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Author Introduction: Juliet E. McKenna
Apr. 13th, 2009 11:36 amOK, so a while ago these books came out in paperback, the first one called The Thief's Gambit by Juliet E. McKenna and I started reading them and they were good. So when the next series started with Southern Fire I decided that I'd buy them in hardcover. I got the first one, but since I only read a series once I have all of it in hand (I buy them as they come out though to support the author), I didn't read it and sat back to patiently wait for the other three books in the series to hit the shelf. That didn't happen immediately, so I waited some more. And more and more and more. I assumed that the author was working hard on them and they just hadn't come out yet.
That was not the case. Apparently, the books had come out but only in the UK. Due to sales or some other decision at the publishing company, they'd decided not to continue the series here. I didn't find out about this until I met Juliet E. McKenna at Boskone this year and I was ticked off to say the least. I like my series books to be in the same format and all that, but I was more disgusted by the fact that the series was just dumped, especially considering the original series had sold well, from all indications.
But, I did get to meet Juliet E. McKenna (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jemck here on LJ) in person. And I bought the UK versions of the books and now have a complete series in the same format . . . and Juliet was kind enough to send me a copy of the first book in her new series, Irons in the Fire, which is indeed being released here in the US. I invited her to do an Author Introduction . . . and here it is! So I'll hand it over to Juliet and let her convince you to try her books, if I haven't done so already:
In the Author's Words:
With Irons in the Fire being my tenth novel, I’ve noticed something new about the way people say, "But I haven’t read your other books." What they’re actually asking is, "Must I read all your other books for this one to make sense?" Which is a fair question.
The answer is no. Irons in the Fire begins a new series, carefully written to be entirely comprehensible to anyone coming fresh to my work. This was something I and the editorial team at Solaris agreed on in the early stages. Once the final draft was written, we checked by finding a Solaris staffer who hadn’t read my other books. Indeed, he’d been banned from them once we signed the contracts. So he could find out if this new book made sense to a newcomer to my fictional world. I’m delighted to say it did. Better yet, he’s been on tenterhooks for the second and third instalments.
So what’s it about? Well, the unfolding of The Lescari Revolution does have roots in my earlier writing. My first series, the Tales of Einarinn, features men and women living on the edges of legality and society, including some mercenaries. They get caught up in the rediscovery of ancient magic and a lost land over the ocean and the consequences on different people, good and bad. That’s good and bad people, as well as good and bad consequences.
Mercenaries must fight to earn their money, so I sketched in the troubled country of Lescar, divided between six dukes who all feel entitled to be High King. They skirmish and plot and every so often, bloody war breaks out. Only nothing is ever resolved, because no one in the neighbouring countries has any real interest in peace in Lescar. Worse, they make more money out of on-going strife. So those who can afford to leave Lescar do, to find themselves second-class citizens elsewhere. Those who can’t leave stay and try to keep their heads down.
Lescar, part of the background. After finishing the Tales, I wrote the Aldabreshin Compass sequence. After writing about ordinary, if uncommon, folk caught up in the affairs of wizards and princes, I was interested in the challenges of absolute power. At points in the Tales, my characters could reasonably have said, "Hey, not my problem, bye!" But a lord with the power of life and death over his subjects? The price of that power is protecting his people when trouble arises.
I’d introduced a realm with such warlords in the Tales. The tropical Aldabreshin archipelago is a complex, brutal realm, hazardous for anyone not understanding how different it is from the mainland. It’s lethal for wizards since magic is banned on pain of death. The Aldabreshi see wizardry is an abomination corrupting the natural order and the complex auguries that govern their lives. So what does a warlord do, a man of genuine good character, when magic wreaks havoc in his islands? Not wielded by anyone he can negotiate with, but chaotic murderous sorcery. How is he to fight this fire with wizardly fire without compromising all that he believes in? But his first duty, above all else, is to fight.
Dev, one character in those Compass books, is Lescari. That heritage makes sense of who he is; rootless, cynical. Lescar’s still part of the background. I found myself thinking about it some more. What happens when those ordinary Lescari decide they’re just not going to take this any more? I got a chance to explore that when I wrote a novella for PS Publishing. Turns and Chances shows how a conspiracy of priests and craftsmen, a stable-boy, a blacksmith, his apprentice and the duke’s mistress, can frustrate their noble masters’ plans, even deciding the outcome of a battle to neither warring dukes’ advantage.
A friend read that novella and observed Lescar was ripe for revolution. I hadn’t seen that, not at all. He was absolutely right though. But how? In Turns and Chances I’d shown how stubbornly this running sore persisted. I thought some more. One thing sustaining this unhappiness was remittances from Lescari exiles. What if those exiles decided the time had come for change? What if they worked with that conspiracy of priests and craftsmen? What if the time was right for other folk, from all levels of Lescari society, to take a stand, for their own differing reasons?
That would truly be a revolution. It also wouldn’t be anything I’d written before. Both the Tales and the Compass series featured enemies from outside. The Lescari are fighting each other, with all the anguish that entails. These Lescari are ordinary folk but they’re invested in their homes, their families, unlike the wanderers of the Tales. But with little or no formal power, they’re worlds away from the mighty Aldabreshin warlords.
How can they possibly succeed? By using their wits, as exemplified by Tathrin and Aremil, scholars in the city of Vanam, both Lescari exiles themselves. By understanding the role of trade and finance in Lescar’s wars, as explained by Gruit, the venerable wine merchant, who fled Lescar in his youth. By joining forces with Reniack the rabble-rouser, who fled just before the dukes’ men hanged him. By enlisting the support of Lady Derenna, one of those Lescari nobles who turn to scholarship rather than risk politics. By contacting that other duke’s treacherous mistress. By finding the soldiers who can turn their plans into action. By discreetly using this world’s other magic, Artifice, which (hopefully) escapes the Archmage’s edict banning wizardly interference in war or politics.
Irons in the Fire sees rebels and exiles hatch their conspiracy to set revolution in motion. Blood in the Water shows what happens once they meet the dukes’ resistance. Banners in the Wind will see what unfolds after that. I’m an author who’s a historian by inclination and education so I’ve seen these three phases unfold time and again; people deciding they need a revolution, undertaking that upheaval, and then facing the challenge of making their new order stick. No part of this is easy and that last step is trickiest of all. As a reader who likes plenty of action and excitement myself, it’s all proving great fun to write!
**************
That was not the case. Apparently, the books had come out but only in the UK. Due to sales or some other decision at the publishing company, they'd decided not to continue the series here. I didn't find out about this until I met Juliet E. McKenna at Boskone this year and I was ticked off to say the least. I like my series books to be in the same format and all that, but I was more disgusted by the fact that the series was just dumped, especially considering the original series had sold well, from all indications.
But, I did get to meet Juliet E. McKenna (
jemck here on LJ) in person. And I bought the UK versions of the books and now have a complete series in the same format . . . and Juliet was kind enough to send me a copy of the first book in her new series, Irons in the Fire, which is indeed being released here in the US. I invited her to do an Author Introduction . . . and here it is! So I'll hand it over to Juliet and let her convince you to try her books, if I haven't done so already:In the Author's Words:
With Irons in the Fire being my tenth novel, I’ve noticed something new about the way people say, "But I haven’t read your other books." What they’re actually asking is, "Must I read all your other books for this one to make sense?" Which is a fair question.
The answer is no. Irons in the Fire begins a new series, carefully written to be entirely comprehensible to anyone coming fresh to my work. This was something I and the editorial team at Solaris agreed on in the early stages. Once the final draft was written, we checked by finding a Solaris staffer who hadn’t read my other books. Indeed, he’d been banned from them once we signed the contracts. So he could find out if this new book made sense to a newcomer to my fictional world. I’m delighted to say it did. Better yet, he’s been on tenterhooks for the second and third instalments.
So what’s it about? Well, the unfolding of The Lescari Revolution does have roots in my earlier writing. My first series, the Tales of Einarinn, features men and women living on the edges of legality and society, including some mercenaries. They get caught up in the rediscovery of ancient magic and a lost land over the ocean and the consequences on different people, good and bad. That’s good and bad people, as well as good and bad consequences.
Mercenaries must fight to earn their money, so I sketched in the troubled country of Lescar, divided between six dukes who all feel entitled to be High King. They skirmish and plot and every so often, bloody war breaks out. Only nothing is ever resolved, because no one in the neighbouring countries has any real interest in peace in Lescar. Worse, they make more money out of on-going strife. So those who can afford to leave Lescar do, to find themselves second-class citizens elsewhere. Those who can’t leave stay and try to keep their heads down.
Lescar, part of the background. After finishing the Tales, I wrote the Aldabreshin Compass sequence. After writing about ordinary, if uncommon, folk caught up in the affairs of wizards and princes, I was interested in the challenges of absolute power. At points in the Tales, my characters could reasonably have said, "Hey, not my problem, bye!" But a lord with the power of life and death over his subjects? The price of that power is protecting his people when trouble arises.
I’d introduced a realm with such warlords in the Tales. The tropical Aldabreshin archipelago is a complex, brutal realm, hazardous for anyone not understanding how different it is from the mainland. It’s lethal for wizards since magic is banned on pain of death. The Aldabreshi see wizardry is an abomination corrupting the natural order and the complex auguries that govern their lives. So what does a warlord do, a man of genuine good character, when magic wreaks havoc in his islands? Not wielded by anyone he can negotiate with, but chaotic murderous sorcery. How is he to fight this fire with wizardly fire without compromising all that he believes in? But his first duty, above all else, is to fight.
Dev, one character in those Compass books, is Lescari. That heritage makes sense of who he is; rootless, cynical. Lescar’s still part of the background. I found myself thinking about it some more. What happens when those ordinary Lescari decide they’re just not going to take this any more? I got a chance to explore that when I wrote a novella for PS Publishing. Turns and Chances shows how a conspiracy of priests and craftsmen, a stable-boy, a blacksmith, his apprentice and the duke’s mistress, can frustrate their noble masters’ plans, even deciding the outcome of a battle to neither warring dukes’ advantage.
A friend read that novella and observed Lescar was ripe for revolution. I hadn’t seen that, not at all. He was absolutely right though. But how? In Turns and Chances I’d shown how stubbornly this running sore persisted. I thought some more. One thing sustaining this unhappiness was remittances from Lescari exiles. What if those exiles decided the time had come for change? What if they worked with that conspiracy of priests and craftsmen? What if the time was right for other folk, from all levels of Lescari society, to take a stand, for their own differing reasons?
That would truly be a revolution. It also wouldn’t be anything I’d written before. Both the Tales and the Compass series featured enemies from outside. The Lescari are fighting each other, with all the anguish that entails. These Lescari are ordinary folk but they’re invested in their homes, their families, unlike the wanderers of the Tales. But with little or no formal power, they’re worlds away from the mighty Aldabreshin warlords.
How can they possibly succeed? By using their wits, as exemplified by Tathrin and Aremil, scholars in the city of Vanam, both Lescari exiles themselves. By understanding the role of trade and finance in Lescar’s wars, as explained by Gruit, the venerable wine merchant, who fled Lescar in his youth. By joining forces with Reniack the rabble-rouser, who fled just before the dukes’ men hanged him. By enlisting the support of Lady Derenna, one of those Lescari nobles who turn to scholarship rather than risk politics. By contacting that other duke’s treacherous mistress. By finding the soldiers who can turn their plans into action. By discreetly using this world’s other magic, Artifice, which (hopefully) escapes the Archmage’s edict banning wizardly interference in war or politics.
Irons in the Fire sees rebels and exiles hatch their conspiracy to set revolution in motion. Blood in the Water shows what happens once they meet the dukes’ resistance. Banners in the Wind will see what unfolds after that. I’m an author who’s a historian by inclination and education so I’ve seen these three phases unfold time and again; people deciding they need a revolution, undertaking that upheaval, and then facing the challenge of making their new order stick. No part of this is easy and that last step is trickiest of all. As a reader who likes plenty of action and excitement myself, it’s all proving great fun to write!
**************
