning 30 to be honest. So I guess
that came from again, being over 30 and being able to relate to it. Tell God knows what
I'll be writing when I hit 40. Whatever generational leap that is.
(06:44):
That also made her feel alive. I was reading the first part, which I loved how you wrote
it in a very innocent way. Like you change the narrator so that it feels innocent. And
I had this idea, this feeling of she's going to do something and that innocence is just
going off because it felt foreboding, you know, and then that happens and we get that.
(07:06):
I don't want to say punishment, but yeah, the consequences of what she does ends up
getting her parents killed and that is a terrible consequence. And then we can see that marks
her throughout the entire story. So that point you mentioned, I honestly felt that it was
powerful that moment of finally realizing she has agency from that point, the story,
(07:27):
at least to me, it has stopped being things happen to Rania, but Rania starts making things
happen. And again, it's like you say, it's like that moment in life in which we make
that decision and it switches over our perception of life. She also had it in the book. She
wasn't the only character that had that. There were many throughout the book that also had
(07:49):
that decision-making moment.
Yeah, it was a couple of things I wanted to pick up on that you said that I think I'm
very happy that you picked up on the sense of foreboding in the childhood because, you
know, it's very difficult to write from a child's perspective and have it land in that
way. I didn't want it to sound like a children's book. I wanted you to have that sense of,
oh my God, something's going to go wrong here, you know? And then coming back to her
(08:13):
adult timeline, when she has that moment where she realizes she's got agency and she starts
to use it, it was nice to be able to show that in a very magical sense. So it's not
just that she has agency, it's that also she has these newfound abilities and powers. You
know, she's able to use the lightstone. She discovers that she's got genetic heritage
(08:33):
that sort of enables her to have a better grasp on the magical side of things in the
world. And it was sort of a nod to the fact that when you do discover that you have agency
in your life and you have the power to change things, it can be incredibly powerful because,
you know, directed will, and this is another theme of the book, directed will is one of
(08:53):
the most powerful things that humans have. So it was like overemphasizing it by saying,
look, now she's got magical powers. And then, you know, with the other characters,
wanted to make sure that each of them had a satisfying character arc. Some of them are
similar in theme to Renia's. I think Jeff's theme is similar to Renia's.
Yes. He also has that breaking moment. Yeah.
(09:14):
Yeah. And I think Pistorius has a sort of, it's slightly different, but I think it's
similar in terms of, you know, a lot of, there was a traumatic event in his childhood that
made him run away from his father. Yeah. And, you know, there's the B characters, like,
I'm not sure Peter's theme is similar. I couldn't really say what Peter's theme is,
actually, off the top of my head. I just really enjoyed writing it. I guess it's the letting go
(09:38):
of things that you think define you. So again, the theme is similar. Peter is defined by his job
and his position and his reputation. And he has all those things taken away from him through no
fault of his own, even though he was a bit of a drunk, you know, and he learns to make peace with
it. And I guess, well, I guess it is the same, you know, he finds the agency and, you know,
(09:58):
the things he can control and he decides, well, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life then,
just in a much more comedic way. Yeah. He's always a fun relief. Yeah.
The start, the beginning and how he actually nicknames Pistorius, it's very funny.
I love the fact that I didn't know what his name was until that scene with Jeff. So I just thought
(10:19):
Pistain was a funny insult and I just thought it fit Peter's character's point of view. I thought,
yeah, he'd probably say something like that. I thought I need to name this character at some
point. And I just kept going and not naming him and finding ways to avoid saying his name. Right
up until the scene where Jeff was interrogating him and I was just having this amazing sort of
experience of, you know, when you're writing something and it just comes out of your fingers
(10:42):
and you don't really have to think too much about it. And, you know, there was the scene with the
water where he's filling the glass up and that was all just came out of my head with no, nothing from
me at all. And then, you know, I had this amazing punchline land where he actually says his name
for the first time. And it just, that just popped into my head as well. And I thought that that's
just great and happy accidents you have when you, when you write in a book, you know, people think
(11:05):
that you've got all these things thought out. And with me, a lot of the best stuff just comes
in the moment. In particular, Pistorius was a roller coaster of a character because we start
with this funny scene. Then we see him as the bad guy, quote unquote, from the bunch of the book.
And he does some questionable things, but at the end, as you mentioned before, we get his whole
(11:30):
background and the trauma he went with and his attitude and his way of perceiving the world.
It's not because that is a way he is or learned or even believed the things will be. It's actually
a consequence of what happened to him. Right. And we see the trauma of his childhood with that girl
and everything that happened there affecting him even up to the last moment. Right. Yeah. It was
(11:54):
when he dies at the end, I actually felt sad for him. Why were you so mean not to give him that
chance? It's funny. There are, there are things that you want to do in the story and the things
that you have to do. I know obviously, because I'm writing it a lot more about Pistorius's family
and the city he comes from, because it's very important to the rest of the series, because they
(12:17):
are one of the, well, they are the main family in Luna Ruinen really. You know, you have the Praeolatus
serving as emperor is referred to as the sleeping king by a lot of, you know, the people in the
south and also in Verda, because he has sort of like a non-interference policy where he doesn't
like to interfere with the lives of his people. But in Verda, things are very different and
Pistorius's family are, you know, a force. They rule over the city of Verda financially and,
(12:43):
you know, with the peacekeeping and things. So I know what happened before Renier. That is stuff
that's happening, what I'm editing right now in the second book. And let's just say the Pistorius's
death was a consequence of something his father did, which will be revealed in the next book.
I really like how Pistorius went from being teased as a bad guy. And again, this wasn't,
(13:06):
you know, I didn't set out to do this when I started writing it. It just sort of happened.
One of the sadder things about Pistorius's story is how even though he despises his father,
he still emulates him in some way, because he still has this desire to reach lofty position,
you know, as the master of the halls of Venn. So he still has this desire to rule and to choose and
(13:29):
to have his will imposed upon other people. So it's again like a look into how men sort of
hero-worship the fathers even when they don't like them. It didn't feel like a desire from his side,
but more of a learned behavior because of the trauma. He learned that to be safe,
therefore he had to act in this particular way. Yeah. And there's like, I don't know if you picked
(13:52):
up on this, but there's a moment where he's hiding in a cupboard from his father. And a lot of the
time we spend with Pistorius, he's hiding. So it's almost as if he's hiding from the reaper as an
echo of his hiding from his father as a child. Yeah. I really enjoyed that storyline. And actually
it was my editor that pushed me to explore it a little bit more because he kept coming back to me
and saying, you know, I don't really understand why Pistorius has to die. I don't really get why
(14:17):
he's part of the story or why we have his point of view. Cause in the early drafts, he just died.
We didn't get any of that backstory or stuff about his brother or his father. Cause his brother,
again, had a massive impact on it. And again, don't want to spoil anything in book two, but
we know that Dorian died because he's told in Rhenia that his brother Dorian is dead. And we
(14:37):
know that Dorian was the cruel one. And you know, it's just generally a very nasty piece of work.
I don't want to spoil anything for book two now, but that death happens in book two. So again,
it all ties back. So one of the other themes I wanted to explore is echoes or repetition of
events just indifferent. So again, I'm in danger. I'm avoiding spoilers by thinking before I speak.
(15:00):
I'm hoping that one of the themes I'll be able to keep coming back to throughout the series is
that events echo. So when you have a particularly charged event, there will be an echo of it and
the players might change, but the story remains the same. Or, you know, there'll be differences,
but things like, for example, you know, Rhenia starts with a fall. The opening image is somebody
(15:22):
descending and then the ending image is someone ascending. And that's echoed. That's actually an
echo from the book that I've just written, the second book. And it's a literal echo in the
universe. And, you know, these are deeper themes that I haven't really had the chance to explore
much in Rhenia because I didn't want to bombard the reader with tons of world building or, you
know, thematic things in the first book. And I'm hoping that hasn't turned too many people off
(15:46):
because I do plan to get quite deep later on. Particularly, I love it. So for me, go ahead and
add more. I wanted to come back to what you mentioned about the echoes. We have several
events like that. Something that I noticed on Rhenia was more than an event, like a predisposition
for her to always look for the same, which was belonging. She wanted to belong to her family and
(16:10):
then with the other scribes and so on. And that always puts her on a weaker position, you know,
that she's unwilling sometimes to compromise too much just to get that belonging. I found it very
interesting that point in which she finds out about her heritage, her mother, and she has this renewed
sense of belonging and kinship towards her mother because until that moment she hadn't considered
(16:35):
her at all. She always focused too much on her father, but not on her mother. And that actually
changes everything for her and gives her perhaps a renewed belonging to herself in some sense,
that she feels more comfortable within her own skin. Obviously I considered that when I was
writing it, but I forgot that detail. So I'm quite happy that you brought it up. I think it all comes
(16:59):
back to Rhenia's definition of herself. She's always searching to be defined by something,
whether as a child she wants to be an explorer or she wants to be like a dad. She wants to
find the secrets of the lightstones. She defines herself as very clever because she knows,
I can read and write and I can do this and that and look at me. And there's a sense of wonder to her.
I think she's always defined herself by how much she knows or how good she is at things. Whereas
(17:24):
a mother always seemed to be content to be the housewife. And I think that sort of created a
friction within her as a child because she thought of herself more as an explorer and a scholar. And
she assumed that that came from her father because her father was the one that was going out and
collecting all the lightstones and having these adventures in a dangerous place. And then when she
(17:45):
does discover that her mother may have been content to be the housewife and she wasn't really aware
that her mother was probably the mastermind of their entire situation at home. Her mother had
left the halls of Venn for her own reasons, which I haven't even fully explored really. And I'm
assuming that she did it for love. Yeah. And then she has this sort of realization, like you said,
(18:06):
that her heritage and a lot of this thirst for knowledge and this sort of latent magical ability
is directly handed down from her mother's side. And I do love how that gives her that sense of
belonging because it sort of unifies what she feels inside about herself deep down that she's
still got these desires. She hasn't let go fully of this explorer, scholar streak inside her that's
(18:32):
screaming to come back out. And she's reunited with that through the discovery that her mother's
heritage is probably responsible for it. There are so many things in that sequence of events
that I will probably forget about that I really don't want to because we have that scene where
she walks into the old room of her great, great, great, great, great grandfather. And there's all
(18:54):
these things like this giant tuning fork and this mirror with the ripply surfaces, this strange
mirror, and then there's obviously Avis and there's all this magical stuff that I could really go
into detail about and write books about on its own. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to
do it because it's not relevant to the... It's relevant, but it's not super important to the
(19:16):
rest of the story of the world. But I'm really fighting the urge to do it because I find all of
that stuff fascinating. I will bring you back to a follow-up question that I had on this. You
mentioned that she's always defining herself in terms of external things. Something that I
noticed, and I'm not sure if you did it intentionally or not, is that at the start,
(19:39):
she doesn't... Renia doesn't have the most positive view of Peter. But the more the storyline of
each of them progresses, the more we can see that they are somehow similar. They are both defined
by something external, which is generally their work and their achievements, right? And they
cope with it in a completely different way as well. So we have the same theme dividing and
(20:02):
it's also so common for people to get lost in their work. But in particular, were there any
parallelisms between the two that you did intentionally or that you want to highlight?
I think I had to show that because Peter is so married to his position in the early... In one
of the books, I had to show that Renia was a threat to his position because they are very similar
(20:24):
in terms of... They both take things very seriously and they both believe in the sanctity of knowledge
and how important it is to pass it down in the right way. But also, I think Peter is sort of
initially affronted by the idea that Renia has been chosen over him for something. And I just
thought it was a great sense of conflict to have two people that were only really separated by time
(20:48):
and how Peter initially is concerned with keeping his position rather than being good at it. I think
he's got to the point in his career where he's very aware that he's aging and there are younger
people now that are a threat to that position. The irony is I think in the beginning, Renia doesn't
have the self-confidence to take Peter's position. So even though Peter perceives her as a threat,
(21:13):
she's not because she wouldn't have the confidence to do it anyway. But yeah, it was fun and
I think it's a shame actually that there isn't a lot of back and forth between Peter and Renia
later on. And I think that a lot of that again is to do with Renia's guilt over Peter being retired.
Yeah, it's another thing I hadn't picked up on. You're very good at this.
Following up, tying this with what you were mentioning of Aebus and that particular role,
(21:37):
I loved Aebus as a character I thought was mind-blowing, but he also had this link of
consequence. He was tied to that role and to do something in particular until one particular
moment in which he stops following orders and does something out of his own will when he saves her.
It also changes the character. And again, we have that topic of consequences and a character that
(22:03):
in a completely different way was tied to his position in some way, while the others did it
willingly and knowingly. Perhaps Aebus was more of a complete acceptance and surrendering and
accepting that that was his role and that's it. Yeah, Aebus was sort of a fast forward example of
again, Renia's presence alone having consequences. I had to show the evolution in Aebus's
(22:32):
speech because when he meets Renia, he hasn't spoken to anyone for a very, very long time.
And he's sort of losing the ability to speak because he just doesn't. So when she comes along
for him, he's in tears because he's like, I haven't touched anyone in a long time. I haven't spoken to
anyone in a long time. He doesn't know how to, he's forgotten how to say it. And then you have sort
(22:53):
of like this chapter of sort of like a montage, I guess, of Renia and Aebus interacting and Aebus
slowly sort of returning to where he must have been 100 and so years ago when his creator was
around, but also he couldn't read. So Aebus spent an eternity in a room full of books that he
couldn't read. So obviously after Renia leaves him, he's got this period of time, 21 days or
(23:19):
whatever in Aebus time, which is just one day for Renia. I sort of imagined that he went and furiously
read loads of stuff and became a very different person just in that day for Renia because he
suddenly had this ability to broaden his horizon. And obviously he goes back into the mirror and he
has a discussion with the people in the mirror and then he comes back determined to save Renia
(23:43):
because she's very important. And I think his last line is, what you do for all of us is it needs to
happen. So this is a very obvious foreshadowing. Yeah, it was interesting for me because I don't
really write short form stuff. Really that whole chapter came about as a consequence of me
having to get something done in a short amount of words because I had all these other arcs going on
(24:08):
that were heading in a certain way. And for pacing reasons, I had to squash Renia finishing her work
down to a very small amount of time. So I'm like, well, how can I do that? Well, to dream up someone
who can alter the flow of time, but then you can't keep that character because he's too powerful.
So it was a great exercise in problem solving for me because I had to make that work.
(24:33):
I could have done it in a really cheap way and said, oh, he's a guy. Yeah, she needs to get these
books finished. He is a guy who can slow down time. It all happens in a chapter, but then closed.
I thought that's not going to work and it's going to feel really cheap. So I had to make it so that
A was A, compelling, B, interesting enough to pique people's imaginations and C, lovable in
some way, you know, and then kill him. Which was very mean, but also very well done.
(24:58):
Thank you. What I liked of A was that I thought he was a nice representation of how other people
can influence one's personality. At the start, when we meet him, he almost thinks of himself
like a tool, you know, not like a person that is alive, but a tool that is meant to help other
people. And we can see that in the way he clutches Renia from her legs to encumber her delights.
(25:23):
It's very sad. And the more he interacts with her and the more that she treats him as a person,
the more he changes, right? And he starts perceiving himself with agency that perhaps,
in addition to the knowledge he acquires, leads to his ability of finally making a decision rather
than following command. Yeah. And it has that sort of that ring to it as well of, you know,
(25:46):
you normally get in Act One of a book, you'll get a moment where somebody tells someone what
their weakness is and exactly how they should fix it. And then that person ignores it. Renia
knows what her problems are and she recognizes them in Avis. And she encourages Avis, come on,
let's go outside, let's do this. You know, let's broaden your horizons. Let's learn to read. And
Avis is reluctant. So I've got these two things that are happening simultaneously, you know, and
(26:11):
that one is a reflection of the other in some way. And yeah, that it was, and also it's because we
don't get the, because we lose the childhood timeline in Chapter 10. It was nice to bring some
of that innocence back in Act Two, to bring that feeling of innocence back because it's sort of an
echo of, or it's sort of like a foreshadowing that Renia is about to find some of that wonder
(26:34):
that she had, you know, and about to, it's like a reminder of who she was before the incident and,
you know, with the fire. That's something that happens sometimes with trauma, especially with
children that are forced for one or another reason to grow up very quickly. They tend to keep trying
to find that throughout life. And it felt very compelling and heartbreaking at the same time,
(26:57):
the relationship between Renia and Avis, because it felt as a continuation of her childhood,
right? That she was through him, allowing herself to have that innocence or that joy. At some point
they were dancing and doing other, I don't want to say childish, but childlike, you know, that
innocence that without the preoccupations caused by the real world. As you speak in the scenes,
(27:21):
they're flying through my head, like there's one where they're sort of painting faces on the
Moruscan guards and laughing about it because he can't, you know, he's frozen in time. And then
when Renia's lifting the gate up, she's exaggerating movements and acting, to me, she's
acting like a six-year-old or a seven-year-old and she is being childish. And it's almost as if being
in that frozen world with Avis allows her the space, you know, and the sort of, because time's frozen,
(27:46):
consequences aren't as real. And therefore she's able to just revert to being a six-year-old again,
because she's with someone who is essentially a six-year-old. And it is just like this huge
moment of relief for Renia that that whole chapter is she's given space, she can be herself,
she has her work, everything's quiet, nothing she does can hurt anyone. Yeah, it's a really
(28:10):
important chapter. The more I think about it and the more we talk about it, the more I realize,
you know, just how much that actually adds to the second act.
Yeah, it's almost like it helps her to make peace with what she lost when she was a child.
Yeah. Talking about her childhood and her as an adult, there was a detail that in particular I
(28:30):
wanted to ask you is that she has this necklace, which is a shawl from a lightstone that her father
gave her. When she loses it, it's a very stressful situation because we just had everything going on
with the book, same time that she lost, quote unquote lost, because it's not really her fault.
But then we have this situation with the shawl and her reaction is a bit exaggerated. She goes
(28:54):
into the room of her lover and everything. And to me, it didn't feel like if she was recognizing
what was happening, but was more like that little shawl was a lifeline to her past, you know, to
who she was, to where she came from. And the reaction was proportional to that perception
rather than the fact of losing a necklace or even considering that her boyfriend may have been trying
(29:19):
to give her a gift or something. You know, it's funny because this is the point that I've got the
most criticism for. It's Renia's reaction. Yeah. Because it's an exaggerated reaction. I think the
thing people have missed is partially a traumatic reaction. And this may be a spoiler for some of
the wider series, but I think it's probably important that I say it now, just so it doesn't
(29:40):
look like I shooed it in. There are, Renia, he has whispers throughout the book and it, you know,
it's there in black and white. She's being told, she's being urged, you know, there's like the name
Dale is put in her head and she's being whispered to by something that she can't, she doesn't really
understand. And I think it's reasonable to say that that's her trauma, whispering to her, but it
(30:01):
actually isn't. And this is confirmed by the prayer lattice. And when he's having a discussion
with Vendor about how Renia's actions aren't entirely her own. And because Renia doesn't
trust her own agency and her own will, she's being influenced by something else. Her behavior is being
manipulated by something greater, something very powerful. You know, the prayer lattice talks about
(30:23):
a sour song from the wastes and it's a very important part of the wider arc of Luna Ruinem
is that if you give up your will, your will will be directed for you.
Interesting. I have a bunch of questions, but I will not ask them now, not to spoil anything.
(30:43):
So yeah, let's keep it on book one. So in that case, let me move to another character that I
wanted to ask you about, Dorados, because I already told you that I really like him.
He was very complex. And when we first meet him, he seems detached, you know, emotionally in control.
But the more we actually tie up the different storylines, especially the one regarding his son,
(31:08):
we can see that he has a lot of baggage and that he's perhaps trying to be so emotionally detached,
not only because of his age, but also to remain sane. And he has this like Renia, sometimes it
feels like she makes decisions based on guilt. Dorados sometimes feels as if making decisions
based on regret. Yeah. So when I was writing Vendor or Dorados, the character that I held in my head
(31:31):
was the one that was present during the moonfall, which was 150 years or so prior. So because he is
effectively immortal, I had to think about what were the important things that happened to him
before he was granted immortality? And how does one deal with not just a single lifetime of baggage
on your shoulders, but two or three? And you know, how would that affect his way of life?
(31:57):
So Dorados is very intentional in a lot of the things he does. And he's the sort of person that
has to exert extreme control over himself in order to stay sane, as you said, because humans aren't
supposed to live for that. I say humans, they're not actually human, but there was the thing with
his daughter and that's a memory that he keeps with him all the time. He has a very important
(32:18):
ritual that he undertakes every morning. I thought it was important to show that, which is him direct,
and this again, harks back to what I've just said about will, it's a definition of his will every
morning. So he'll sit there and say, today I'm doing this. And he'll be very intentional about
what he does and what he allows himself to think about during the day. So even down to the level
of controlling his thoughts, he's intentional. And I think Renia throws a spanner into that with her
(32:44):
presence because he allows himself to like her and he doesn't normally do that. He takes a lot of
his influence from the Praelatus, who is probably his only friend at that point, takes stoicism very
seriously. And along comes Renia like she does. And she's got this sort of, everyone's sort of drawn
to Renia, despite the fact that she's a train wreck, and even Doratus gets pulled into that.
(33:07):
And eventually we sort of tease the sort of romance between them later on. So yeah, it was
nice to sort of crack the shell of someone that hard, especially by the end of the book,
there's sort of this moment between Renia and Doratus that's quite, for him, quite important.
But you'll notice that he immediately switches back to being very cold and intentional afterwards.
(33:28):
Yeah.
And they also develop this internal joke of calling themselves grandmasters and it feels
not, yeah, like a small innocent bond between them. You know, like there is something going
because perhaps they understand what's going on between them or the context in which they are in.
I wanted to ask you in particular about him regarding that part of the ritual he goes.
(33:52):
Were you thinking of any particular philosophy when you wrote it?
I guess all of them. Yeah. You know, there is a philosophy in Lunar Runin. Again, a hodgepodge
of a lot of different systems of belief. All of it is based around the idea of free will and how
powerful that is. But yeah, because you know the chapter where he's talking to the Praelatus and
(34:14):
they are discussing Renia's behavior. I think it takes place while Renia is in a coma and
there's a lot of stuff in that chat that may have gone, this designed to go over your head,
but there's a lot of telling things in that chat. There's a reference to,
what did I refer to the mass now? And this is where I need my law manual, I think, talks about
(34:35):
that's supposed to trigger something in you and, oh, what's that all about? You know? And that,
again, is directly ties back into this theme of will and people exerting their will.
What I really liked from that scene was that he knew everything and it was clear that you
weren't letting go of the knowledge. The character doesn't have the need to explain it either. To
(34:56):
him, to the Praelatus, he felt as everything that happened was, it was, that's it, and he had to
keep it contained just to live in the present. I think it goes back to what you need to keep him
sane throughout a very long life. Like when we first meet him, he's actually abstaining from magic.
So you have him and you have Peter and you have this theme of abstinence that's between the two
(35:21):
of them. You have Doratis who abstains from things that make him feel, that threaten his control over
his will. And then you have Peter, on the other hand, who drinks himself into oblivion every night.
Doratis' abstaining from magic is actually affecting his function as Grandmaster because
he, the Praelatus says to him, your problem is that you would have known all of these things
(35:43):
if you would have been using the gifts that you've been given to you. You wouldn't be questioning
these things because you would know. So there's this idea then that the light stones are somehow
giving him some kind of extra sensory perception. But those abilities that are granted to him by
the light stones frighten him because they bring something out in him that he doesn't like,
you know, a side of his character that he doesn't enjoy or that again, that has consequences.
(36:08):
We can see the consequences of the light stones quite clearly, especially when they try to heal
and what happens there. So do they have consequences regardless of the type of magic
they are using? So I mentioned somewhere in the book that the light stones either grant you their
power or you can force your will upon them and that there's always a price to be paid if you
(36:30):
force your will upon a light stone. And that's exactly what Rennier does when she heals Dale.
So she makes a trade or a bargain with the light stone and the light stone takes its fee. But with
Doratis and with Bandak, anyone that, you know, wields, uses the light stone frequently and
doesn't suffer any ill effects. In fact, it's the other way around. It's because that light stone
(36:50):
has granted that person or I like to think of it as like they've made friends and the light stone
wants to help that person and gives its ability, you know, gives its powers freely to that person.
Whereas I wanted to make it so that it's not like Final Fantasy VII where you can just say,
here's a light stone. Now you can cast fire or whatever you have to, if you, if you aren't
attuned with that stone, there will be dire consequences to forcing your will upon it.
(37:14):
Yeah. I think I also mentioned that the light stones feed off emotion. So the,
the art of using them would be the art of controlling your emotions.
In that particular case, what will be the effect on the stone markers? The people that mark the
stones and they trade years of their life? Yeah. It's because of, again, if you think of the
light stones, not as tools, which is something that I've said in the book, but as sort of like
(37:38):
semi-sentient beings striking them or branding them would be considered an act of hostility,
you know? So the, the stone markers, when I say they're trading their lives away to mark these
stones, it's, they literally are. Every time they strike one of these stones, it takes something
from them. So you're going to brand me for life. I'm going to brand you. Yeah. So we met, it's
Jacob, I think is the character who is the stone marker. And I love the idea of him being like
(38:03):
this withered husk walking and his skin's literally hanging off, but his teeth are perfect.
So yeah, I guess the answer to the question is that, you know, the light stones will take from
you if, if, you know, if you are aggressive towards them or try to force them to do things
they don't want to do. It also adds to the whole theme of consequence. Well, if I may move to
(38:24):
another character, Vedora, which is actually a facade for the twin sisters Veralak and Mylak.
Yep. And in their case, they are stuck in Luna Ruinen because of a concept of
Luna Ruinen because of the consequences of their actions. And while one of them, Veralak,
she wants to escape and go back. Mylak feels guilty regarding what she did to Peter and wants
(38:46):
to stay as well, but they are tied by the facade, right? By being Vedora, that's what basically
limits their choices. So again, we have that consequence of they decided to put up that
facade for a particular reason, but the facade of Vedora was a jail for them, keeping them in place,
not allowing them to move forward. So it changed from a tool, you would say, to a jail. Yeah,
(39:10):
because I mean, if you think about it in terms of being told that you're exiled until you provide
something meaningful, you know, something important back to the country that you've been exiled from,
the being twins is a significant advantage because it allows you to do all sorts of things and not
get caught. You know, if people don't know that you, that you've got a twin walking around doing
things, you know, you've got a permanent alibi. It was an advantage to them initially to play the
(39:36):
role of one person, but it meant that while that was happening, the other one had to be hiding out
essentially in this, you know, cave system that's sort of semi-forgotten underneath the halls of
Ven. There are so much to do with these characters. I think one of the important, the most important
things about that whole dynamic is that they are there because of Veralak's choices and she's the
(39:57):
one that wants to go home. Maylike is the passenger in that situation. And, you know, there's a letter
in the start of the book where it's, you know, it starts, we share the womb. And I think I just
wrote that on a whim and I thought, I really like this, you know, how can I make something out of
this? And then that's where this whole sort of dynamic comes from. Because in the first draft
(40:17):
of Renier, I didn't think we even had twins. I think it was just, you know, Vidora was the
one that had the book and sort of like, okay. But I really wanted to sort of beef that up because
I wanted to set Bandak's character up as well. Because again, harking back to the consequences,
the consequences of Veralak having children and then trying to hide them from the five was that
the children were taken from her and she was exiled. So then you've got this character,
(40:41):
Bandak, who has grown up in an institution essentially being honed and trained to be a
reaper from birth. You introduce them this complicated relationship with a mother who she
hasn't seen for a very, very long time. You know, probably doesn't even remember, which
is a great setup for a good character that can span three books.
(41:02):
And also from Bandak, I found it very interesting that you changed the verbal tense when she's
narrating. She used present tense when we have her POV, almost as if she perceived the world
differently. That's been such a challenge in book two as well, because she is a main character in
book two. So I've had to take this character that was odd, you know, and sometimes comically so.
(41:26):
And that's very easy to do from an external perspective because you can just make her do
wild things and then think, why the hell did she do that? But when you're in that person's head,
there has to be a justification for those things, you know? So I think she reads very differently
in book two to how she does in book one. But I'm hoping that the events of book two,
which is set before book one, will set up that fracture in Bandak's mind and sort of explain why
(41:51):
she sort of refers to herself in the third person in her own head, because she is broken at that
point, but it's not obvious because she has been trained not to be broken. So she's more or less
running on instinct a lot of the time, and it's just training, kicking in all the time. And we see
that there are breaks in that even throughout the book, because Bandak's an impatient person,
(42:13):
and when she's forced to wait for her mother to complete the copying of the book, she becomes more
introspective and she spends time in the library. She does a lot of things that you wouldn't expect
a badass assassin in Black Leather Arm to do, and develops this sort of feud with the librarian
that is hilarious. She's a great character. I've got so many plans for her.
(42:36):
Now I'm even more excited for both of you. Regarding her, I wanted to ask you, I'm not sure
if this was intentional or not, but I saw some similarities between her and Eibos in the sense of
how they perceive themselves both as a tool until something happens. And then for her it's not that
clear that she actually gets a different perception, but there is some character growth, especially
(43:00):
how she behaves with Sundance and actually shows Sundance more emotion and affection perhaps that
she does to her mother. Because I think Sundance represents what she would have imagined a mother
to be like. I wanted to introduce this theme of what happens when you have an absent parent.
Children are prone to fantasy and when a parent becomes absent, for whatever reason, the child
(43:23):
starts to build an imaginary parent. And I think that Bandak, all those nights where she spent
sore and broken from the training, probably imagined a mother like Sundance was with her
when she was on her own at night recovering from her wounds. At least that's how I wanted it to
come across. Sundance would have been the mother that Bandak wanted, but the one she actually got
(43:46):
was, I guess, a little like her. And then you've got this awkward situation where she likes to
use humor as a defense. So when she is face to face with her mother and her auntie, she's comically
detached from the situation. But then we do get glimpses of something deeper later on, particularly
with her mother when they're saying goodbye. But Bandak is the sort of character that creates
(44:09):
strange bonds with people based on fantasy. So you'll notice that she creates this entire narrative
about her and Jeff being a married couple. And Jeff has given her nothing to think that that
would ever happen, but she's completely invested in it. She's like, yeah, this is it. This is my
future husband. And you don't even know whether that's something that she's able to do. And then
(44:33):
she obviously feels a certain way about Rennier by the end of the book because she waves her off.
And then, you know, even in the second book, I have her having this odd relationship with
a stable master just because she finds him incredibly amusing. But the reasons are never
clear. And I think that's one of the things I like about Bandak is that her motivations aren't as
obvious as everybody else's. Yeah. Well, sometimes if you don't know the context of why somebody is
(44:57):
behaving in a particular way, their behavior will always look from a third point of view,
like from a different perspective. And it's only in the moment that you are in their head.
And when that person is actually actively trying to understand why they are behaving in that
particular way, because considering what Bandak went through, many of the actions she may have,
(45:20):
maybe unconscious, just learned and not actively reasoned. Yeah. Yeah. It's an excellent exercise
writing a character like Bandak. And I'm hoping it will continue to be where you want the reader
to be unsure about the decisions that character has made. Because normally you want the reader to
be like you feel an inevitability to a character's behavior. But with Bandak, I want you to be
(45:45):
surprised. You know, I want you to think you know what she's going to do, but then she doesn't. And
then I don't want the reasons for that to be clear either. I don't want to understand Bandak. And that
it can be a challenge. You know, there's particularly something in book two that in
the first draft of book two that I'm really concerned about, because I think it's very
juvenile. But then when I put it into Bandak's context, maybe that's all right. And maybe,
(46:09):
because that's just, I didn't write it intentionally to be juvenile. It's just that's
where she wanted to go. And now I'm concerned about it. And I don't know if it's going to end
up in the final book, but maybe that is what I'm going for with that character is that sense of,
well, she'd never had a childhood, you know, the sort of Michael Jackson effects were because
a childhood was stolen from her, she sort of can't really grow up. But I don't know. I guess we'll
(46:33):
see how that one plays out in the long run. I'm very happy with the way she's portrayed in Rennier
and how that how her story comes to an end in Rennier. And like there's a hint right on the
back page that she's going to be an integral part of book two. I thought that she was very complex,
not only because of a hint of her past that we get, but also because of the whole training we
(46:55):
know nothing about. So given how Reapers are presented and how almighty assassins, powerful
people they are, everybody fears them. We can imagine that the training was harrowing, to say
the least, right? And that clearly has an effect on her and how she sees the world, how she acts,
even if the people who know nothing of that training doesn't actually get her. I think that
(47:19):
overall she came out beautifully. I can't wait to read more. I am happy with her. I think that,
you know, going back to the training as well, I hope there's a hint of lightstone exposure being
a thing because I don't know if I hinted at it in Rennier, but part of the training was
lightstone exposure. We can see clearly how badly lightstone can affect people and events when it's
(47:43):
misused and the idea that these people are. So if you have to build up a relationship with a
lightstone, then presumably the longer you have a relationship with that stone, the greater its
abilities, or the greater abilities are granted to you by that stone because you are feeding the
stone with emotion. Therefore the stone becomes accustomed to receiving your emotion as nourishment.
(48:04):
So where you have a child and you're exposing them to stones that will grow with them, you are
creating soldiers with greater abilities by doing that. But we've seen firsthand what can happen
when you misuse lightstone. So that could have horrific consequences. It's like giving a child
a shot. So yeah, there's a lot of stories to come probably about that. And I do touch on it in book
(48:25):
two. We have some flashbacks to Bandai's training coming up, but also we have this sort of looming,
you know, this looming sense of does Bandai have a twin? You know, and that sort of hinted
at towards the end of the book as well. And I haven't brought him into it yet. I don't know
if I've hinted at him in book two, but you know, you have to think, well, you know, a female child
would respond to certain things in certain ways. But when you throw testosterone into the mix of
(48:50):
child being raised with lightstone exposure, how does, how badly could that go wrong? Because
the thing is the, a lot of the Reapers are, particularly in Rennia, a lot of the Reapers
are female. That's because of that reason. In the second book, we have this, we have more male
Reapers, but they're of a different generation because they're older than Bandai. Those ones
were not raised with the lightstone. They sort of came into it later in life and they were already
(49:14):
fully formed. So to have a male Reaper who is Bandai's age, who has been through the same training
as Bandai creates a totally different sort of person. And that's something that I'm going into
in book three, hopefully. So I don't want to say any more than that. That's fine. I won't ask.
That was a terrific discussion and I hope that you enjoyed it. Before we leave, I want to give a
special shout out to James, one of my newsletter subscribers, who sent me one of the questions I
(49:39):
asked here. So if you want to get news on the podcast, my own writing, participating bookish
discussions, and you know, send questions for the authors on the spot, like subscribe to my newsletter.
The link will be in the description. That said, thank you so much, Carl, first of all for writing
Rennia and also for being here. It was a pleasure to host you. The pleasure is all mine, Livia. Thank
(50:00):
you for having me and thank you for reading my book and giving me the chance to talk about it in
such depth. I don't think I've actually had a deep dive discussion like this with anyone other than
my mother. So thank you very much. So yeah, if, you know, if anyone's interested in reading Rennia,
it's available on Kindle Unlimited and there are paperbacks flying around. They're available on
(50:20):
Amazon in most places. I'm aware that shipping can be an issue if you're not in America or the UK.
If you are in the US, there are signed copies available at Silver Stones and the broken binding
actually have some of the limited edition hardbacks still available, which are absolutely
beautiful books. The Sprayed Edges, Livia, you actually have one of those, I think.
(50:41):
Yes. And I can confirm that the shipping to Australia was raised on our broken binding.
Yeah. So there are, I'm going to put a coupon up on my website. The coupon code will be Livia,
and that will give you a 60% discount on the paperback if you should like to buy one.
Yeah. And book two, I'm hoping will be available later this year. I'm still waiting for a slot
(51:02):
with the editor and it will depend on, you know, how well it works or doesn't work. You know,
I'm already pretty happy with it and I'm hoping it will come. And also I'm hoping to have another
book drafted this year, which is not set in Luna Ruinham. So that'll be interesting.
Looking forward to it. Please like and subscribe if you like my podcast.
Thank you for listening and happy reading.
Hello everyone and welcome to Books and Done. I'm your host, Livia J. Eliot, and today we
(00:16):
have spotlight number three. I'm delighted to introduce you to one of my reading highlights
of the year so far, self-published fantasy debut author Carl Forshaw. Carl, thank you
so much for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Livia, and thank you for those kind words.
Before we start, let me do the usual disclaimers. First, there are spoilers in the podcast,
(00:38):
but they only pertain to the first book in the series of Luna Ruina, Drenia. We won't
delve into spoilers for the incoming book number two or any subsequent ones. Second,
this podcast is, as usual, focused on themes and meaning and our subjective interpretation
of them. Therefore, you are allowed to disagree even with the author. That said, and for context,
(01:02):
will you tell us a bit of how you designed Drenia's world?
That's a big question, but I suppose the least satisfying answer possible would be that it
just popped into my head.
That's enough.
And, you know, I have to be apologetic for that because I know it's not a very satisfying
answer, but we were building a computer game and I had to dream up the world for it. So
(01:24):
I guess it was a mixture of all the things I thought were cool ideas over the past, it
must have been 20 years. So you'll find a lot of video game influences in Drenia's world
building because it was intended to be a computer game. Well, the Luna Ruina series was, and
the game we were building was much later in the timeline. So I think if we do revisit
(01:45):
that story, it'll be around book seven. But yeah, there are things like the moon falling
from the sky, which is obviously a reference to a Zelda game, you know, and the magic system
is a reference to a Final Fantasy game and there's lots of stuff in there like that.
And then there's lots of other ideas that either popped into my head or came from films
that I've watched or books that I've read. I think when you're writing your first book,
(02:07):
you just tend to throw everything in there and hope that it works because you're super
excited and you just want, you know, you're writing a book and it's a huge deal. So that's
how a lot of it came about.
One theme I felt that's quite central to the storyline are consequences, both at the individual
level, which we see in characters like Rhenia herself on Doratos, Vitor, Vedora and Stane,
(02:31):
but also at the world level in terms of how the prior events continue to ripple into the
present. Can we start with Rhenia in particular from all the characters that I mentioned?
She had quite an abruptly ended childhood and even in her young adulthood, we can see
her suffering from the consequences and how she's affected by guilt and in fact, much
(02:53):
of her decisions felt guilt driven. What inspired you to explore this concept of consequences
and guilt?
I think that was a natural, maybe it's because I'm getting closer to 40 and I think over
the past few years, with us having the lockdowns and things, there's been a lot more introspection
in my own life. Obviously having children as well, cause it makes you a lot more aware
(03:18):
of your actions and how consequences can ripple forward through their lives, which then leads
you to think about things that your parents did that have consequences in your own life
and how we navigate those traumas as adults. That's not just speaking from my perspective,
that's from lots of people that I know and love. I started to notice, cause I pay attention
(03:39):
a bit more now, I'm a bit older to other people and why they do the things they do. I just
got really interested in how trauma from childhood revisits itself upon your adult life and your
children's lives and also how some people are defined by that guilt and carry it with
them and allow it to influence their choices and the things they do and say and how some
(04:02):
people seemingly break out of that guilt spiral and then manage to carry it, but also not
allow it to affect the decisions that they make or the things they do. I think that's
where the quote, you either happen to life or life happens to you comes from. And that
is the central theme of the book. And I sort of reached that unintentionally. I think initially
it was just, I didn't set out to write Renia with a theme in mind. It just sort of came
(04:27):
from the character and how I imagined her to be. And it just sort of blossomed from
there and I was quite happy with how that theme came across. Hopefully it landed with
some people.
If we follow up with what you were saying, I felt that Renia was a bit unconscious on
her guilt driven decision making at first until that point in which she's talking to
(04:49):
her quote unquote partner, but that you can see that before she was doing it very unconscious.
In particular, what were you wanting to explore or how did you manage to get it because it
worked? At least for me, it felt realistic. As a reader, I could feel that she was making
these decisions because of both, even if the character didn't realize.
(05:10):
Again, that was a happy accident. And the fact that that moment I think you're talking
about is where she's having a physical fight with. Yeah, I think that the fact that that
lands right in the midpoint of the book as well is a good thing because it sort of does
give us a nice pivot point to move into this new version of Renia where she's like, okay,
I'm done being led around by the nose. It's my turn now. I get to be in control and I
(05:34):
get to drive. And I think because I spent all that time in a childhood showing how she
was very, very much punished from her perspective for her agency or decisions that she'd made
because she didn't understand fully what the consequences would be. She sort of lived her
entire life then fearful of consequences and not doing anything that she hasn't been told
to do or advised to do out of fear that the consequences were somehow out to get her and
(05:59):
that she'd be slapped if you like the way she was in childhood for making them. I really
enjoyed that moment where she just stands up and says, no, this is it. I've had enough.
I think the realism in that, I think we've all had that moment in our lives where we've
realized that life has been leading us or that we've allowed other people's will to
drive our narrative and then just thought, no, I'm going my own way. And I think naturally
(06:22):
that that usually happens for people in their early thirties where they just decide they
don't really care anymore what people think of them and they're going to do things their
own way. And I think that's one of the better parts of turning 30 to be honest. So I guess
that came from again, being over 30 and being able to relate to it. Tell God knows what
I'll be writing when I hit 40. Whatever generational leap that is.
(06:44):
That also made her feel alive. I was reading the first part, which I loved how you wrote
it in a very innocent way. Like you change the narrator so that it feels innocent. And
I had this idea, this feeling of she's going to do something and that innocence is just
going off because it felt foreboding, you know, and then that happens and we get that.
(07:06):
I don't want to say punishment, but yeah, the consequences of what she does ends up
getting her parents killed and that is a terrible consequence. And then we can see that marks
her throughout the entire story. So that point you mentioned, I honestly felt that it was
powerful that moment of finally realizing she has agency from that point, the story,
(07:27):
at least to me, it has stopped being things happen to Rania, but Rania starts making things
happen. And again, it's like you say, it's like that moment in life in which we make
that decision and it switches over our perception of life. She also had it in the book. She
wasn't the only character that had that. There were many throughout the book that also had
(07:49):
that decision-making moment.
Yeah, it was a couple of things I wanted to pick up on that you said that I think I'm
very happy that you picked up on the sense of foreboding in the childhood because, you
know, it's very difficult to write from a child's perspective and have it land in that
way. I didn't want it to sound like a children's book. I wanted you to have that sense of,
oh my God, something's going to go wrong here, you know? And then coming back to her
(08:13):
adult timeline, when she has that moment where she realizes she's got agency and she starts
to use it, it was nice to be able to show that in a very magical sense. So it's not
just that she has agency, it's that also she has these newfound abilities and powers. You
know, she's able to use the lightstone. She discovers that she's got genetic heritage
(08:33):
that sort of enables her to have a better grasp on the magical side of things in the
world. And it was sort of a nod to the fact that when you do discover that you have agency
in your life and you have the power to change things, it can be incredibly powerful because,
you know, directed will, and this is another theme of the book, directed will is one of
(08:53):
the most powerful things that humans have. So it was like overemphasizing it by saying,
look, now she's got magical powers. And then, you know, with the other characters,
wanted to make sure that each of them had a satisfying character arc. Some of them are
similar in theme to Renia's. I think Jeff's theme is similar to Renia's.
Yes. He also has that breaking moment. Yeah.
(09:14):
Yeah. And I think Pistorius has a sort of, it's slightly different, but I think it's
similar in terms of, you know, a lot of, there was a traumatic event in his childhood that
made him run away from his father. Yeah. And, you know, there's the B characters, like,
I'm not sure Peter's theme is similar. I couldn't really say what Peter's theme is,
actually, off the top of my head. I just really enjoyed writing it. I guess it's the letting go
(09:38):
of things that you think define you. So again, the theme is similar. Peter is defined by his job
and his position and his reputation. And he has all those things taken away from him through no
fault of his own, even though he was a bit of a drunk, you know, and he learns to make peace with
it. And I guess, well, I guess it is the same, you know, he finds the agency and, you know,
(09:58):
the things he can control and he decides, well, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life then,
just in a much more comedic way. Yeah. He's always a fun relief. Yeah.
The start, the beginning and how he actually nicknames Pistorius, it's very funny.
I love the fact that I didn't know what his name was until that scene with Jeff. So I just thought
(10:19):
Pistain was a funny insult and I just thought it fit Peter's character's point of view. I thought,
yeah, he'd probably say something like that. I thought I need to name this character at some
point. And I just kept going and not naming him and finding ways to avoid saying his name. Right
up until the scene where Jeff was interrogating him and I was just having this amazing sort of
experience of, you know, when you're writing something and it just comes out of your fingers
(10:42):
and you don't really have to think too much about it. And, you know, there was the scene with the
water where he's filling the glass up and that was all just came out of my head with no, nothing from
me at all. And then, you know, I had this amazing punchline land where he actually says his name
for the first time. And it just, that just popped into my head as well. And I thought that that's
just great and happy accidents you have when you, when you write in a book, you know, people think
(11:05):
that you've got all these things thought out. And with me, a lot of the best stuff just comes
in the moment. In particular, Pistorius was a roller coaster of a character because we start
with this funny scene. Then we see him as the bad guy, quote unquote, from the bunch of the book.
And he does some questionable things, but at the end, as you mentioned before, we get his whole
(11:30):
background and the trauma he went with and his attitude and his way of perceiving the world.
It's not because that is a way he is or learned or even believed the things will be. It's actually
a consequence of what happened to him. Right. And we see the trauma of his childhood with that girl
and everything that happened there affecting him even up to the last moment. Right. Yeah. It was
(11:54):
when he dies at the end, I actually felt sad for him. Why were you so mean not to give him that
chance? It's funny. There are, there are things that you want to do in the story and the things
that you have to do. I know obviously, because I'm writing it a lot more about Pistorius's family
and the city he comes from, because it's very important to the rest of the series, because they
(12:17):
are one of the, well, they are the main family in Luna Ruinen really. You know, you have the Praeolatus
serving as emperor is referred to as the sleeping king by a lot of, you know, the people in the
south and also in Verda, because he has sort of like a non-interference policy where he doesn't
like to interfere with the lives of his people. But in Verda, things are very different and
Pistorius's family are, you know, a force. They rule over the city of Verda financially and,
(12:43):
you know, with the peacekeeping and things. So I know what happened before Renier. That is stuff
that's happening, what I'm editing right now in the second book. And let's just say the Pistorius's
death was a consequence of something his father did, which will be revealed in the next book.
I really like how Pistorius went from being teased as a bad guy. And again, this wasn't,
(13:06):
you know, I didn't set out to do this when I started writing it. It just sort of happened.
One of the sadder things about Pistorius's story is how even though he despises his father,
he still emulates him in some way, because he still has this desire to reach lofty position,
you know, as the master of the halls of Venn. So he still has this desire to rule and to choose and
(13:29):
to have his will imposed upon other people. So it's again like a look into how men sort of
hero-worship the fathers even when they don't like them. It didn't feel like a desire from his side,
but more of a learned behavior because of the trauma. He learned that to be safe,
therefore he had to act in this particular way. Yeah. And there's like, I don't know if you picked
(13:52):
up on this, but there's a moment where he's hiding in a cupboard from his father. And a lot of the
time we spend with Pistorius, he's hiding. So it's almost as if he's hiding from the reaper as an
echo of his hiding from his father as a child. Yeah. I really enjoyed that storyline. And actually
it was my editor that pushed me to explore it a little bit more because he kept coming back to me
and saying, you know, I don't really understand why Pistorius has to die. I don't really get why
(14:17):
he's part of the story or why we have his point of view. Cause in the early drafts, he just died.
We didn't get any of that backstory or stuff about his brother or his father. Cause his brother,
again, had a massive impact on it. And again, don't want to spoil anything in book two, but
we know that Dorian died because he's told in Rhenia that his brother Dorian is dead. And we
(14:37):
know that Dorian was the cruel one. And you know, it's just generally a very nasty piece of work.
I don't want to spoil anything for book two now, but that death happens in book two. So again,
it all ties back. So one of the other themes I wanted to explore is echoes or repetition of
events just indifferent. So again, I'm in danger. I'm avoiding spoilers by thinking before I speak.
(15:00):
I'm hoping that one of the themes I'll be able to keep coming back to throughout the series is
that events echo. So when you have a particularly charged event, there will be an echo of it and
the players might change, but the story remains the same. Or, you know, there'll be differences,
but things like, for example, you know, Rhenia starts with a fall. The opening image is somebody
(15:22):
descending and then the ending image is someone ascending. And that's echoed. That's actually an
echo from the book that I've just written, the second book. And it's a literal echo in the
universe. And, you know, these are deeper themes that I haven't really had the chance to explore
much in Rhenia because I didn't want to bombard the reader with tons of world building or, you
know, thematic things in the first book. And I'm hoping that hasn't turned too many people off
(15:46):
because I do plan to get quite deep later on. Particularly, I love it. So for me, go ahead and
add more. I wanted to come back to what you mentioned about the echoes. We have several
events like that. Something that I noticed on Rhenia was more than an event, like a predisposition
for her to always look for the same, which was belonging. She wanted to belong to her family and
(16:10):
then with the other scribes and so on. And that always puts her on a weaker position, you know,
that she's unwilling sometimes to compromise too much just to get that belonging. I found it very
interesting that point in which she finds out about her heritage, her mother, and she has this renewed
sense of belonging and kinship towards her mother because until that moment she hadn't considered
(16:35):
her at all. She always focused too much on her father, but not on her mother. And that actually
changes everything for her and gives her perhaps a renewed belonging to herself in some sense,
that she feels more comfortable within her own skin. Obviously I considered that when I was
writing it, but I forgot that detail. So I'm quite happy that you brought it up. I think it all comes
(16:59):
back to Rhenia's definition of herself. She's always searching to be defined by something,
whether as a child she wants to be an explorer or she wants to be like a dad. She wants to
find the secrets of the lightstones. She defines herself as very clever because she knows,
I can read and write and I can do this and that and look at me. And there's a sense of wonder to her.
I think she's always defined herself by how much she knows or how good she is at things. Whereas
(17:24):
a mother always seemed to be content to be the housewife. And I think that sort of created a
friction within her as a child because she thought of herself more as an explorer and a scholar. And
she assumed that that came from her father because her father was the one that was going out and
collecting all the lightstones and having these adventures in a dangerous place. And then when she
(17:45):
does discover that her mother may have been content to be the housewife and she wasn't really aware
that her mother was probably the mastermind of their entire situation at home. Her mother had
left the halls of Venn for her own reasons, which I haven't even fully explored really. And I'm
assuming that she did it for love. Yeah. And then she has this sort of realization, like you said,
(18:06):
that her heritage and a lot of this thirst for knowledge and this sort of latent magical ability
is directly handed down from her mother's side. And I do love how that gives her that sense of
belonging because it sort of unifies what she feels inside about herself deep down that she's
still got these desires. She hasn't let go fully of this explorer, scholar streak inside her that's
(18:32):
screaming to come back out. And she's reunited with that through the discovery that her mother's
heritage is probably responsible for it. There are so many things in that sequence of events
that I will probably forget about that I really don't want to because we have that scene where
she walks into the old room of her great, great, great, great, great grandfather. And there's all
(18:54):
these things like this giant tuning fork and this mirror with the ripply surfaces, this strange
mirror, and then there's obviously Avis and there's all this magical stuff that I could really go
into detail about and write books about on its own. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to
do it because it's not relevant to the... It's relevant, but it's not super important to the
(19:16):
rest of the story of the world. But I'm really fighting the urge to do it because I find all of
that stuff fascinating. I will bring you back to a follow-up question that I had on this. You
mentioned that she's always defining herself in terms of external things. Something that I
noticed, and I'm not sure if you did it intentionally or not, is that at the start,
(19:39):
she doesn't... Renia doesn't have the most positive view of Peter. But the more the storyline of
each of them progresses, the more we can see that they are somehow similar. They are both defined
by something external, which is generally their work and their achievements, right? And they
cope with it in a completely different way as well. So we have the same theme dividing and
(20:02):
it's also so common for people to get lost in their work. But in particular, were there any
parallelisms between the two that you did intentionally or that you want to highlight?
I think I had to show that because Peter is so married to his position in the early... In one
of the books, I had to show that Renia was a threat to his position because they are very similar
(20:24):
in terms of... They both take things very seriously and they both believe in the sanctity of knowledge
and how important it is to pass it down in the right way. But also, I think Peter is sort of
initially affronted by the idea that Renia has been chosen over him for something. And I just
thought it was a great sense of conflict to have two people that were only really separated by time
(20:48):
and how Peter initially is concerned with keeping his position rather than being good at it. I think
he's got to the point in his career where he's very aware that he's aging and there are younger
people now that are a threat to that position. The irony is I think in the beginning, Renia doesn't
have the self-confidence to take Peter's position. So even though Peter perceives her as a threat,
(21:13):
she's not because she wouldn't have the confidence to do it anyway. But yeah, it was fun and
I think it's a shame actually that there isn't a lot of back and forth between Peter and Renia
later on. And I think that a lot of that again is to do with Renia's guilt over Peter being retired.
Yeah, it's another thing I hadn't picked up on. You're very good at this.
Following up, tying this with what you were mentioning of Aebus and that particular role,
(21:37):
I loved Aebus as a character I thought was mind-blowing, but he also had this link of
consequence. He was tied to that role and to do something in particular until one particular
moment in which he stops following orders and does something out of his own will when he saves her.
It also changes the character. And again, we have that topic of consequences and a character that
(22:03):
in a completely different way was tied to his position in some way, while the others did it
willingly and knowingly. Perhaps Aebus was more of a complete acceptance and surrendering and
accepting that that was his role and that's it. Yeah, Aebus was sort of a fast forward example of
again, Renia's presence alone having consequences. I had to show the evolution in Aebus's
(22:32):
speech because when he meets Renia, he hasn't spoken to anyone for a very, very long time.
And he's sort of losing the ability to speak because he just doesn't. So when she comes along
for him, he's in tears because he's like, I haven't touched anyone in a long time. I haven't spoken to
anyone in a long time. He doesn't know how to, he's forgotten how to say it. And then you have sort
(22:53):
of like this chapter of sort of like a montage, I guess, of Renia and Aebus interacting and Aebus
slowly sort of returning to where he must have been 100 and so years ago when his creator was
around, but also he couldn't read. So Aebus spent an eternity in a room full of books that he
couldn't read. So obviously after Renia leaves him, he's got this period of time, 21 days or
(23:19):
whatever in Aebus time, which is just one day for Renia. I sort of imagined that he went and furiously
read loads of stuff and became a very different person just in that day for Renia because he
suddenly had this ability to broaden his horizon. And obviously he goes back into the mirror and he
has a discussion with the people in the mirror and then he comes back determined to save Renia
(23:43):
because she's very important. And I think his last line is, what you do for all of us is it needs to
happen. So this is a very obvious foreshadowing. Yeah, it was interesting for me because I don't
really write short form stuff. Really that whole chapter came about as a consequence of me
having to get something done in a short amount of words because I had all these other arcs going on
(24:08):
that were heading in a certain way. And for pacing reasons, I had to squash Renia finishing her work
down to a very small amount of time. So I'm like, well, how can I do that? Well, to dream up someone
who can alter the flow of time, but then you can't keep that character because he's too powerful.
So it was a great exercise in problem solving for me because I had to make that work.
(24:33):
I could have done it in a really cheap way and said, oh, he's a guy. Yeah, she needs to get these
books finished. He is a guy who can slow down time. It all happens in a chapter, but then closed.
I thought that's not going to work and it's going to feel really cheap. So I had to make it so that
A was A, compelling, B, interesting enough to pique people's imaginations and C, lovable in
some way, you know, and then kill him. Which was very mean, but also very well done.
(24:58):
Thank you. What I liked of A was that I thought he was a nice representation of how other people
can influence one's personality. At the start, when we meet him, he almost thinks of himself
like a tool, you know, not like a person that is alive, but a tool that is meant to help other
people. And we can see that in the way he clutches Renia from her legs to encumber her delights.
(25:23):
It's very sad. And the more he interacts with her and the more that she treats him as a person,
the more he changes, right? And he starts perceiving himself with agency that perhaps,
in addition to the knowledge he acquires, leads to his ability of finally making a decision rather
than following command. Yeah. And it has that sort of that ring to it as well of, you know,
(25:46):
you normally get in Act One of a book, you'll get a moment where somebody tells someone what
their weakness is and exactly how they should fix it. And then that person ignores it. Renia
knows what her problems are and she recognizes them in Avis. And she encourages Avis, come on,
let's go outside, let's do this. You know, let's broaden your horizons. Let's learn to read. And
Avis is reluctant. So I've got these two things that are happening simultaneously, you know, and
(26:11):
that one is a reflection of the other in some way. And yeah, that it was, and also it's because we
don't get the, because we lose the childhood timeline in Chapter 10. It was nice to bring some
of that innocence back in Act Two, to bring that feeling of innocence back because it's sort of an
echo of, or it's sort of like a foreshadowing that Renia is about to find some of that wonder
(26:34):
that she had, you know, and about to, it's like a reminder of who she was before the incident and,
you know, with the fire. That's something that happens sometimes with trauma, especially with
children that are forced for one or another reason to grow up very quickly. They tend to keep trying
to find that throughout life. And it felt very compelling and heartbreaking at the same time,
(26:57):
the relationship between Renia and Avis, because it felt as a continuation of her childhood,
right? That she was through him, allowing herself to have that innocence or that joy. At some point
they were dancing and doing other, I don't want to say childish, but childlike, you know, that
innocence that without the preoccupations caused by the real world. As you speak in the scenes,
(27:21):
they're flying through my head, like there's one where they're sort of painting faces on the
Moruscan guards and laughing about it because he can't, you know, he's frozen in time. And then
when Renia's lifting the gate up, she's exaggerating movements and acting, to me, she's
acting like a six-year-old or a seven-year-old and she is being childish. And it's almost as if being
in that frozen world with Avis allows her the space, you know, and the sort of, because time's frozen,
(27:46):
consequences aren't as real. And therefore she's able to just revert to being a six-year-old again,
because she's with someone who is essentially a six-year-old. And it is just like this huge
moment of relief for Renia that that whole chapter is she's given space, she can be herself,
she has her work, everything's quiet, nothing she does can hurt anyone. Yeah, it's a really
(28:10):
important chapter. The more I think about it and the more we talk about it, the more I realize,
you know, just how much that actually adds to the second act.
Yeah, it's almost like it helps her to make peace with what she lost when she was a child.
Yeah. Talking about her childhood and her as an adult, there was a detail that in particular I
(28:30):
wanted to ask you is that she has this necklace, which is a shawl from a lightstone that her father
gave her. When she loses it, it's a very stressful situation because we just had everything going on
with the book, same time that she lost, quote unquote lost, because it's not really her fault.
But then we have this situation with the shawl and her reaction is a bit exaggerated. She goes
(28:54):
into the room of her lover and everything. And to me, it didn't feel like if she was recognizing
what was happening, but was more like that little shawl was a lifeline to her past, you know, to
who she was, to where she came from. And the reaction was proportional to that perception
rather than the fact of losing a necklace or even considering that her boyfriend may have been trying
(29:19):
to give her a gift or something. You know, it's funny because this is the point that I've got the
most criticism for. It's Renia's reaction. Yeah. Because it's an exaggerated reaction. I think the
thing people have missed is partially a traumatic reaction. And this may be a spoiler for some of
the wider series, but I think it's probably important that I say it now, just so it doesn't
(29:40):
look like I shooed it in. There are, Renia, he has whispers throughout the book and it, you know,
it's there in black and white. She's being told, she's being urged, you know, there's like the name
Dale is put in her head and she's being whispered to by something that she can't, she doesn't really
understand. And I think it's reasonable to say that that's her trauma, whispering to her, but it
(30:01):
actually isn't. And this is confirmed by the prayer lattice. And when he's having a discussion
with Vendor about how Renia's actions aren't entirely her own. And because Renia doesn't
trust her own agency and her own will, she's being influenced by something else. Her behavior is being
manipulated by something greater, something very powerful. You know, the prayer lattice talks about
(30:23):
a sour song from the wastes and it's a very important part of the wider arc of Luna Ruinem
is that if you give up your will, your will will be directed for you.
Interesting. I have a bunch of questions, but I will not ask them now, not to spoil anything.
(30:43):
So yeah, let's keep it on book one. So in that case, let me move to another character that I
wanted to ask you about, Dorados, because I already told you that I really like him.
He was very complex. And when we first meet him, he seems detached, you know, emotionally in control.
But the more we actually tie up the different storylines, especially the one regarding his son,
(31:08):
we can see that he has a lot of baggage and that he's perhaps trying to be so emotionally detached,
not only because of his age, but also to remain sane. And he has this like Renia, sometimes it
feels like she makes decisions based on guilt. Dorados sometimes feels as if making decisions
based on regret. Yeah. So when I was writing Vendor or Dorados, the character that I held in my head
(31:31):
was the one that was present during the moonfall, which was 150 years or so prior. So because he is
effectively immortal, I had to think about what were the important things that happened to him
before he was granted immortality? And how does one deal with not just a single lifetime of baggage
on your shoulders, but two or three? And you know, how would that affect his way of life?
(31:57):
So Dorados is very intentional in a lot of the things he does. And he's the sort of person that
has to exert extreme control over himself in order to stay sane, as you said, because humans aren't
supposed to live for that. I say humans, they're not actually human, but there was the thing with
his daughter and that's a memory that he keeps with him all the time. He has a very important
(32:18):
ritual that he undertakes every morning. I thought it was important to show that, which is him direct,
and this again, harks back to what I've just said about will, it's a definition of his will every
morning. So he'll sit there and say, today I'm doing this. And he'll be very intentional about
what he does and what he allows himself to think about during the day. So even down to the level
of controlling his thoughts, he's intentional. And I think Renia throws a spanner into that with her
(32:44):
presence because he allows himself to like her and he doesn't normally do that. He takes a lot of
his influence from the Praelatus, who is probably his only friend at that point, takes stoicism very
seriously. And along comes Renia like she does. And she's got this sort of, everyone's sort of drawn
to Renia, despite the fact that she's a train wreck, and even Doratus gets pulled into that.
(33:07):
And eventually we sort of tease the sort of romance between them later on. So yeah, it was
nice to sort of crack the shell of someone that hard, especially by the end of the book,
there's sort of this moment between Renia and Doratus that's quite, for him, quite important.
But you'll notice that he immediately switches back to being very cold and intentional afterwards.
(33:28):
Yeah.
And they also develop this internal joke of calling themselves grandmasters and it feels
not, yeah, like a small innocent bond between them. You know, like there is something going
because perhaps they understand what's going on between them or the context in which they are in.
I wanted to ask you in particular about him regarding that part of the ritual he goes.
(33:52):
Were you thinking of any particular philosophy when you wrote it?
I guess all of them. Yeah. You know, there is a philosophy in Lunar Runin. Again, a hodgepodge
of a lot of different systems of belief. All of it is based around the idea of free will and how
powerful that is. But yeah, because you know the chapter where he's talking to the Praelatus and
(34:14):
they are discussing Renia's behavior. I think it takes place while Renia is in a coma and
there's a lot of stuff in that chat that may have gone, this designed to go over your head,
but there's a lot of telling things in that chat. There's a reference to,
what did I refer to the mass now? And this is where I need my law manual, I think, talks about
(34:35):
that's supposed to trigger something in you and, oh, what's that all about? You know? And that,
again, is directly ties back into this theme of will and people exerting their will.
What I really liked from that scene was that he knew everything and it was clear that you
weren't letting go of the knowledge. The character doesn't have the need to explain it either. To
(34:56):
him, to the Praelatus, he felt as everything that happened was, it was, that's it, and he had to
keep it contained just to live in the present. I think it goes back to what you need to keep him
sane throughout a very long life. Like when we first meet him, he's actually abstaining from magic.
So you have him and you have Peter and you have this theme of abstinence that's between the two
(35:21):
of them. You have Doratis who abstains from things that make him feel, that threaten his control over
his will. And then you have Peter, on the other hand, who drinks himself into oblivion every night.
Doratis' abstaining from magic is actually affecting his function as Grandmaster because
he, the Praelatus says to him, your problem is that you would have known all of these things
(35:43):
if you would have been using the gifts that you've been given to you. You wouldn't be questioning
these things because you would know. So there's this idea then that the light stones are somehow
giving him some kind of extra sensory perception. But those abilities that are granted to him by
the light stones frighten him because they bring something out in him that he doesn't like,
you know, a side of his character that he doesn't enjoy or that again, that has consequences.
(36:08):
We can see the consequences of the light stones quite clearly, especially when they try to heal
and what happens there. So do they have consequences regardless of the type of magic
they are using? So I mentioned somewhere in the book that the light stones either grant you their
power or you can force your will upon them and that there's always a price to be paid if you
(36:30):
force your will upon a light stone. And that's exactly what Rennier does when she heals Dale.
So she makes a trade or a bargain with the light stone and the light stone takes its fee. But with
Doratis and with Bandak, anyone that, you know, wields, uses the light stone frequently and
doesn't suffer any ill effects. In fact, it's the other way around. It's because that light stone
(36:50):
has granted that person or I like to think of it as like they've made friends and the light stone
wants to help that person and gives its ability, you know, gives its powers freely to that person.
Whereas I wanted to make it so that it's not like Final Fantasy VII where you can just say,
here's a light stone. Now you can cast fire or whatever you have to, if you, if you aren't
attuned with that stone, there will be dire consequences to forcing your will upon it.
(37:14):
Yeah. I think I also mentioned that the light stones feed off emotion. So the,
the art of using them would be the art of controlling your emotions.
In that particular case, what will be the effect on the stone markers? The people that mark the
stones and they trade years of their life? Yeah. It's because of, again, if you think of the
light stones, not as tools, which is something that I've said in the book, but as sort of like
(37:38):
semi-sentient beings striking them or branding them would be considered an act of hostility,
you know? So the, the stone markers, when I say they're trading their lives away to mark these
stones, it's, they literally are. Every time they strike one of these stones, it takes something
from them. So you're going to brand me for life. I'm going to brand you. Yeah. So we met, it's
Jacob, I think is the character who is the stone marker. And I love the idea of him being like
(38:03):
this withered husk walking and his skin's literally hanging off, but his teeth are perfect.
So yeah, I guess the answer to the question is that, you know, the light stones will take from
you if, if, you know, if you are aggressive towards them or try to force them to do things
they don't want to do. It also adds to the whole theme of consequence. Well, if I may move to
(38:24):
another character, Vedora, which is actually a facade for the twin sisters Veralak and Mylak.
Yep. And in their case, they are stuck in Luna Ruinen because of a concept of
Luna Ruinen because of the consequences of their actions. And while one of them, Veralak,
she wants to escape and go back. Mylak feels guilty regarding what she did to Peter and wants
(38:46):
to stay as well, but they are tied by the facade, right? By being Vedora, that's what basically
limits their choices. So again, we have that consequence of they decided to put up that
facade for a particular reason, but the facade of Vedora was a jail for them, keeping them in place,
not allowing them to move forward. So it changed from a tool, you would say, to a jail. Yeah,
(39:10):
because I mean, if you think about it in terms of being told that you're exiled until you provide
something meaningful, you know, something important back to the country that you've been exiled from,
the being twins is a significant advantage because it allows you to do all sorts of things and not
get caught. You know, if people don't know that you, that you've got a twin walking around doing
things, you know, you've got a permanent alibi. It was an advantage to them initially to play the
(39:36):
role of one person, but it meant that while that was happening, the other one had to be hiding out
essentially in this, you know, cave system that's sort of semi-forgotten underneath the halls of
Ven. There are so much to do with these characters. I think one of the important, the most important
things about that whole dynamic is that they are there because of Veralak's choices and she's the
(39:57):
one that wants to go home. Maylike is the passenger in that situation. And, you know, there's a letter
in the start of the book where it's, you know, it starts, we share the womb. And I think I just
wrote that on a whim and I thought, I really like this, you know, how can I make something out of
this? And then that's where this whole sort of dynamic comes from. Because in the first draft
(40:17):
of Renier, I didn't think we even had twins. I think it was just, you know, Vidora was the
one that had the book and sort of like, okay. But I really wanted to sort of beef that up because
I wanted to set Bandak's character up as well. Because again, harking back to the consequences,
the consequences of Veralak having children and then trying to hide them from the five was that
the children were taken from her and she was exiled. So then you've got this character,
(40:41):
Bandak, who has grown up in an institution essentially being honed and trained to be a
reaper from birth. You introduce them this complicated relationship with a mother who she
hasn't seen for a very, very long time. You know, probably doesn't even remember, which
is a great setup for a good character that can span three books.
(41:02):
And also from Bandak, I found it very interesting that you changed the verbal tense when she's
narrating. She used present tense when we have her POV, almost as if she perceived the world
differently. That's been such a challenge in book two as well, because she is a main character in
book two. So I've had to take this character that was odd, you know, and sometimes comically so.
(41:26):
And that's very easy to do from an external perspective because you can just make her do
wild things and then think, why the hell did she do that? But when you're in that person's head,
there has to be a justification for those things, you know? So I think she reads very differently
in book two to how she does in book one. But I'm hoping that the events of book two,
which is set before book one, will set up that fracture in Bandak's mind and sort of explain why
(41:51):
she sort of refers to herself in the third person in her own head, because she is broken at that
point, but it's not obvious because she has been trained not to be broken. So she's more or less
running on instinct a lot of the time, and it's just training, kicking in all the time. And we see
that there are breaks in that even throughout the book, because Bandak's an impatient person,
(42:13):
and when she's forced to wait for her mother to complete the copying of the book, she becomes more
introspective and she spends time in the library. She does a lot of things that you wouldn't expect
a badass assassin in Black Leather Arm to do, and develops this sort of feud with the librarian
that is hilarious. She's a great character. I've got so many plans for her.
(42:36):
Now I'm even more excited for both of you. Regarding her, I wanted to ask you, I'm not sure
if this was intentional or not, but I saw some similarities between her and Eibos in the sense of
how they perceive themselves both as a tool until something happens. And then for her it's not that
clear that she actually gets a different perception, but there is some character growth, especially
(43:00):
how she behaves with Sundance and actually shows Sundance more emotion and affection perhaps that
she does to her mother. Because I think Sundance represents what she would have imagined a mother
to be like. I wanted to introduce this theme of what happens when you have an absent parent.
Children are prone to fantasy and when a parent becomes absent, for whatever reason, the child
(43:23):
starts to build an imaginary parent. And I think that Bandak, all those nights where she spent
sore and broken from the training, probably imagined a mother like Sundance was with her
when she was on her own at night recovering from her wounds. At least that's how I wanted it to
come across. Sundance would have been the mother that Bandak wanted, but the one she actually got
(43:46):
was, I guess, a little like her. And then you've got this awkward situation where she likes to
use humor as a defense. So when she is face to face with her mother and her auntie, she's comically
detached from the situation. But then we do get glimpses of something deeper later on, particularly
with her mother when they're saying goodbye. But Bandak is the sort of character that creates
(44:09):
strange bonds with people based on fantasy. So you'll notice that she creates this entire narrative
about her and Jeff being a married couple. And Jeff has given her nothing to think that that
would ever happen, but she's completely invested in it. She's like, yeah, this is it. This is my
future husband. And you don't even know whether that's something that she's able to do. And then
(44:33):
she obviously feels a certain way about Rennier by the end of the book because she waves her off.
And then, you know, even in the second book, I have her having this odd relationship with
a stable master just because she finds him incredibly amusing. But the reasons are never
clear. And I think that's one of the things I like about Bandak is that her motivations aren't as
obvious as everybody else's. Yeah. Well, sometimes if you don't know the context of why somebody is
(44:57):
behaving in a particular way, their behavior will always look from a third point of view,
like from a different perspective. And it's only in the moment that you are in their head.
And when that person is actually actively trying to understand why they are behaving in that
particular way, because considering what Bandak went through, many of the actions she may have,
(45:20):
maybe unconscious, just learned and not actively reasoned. Yeah. Yeah. It's an excellent exercise
writing a character like Bandak. And I'm hoping it will continue to be where you want the reader
to be unsure about the decisions that character has made. Because normally you want the reader to
be like you feel an inevitability to a character's behavior. But with Bandak, I want you to be
(45:45):
surprised. You know, I want you to think you know what she's going to do, but then she doesn't. And
then I don't want the reasons for that to be clear either. I don't want to understand Bandak. And that
it can be a challenge. You know, there's particularly something in book two that in
the first draft of book two that I'm really concerned about, because I think it's very
juvenile. But then when I put it into Bandak's context, maybe that's all right. And maybe,
(46:09):
because that's just, I didn't write it intentionally to be juvenile. It's just that's
where she wanted to go. And now I'm concerned about it. And I don't know if it's going to end
up in the final book, but maybe that is what I'm going for with that character is that sense of,
well, she'd never had a childhood, you know, the sort of Michael Jackson effects were because
a childhood was stolen from her, she sort of can't really grow up. But I don't know. I guess we'll
(46:33):
see how that one plays out in the long run. I'm very happy with the way she's portrayed in Rennier
and how that how her story comes to an end in Rennier. And like there's a hint right on the
back page that she's going to be an integral part of book two. I thought that she was very complex,
not only because of a hint of her past that we get, but also because of the whole training we
(46:55):
know nothing about. So given how Reapers are presented and how almighty assassins, powerful
people they are, everybody fears them. We can imagine that the training was harrowing, to say
the least, right? And that clearly has an effect on her and how she sees the world, how she acts,
even if the people who know nothing of that training doesn't actually get her. I think that
(47:19):
overall she came out beautifully. I can't wait to read more. I am happy with her. I think that,
you know, going back to the training as well, I hope there's a hint of lightstone exposure being
a thing because I don't know if I hinted at it in Rennier, but part of the training was
lightstone exposure. We can see clearly how badly lightstone can affect people and events when it's
(47:43):
misused and the idea that these people are. So if you have to build up a relationship with a
lightstone, then presumably the longer you have a relationship with that stone, the greater its
abilities, or the greater abilities are granted to you by that stone because you are feeding the
stone with emotion. Therefore the stone becomes accustomed to receiving your emotion as nourishment.
(48:04):
So where you have a child and you're exposing them to stones that will grow with them, you are
creating soldiers with greater abilities by doing that. But we've seen firsthand what can happen
when you misuse lightstone. So that could have horrific consequences. It's like giving a child
a shot. So yeah, there's a lot of stories to come probably about that. And I do touch on it in book
(48:25):
two. We have some flashbacks to Bandai's training coming up, but also we have this sort of looming,
you know, this looming sense of does Bandai have a twin? You know, and that sort of hinted
at towards the end of the book as well. And I haven't brought him into it yet. I don't know
if I've hinted at him in book two, but you know, you have to think, well, you know, a female child
would respond to certain things in certain ways. But when you throw testosterone into the mix of
(48:50):
child being raised with lightstone exposure, how does, how badly could that go wrong? Because
the thing is the, a lot of the Reapers are, particularly in Rennia, a lot of the Reapers
are female. That's because of that reason. In the second book, we have this, we have more male
Reapers, but they're of a different generation because they're older than Bandai. Those ones
were not raised with the lightstone. They sort of came into it later in life and they were already
(49:14):
fully formed. So to have a male Reaper who is Bandai's age, who has been through the same training
as Bandai creates a totally different sort of person. And that's something that I'm going into
in book three, hopefully. So I don't want to say any more than that. That's fine. I won't ask.
That was a terrific discussion and I hope that you enjoyed it. Before we leave, I want to give a
special shout out to James, one of my newsletter subscribers, who sent me one of the questions I
(49:39):
asked here. So if you want to get news on the podcast, my own writing, participating bookish
discussions, and you know, send questions for the authors on the spot, like subscribe to my newsletter.
The link will be in the description. That said, thank you so much, Carl, first of all for writing
Rennia and also for being here. It was a pleasure to host you. The pleasure is all mine, Livia. Thank
(50:00):
you for having me and thank you for reading my book and giving me the chance to talk about it in
such depth. I don't think I've actually had a deep dive discussion like this with anyone other than
my mother. So thank you very much. So yeah, if, you know, if anyone's interested in reading Rennia,
it's available on Kindle Unlimited and there are paperbacks flying around. They're available on
(50:20):
Amazon in most places. I'm aware that shipping can be an issue if you're not in America or the UK.
If you are in the US, there are signed copies available at Silver Stones and the broken binding
actually have some of the limited edition hardbacks still available, which are absolutely
beautiful books. The Sprayed Edges, Livia, you actually have one of those, I think.
(50:41):
Yes. And I can confirm that the shipping to Australia was raised on our broken binding.
Yeah. So there are, I'm going to put a coupon up on my website. The coupon code will be Livia,
and that will give you a 60% discount on the paperback if you should like to buy one.
Yeah. And book two, I'm hoping will be available later this year. I'm still waiting for a slot
(51:02):
with the editor and it will depend on, you know, how well it works or doesn't work. You know,
I'm already pretty happy with it and I'm hoping it will come. And also I'm hoping to have another
book drafted this year, which is not set in Luna Ruinham. So that'll be interesting.
Looking forward to it. Please like and subscribe if you like my podcast.
Thank you for listening and happy reading.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.