“I think the key to world-building is that is must be a servant to the character’s story. I think a lot of fantasy fans are tired of the tropes of the 70s and 80s where authors spoon-fed them a metric shit ton of backstory, full of evil and magic artifacts and legacies, for the story to work. At least that’s my opinion and worth about as much as opinions do.
My approach to worldbuilding is one of extrapolation – again hitting on the “What if” questions. What if a society very much like Rome (in The Incorruptibles I didn’t try to obfuscate the origin and call it Rume) managed to continue to exist until the point of westward expansion and an industrial age? What if that industry was driven by what I call infernal combustion, energy derived from bound daemons. What would that world be like?”
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The Incorruptibles
In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it – from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do.
In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable. They are wrong. And with them is a mysterious, beautiful young woman, who is the key to peace between warring nations and survival for the Empire. When a callow mercenary saves the life of the Governor on an ill-fated hunting party, the two groups are thrown together.
For Fisk and Shoe – two tough, honourable mercenaries surrounded by corruption, who know they can always and only rely on each other – their young companion appears to be playing with fire. The nobles have the power, and crossing them is always risky.
And although love is a wonderful thing, sometimes the best decision is to walk away. Because no matter how untouchable or deadly you may be, the stretchers have other plans.
… and to give you a few insights into this year’s nominated authors, we’ve asked them all a few questions…
Tell us one of your early favourite fantasy novels?
Apart from Tolkien’s books, the fantastical work that staked out the most frontier property in my imagination was Dracula. While not what we think of as fantasy, the horror elements and the narrative style (in a recent re-read, I realized it was an epistolary novel!), set an atmosphere of growing dread. But beyond that, Dracula is one hellaciously good villain.
What fantasy novel was a real game changer, shifting the way you thought about epic fiction?
I’ve always loved Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series. When I was reading fantasy in my teens – 80s fantasy at that – the story of Vlad and his underworld dealings was refreshing, groundbreaking, even. No themes of good versus evil, no light versus the dark, the main character was as compromised as any crime noir protagonist in a classist world with the odds stacked against him. These aspects of fantasy are ubiquitous now, but in 1983, it was absolutely novel. These books opened my eyes at what could be done with fantasy. I daresay it was the first “low” fantasy book.
What do you like to see on fantasy novel cover art? What puts you off?
I love art from great illustrators – folks like Jason Chan, Vincent Chong, Galen Dara, Daniel Dos Santos. Most art generation has moved to digital, but there remain some digital artists that can make you smell the oil paint through the Photoshop document.
Dudes wearing cloaks are a little played out, honestly, and women wearing impractical armour and 80s porn-star hair riding dragons in candy colored skies have never really worked for me. But, like I said earlier, I was raised on 80s fantasy, so back then you’d get a lot of terrible covers.
What classic fantasy themes always get your interest on the cover or in the write up of a new book? Any pet hates?
I like fantasy novels that deal with the lower-classes, or, at least, novels that attempt to have characters from a cross-section of society. I believe that racial stratification, classism, and economic inequality make for fertile story telling and often are a sounding board for our world. I also like when authors think out their economics and economic stressors on secondary worlds and how that affects societies.
I’ve been burned too many times reading “the next [insert best-selling author name here]”. They’re rarely that. Any mention of prophecy turns me off. The best cover art and blurbery is that which gives an intimation of the mood and idea of the book without giving you all the good stuff.
What’s the next big thing you’d like to see in epic fantasy fiction?
I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more cross-genre fantasy. Western-fantasy, crime-fantasy, procedural-fantasy. I think the time of farm-boys destined to become kings because of prophecies and/or magic swords is over (unless in satire). With GRRM and the modern movement toward gritty (I won’t say grimdark) and unflinching stories, we’ll have much more realistic and thought out worlds where people are compromised and broken and fight not against some great evil or darkness sweeping the land, but simply trying to stay alive and keep their families whole in times of turmoil, stress, war. And in ten years, when everything is grey and bleak, someone will come along and write a fluff and light novel about a farmgirl with a prophecy (or magic sword) who goes and fights a great darkness (someone with Mal-, or Mort-, or Vis-, or Dis-, as a suffix or prefix in their name) and it will be hailed as the greatest fantasy book of the decade. Oy vey.
John Hornor Jacobs has worked in advertising for the last fifteen years, played in bands, and pursued art in various forms. He is also, in his copious spare time, a novelist.