WEBVTT

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Conversations podcast. I'm your host Becky Hill,

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otherwise known as Soul Chaser Becky and I am

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a proud Viking geek. I fell in love with the

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history, culture and mythology of the Viking

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Age and I have been on an endless quest for more

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ever since. Join me as I discuss all things North

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with those who have been inspired by Viking Age

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history and North mythology in their creative

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works or those who have studied the sagas and

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archaeology and review. how such subjects are

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being presented to modern audiences today. If

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you like Viking stuff you are welcome in my Valhalla

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and I hope you stay for the conversation. Welcome

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everyone to Valhalla Conversations podcast. In

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this episode, the penultimate one before the

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Christmas break, I am delighted to say I have

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three kings, as I described them, of historical

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fiction in my humble meat hall of the gods. We

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have Justin Hill, Theodore Brunn, and Giles Christian,

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three authors that I have read all their books

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of. particularly in the Viking Age historical

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fiction era, because they do all write different

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books, of course. And I'm delighted to have them

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all here to talk about Vikings, their books,

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and how they all got into it. And welcome, guys.

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Hello. Right. For our audience who may or not

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have heard of you guys before, and hopefully

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they will do after this session, please introduce

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yourself and your books. And we will start off

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with Justin first. Oh, lucky me. Good morning,

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welcome, everyone. And yeah, I'm Justin Hill.

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I have been writing about 30 years now. And about

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halfway through that, I have been writing about

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Vikings or a series of books about the Battle

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of Hastings, Shield Wall and Viking Fire, which

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are still waiting for the third of the three.

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and I also write as Justin Dehill for the Black

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Library for Games Workshop and that's taken up

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a lot of my time recently, so my Hastings project

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is the next one to go. Very good, well welcome

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to Valhalla Justin, it's great to have you here.

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Theodore, could you please introduce yourself?

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I'm Theodore Bruun, but you can call me Theo,

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everyone else does, and I'm actually half Danish,

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I think a bit like Giles, I've got some some

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Viking blood in there, although weirdly that

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was not the connection into the Viking world.

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I studied archaeology at uni and I knew all the

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material culture of Scandinavian archaeology

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and I found it dry as dust. So it wasn't until

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quite a few years later that I actually started

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breeding. I actually know it was Wagner of all

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things when I was at law school because I was

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a lawyer before I became an author. And it was

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Wagner and the ring cycle that specifically got

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me into all the stories and the mythological

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poetry. There was more to do with the Scandinavian

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world rather than the Vikings. But anyway, long

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story short, the end product of this was a series

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of novels called The Wanderer Chronicles. A bit

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like Justin, I've got one to go, four out of

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five written. wondering when and how the fifth

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one might come. But yes, and I do write in a

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few other guises. I do some ghost writing. I

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write articles and little novellas. And even

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now, I've got a contemporary murder mystery on

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the go. So one day, I want to come back to finish

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this great cycle that I embarked on. And we'll

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see if that ever comes about. But Giles, over

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to you. Yeah, I'm Giles Christian. I've written,

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I think it's 13, no, 13 novels, 12 of them historical

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and one contemporary thriller. And I'm now writing

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a video game. um I've probably met Becky back

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when I first when it was Raven Bloodeye with

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my first novel it was it was at Kelmarsh at the

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Festival of History that's when I met you and

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I think that was published in 2009 so we're going

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back a bit and I think I started writing in 2004

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got the publishing deal in 2007 when I was living

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in New York and it was published in 2009 so it

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was a long road to actually get that uh that

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that first book published. And I don't know if

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you guys were the same, but I was so hungry to

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get published. It was all I could think about.

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It was just everything to me, going into bookshops

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and trying to imagine what it would be like,

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what it would feel like to see my own book on

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the shelf in a bookshop. And yeah, eventually

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it happened. And I've sort of been doing that

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and other things ever since. Well, I'm so pleased

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to have finally got you all, all three of you,

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into my haul. You've been on my hit list for

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a long time on my Get My hit list, my guest list

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I should say, not my hit list. My guest list,

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I mean it took me a long time surprisingly to

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get round to touching on Vikings in historical

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fiction because that is how I got into Vikings.

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Although it came as a strange duology for me

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because I don't know if I can remember when there

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used to be a channel called the Yesterday Channel,

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although it was also known as Dave for a period

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of time. and way back in 2000 they had a rerun

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of the Blood of the Vikings series with Julian

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Richards presenting and in between every episode

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they were advertising Bernard Cornwall's The

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Last Kingdom book. I thought oh I'll write that

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down see what that book's all about and then

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I was hooked ever since because as much as I

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love the documentary the book was just so immersive

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and it had me hooked ever since both in the history

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and the mythology of the Vikings because they

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both go so well together in historical fiction.

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So I guess we'll start off with Justin. How did

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you first kind of get an interest in biking history

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and that kind of side? Well when I had hair it

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was almost peroxide blonde and so I was growing

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up in York in the 1980s. Well there's two reasons

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really. One is kind of blonde growing up in York

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during the copper gate digs and the copper gate

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digs were still kind of muddy you know they were

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digging when I was at primary school. We could

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go there and Our primary school did a tour then.

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They had so many oyster shells they dug up for

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two P. You could buy a Viking oyster shell. They

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had a huge kind of wooden crate of oyster shells.

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So that was kind of the world I was growing up

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in. But the much more kind of personal reason

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was I was never really a reader. I think it might

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have been dyslexic, but it was never, you know,

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people didn't really bother about it then. And

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I liked you get kind of electric sets with a

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battery and a bulb and some wires and you could

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make lights light up. And my parents were both

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teachers and they were despairing that their

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son didn't read. And then the guy next to me

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at school was reading The Hobbit. And he had

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to kind of report back to the class and I thought,

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oh, that sounds really interesting. So I read

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The Hobbit and loved it. And then I read Lord

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of the Rings. And in a sense, Well, I remember

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kind of finishing Lord of the Rings and and you

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know in a sense I was spellbound, you know and

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spell in the kind of the old English sense which

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is you know story so you almost like you're you're

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kind of you're enchanted by a story and I remember

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closing Lord of the Rings and just thinking wow,

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you know almost a sense of loss in that Fictional

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kind of you know or a spell had been broken and

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I thought when I grow up, I want to be a writer

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because that has been so powerful. You know,

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a world I know doesn't exist. You know, fiction

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has felt so real to me. So that was kind of,

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you know, that was me at 10 years old wanting

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to grow up and be a writer. And the stuff that

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really kind of impacted with me was all the dark

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age, poetry and everything that was kind of very

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red, Linton, Lord of the Rings, really kind of,

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you know. I don't know. It struck a chord in

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my soul. I remember one day coming back from

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rugby in New York, and it was kind of a really

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overcast day. The clouds were racing overhead.

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And I kind of thought, this feels like something

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out of Ragnarok. And that sense stayed with me

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to this day. So I don't know how to describe

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it. It's kind of a soul link to the Viking world

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and all the way they describe their world. and

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the poetry and the sagas, all that stuff. That

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is wonderful and I kind of like resonate and

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relate to that a lot because that's how I felt

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when I got so immersed in Bernard Cornwall's

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fiction because the characters are so vividly

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alive, the way they talk about the world and

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the weather and of course the gods and their

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connection to the mythology and how they perceive

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the world going. That just kind of like just

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made me want to know more because I wanted to

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know more. I wanted to see the world like they

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did. and that's how I ended up here. Yeah, of

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course, you're a Yorkshire lad as well. I am

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born in York, so I like to think there's a bit

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of my soul that's connected somewhere. Yeah,

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so there's something in the air. All the places

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around here are Viking names. All the streets

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are Viking names. So you grow up in a sense,

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it's subliminal. You're taking in your morning

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breakfast. Oh, thank you. How about you, Theo?

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It's very interesting listening to Justin talk,

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because I was thinking, oh, my way in was a bit

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different. But actually, there's a word that

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C .S. Lewis came up with in one of his books,

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which is northernness. And when Justin describes

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that journey back from rugby, and he sort of

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sees the scudding dark skies, and it's like something

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that sort of cracks into a bolt of lightning

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into the soul. And for me, that really, I mean,

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I mentioned Wagner in the introduction, but it's

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not him so much, but the music and the music

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that I was kind of totally, my brain was saturated

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and while I was studying for these exams was

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evoking that same feeling of like the Northernness.

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And it kind of drew me in and caused me to, I

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mean, my whole life was sort of going on. on

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one side and then on the other, this total awakening

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of my imagination, which involved digging further

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into these old sort of archaic texts and just

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learning more about that world and realizing

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actually I had quite a lot of grounding in this

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world from my degree. And that sort of carried

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on, but it was still a few years before another

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kind of moment where I was in a lecture about

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a very sort of obscure dark age saint called

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Saint Boniface. And it was describing him chopping

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down the sacred oak of Thor, obviously, propagating

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the Christian religion in some dark Germanic

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forest. And that was, I was, I had no designs

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to be a writer. I'd written myself off completely

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as having a creative bone in my body. But this

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sort of sparked this vision almost in my head

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of like this dark Germanic forest, torches everywhere

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and this kind of crazy -eyed a monk hacking at

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a big oak and everyone just bribing up in arms

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about it. And that stayed with me. And that was

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actually the sort of seed that fell into this

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kind of seed bed, if you like, of my imagination.

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And as I more dug around both his life and some

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of the history that was going on, you know, you've

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got invasions of the Muslims from Spain. You've

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got the kind of fault line between paganism and

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Christianity and da -da -da. Then my own background

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came into play, which was this familiarity with

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Denmark. And I thought, who's a neutral character

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to explore this whole world? I've heard you talk

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about this, Justin, actually, this time travel

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element of being a historical writer. And someone

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who's very keen and interested in history, and

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to a lesser extent, archaeology. What frustrated

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me always about archaeology was the distance

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between you know picking up a I don't know a

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comb from a Viking period or looking at a schematic

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on a the page of a book of like this is what

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a Viking hall would have stood and I'm like I

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want to be there I want to be in that place not

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only just looking at it but experiencing something

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that's where the whole aspect of story comes

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in and actually Justin's got a great I think

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it's your afterword is it in Viking fire you

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talk about something like Stars in a night sky

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and the the history of the star. How did you

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put it? But anyway, it was sort of like filling

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in this this scene where we know we can see pinpricks

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of what happened, but like you want to fill in

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the whole the rest of the picture. And I think

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you know what I think is what was it making constellations

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or turn those stars into pictures and then making

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them come alive. Yes. Yeah, well, exactly. And

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that in itself is a sort of moment of northernness

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right there. So then you have, you know, the

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kind of rolling gray Atlantic seas and, you know,

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these dark pine forests and the snows coming

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in and the warm fires in these cozy halls. And,

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you know, to be honest, by Danish... background

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and the whole notion of Hooghly which is like

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the sort of coziness of that culture in the opposition

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to like the bleak and the I suppose the cold

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and the danger out there in the wilds up in that

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part of the world all just kind of fed in to

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eventually crystallizing into the story of you

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know one hero which is who's the protagonist

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of my my particular series and novels but that's

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kind of my way in. And as that idea grew and

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grew and grew, I suppose my desire to actually

00:14:31.179 --> 00:14:33.019
have an attempt at writing, you know, again,

00:14:33.299 --> 00:14:36.399
you guys have been writing, well, Giles was sort

00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:38.639
of very creative in a kind of performative way,

00:14:38.820 --> 00:14:42.179
singing poetry and all that lyrics. Justin's

00:14:42.179 --> 00:14:44.779
been writing forever. For me, this was a completely

00:14:44.779 --> 00:14:49.240
new thing, age 33. It's like, what hubris do

00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:51.840
you think you can start trying to write? a novel,

00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:56.019
but four big fat novels later, I'm like, oh,

00:14:56.179 --> 00:15:02.220
did I do that? And just to finish, that is, I

00:15:02.220 --> 00:15:04.659
think, the beauty of the imagination is the more

00:15:04.659 --> 00:15:07.659
you demand of it, and I mean anyone, the more

00:15:07.659 --> 00:15:10.960
you demand of it, the more it gives you. But

00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.379
a lot of us just kind of lie dormant, I guess,

00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:15.639
like a seed that hasn't come to life yet, just

00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:18.840
like. I'm not creative. So anyone listening,

00:15:19.039 --> 00:15:21.440
I would say, I challenge that and say, just find

00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:28.659
what it is and feed into it. I actually agree

00:15:28.659 --> 00:15:30.980
with that last comment. Absolutely. Certainly

00:15:30.980 --> 00:15:33.120
my own personal creativity, because I used to

00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.240
be a creative writer. Hell, it was part of my

00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:38.820
degree when I did my degree. But then I didn't

00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:40.580
have anyone setting me deadlines. And then I

00:15:40.580 --> 00:15:42.440
just procrastinated. So I'll do it tomorrow.

00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:44.860
I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. And

00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:46.929
then I went. I've always been a reader. That's

00:15:46.929 --> 00:15:48.909
always been a lifelong creative passion of mine.

00:15:49.250 --> 00:15:50.870
But then I went into cosplay and now I'm doing

00:15:50.870 --> 00:15:54.009
podcasting. But at some point I've always tried

00:15:54.009 --> 00:15:55.809
to get Vikings in there. So it's all good. You

00:15:55.809 --> 00:15:59.309
never know where life will lead you. No, you

00:15:59.309 --> 00:16:01.549
never do. You never do. And it's always nice

00:16:01.549 --> 00:16:03.970
to take a look on that door of opportunity if

00:16:03.970 --> 00:16:06.429
it ever emerges out of the ether of life and

00:16:06.429 --> 00:16:09.860
the universe. So lastly, Giles, how about you?

00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.740
When did you first get interest in Vikings? Well,

00:16:12.740 --> 00:16:14.940
firstly, I love hearing the other guy's stories.

00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:18.200
I think it's fascinating to see how we ended

00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.779
up where we have ended up. It's brilliant. And

00:16:20.779 --> 00:16:23.539
Justin, I had no idea that you didn't really

00:16:23.539 --> 00:16:25.820
read as a child. I've never really come across

00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:28.059
that before from other authors, because I didn't

00:16:28.059 --> 00:16:31.899
read as a child either. I couldn't concentrate.

00:16:32.059 --> 00:16:35.120
I just really couldn't. I was told at school

00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:37.600
that I would I was actually kept down a year

00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:39.559
because I was always wandering around the class

00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:43.399
disturbing the other children. I could never

00:16:43.399 --> 00:16:45.240
concentrate on reading a book. That was the last

00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:47.059
thing that I would be able to do as a child.

00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:49.879
So I didn't read until, I think the first book

00:16:49.879 --> 00:16:52.259
I read was when I was a teenager when I was,

00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:54.879
I think I was about 14 and I was off school with

00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:57.409
glandular fever. I assume it's about 14 because

00:16:57.409 --> 00:16:58.850
that was probably about the first time I would

00:16:58.850 --> 00:17:01.549
have been kissing girls or something. I think

00:17:01.549 --> 00:17:07.029
I could actually name the girl, which I'm not

00:17:07.029 --> 00:17:11.210
going to do. And I was off school for weeks and

00:17:11.210 --> 00:17:13.630
weeks. And as much as I love being off school

00:17:13.630 --> 00:17:16.309
as a kid, because it wasn't my favorite place

00:17:16.309 --> 00:17:19.309
to be, at some point I got terribly bored and

00:17:19.309 --> 00:17:22.269
my mum bought me a fantasy novel that she just

00:17:22.269 --> 00:17:24.130
picked up somewhere. Now my family weren't readers

00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:26.250
either, my dad read the sports pages and the

00:17:26.250 --> 00:17:31.390
business pages. My brother the same and we weren't

00:17:31.390 --> 00:17:35.450
readers as a family and my mum bought me this

00:17:35.450 --> 00:17:38.670
book called, what was it called, it was R .A.

00:17:38.789 --> 00:17:41.450
Salvatore and it was called The Crystal Shard.

00:17:42.129 --> 00:17:44.190
There's a fantasy novel and it had on the front,

00:17:44.250 --> 00:17:47.769
it was the archetypal. It had a barbarian dwarf

00:17:47.769 --> 00:17:50.410
and probably a wizard or something like that.

00:17:50.430 --> 00:17:53.269
And I thought, what's this? And I started reading

00:17:53.269 --> 00:17:55.849
it and that was the first time that sort of reading

00:17:55.849 --> 00:17:58.890
a book ever. And it just blew my mind. I was

00:17:58.890 --> 00:18:01.950
just absolutely captivated by that. So that started

00:18:01.950 --> 00:18:05.789
a bit of a reading thing. I still find it difficult,

00:18:05.789 --> 00:18:08.650
but that's where it started. And that combined

00:18:08.650 --> 00:18:12.400
with as a sort of young, As a student, the poetry

00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:16.940
of Seamus Heaney really resonated. I was just

00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.299
captivated by his use of language and how he

00:18:19.299 --> 00:18:23.339
could make you feel things just in very simplistic

00:18:23.339 --> 00:18:25.960
language on the page, a poem about picking blackberries

00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:32.220
or whatever it was. That nature poetry really

00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:35.220
struck a chord with me. And that was really when

00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:36.700
I thought, you know what, I wonder if I could

00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:38.019
be a writer when I grow up, because I didn't

00:18:38.019 --> 00:18:39.680
know what else I was going to do. I knew I wasn't

00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.500
going to be the sort of a businessman like my

00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:45.859
family, the family sort of path. So I knew I'd

00:18:45.859 --> 00:18:47.400
have to come up with something else, that's for

00:18:47.400 --> 00:18:52.960
sure. So I went to uni and started a degree in

00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:54.940
creative writing and literature. So I thought

00:18:54.940 --> 00:18:57.240
that'd be a great thing to combine the literature,

00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:00.980
but also get to create stuff as well. That seemed

00:19:00.980 --> 00:19:03.519
like a perfect sort of path for me. Although

00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:07.019
at the time I got to uni and I, again, was just

00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:09.380
too academic for me. I just couldn't, I couldn't,

00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:10.880
I didn't know what everyone was talking about

00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:13.099
half the time. I really struggled with that.

00:19:13.140 --> 00:19:15.920
And then I had an opportunity to join a pop group

00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.779
and I took it. And that's what happened with

00:19:17.779 --> 00:19:19.900
that. So I wasn't at university for very long.

00:19:19.980 --> 00:19:22.200
I was the first member of the family to, first

00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:23.940
member of the family to ever get to uni, which

00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:26.000
was like, wow, that's amazing. And then I was

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:27.619
the first member of the family to ever drop out

00:19:27.619 --> 00:19:31.779
of uni. Surely the first member in a pop group

00:19:31.779 --> 00:19:35.599
as well. Yes, that's true. My dad was a rock

00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:37.819
and roll singer, he had a rock and roll revival

00:19:37.819 --> 00:19:41.140
band. He was the lead singer in the rock and

00:19:41.140 --> 00:19:44.619
roll revival band. So I'd kind of grown up around

00:19:44.619 --> 00:19:47.559
performing and music as well. But yeah, so I

00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:51.009
dropped out of uni and did my other thing, my

00:19:51.009 --> 00:19:53.650
other career, which isn't entirely relevant here.

00:19:53.750 --> 00:19:57.269
And then at some point when that started to come

00:19:57.269 --> 00:20:01.930
to an end, I wanted an antidote to the world

00:20:01.930 --> 00:20:04.849
of music and the pop industry and the music industry

00:20:04.849 --> 00:20:06.809
in general, which wasn't a very nice place to

00:20:06.809 --> 00:20:10.390
be. And I'd been pushed around in different directions

00:20:10.390 --> 00:20:13.089
and really wasn't very happy. And then I thought,

00:20:13.109 --> 00:20:15.609
why don't I just start writing? Because that's

00:20:15.609 --> 00:20:17.509
kind of what I've always wanted to do, really.

00:20:17.789 --> 00:20:21.509
And so I started writing a book. Well, I actually

00:20:21.509 --> 00:20:26.230
went to do a diploma in the Crusades and in Viking

00:20:26.230 --> 00:20:30.930
history and stuff in London. A couple of things

00:20:30.930 --> 00:20:33.990
to just to do some research, basically. And I

00:20:33.990 --> 00:20:37.029
wrote a novel set during the first crusade, the

00:20:37.029 --> 00:20:39.549
very first crusade, which I found very interesting.

00:20:40.009 --> 00:20:42.029
And it ended up being one hundred and sixty thousand

00:20:42.029 --> 00:20:43.690
words long. And I didn't know what to do with

00:20:43.690 --> 00:20:46.049
it. Sent it to a few agents. Didn't get anywhere

00:20:46.049 --> 00:20:49.420
with it. And that was that, and I'd spent all

00:20:49.420 --> 00:20:51.960
this time writing this thing that was just not,

00:20:52.380 --> 00:20:56.359
it was gonna go nowhere. And I went on my brother's

00:20:56.359 --> 00:20:59.640
stag weekend to Oslo, and one of the, I organized

00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:01.119
it, and I thought, why don't we, because we're

00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.259
obviously gonna be drinking and being stupid

00:21:03.259 --> 00:21:05.460
and doing what we're supposed to do on a stag

00:21:05.460 --> 00:21:07.259
weekend. So I thought, why don't we do something

00:21:07.259 --> 00:21:10.140
cultural, go to the Viking Ship Museum just outside

00:21:10.140 --> 00:21:12.799
Oslo, and that will give us a break from the

00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:16.069
pubs. So we went to the Viking Ship Museum. And

00:21:16.069 --> 00:21:18.630
we're looking at the Gogstad and the Usherberg

00:21:18.630 --> 00:21:22.230
ship. And it's behind a rope. But you reach over

00:21:22.230 --> 00:21:24.490
and touch it. Because as Theodore was saying,

00:21:25.390 --> 00:21:28.710
that connection with history, to be able to just

00:21:28.710 --> 00:21:31.289
sort of, you're probably the same as me. One

00:21:31.289 --> 00:21:33.150
of the most frustrating things in my life is

00:21:33.150 --> 00:21:36.170
that I can't go back. And it's like a physical

00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:38.930
pain, an ache in your chest, the fact that you'll

00:21:38.930 --> 00:21:42.230
never really go back. So to touch things is kind

00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:46.660
of the closest. And I looked at this ship and

00:21:46.660 --> 00:21:50.019
I thought, imagine us lot, these guys on this

00:21:50.019 --> 00:21:52.839
stag did, imagine us all at the row benches on

00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:54.500
the ship. Because that's kind of what they were

00:21:54.500 --> 00:21:57.839
doing, is what we were doing. And I sort of put

00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:00.839
each of us on the ship. And as soon as I got

00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:04.339
back, I started writing a novel about a bunch

00:22:04.339 --> 00:22:06.500
of guys going on a raid, basically. And that

00:22:06.500 --> 00:22:11.769
turned into Raven Blood Eye. So, yeah, we come

00:22:11.769 --> 00:22:14.109
to it by, well, being half Norwegian as well,

00:22:14.190 --> 00:22:17.150
that played a part because I'd grown up in and

00:22:17.150 --> 00:22:20.089
around the fjords of Norway and always, again,

00:22:20.230 --> 00:22:22.309
just imagining, looking around the landscape

00:22:22.309 --> 00:22:25.009
out on a fjord, on a boat, looking at the landscape,

00:22:25.210 --> 00:22:28.109
seeing the little cottages on the hills and just

00:22:28.109 --> 00:22:30.049
thinking it's very easy to take those away with

00:22:30.049 --> 00:22:31.650
your mind. And then you're just left with the

00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:34.250
same landscape that the Vikings would have been

00:22:34.250 --> 00:22:37.410
looking at all those years ago. So it made it

00:22:37.410 --> 00:22:41.619
quite easy to imagine. and someone with an overactive

00:22:41.619 --> 00:22:45.519
imagination like these other guys, it's a powerful

00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:48.579
brew, put it that way. Yeah, I love that you

00:22:48.579 --> 00:22:50.200
mentioned Heaney because I was lucky enough to

00:22:50.200 --> 00:22:54.140
have an English teacher who was a climber and

00:22:54.140 --> 00:22:56.299
wrote poetry, but one of the things he was very

00:22:56.299 --> 00:22:58.539
keen on, Heaney, and I always thought of Heaney

00:22:58.539 --> 00:23:01.779
as a very Anglo -Saxon, very English poet, or

00:23:01.779 --> 00:23:05.259
the language he was using. And you're so right,

00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:08.450
he's so kind of grounded. I remember digging.

00:23:09.329 --> 00:23:14.809
That was the one. It just spoke to me in a way

00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:16.390
that I look at my kids, the stuff they're reading

00:23:16.390 --> 00:23:18.710
now, and I kind of think, oh, this doesn't speak

00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:20.890
to me at all. It's a different world almost.

00:23:21.390 --> 00:23:23.569
So Heaney, I always think it's hugely kind of

00:23:23.569 --> 00:23:25.930
Anglo -Saxon in his language, even though the

00:23:25.930 --> 00:23:28.009
world he's talking about is Northern Ireland.

00:23:51.609 --> 00:24:02.799
that's brilliant But I think that image works

00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:06.380
in a lot of wealth for many many things But I

00:24:06.380 --> 00:24:09.799
was talking about it just into a bunch of other

00:24:09.799 --> 00:24:12.500
sort of creatives not necessarily writers But

00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:15.539
in the same same way of like when you dig We

00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:17.339
was all meant digging for diamonds like there

00:24:17.339 --> 00:24:20.539
are diamonds down there But there's an awful

00:24:20.539 --> 00:24:23.589
lot of kind of crud that you have to clear away.

00:24:23.789 --> 00:24:25.750
I mean it was to do to do with procrastination

00:24:25.750 --> 00:24:28.470
as well and just like having the courage to you

00:24:28.470 --> 00:24:31.509
know digging back to push that metaphor like

00:24:31.509 --> 00:24:35.269
you have to go down underground in the dark you

00:24:35.269 --> 00:24:38.289
have to you know turn up at the face of wherever

00:24:38.289 --> 00:24:41.109
you're doing this thing and just keep turning

00:24:41.109 --> 00:24:43.490
out and eventually but just I suppose there's

00:24:43.490 --> 00:24:45.289
that faith isn't there that there's a diamond

00:24:45.289 --> 00:24:47.809
in there somewhere and occasionally you come

00:24:47.809 --> 00:24:50.960
across one. And then you look at the pile of

00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.900
crud at your feet and you think, well, it had

00:24:53.900 --> 00:24:56.940
to be worth it, even though that's all of no

00:24:56.940 --> 00:24:58.960
value. But I got to the thing. And the only way

00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:01.500
I got to it was by creating a lot of kind of

00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:04.299
stuff that wasn't necessarily a value. I mean,

00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.240
this helps someone who massively overwrites books

00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.700
justify all the words that eventually get deleted.

00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.900
But I find and I think the original. thought

00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:17.940
was put in my head by you, Giles, because don't

00:25:17.940 --> 00:25:20.279
you talk about that in one of your, maybe on

00:25:20.279 --> 00:25:23.259
your website or something, like some background

00:25:23.259 --> 00:25:28.420
article that you've written describing your journey

00:25:28.420 --> 00:25:31.900
into writing. So, obviously, that was a helpful

00:25:31.900 --> 00:25:34.000
image for me. I haven't actually read that poem.

00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:37.640
I'll go away and read it. Well, I think what's

00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:40.420
encouraging for people out there who might be

00:25:40.420 --> 00:25:42.920
thinking about writing or want to write is that

00:25:42.940 --> 00:25:45.339
there's there is no way there's no set way to

00:25:45.339 --> 00:25:47.359
do this there's no set way to get into this you

00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:49.539
don't have to have a degree you don't have to

00:25:49.539 --> 00:25:51.299
be educated you don't have to have gone on a

00:25:51.299 --> 00:25:54.559
writing course you just have to write and if

00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.559
you've got ability you know you can do it and

00:25:57.559 --> 00:25:59.240
i think that's the wonderful thing about writing

00:25:59.240 --> 00:26:02.680
with with other jobs you have to be facilitated

00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:05.440
to do the job in in many of them but with us

00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:08.519
we can just no one can stop us just writing That's

00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:10.700
kind of completely up to us. It's in our own

00:26:10.700 --> 00:26:12.859
hands. Yeah, we can create whenever we want to.

00:26:13.180 --> 00:26:16.039
If we've got the time, we can make the time.

00:26:16.380 --> 00:26:20.380
We can do what we do, which is a lucky position

00:26:20.380 --> 00:26:24.980
to be in. Well, thank you for sharing those wonderful,

00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:27.140
insightful stories and backgrounds, guys. That

00:26:27.140 --> 00:26:30.230
was really, really interesting. Oh I always find

00:26:30.230 --> 00:26:32.430
it especially interesting kind of like when literature

00:26:32.430 --> 00:26:34.710
whether it's novels, fantasy or of course indeed

00:26:34.710 --> 00:26:36.690
poetry in the case or a couple of your kind of

00:26:36.690 --> 00:26:38.789
life influenced you not just as readers but of

00:26:38.789 --> 00:26:41.230
course as writers and of course followed you

00:26:41.230 --> 00:26:43.410
through to your connection to your interest in

00:26:43.410 --> 00:26:45.869
the Viking age and history in that whole section

00:26:45.869 --> 00:26:48.730
because of course the Viking age is a huge huge

00:26:48.730 --> 00:26:50.809
section of history there's a lot to it involved

00:26:50.809 --> 00:26:52.849
not just kind of like around England of course

00:26:52.849 --> 00:26:55.420
France and the Mediterranean and then Istanbul

00:26:55.420 --> 00:26:57.240
and Constantinople there's so much so I guess

00:26:57.240 --> 00:26:59.180
my next question is kind of like how did you

00:26:59.180 --> 00:27:03.859
decide which era which section of a huge spectrum

00:27:03.859 --> 00:27:05.859
of Viking Age history did you decide to place

00:27:05.859 --> 00:27:11.180
your characters and find your story in? We'll

00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:12.819
go the other way around we'll start with Giles.

00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:17.420
I think probably mine's a bit of a cliche I started

00:27:17.420 --> 00:27:19.519
sort of at the beginning of the Viking Age that

00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.960
seemed to me the obviously the raid on Lindisfarne

00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:27.490
is an iconic an iconic thing for all of us too,

00:27:27.609 --> 00:27:29.890
and it really fires the imagination. I remember

00:27:29.890 --> 00:27:32.470
at school seeing the, there was always a textbook

00:27:32.470 --> 00:27:36.029
with an image of a couple of monks being chased

00:27:36.029 --> 00:27:38.410
or dragged towards the sea by Viking raiders.

00:27:39.069 --> 00:27:41.190
And again, it was, even if it was the cover of

00:27:41.190 --> 00:27:42.910
a Lady Bird book or a history book at school,

00:27:43.049 --> 00:27:46.250
it was the images that I was into. I could never

00:27:46.250 --> 00:27:48.490
really read the books, but just one image could

00:27:48.490 --> 00:27:51.430
captivate me for hours. It's a little bit like.

00:27:51.549 --> 00:27:53.869
If I go anywhere near the British Museum, I have

00:27:53.869 --> 00:27:55.970
to go and stare at the Sutton Hoo treasure just

00:27:55.970 --> 00:27:58.509
for as long as I can physically stand there looking

00:27:58.509 --> 00:28:00.450
at it before somebody thinks, what's that guy

00:28:00.450 --> 00:28:06.910
doing? Because it's just an image or an object

00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:09.789
can just completely captivate me. So yeah, the

00:28:09.789 --> 00:28:14.269
idea of Vikings, the iconic image of them jumping

00:28:14.269 --> 00:28:17.750
off the Pravalong ship into the foaming surf

00:28:17.750 --> 00:28:23.319
to grab some loot. I just thought, what could

00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:29.200
be better than that, to be honest? So yeah, so

00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.880
I started at the beginning of the Viking Age

00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:33.880
with Raven, just a little bit after the Lindisfarne

00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:37.539
raid. And they've always been intrigued by the

00:28:37.539 --> 00:28:39.799
way you start yours, especially Giles, because

00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:41.779
you start from the point of view, of course.

00:28:43.019 --> 00:28:45.220
of the Anglo -Saxons living at the time, but

00:28:45.220 --> 00:28:47.960
a particular character who wasn't quite a pure

00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:50.200
Anglo -Saxon, if I could use the word pure, in

00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:52.400
that he's got a bit of a mysterious background,

00:28:52.660 --> 00:28:56.119
he's a bit of a stranger, a bit of an odd character,

00:28:56.140 --> 00:28:58.099
and it's through him that there's this connection

00:28:58.099 --> 00:29:00.319
between him and the Vikings. So he's kind of

00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:03.579
like an outsider for both the reader and the

00:29:03.579 --> 00:29:05.740
Vikings, and it's that... gives us a conduit

00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:07.859
into meeting the cast of characters that you

00:29:07.859 --> 00:29:09.940
have in your adventures. Yeah, I think that was

00:29:09.940 --> 00:29:12.099
probably being half Norwegian and being sort

00:29:12.099 --> 00:29:14.640
of born in England, but having a Norwegian mother

00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:17.619
and spending a lot of time in Norway. I've always

00:29:17.619 --> 00:29:20.180
felt like that half blood, if you know what I

00:29:20.180 --> 00:29:22.359
mean. So things like the back of Stanford Bridge

00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:27.259
are difficult for me. They're difficult. Yeah,

00:29:27.259 --> 00:29:30.740
that's problematic. But yeah, so I suppose that's

00:29:30.740 --> 00:29:33.599
why I started with Raven Bloodeye himself being

00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.940
kind of not straddling two worlds, really, because

00:29:36.940 --> 00:29:39.859
I suppose that's how I've always felt. But he's

00:29:39.859 --> 00:29:43.440
also a bit of an outcast. And at the time, I've

00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:47.220
always been a bit of an outcast, I suppose. But

00:29:47.220 --> 00:29:50.779
at that time of my life, I'd come out of an industry

00:29:50.779 --> 00:29:56.079
and I was trying to do something new. And that's

00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:57.859
what he's that's what Raven's doing. He's falling

00:29:57.859 --> 00:30:00.079
in with a new crowd and trying to make his way

00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:03.359
in a new world. And I look at all my novels,

00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:06.460
really, and they, to an extent, they've all followed

00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:11.859
sort of periods of my life, and what's been going

00:30:11.859 --> 00:30:14.599
on with me on a personal level at the time, which

00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:17.059
is a psychiatrist's dream, I think, if you got

00:30:17.059 --> 00:30:18.819
me on the couch and actually started going through

00:30:18.819 --> 00:30:21.259
my novels and asking questions, it would open

00:30:21.259 --> 00:30:25.640
some dark doors, potentially. That's probably

00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:28.980
why you write them, isn't it? It's just glorified

00:30:28.980 --> 00:30:32.119
therapy. Well, writing is hard, isn't it? I mean,

00:30:32.339 --> 00:30:35.900
I find writing probably excruciating, and that's

00:30:35.900 --> 00:30:37.880
probably because I would have been diagnosed

00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:43.440
with ADHD and other things that sort of run in

00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:46.779
the family, let's say. So I find it extremely

00:30:46.779 --> 00:30:49.359
difficult to actually concentrate for long enough

00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:53.039
periods to actually write a novel, which is one

00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:55.240
of the reasons. I don't want to digress but one

00:30:55.240 --> 00:30:56.839
of the reasons I love the thriller is because

00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:00.400
a thriller is sort of 80 80 000 to 100 000 words

00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:03.259
or you know and that for some of us that's like

00:31:03.259 --> 00:31:07.220
half and that's half a novel and people people

00:31:07.220 --> 00:31:09.859
talk about when I see other people going oh I've

00:31:09.859 --> 00:31:12.240
just written um you know I've written 35 000

00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:14.880
words halfway through my new novel I think what

00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:17.259
halfway through that that's not even you've not

00:31:17.259 --> 00:31:20.660
even scratched the surface yet basically you're

00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:25.819
thinking Ah, I'm desperately jealous. I'd love

00:31:25.819 --> 00:31:28.759
to be halfway through a novel with 30 ,000, especially

00:31:28.759 --> 00:31:32.339
the first 35 ,000 words I wrote down. Yeah, exactly,

00:31:32.339 --> 00:31:36.500
yeah. But some genre writers don't realize how

00:31:36.500 --> 00:31:39.339
lucky they are when they can sort of just whack

00:31:39.339 --> 00:31:46.299
out a thriller at 80 ,000 words, job done. How

00:31:46.299 --> 00:31:50.119
about you, Theo, then? Well, I mentioned that.

00:31:50.250 --> 00:31:55.430
that monk Saint Boniface. So following that lecture,

00:31:55.670 --> 00:31:58.809
I kind of was intrigued by him. And so somehow

00:31:58.809 --> 00:32:00.650
got hold, I think probably on Amazon got hold

00:32:00.650 --> 00:32:03.589
of a sort of little biography about his life

00:32:03.589 --> 00:32:06.470
and realized that he was connected with quite

00:32:06.470 --> 00:32:09.369
a lot of interesting history going on around

00:32:09.369 --> 00:32:12.529
that period, not just in the North, in the sort

00:32:12.529 --> 00:32:17.230
of Viking area or Scandinavia, but actually in

00:32:17.230 --> 00:32:21.119
France and Germany and There was a battle in

00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:25.059
732 called the Battle of Tor, which is where,

00:32:25.059 --> 00:32:27.400
again, these Muslim raiders were coming up from

00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:29.519
Spain and were stopped by a guy called Charles

00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:33.039
Martel. So initially, and so when I got to that

00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:35.099
bit of reading this book, I thought, hang on.

00:32:35.099 --> 00:32:37.599
This could be quite a, and you know, it made

00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:39.559
much of the fact that it was a decisive battle

00:32:39.559 --> 00:32:42.019
in European history. And I thought, hang on,

00:32:42.019 --> 00:32:45.059
that's quite a good climax to some sort of story,

00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:47.400
again, in the context of not being a writer at

00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:49.500
all. But I just thought, so it sort of, it was

00:32:49.500 --> 00:32:52.180
at that point I started putting down notes, actually,

00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:55.400
and which eventually I was trying to figure out

00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.279
who was the protagonist of the story. And so

00:32:57.279 --> 00:32:59.559
that's where I came back to a guy from the North,

00:33:00.380 --> 00:33:05.190
a guy based in, growing up in Jutland. And so

00:33:05.190 --> 00:33:08.509
I suppose it switched from being a more general

00:33:08.509 --> 00:33:11.710
kind of dark age European history thing to something

00:33:11.710 --> 00:33:14.170
more specifically of that Viking, or it wasn't

00:33:14.170 --> 00:33:18.569
Viking culture then, but the date of 732. pushed

00:33:18.569 --> 00:33:23.009
it back to in essence before the sort of classic

00:33:23.009 --> 00:33:25.690
definition of the Viking age but the material

00:33:25.690 --> 00:33:28.789
culture was very similar and also a lot of the

00:33:28.789 --> 00:33:32.950
raiding stuff was just going on anyway but more

00:33:32.950 --> 00:33:35.450
in the in that sort of Scandinavian region around

00:33:35.450 --> 00:33:37.809
the Baltic and all of that and then there were

00:33:37.809 --> 00:33:41.329
a couple of other good sort of historical discoveries

00:33:41.329 --> 00:33:43.250
that I made they were discoveries to me anyway

00:33:43.250 --> 00:33:49.109
was sort of set piece scene, which I think could

00:33:49.109 --> 00:33:51.509
have come in further down the series, which was

00:33:51.509 --> 00:33:55.289
the siege of Constantinople in 717. And then

00:33:55.289 --> 00:33:58.430
also there's a huge battle that's more like a

00:33:58.430 --> 00:34:02.329
sort of legendary battle rather than what we

00:34:02.329 --> 00:34:05.029
might call an actual historical event in some

00:34:05.029 --> 00:34:08.570
of the Scandinavian saga texts about, what do

00:34:08.570 --> 00:34:13.730
they call it, the Battle of Bravelia, which is

00:34:13.730 --> 00:34:17.369
something a bit like I don't know what, the Iliads

00:34:17.369 --> 00:34:19.510
or something. It's like the Scandinavian Iliad

00:34:19.510 --> 00:34:22.409
where everyone who's ever been mentioned seems

00:34:22.409 --> 00:34:24.309
to be involved in this enormous battle. In fact,

00:34:24.409 --> 00:34:27.590
one of our colleagues or friends, Angus Donald,

00:34:28.110 --> 00:34:29.969
wrote about it as well. But it's described in

00:34:29.969 --> 00:34:33.429
this piece of sort of scrap of a saga. And it's

00:34:33.429 --> 00:34:37.190
just like this kind of Viking Armageddon, as

00:34:37.190 --> 00:34:40.469
it were. So that featured in the second book.

00:34:40.530 --> 00:34:45.280
So it was kind of pushing me back into a... starting

00:34:45.280 --> 00:34:48.460
point, like the origin story of what this warrior

00:34:48.460 --> 00:34:51.739
was going to be, but also probably worth mentioning

00:34:51.739 --> 00:34:55.960
is that, you know, if I had any kind of idea

00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:58.539
about what these novels would be, I wanted to

00:34:58.539 --> 00:35:01.300
do, there was also like Beowulf, in fact Seamus

00:35:01.300 --> 00:35:05.519
Heaney's version of Beowulf in my imagination.

00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:09.619
I was thinking, you know, the idea, the first

00:35:09.619 --> 00:35:12.019
book's called A Mighty Dawn, and the idea of

00:35:12.019 --> 00:35:15.320
that dawn was this kind of coming out of the

00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:18.519
dark into the light of history. So the first

00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:21.420
book was going to be very deliberately more mythical.

00:35:22.679 --> 00:35:26.500
So supernatural craziness and more fantasy, which

00:35:26.500 --> 00:35:28.960
I had no idea at the time that this was problematic

00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:32.440
from a publishing view. The second one was going

00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:35.179
to be like inter -legend, which to me is sort

00:35:35.179 --> 00:35:37.420
of forward a bit. And then the third one was

00:35:37.420 --> 00:35:40.159
going to be, you know, willed down in Constantinople

00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:42.639
and we've got actual history going on that we

00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:47.409
know about. So that was kind of what I did. Whether

00:35:47.409 --> 00:35:49.230
it worked from a publishing perspective, they

00:35:49.230 --> 00:35:51.150
were always like confused. Is this a fantasy

00:35:51.150 --> 00:35:54.389
book or is it historical? And you can't have

00:35:54.389 --> 00:35:57.409
too much crazy sort of supernatural, you know,

00:35:57.630 --> 00:36:00.349
shape shifting. And I think I got a demon even

00:36:00.349 --> 00:36:03.389
in the first one. And then you get the historical.

00:36:03.639 --> 00:36:06.539
fiction readers going what is this tosh you know

00:36:06.539 --> 00:36:08.699
and then you've got the other people who are

00:36:08.699 --> 00:36:11.340
like this was you know this wasn't fantastical

00:36:11.340 --> 00:36:14.980
enough so more dragons but it was it was the

00:36:14.980 --> 00:36:17.179
it was the essence of the story that occurred

00:36:17.179 --> 00:36:19.559
to me so all i can say is i was faithful to the

00:36:19.559 --> 00:36:23.739
idea um whether it translated into you know a

00:36:23.739 --> 00:36:27.199
great uptake of readers you know although they

00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:29.500
were thrown so it's quite witchy poo isn't it

00:36:29.500 --> 00:36:33.179
here history and witches which one the game of

00:36:33.179 --> 00:36:35.880
thrones george rr martin well exactly and i i

00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:38.460
think i was halfway through writing my first

00:36:38.460 --> 00:36:41.239
one when that took off as a tv series and so

00:36:41.239 --> 00:36:43.559
of course you know that the books became more

00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:46.440
mainstream which is why they ended up being very

00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:48.380
long because i thought well george rr martin

00:36:48.380 --> 00:36:50.760
can write a 900 page book i'm gonna write a long

00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:53.880
one too which then eventually you know the publishers

00:36:53.880 --> 00:37:00.300
like no you can't printing costs say yeah printing

00:37:00.300 --> 00:37:03.699
costs translation costs all that kind of stuff.

00:37:05.099 --> 00:37:07.219
Well, I was always really impressed with your

00:37:07.219 --> 00:37:10.199
first book, Theo, because it kind of had a similar

00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:12.159
strand into Giles' character in that your character

00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:14.679
becomes an outcast for various reasons, I won't

00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:17.780
spoil it, but the kind of like the very epic

00:37:17.780 --> 00:37:20.500
journey he goes on through terrain and landscapes

00:37:20.500 --> 00:37:23.000
and weather and in climate and he kind of like

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:25.559
the reader feels it. I felt exhausted for him

00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:28.139
when he was exhausted and I thought, God, when

00:37:28.139 --> 00:37:29.659
is he going to stop? When is he going to rest?

00:37:29.699 --> 00:37:31.619
When is he going to find rest, light and safety?

00:37:32.679 --> 00:37:36.260
and certainly on the element of as I guess some

00:37:36.260 --> 00:37:39.820
people call it fantasy I guess it's the way back

00:37:39.820 --> 00:37:42.860
in these areas of history kind of like religion

00:37:42.860 --> 00:37:45.860
very much was what we would describe as fantasy

00:37:45.860 --> 00:37:48.820
because they believed in demons and spirits and

00:37:48.820 --> 00:37:51.059
curses and spells I mean the Vikings were brilliant

00:37:51.059 --> 00:37:53.219
at making curses up and the Christians had all

00:37:53.219 --> 00:37:55.159
their kind of like demons versus angels kind

00:37:55.159 --> 00:37:57.820
of thing and I really liked how you explored

00:37:57.820 --> 00:38:00.889
that kind of like that meeting of worlds of kind

00:38:00.889 --> 00:38:03.690
of like the ethereal with the real kind of like

00:38:03.690 --> 00:38:05.590
in the way that they all see it because they

00:38:05.590 --> 00:38:07.409
believe these things are real they believe they

00:38:07.409 --> 00:38:09.889
could run into kind of like a troll or a demon

00:38:09.889 --> 00:38:12.090
depending on where you're coming from away traveling

00:38:12.090 --> 00:38:15.409
in these times so it was very real to them and

00:38:15.409 --> 00:38:17.789
I salute you for doing it sir because it is a

00:38:17.789 --> 00:38:20.949
hard one to pull off certainly adding that kind

00:38:20.949 --> 00:38:24.590
of religious ritual practices. And of course,

00:38:25.610 --> 00:38:27.650
our idea of fantasy was their idea of reality.

00:38:27.909 --> 00:38:29.969
So in a sense, fantasy is getting much closer

00:38:29.969 --> 00:38:32.630
to the reality of the Dark Ages or the Viking

00:38:32.630 --> 00:38:37.210
Age than our kind of modern sensibility is. Yeah,

00:38:37.349 --> 00:38:40.969
very, very much so. I mean, it helped that I

00:38:40.969 --> 00:38:44.409
am actually religious and I have had a conversion

00:38:44.409 --> 00:38:49.260
experience. And also in terms of the traveling,

00:38:49.699 --> 00:38:51.760
I haven't mentioned it, but went on a very long

00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:53.599
journey at one point in my life, which is probably

00:38:53.599 --> 00:38:58.699
the only interesting thing I've ever done. So

00:38:58.699 --> 00:39:04.860
to that extent, it made it slightly easier experiences.

00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:08.840
of my own can get adapted and transmogrified.

00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:11.019
I can't say I've met a demon with a big long

00:39:11.019 --> 00:39:16.420
rat's tail. But there's evil in the world, and

00:39:16.420 --> 00:39:18.559
there's good, and there's all kinds of... I mean,

00:39:18.699 --> 00:39:22.599
even now, I'm sure we all may, if not ourselves,

00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:27.980
have been involved in a bit of a return to dabbling

00:39:27.980 --> 00:39:30.750
in spiritual... things, you know, whether it's

00:39:30.750 --> 00:39:35.150
the new age and the shamanism of the Viking culture,

00:39:35.449 --> 00:39:38.389
which actually, what's his name? Neil Price.

00:39:38.530 --> 00:39:43.409
Have you read some of his books? I have touched

00:39:43.409 --> 00:39:46.469
into them a little bit. Yeah, the mentality of

00:39:46.469 --> 00:39:49.590
the Viking mind. I mean, I haven't come across

00:39:49.590 --> 00:39:53.550
anyone who does it better, but I mean, it's quite...

00:39:53.610 --> 00:39:56.849
It's gold, really, for people like us. Whenever

00:39:56.849 --> 00:39:59.750
you want to write a story like that, it's really

00:39:59.750 --> 00:40:02.289
trying to make an effort to put yourself in the

00:40:02.289 --> 00:40:06.349
way that these people saw the world and the strange,

00:40:06.349 --> 00:40:11.449
yes, interpretations overlaying reality, but

00:40:11.449 --> 00:40:16.030
also maybe doing things that might in turn manipulate

00:40:16.030 --> 00:40:20.150
that reality in strange ways that we sat behind

00:40:20.150 --> 00:40:23.949
our computers might never come near. I'm not

00:40:23.949 --> 00:40:26.949
saying that all fantasy is based on truth, but

00:40:26.949 --> 00:40:31.170
I'm saying that their experience of life was

00:40:31.170 --> 00:40:35.869
much more connected to nature and things that

00:40:35.869 --> 00:40:39.949
we might think are beyond what's possible. But

00:40:39.949 --> 00:40:45.650
that was part of the fun of me in a sincere way

00:40:45.650 --> 00:40:47.429
believing in some of that probably made it a

00:40:47.429 --> 00:40:53.480
lot easier and hopefully more authentic. Thank

00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:55.860
you. How about you, Justin? Why did you decide

00:40:55.860 --> 00:41:00.079
to conquer the Battle of Hastings era and its

00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:04.059
trilogy of wars? Yeah, so I'd read historical

00:41:04.059 --> 00:41:06.159
fiction, but I'd never even thought myself as

00:41:06.159 --> 00:41:09.940
a writer of it. My early books were all completely

00:41:09.940 --> 00:41:12.400
contemporary. I mean, literally, almost like

00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:15.539
the year they were written. And then I think

00:41:15.539 --> 00:41:18.460
I read Sharon Penman's The Sun in Splendour,

00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:24.090
which is about the war of the roses. And, you

00:41:24.090 --> 00:41:25.849
know, the Yorkists and Lancashirens are something

00:41:25.849 --> 00:41:28.050
I loved as a kid, and I'd read tons of history

00:41:28.050 --> 00:41:31.090
books. But I hadn't understood kind of basic

00:41:31.090 --> 00:41:34.010
facts like, you know, Warwick the Kingmaker is

00:41:34.010 --> 00:41:37.710
cousin to Richard III. And I thought, wow, I

00:41:37.710 --> 00:41:39.250
can't believe that I've read all these books

00:41:39.250 --> 00:41:41.789
and these kind of basic facts haven't been made.

00:41:42.110 --> 00:41:44.750
alive and I guess what struck me about historical

00:41:44.750 --> 00:41:47.929
fiction is that you make facts and people and

00:41:47.929 --> 00:41:49.550
characters come alive and you put them in the

00:41:49.550 --> 00:41:51.489
sense where they don't know what's going to happen

00:41:51.489 --> 00:41:54.090
tomorrow even though we do and that that sense

00:41:54.090 --> 00:41:59.679
of kind of of the moment being forged And I was

00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:02.619
living in Ireland at the time and the Irish,

00:42:02.619 --> 00:42:05.880
you know, love to go on about the English and

00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:07.800
they have a kind of, you know, a phrase of 800

00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:09.920
years of English oppression. And I thought, well,

00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:12.440
that's not entirely fair because the first couple

00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:15.019
of hundred years were Norman rather than English.

00:42:15.780 --> 00:42:18.360
And that got me thinking actually, really, you

00:42:18.360 --> 00:42:20.500
know, the country that suffered most under the

00:42:20.500 --> 00:42:22.960
Normans were the English. You know, we lost,

00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:25.219
you know, talking would go on. We lost our mythology.

00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:28.699
We lost our language. Old English literature

00:42:28.699 --> 00:42:32.500
was kind of 70 years old by the time of the conquest

00:42:32.500 --> 00:42:35.739
almost. We almost have as much old English literature

00:42:35.739 --> 00:42:39.420
time period as we do post the conquest. And so

00:42:39.420 --> 00:42:44.039
much of that has been lost. And I just thought,

00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:47.880
wow, it got me thinking about the Battle of Hastings.

00:42:48.059 --> 00:42:49.219
So I thought, you know what? I should write a

00:42:49.219 --> 00:42:51.099
battle about the Battle of Hastings, which kind

00:42:51.099 --> 00:42:54.840
of puts the record straight. does it in a more

00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:56.500
interesting way. And as soon as I started researching

00:42:56.500 --> 00:42:59.340
it, I thought, there's no way you can do a single

00:42:59.340 --> 00:43:01.559
book about the Battle of Hastings. Because everything,

00:43:01.820 --> 00:43:05.480
we know about the 1066, but in 1016, there's

00:43:05.480 --> 00:43:09.420
the Danish conquest of England, which no one

00:43:09.420 --> 00:43:14.300
knows about. And so in a sense, the simplistic

00:43:14.300 --> 00:43:17.099
version is that Anglo -Saxon England dies on

00:43:17.099 --> 00:43:20.400
the field of Hastings. Whereas actually, Anglo

00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:24.610
-Saxon England dies in the reign of Ethelred

00:43:24.610 --> 00:43:29.489
the Unready. And what is created after 1016 is

00:43:29.489 --> 00:43:33.949
really a kind of Anglo -Danish state, which I

00:43:33.949 --> 00:43:36.349
guess in a sense really spoke to me. You know,

00:43:36.389 --> 00:43:39.010
from being from Yorkshire, you know, kind of

00:43:39.010 --> 00:43:41.590
genetically, you know, we're Vikings, you know,

00:43:41.650 --> 00:43:44.449
we're the descendants of Vikings and we live

00:43:44.449 --> 00:43:46.449
in, you know, places that are full of Viking

00:43:46.449 --> 00:43:49.389
names and our dialect is full of Viking words.

00:43:52.700 --> 00:43:56.079
Yeah, exactly. So I thought, okay, I will, you

00:43:56.079 --> 00:43:58.719
know, so then this single book became a trilogy.

00:43:59.320 --> 00:44:03.380
And the first one was Shieldwall, which is a

00:44:03.380 --> 00:44:06.360
sense that kind of the end of, I mean, I think

00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:09.400
it's the end of kind of the the Wessex England,

00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:12.119
Alfred the Great's England, because Ethelred

00:44:12.119 --> 00:44:15.260
the Inready is so catastrophic. He kind of, you

00:44:15.260 --> 00:44:20.880
know, he he he rubs the kind of cords of loyalty

00:44:20.880 --> 00:44:28.019
and to, you know, to breaking point. And so what

00:44:28.019 --> 00:44:30.079
the shield was all about, you know, kind of what

00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:33.579
comes next. And that process itself through the

00:44:33.579 --> 00:44:36.800
character of Godwin and then setting up the kind

00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:39.460
of the new England that, you know, the English

00:44:39.460 --> 00:44:41.940
Danish state that is, you know, that comes next.

00:44:42.199 --> 00:44:44.760
Because, of course, we think about Huscarls as

00:44:44.760 --> 00:44:49.239
being kind of one of the kind of seminal figures

00:44:49.239 --> 00:44:51.300
at the Battle of Hastings. And they're not an

00:44:51.300 --> 00:44:53.699
English, you know, kind of, it's not an English

00:44:53.699 --> 00:44:55.980
word, it's not an English kind of warrior type.

00:44:56.099 --> 00:44:57.860
I mean, it's essentially the same as, you know,

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.800
a Thane, but it's an Anglo -Danish, it's a Danish

00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:04.219
word for a Danish warrior who is defending England,

00:45:04.219 --> 00:45:07.360
you know, on the Hill of Hastings. So all that

00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:10.860
complexity made me think, okay, I want to write

00:45:10.860 --> 00:45:13.840
this story. And I guess I'd thought I didn't

00:45:13.840 --> 00:45:16.920
know enough about Anglo -Saxon England or historical

00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:18.219
fiction should be written by people who were

00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:20.260
experts and then kind of you know thinking about

00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:22.039
my childhood I thought you know I've read all

00:45:22.039 --> 00:45:24.579
the sagas I've read all the poetry you know this

00:45:24.579 --> 00:45:27.860
is this is the kind of the the leaf mulch which

00:45:27.860 --> 00:45:30.900
you know my reading in my imagination grew so

00:45:30.900 --> 00:45:34.320
yeah I thought okay I'm in um and so that's yeah

00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:37.719
so that's how I I started writing and of course

00:45:37.719 --> 00:45:40.420
you know if you're writing um this period there's

00:45:40.420 --> 00:45:44.780
Vikings in there and in a sense um Godwin, his

00:45:44.780 --> 00:45:48.400
story, that story is the kind of the Anglo -Saxon

00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:51.320
version of, you know, the mirror image of a Viking

00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:54.079
story. But then I went on to write Viking Fire,

00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:57.760
which, you know, opposite of Giles and Theo is

00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:00.159
kind of the end of the Viking Age. And I loved

00:46:00.159 --> 00:46:02.440
that book. I loved writing. I loved Harold, I

00:46:02.440 --> 00:46:05.199
tried as a character. I love both, actually Godwin

00:46:05.199 --> 00:46:07.719
and him, both fantastic. But to kind of to write

00:46:07.719 --> 00:46:10.599
the end of the Viking Age felt quite emotional

00:46:10.599 --> 00:46:14.800
because I started that book in Hong Kong. and

00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:16.920
I finished it. I moved back to Yorkshire and

00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:19.820
I can look out the window now and I can see York

00:46:19.820 --> 00:46:23.059
Minster and I can see the world. So in a sense

00:46:23.059 --> 00:46:27.139
I can see kind of the opening scene of Viking

00:46:27.139 --> 00:46:30.559
Fire starts at the Battle of Fulford Gate and

00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:33.500
then goes on, you know, the book ends at the

00:46:33.500 --> 00:46:35.079
Battle of Stamford Bridge. It's almost like the

00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:37.460
physical span of my novel I can see from this

00:46:37.460 --> 00:46:42.679
house which felt quite special. Well, I have

00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:45.739
to echo you. I love both books, especially because

00:46:45.739 --> 00:46:48.679
I've only really come across a few other historical

00:46:48.679 --> 00:46:51.179
fiction books that cover that really turbulent

00:46:51.179 --> 00:46:54.059
period between 1016 and 1066, an era of history

00:46:54.059 --> 00:46:56.340
which I do think... need to be taught more in

00:46:56.340 --> 00:46:57.840
schools. We've had enough of Alpha the Great,

00:46:57.940 --> 00:46:59.659
let's just move forward a little bit and fill

00:46:59.659 --> 00:47:01.480
in the nice big gap that there is between Alpha

00:47:01.480 --> 00:47:04.619
the Great and 1066. I know I've had you on before

00:47:04.619 --> 00:47:07.619
on my podcast when we reviewed the much debated

00:47:07.619 --> 00:47:10.900
and very creative licensed Vikings Valhalla series,

00:47:11.539 --> 00:47:19.369
which seems to mess with time entirely. giving

00:47:19.369 --> 00:47:21.849
modern audiences their first glimpse at Harold

00:47:21.849 --> 00:47:25.449
Hadrod, at Harold Godwinson, and of course Queen

00:47:25.449 --> 00:47:29.010
Anna and King Arthur and all the many throne

00:47:29.010 --> 00:47:30.630
swapping they're under. I mean, of course, Canute,

00:47:30.690 --> 00:47:32.449
Canute, I've always loved ever since learning

00:47:32.449 --> 00:47:34.809
about him as a Viking King. I thought, how have

00:47:34.809 --> 00:47:36.449
we not known about this Viking King that we've

00:47:36.449 --> 00:47:38.449
had that actually read peacefully? That did quite

00:47:38.449 --> 00:47:39.969
well. That was quite good. He was friends with

00:47:39.969 --> 00:47:43.570
the Pope, for goodness sake. And Canute the Great.

00:47:44.030 --> 00:47:45.789
You know, we always say Alfred to anyone who's

00:47:45.789 --> 00:47:47.369
been called the Great, but Canute was called

00:47:47.369 --> 00:47:50.920
the Great as well. Yeah, it's honestly quite

00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:53.940
a travesty that we seem to kind of like not speak

00:47:53.940 --> 00:47:55.780
almost like there's almost like a hidden taboo,

00:47:55.940 --> 00:47:58.239
almost like Voldemort don't speak about Knut.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:02.000
I'm afraid of getting the name wrong, that's

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:10.400
why. Autocorrect. One of the many things I like

00:48:10.400 --> 00:48:12.079
about you, Justin, is that you take your time

00:48:12.079 --> 00:48:15.559
with your books as well, don't you? Yeah. So

00:48:15.559 --> 00:48:18.590
how long does it generally take you to? to write

00:48:18.590 --> 00:48:21.530
a novel. They're so random. My first novel, I

00:48:21.530 --> 00:48:22.989
mean, I think my first novel was A Curse because

00:48:22.989 --> 00:48:24.969
it took me six months and in many ways was my

00:48:24.969 --> 00:48:27.230
most successful, you know, critically acclaimed

00:48:27.230 --> 00:48:30.389
novel. So for a long time, I was trying to recreate

00:48:30.389 --> 00:48:33.929
that Shield Wall. Yeah, Drink Dream Tea House.

00:48:35.369 --> 00:48:38.949
Where Shield Wall. it was my first kind of stab

00:48:38.949 --> 00:48:41.250
into historical fiction and it took me five years

00:48:41.250 --> 00:48:44.590
and it was it was quite kind of sobering lesson

00:48:44.590 --> 00:48:45.710
because I thought you know if I'm going to make

00:48:45.710 --> 00:48:47.949
a living as an author there's nowhere I can take

00:48:47.949 --> 00:48:51.190
five years on a novel but I felt I had so much

00:48:51.190 --> 00:48:54.949
to learn because I was talking about this recently

00:48:54.949 --> 00:48:57.670
with someone saying in my novels my characters

00:48:57.670 --> 00:49:00.710
are quite taciturn they often they're they're

00:49:00.710 --> 00:49:03.110
not saying what they're thinking so I use a lot

00:49:03.110 --> 00:49:06.840
of kind of physical reference or mannerisms or

00:49:06.840 --> 00:49:09.880
expressions to kind of try and show what I'm

00:49:09.880 --> 00:49:13.340
trying to convey and I suddenly you know in the

00:49:13.340 --> 00:49:15.519
modern world that's very easy because you are

00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:17.880
surrounded by things that you can draw on whereas

00:49:17.880 --> 00:49:19.900
if you're putting your characters into a you

00:49:19.900 --> 00:49:25.659
know a long haul you know in Sussex Downs what

00:49:25.659 --> 00:49:27.460
are they you know what's it what's on the table

00:49:27.460 --> 00:49:29.559
around them you know kind of what is that what's

00:49:29.559 --> 00:49:31.460
that physical architecture because the things

00:49:31.460 --> 00:49:34.849
that survive only are things that can survive

00:49:34.849 --> 00:49:40.170
in soil. And so I was doing so much research

00:49:40.170 --> 00:49:44.570
and so much kind of I had so many books. I just

00:49:44.570 --> 00:49:46.010
didn't have the kind of information I needed.

00:49:47.550 --> 00:49:50.570
So that was kind of why that took so long. I

00:49:50.570 --> 00:49:55.869
also wrote about 200 ,000 words. I was up your

00:49:55.869 --> 00:50:01.329
length. I cut about half of that. I mean, Shugal's

00:50:01.329 --> 00:50:06.869
about 100 ,000 words. So, yeah, I take a lot

00:50:06.869 --> 00:50:14.170
of time, and I don't mind. I don't mind how long

00:50:14.170 --> 00:50:16.469
it takes as long as I get it right. Yeah, I like

00:50:16.469 --> 00:50:18.190
that. There's nothing worse than authors banging

00:50:18.190 --> 00:50:20.090
out books left, right, and center, is there?

00:50:20.429 --> 00:50:22.610
It's like, oh, I've got another book. I've written

00:50:22.610 --> 00:50:24.849
another book this afternoon. You think, oh, damn

00:50:24.849 --> 00:50:30.900
it. Yeah. I think I do think of you too and I'm

00:50:30.900 --> 00:50:33.940
like no I need to it's about quality. It's quality

00:50:33.940 --> 00:50:36.780
guys. Yeah, I think this period is so personal

00:50:36.780 --> 00:50:40.219
to me and so important. I kind of don't care

00:50:40.219 --> 00:50:41.559
how long it's going to take me to write it as

00:50:41.559 --> 00:50:45.739
long as I get it right. I feel like it nearly

00:50:45.739 --> 00:50:48.739
kills me emotionally to do these things as well

00:50:48.739 --> 00:50:51.840
like the fourth one it was sort of my lockdown

00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:54.460
book so there's a whole load of probably stuff

00:50:54.460 --> 00:50:56.760
psychologically going on but I was just like

00:50:57.630 --> 00:50:59.929
shattered at the end of that. And it sort of

00:50:59.929 --> 00:51:02.849
probably comes across in the book and why I haven't

00:51:02.849 --> 00:51:05.989
even begun to dare to think about the one that

00:51:05.989 --> 00:51:07.690
comes after it. And I remember you saying something

00:51:07.690 --> 00:51:11.130
similar, Giles, about was it after camera or,

00:51:11.389 --> 00:51:13.449
you know, when you went off and did your Where

00:51:13.449 --> 00:51:15.989
Blood Runs, what is it? Where Blood Runs Cold.

00:51:16.710 --> 00:51:19.929
And it's just like, I just got to give my imagination

00:51:19.929 --> 00:51:22.090
a break from that world because it's just too

00:51:22.090 --> 00:51:27.059
intense and too draining. So yeah, the idea of

00:51:27.059 --> 00:51:29.360
like, oh, I've got another one, guys. Oh, two

00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:32.159
coming out this year. And it's like, please.

00:51:32.780 --> 00:51:35.940
Yeah, no, it takes everything out of you. And

00:51:35.940 --> 00:51:39.699
if you are really giving yourself to the process

00:51:39.699 --> 00:51:43.199
and to the story, and I'm not very, I'm slow

00:51:43.199 --> 00:51:45.000
because I'm probably slow in the actual process.

00:51:45.019 --> 00:51:48.219
For me, I would say if I write 1 ,000 good words

00:51:48.219 --> 00:51:51.480
a day, I'm happy with that really. And that's

00:51:51.480 --> 00:51:54.840
kind of my, when I've done 1 ,000 words, pretty

00:51:54.840 --> 00:51:57.619
much exhausted mentally, and that's time to sort

00:51:57.619 --> 00:52:00.719
of step away. So that's kind of my benchmark

00:52:00.719 --> 00:52:04.659
as a daily sort of word count, if you like. But

00:52:04.659 --> 00:52:07.079
I think also for me, it's the only thing in my

00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:09.500
life that I really take care of. If I'm doing

00:52:09.500 --> 00:52:11.719
something, if I'm hanging a picture, I probably

00:52:11.719 --> 00:52:14.460
don't even measure like how far, where the hooks,

00:52:14.699 --> 00:52:17.079
I just like whack it in, or just generally in

00:52:17.079 --> 00:52:19.760
life, I'm a bit more haphazard, but writing is

00:52:19.760 --> 00:52:22.300
the only thing that I really take care with.

00:52:23.199 --> 00:52:27.179
take my time over. Do you find you accelerate

00:52:27.179 --> 00:52:30.119
towards the end of the story? I'm just always

00:52:30.119 --> 00:52:33.340
desperate to get it done. Really, I'm always

00:52:33.340 --> 00:52:35.179
thinking about the end, but I think that's another

00:52:35.179 --> 00:52:38.019
psychological thing. I just want it to be over

00:52:38.019 --> 00:52:42.539
from the moment I start. This whole kind of mantra

00:52:42.539 --> 00:52:44.639
about enjoying the journey in life, generally,

00:52:45.099 --> 00:52:46.840
is something I've never quite managed to do.

00:52:47.219 --> 00:52:50.360
All I'm thinking about is that's another thousand

00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:53.469
words nearer to the end of the book. I just have

00:52:53.469 --> 00:52:56.469
a yeah but I was like that as a kid with a chocolate

00:52:56.469 --> 00:52:58.050
bar like I start a chocolate bar and I just want

00:52:58.050 --> 00:52:59.789
to get to the end of it before I've even started

00:52:59.789 --> 00:53:02.510
it so it's there's something going on there but

00:53:02.510 --> 00:53:04.090
you know when you talk about having books on

00:53:04.090 --> 00:53:07.150
the shelf behind you it was Tony Rich's that

00:53:07.150 --> 00:53:09.309
I spoke to year this is going back a few years

00:53:09.309 --> 00:53:11.889
now when people started reading more on Kindle

00:53:11.889 --> 00:53:15.690
and stuff and he said to me we spoke about would

00:53:15.690 --> 00:53:19.469
you still Want to do this if there were no physical

00:53:19.469 --> 00:53:22.190
books that if you if your books were only ever

00:53:22.190 --> 00:53:24.989
digital Would you still be interested and he

00:53:24.989 --> 00:53:28.250
and he was yeah, of course because it's just

00:53:28.250 --> 00:53:30.010
the story is out there All I want to do is write

00:53:30.010 --> 00:53:32.409
the stories and get them out to readers So I

00:53:32.409 --> 00:53:34.409
don't care what format they are as long as the

00:53:34.409 --> 00:53:37.030
stories are out there and I found it really interesting

00:53:37.030 --> 00:53:40.789
because I sort of I felt like maybe I wouldn't

00:53:40.789 --> 00:53:46.219
because for me the physical book is is the evidence

00:53:46.219 --> 00:53:50.340
of that year and a half of my life. It's sort

00:53:50.340 --> 00:53:53.960
of like a, it's a trophy to me. It's like, oh,

00:53:54.139 --> 00:53:58.000
I made that. And it's that physical, tangible

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.559
object that represents all that kind of pain

00:54:00.559 --> 00:54:05.579
and misery and time put into it. And there it

00:54:05.579 --> 00:54:08.000
is on the shelf or in a shop or something like

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:10.139
that. Whereas if it was just sort of a digital

00:54:10.139 --> 00:54:12.860
file in the ether, it wouldn't. but it wouldn't

00:54:12.860 --> 00:54:15.619
feel the same to me. So I found that quite interesting.

00:54:15.719 --> 00:54:20.519
I don't know about you guys. Yeah, I definitely

00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:23.480
relate to that. I think that's an interesting

00:54:23.480 --> 00:54:26.059
question I've not thought about before, but I'd

00:54:26.059 --> 00:54:28.840
probably fall on your side of the answer there.

00:54:29.099 --> 00:54:33.260
Because, I mean, yeah, just the essence of a

00:54:33.260 --> 00:54:37.300
book, the physicality of a book is a thing itself

00:54:37.300 --> 00:54:40.219
beyond what's written in the pages. I mean, I

00:54:40.219 --> 00:54:43.340
look at my... well, she's six now, but when she

00:54:43.340 --> 00:54:45.579
was sort of three, four, she would just pick

00:54:45.579 --> 00:54:48.360
up books and just turn the pages and look at

00:54:48.360 --> 00:54:51.320
them. Whereas the older one, no interest in doing

00:54:51.320 --> 00:54:54.860
that whatsoever. She'll do cartwheels till the

00:54:54.860 --> 00:55:00.880
cows come home. So it's just a sort of mentality.

00:55:01.300 --> 00:55:04.219
It's in your, woven into your nature, I think.

00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:07.980
It's just that love of a book for whatever reason.

00:55:08.519 --> 00:55:11.579
And I'm lucky enough, I live in Central London.

00:55:11.719 --> 00:55:13.940
I'm a member of the London Library, which is

00:55:13.940 --> 00:55:17.000
often St James's, which often features in kind

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:19.340
of whenever a TV series needs to record something

00:55:19.340 --> 00:55:22.900
in a library. So like that. And it's just like

00:55:22.900 --> 00:55:26.119
my so so my happy place because of the presence

00:55:26.119 --> 00:55:29.599
of all these books. So I agree with you. It's

00:55:29.599 --> 00:55:31.980
it's nice to be able to say I wrote that. And

00:55:31.980 --> 00:55:33.800
that's why I love printing out the manuscripts

00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:36.920
at the end of the process, even though my agent

00:55:36.920 --> 00:55:41.440
then turns around and goes, do it again. But

00:55:41.440 --> 00:55:43.800
that moment where you've got the physical evidence,

00:55:44.179 --> 00:55:46.860
like, as you say, this kind of sweat and tears

00:55:46.860 --> 00:55:50.000
and time that you've poured into something is

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:53.860
quite an important kind of artefact, really.

00:55:56.039 --> 00:55:59.320
Yeah, I'm completely with you. And I don't read

00:55:59.320 --> 00:56:03.039
books on Kindle. I find it hard even when I'm

00:56:03.039 --> 00:56:06.840
so when I'm editing. I need to print it out to

00:56:06.840 --> 00:56:09.039
see the book properly. It's much harder to see

00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:12.820
it on screen. Although I do wonder now with audiobooks,

00:56:12.920 --> 00:56:16.679
whether there's, in a sense, I don't listen to

00:56:16.679 --> 00:56:19.659
fiction on audiobook really. I can listen to

00:56:19.659 --> 00:56:23.239
factual books, but there's something, there's

00:56:23.239 --> 00:56:25.360
something about that kind of, it's almost like

00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:28.340
a ritual. It sounds silly to call it a ritual,

00:56:28.380 --> 00:56:29.719
but now there's so many other ways you could

00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:33.619
do it. I like to... you know, to sit with a book,

00:56:33.699 --> 00:56:36.659
a physical object in hand. And I love in a sense

00:56:36.659 --> 00:56:39.119
that books, there's been much more effort from

00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:41.039
publishers to make books, you know, objects of,

00:56:41.039 --> 00:56:46.059
you know, of beauty. So, so that's important.

00:56:46.500 --> 00:56:48.619
Then I think people do listen to audio books

00:56:48.619 --> 00:56:50.539
and, you know, audio books is a way that people,

00:56:50.539 --> 00:56:54.420
you know, consume fiction. So I guess for them,

00:56:55.260 --> 00:56:58.019
it reminds me when I was young, my parents took

00:56:58.019 --> 00:57:02.420
me to see Julian Glover. He did a one -man version

00:57:02.420 --> 00:57:07.039
of Bear Wolf. And I bought the cassette tape,

00:57:07.039 --> 00:57:09.559
you know, half time. And it's one of those things

00:57:09.559 --> 00:57:11.719
that I've kept. It's like a relic from childhood

00:57:11.719 --> 00:57:14.679
that I've kept with me ever since. And I listened

00:57:14.679 --> 00:57:18.860
to it for years. And you can now, you can download

00:57:18.860 --> 00:57:21.639
it. He sells a kind of more up -to -date version

00:57:21.639 --> 00:57:26.219
that he did around the year 2000. And in a sense,

00:57:26.460 --> 00:57:30.389
that is almost a perfect way to, experience Bear

00:57:30.389 --> 00:57:34.570
Wolf as a spoken poem. And I guess maybe in some

00:57:34.570 --> 00:57:40.429
ways it seems that this kind of age of this oral

00:57:40.429 --> 00:57:44.369
kind of age or oral storytelling in audiobooks

00:57:44.369 --> 00:57:47.730
kind of fit it quite well. I often think, you

00:57:47.730 --> 00:57:51.530
know, I tried my language to make it resonant

00:57:51.530 --> 00:57:55.670
of kind of Germanic language or old English poetry.

00:57:56.230 --> 00:57:58.449
So in a sense maybe kind of an audiobook would

00:57:58.449 --> 00:58:00.329
make the book come alive in some ways that it

00:58:00.329 --> 00:58:03.550
doesn't on the page unless you speak it aloud.

00:58:04.090 --> 00:58:06.730
I don't know. That was going to be my next question

00:58:06.730 --> 00:58:08.650
because of course I know Giles you have your

00:58:08.650 --> 00:58:11.110
good friend Phil narrate nearly all your books

00:58:11.110 --> 00:58:14.869
I think and I've listened to I think I've definitely

00:58:14.869 --> 00:58:17.349
listened to Raven Blood I as an audiobook. I've

00:58:17.349 --> 00:58:19.130
definitely listened to Viking Fire as an audiobook.

00:58:19.449 --> 00:58:22.269
I loved both. I think if anything, because I've

00:58:22.269 --> 00:58:24.309
already read it once, even though I can't remember

00:58:24.309 --> 00:58:27.750
word for word, even the words and the sentences

00:58:27.750 --> 00:58:30.289
sound fresh and the characters are just that

00:58:30.289 --> 00:58:33.909
much more vivid. And the dialogue in both cases

00:58:33.909 --> 00:58:36.570
comes through that much stronger because it is

00:58:36.570 --> 00:58:40.130
the dialogue of speaking. It's not just words

00:58:40.130 --> 00:58:42.409
that look like speech on a page. They come out

00:58:42.409 --> 00:58:45.820
and they are speech. It just makes. so stronger

00:58:45.820 --> 00:58:50.000
sense if that is a clear definition or an explanation

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:52.980
of how it comes across. And certainly kind of

00:58:52.980 --> 00:58:56.480
like oral stories were so prevalent at the time

00:58:56.480 --> 00:58:58.579
of Vikings and in history because of course a

00:58:58.579 --> 00:59:01.059
lot of all stuff you're researching or when you're

00:59:01.059 --> 00:59:04.079
writing in these hysteric periods was written

00:59:04.079 --> 00:59:07.039
either centuries and kind of like not from the

00:59:07.039 --> 00:59:09.519
people of the time so it's almost like we've

00:59:09.519 --> 00:59:12.519
got a huge oral gap where we have no voices and

00:59:12.519 --> 00:59:16.750
experiences and we've got to base your stories

00:59:16.750 --> 00:59:20.170
of that time on stories from after that time.

00:59:21.409 --> 00:59:25.130
So how do you all feel about that gap? How do

00:59:25.130 --> 00:59:30.349
you feel? Well, with the audio side of things,

00:59:31.429 --> 00:59:35.610
just slightly off point, but the benefits that

00:59:35.610 --> 00:59:38.010
Justin was sort of hinting at as well is that

00:59:38.010 --> 00:59:41.630
you get If you have a good voice actor, your

00:59:41.630 --> 00:59:45.570
characters are characterised. The voices have

00:59:45.570 --> 00:59:48.969
their own character and way of delivering. I'm

00:59:48.969 --> 00:59:51.349
lucky with Phil because he's so familiar with

00:59:51.349 --> 00:59:54.750
my books now that he can anticipate the cadence

00:59:54.750 --> 00:59:58.630
of... my writing, the way I write, the prose

00:59:58.630 --> 01:00:02.090
itself, he can kind of anticipate. So he doesn't

01:00:02.090 --> 01:00:04.570
have to have those issues of running out of breath

01:00:04.570 --> 01:00:06.869
that some audio narrators have because they don't

01:00:06.869 --> 01:00:08.369
know where the sentence is going when they start

01:00:08.369 --> 01:00:10.670
the sentence. And sometimes they run out of breath

01:00:10.670 --> 01:00:13.289
halfway through. And it's a lot, it's a harder

01:00:13.289 --> 01:00:15.190
job than anyone ever gives it credit for being

01:00:15.190 --> 01:00:17.530
a voice actor, reading these audio books. But

01:00:17.530 --> 01:00:21.210
I really love to hear how he characterizes them

01:00:21.210 --> 01:00:24.900
because they can then inform the way I write

01:00:24.900 --> 01:00:29.800
the sequel. So for example, with Lancelot, I

01:00:29.800 --> 01:00:32.000
didn't really have voices in my head. I didn't

01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:34.159
really know how they sounded until Phil gave

01:00:34.159 --> 01:00:36.980
them their voices. And then when I was writing

01:00:36.980 --> 01:00:40.780
Merlin in the subsequent book, the way he was

01:00:40.780 --> 01:00:43.219
delivering Merlin informed the way I wrote Merlin

01:00:43.219 --> 01:00:46.260
from then on, which I found was quite an interesting

01:00:46.260 --> 01:00:50.360
thing to happen. The way he, yeah, sort of the

01:00:50.360 --> 01:00:55.820
tone of his voice. as invented by Phil, influenced

01:00:55.820 --> 01:01:00.179
how he spoke from then on. So that was quite

01:01:00.179 --> 01:01:04.239
interesting. But in terms of authenticity of

01:01:04.239 --> 01:01:06.739
voice, it's incredibly difficult for us because

01:01:06.739 --> 01:01:09.340
nobody spoke the language that we're speaking.

01:01:10.300 --> 01:01:12.900
We give our characters dialogue that no one ever

01:01:12.900 --> 01:01:16.500
spoke. And I said this before, but I remember

01:01:16.500 --> 01:01:19.670
one of my books getting a review and somebody

01:01:19.670 --> 01:01:23.809
was outraged on Amazon because a character in

01:01:23.809 --> 01:01:26.289
my book had used a word that he said that no

01:01:26.289 --> 01:01:29.210
Viking would have ever said that word. And I

01:01:29.210 --> 01:01:31.829
thought, well, I took that as a victory because

01:01:31.829 --> 01:01:34.670
no Viking ever said any of the words in all of

01:01:34.670 --> 01:01:37.929
those 150 ,000 words. And there was just one

01:01:37.929 --> 01:01:42.480
that stood out. being an anomaly you know and

01:01:42.480 --> 01:01:44.340
I thought that was absolutely fascinating and

01:01:44.340 --> 01:01:47.159
that goes to what we try and do is create we

01:01:47.159 --> 01:01:49.900
try to create a feeling of authenticity even

01:01:49.900 --> 01:01:53.650
though it's not authentic at all. And that's

01:01:53.650 --> 01:01:56.030
the thing, if you can make the reader feel as

01:01:56.030 --> 01:01:58.929
though these are the kind of things that a Viking

01:01:58.929 --> 01:02:01.989
would say and the kind of the way that they would

01:02:01.989 --> 01:02:04.150
say it. And that comes back to Justin's talking

01:02:04.150 --> 01:02:06.449
about sort of the rhythm, the flow of the language

01:02:06.449 --> 01:02:10.010
itself, that feeling of it. Then we're on to

01:02:10.010 --> 01:02:12.010
a winner. But yeah, it was funny that there was

01:02:12.010 --> 01:02:13.809
this one word that I can't remember what it was

01:02:13.809 --> 01:02:18.510
now, but he felt that it ruined the whole. An

01:02:18.510 --> 01:02:22.250
immersion breaker, I suppose you'd call it. But

01:02:22.250 --> 01:02:24.190
I don't know if that was interesting. Well, I

01:02:24.190 --> 01:02:26.949
suppose it goes back into the tradition of storytelling,

01:02:26.949 --> 01:02:31.030
doesn't it? Per se. And if we're talking about

01:02:31.030 --> 01:02:33.349
the Viking era, of course, that was that was

01:02:33.349 --> 01:02:36.989
that was all they had. But it makes me think,

01:02:36.989 --> 01:02:39.389
you know, hearing you, I've seen a couple of

01:02:39.389 --> 01:02:41.789
acts, let's say one of them, only one of whose

01:02:41.789 --> 01:02:44.630
name I can remember. Have you come across Einar

01:02:44.630 --> 01:02:49.829
Selvik, who's a musician? And it's it's sort

01:02:49.829 --> 01:02:54.070
of it is the where your whole imagination is

01:02:54.070 --> 01:02:57.329
kind of being made to glow, both with the music,

01:02:57.630 --> 01:03:00.190
sort of stimulated by the music, but also the

01:03:00.190 --> 01:03:01.710
words and the stories, the way they would have

01:03:01.710 --> 01:03:05.989
sung them. That's why, not to flatter you guys

01:03:05.989 --> 01:03:08.230
too much, but what I loved about both your books

01:03:08.230 --> 01:03:12.710
in slightly different ways was that it was obvious

01:03:12.710 --> 01:03:15.809
to me that you had a lot of familiarity with

01:03:15.809 --> 01:03:19.590
poetry and you were thinking very carefully about...

01:03:19.309 --> 01:03:22.170
the way you were describing things, that language,

01:03:22.289 --> 01:03:25.369
and it really came through elevating the whole

01:03:25.369 --> 01:03:28.309
story above the fact that, you know, essentially

01:03:28.309 --> 01:03:30.590
these are action adventure, you know, on one

01:03:30.590 --> 01:03:32.769
level they're action adventure stories, you know.

01:03:33.289 --> 01:03:37.469
But this was, this made it, for me anyway, literature

01:03:37.469 --> 01:03:42.090
and like actual art. So I don't know how that

01:03:42.090 --> 01:03:43.889
translates to whether they're two separate things,

01:03:43.889 --> 01:03:45.909
because there is the physicality of the book.

01:03:46.610 --> 01:03:49.829
I think I have so much association of reading

01:03:49.829 --> 01:03:53.650
stuff on PDFs with my legal career, which I just

01:03:53.650 --> 01:03:56.949
kind of have a kind of allergic reaction to now,

01:03:57.030 --> 01:04:00.730
but I just can't get that from a book. Even my

01:04:00.730 --> 01:04:04.329
own stuff, I can't read it in the same way. But

01:04:04.329 --> 01:04:09.650
yeah, the audio book, again, if it is predicated

01:04:09.650 --> 01:04:12.670
on the condition that the guy or the lady is

01:04:12.670 --> 01:04:18.280
a good reader, a bad one can ruin a book. So,

01:04:18.639 --> 01:04:21.659
you know, you kind of take a risk when you convert

01:04:21.659 --> 01:04:23.579
it into that form, but at the same time, you

01:04:23.579 --> 01:04:27.679
know, I've enjoyed that in many different, not

01:04:27.679 --> 01:04:31.239
just in fiction, but in other forms as well.

01:04:31.980 --> 01:04:34.039
Yeah, I love what Giles was saying about you

01:04:34.039 --> 01:04:39.179
get to hear the character's voice, you know,

01:04:39.320 --> 01:04:42.099
changes the way you write the character. Because

01:04:42.099 --> 01:04:46.199
it makes me think that with... we write the words

01:04:46.199 --> 01:04:48.260
and we put it out into the world and you know

01:04:48.260 --> 01:04:50.380
offering and say we sit alone in the room and

01:04:50.380 --> 01:04:52.079
make stuff up and then someone else sits in a

01:04:52.079 --> 01:04:54.480
room maybe years later maybe after we've died

01:04:54.480 --> 01:04:58.099
and they read that book and um it comes alive

01:04:58.099 --> 01:05:01.860
in a way that that i think with writers you you

01:05:01.860 --> 01:05:05.039
the page is full of blanks um literally and the

01:05:05.039 --> 01:05:07.320
blanks is all that space for the reader's imagination

01:05:07.320 --> 01:05:11.800
to fill in um and with the audiobook or hearing

01:05:11.800 --> 01:05:14.480
an audiobook you get to hear You almost get to

01:05:14.480 --> 01:05:18.000
hear how a reader is responding to your work

01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:20.300
and how they're interpreting the characters and

01:05:20.300 --> 01:05:22.420
the voices they're giving them and the emphasis

01:05:22.420 --> 01:05:23.900
they're giving to things. So that's a really

01:05:23.900 --> 01:05:27.699
kind of fascinating process. And it does feel

01:05:27.699 --> 01:05:30.780
like someone else has written it. It's interesting.

01:05:31.519 --> 01:05:34.579
It really disassociates you from it. Yeah, completely.

01:05:35.400 --> 01:05:38.949
I listened when I was writing. Arthur, I listened

01:05:38.949 --> 01:05:41.329
to the previous, I listened to Lancelot and Camelot

01:05:41.329 --> 01:05:43.989
on audio. And there are whole passages that I

01:05:43.989 --> 01:05:46.690
had no recollection of writing at all. Just,

01:05:46.769 --> 01:05:49.849
it was completely fresh to me. And that was a

01:05:49.849 --> 01:05:55.230
really nice experience. Yeah. Well, it's certainly

01:05:55.230 --> 01:05:57.690
kind of like I've enjoyed books in both forms.

01:05:57.750 --> 01:06:00.030
And I used to read on Kindle a fair bit when

01:06:00.030 --> 01:06:02.590
I had a bit of a longer commute. Now that commute's

01:06:02.590 --> 01:06:04.110
only a five minute drive. I don't really have

01:06:04.110 --> 01:06:06.210
time to listen to anything beyond just the radio

01:06:06.210 --> 01:06:08.699
for five minutes. and of course having a child

01:06:08.699 --> 01:06:11.400
has robbed me a lot of my waking time but eventually

01:06:11.400 --> 01:06:13.480
I'm doing lots of reading with her and it's been

01:06:13.480 --> 01:06:16.519
interesting seeing how albeit with very slightly

01:06:16.519 --> 01:06:18.260
off topic to dole it with children stories my

01:06:18.260 --> 01:06:20.500
husband will very much try and put on severe

01:06:20.500 --> 01:06:22.760
character voices often voices that do not match

01:06:22.760 --> 01:06:24.519
at all with the character that he's trying to

01:06:24.519 --> 01:06:27.599
impersonate like I'm sure he's tried to impersonate

01:06:27.599 --> 01:06:30.599
because it was the fox from Mighty Boosh for

01:06:30.599 --> 01:06:32.679
one character in one book and my own was like

01:06:32.679 --> 01:06:36.070
what are you doing? That's not the fox. I'm like,

01:06:36.110 --> 01:06:37.909
I know. Dad's just being silly, Dad. And from

01:06:37.909 --> 01:06:40.590
now on, he goes, Dad can read, but no funny character

01:06:40.590 --> 01:06:43.030
voices. He's just got to read it with his own

01:06:43.030 --> 01:06:45.530
voice, nothing else. Because that's what I do.

01:06:45.550 --> 01:06:47.909
I make a slight intonation difference between

01:06:47.909 --> 01:06:50.050
characters, but nothing much, because I can't

01:06:50.050 --> 01:06:53.489
do accents. I can probably do a West Country

01:06:53.489 --> 01:06:55.289
farmer and then an old lady. That's about the

01:06:55.289 --> 01:06:58.929
range of my acting skill. It's why I haven't

01:06:58.929 --> 01:07:00.630
quite broke into being a dungeon master yet,

01:07:00.630 --> 01:07:02.250
because I couldn't do the voices for all the

01:07:02.250 --> 01:07:04.289
NPCs you've got either. That's just equally.

01:07:04.489 --> 01:07:09.030
battling I don't know how anyone does it. So

01:07:09.030 --> 01:07:12.269
in terms of kind of like certainly with you each

01:07:12.269 --> 01:07:14.590
having a different era of Viking history to cover

01:07:14.590 --> 01:07:16.489
I guess with the history often lends you kind

01:07:16.489 --> 01:07:18.670
of like the ending for the book you have an idea

01:07:18.670 --> 01:07:21.170
of where you want your story to end but then

01:07:21.170 --> 01:07:23.329
do you then find that makes it even harder for

01:07:23.329 --> 01:07:25.630
you to fill in the narrative that gets you to

01:07:25.630 --> 01:07:27.449
that point because instead of having the start

01:07:27.449 --> 01:07:29.070
and then working towards the end you've got the

01:07:29.070 --> 01:07:30.730
end and you've got to go back to the start and

01:07:30.730 --> 01:07:36.670
then work forwards. Well, for me, I can easily

01:07:36.670 --> 01:07:40.090
answer this one. I avoid the history. So that's

01:07:40.090 --> 01:07:42.809
why I wrote about the Arthurian myth, because

01:07:42.809 --> 01:07:46.949
I get to make it up. I get to do it my way, get

01:07:46.949 --> 01:07:49.630
to reinvent it, reimagine it in a different way.

01:07:50.170 --> 01:07:52.730
With the Viking series, OK, there are a couple

01:07:52.730 --> 01:07:55.050
of historical characters in there. Charlemagne

01:07:55.050 --> 01:07:58.230
makes an appearance. And I'm not really sure

01:07:58.230 --> 01:08:00.909
if there are any others, historical figures.

01:08:01.489 --> 01:08:07.230
So it's... pretty much just pure fiction. And

01:08:07.230 --> 01:08:10.889
so that's how I get out of that, really. And

01:08:10.889 --> 01:08:13.889
Justin has a different. And Theo as well, obviously,

01:08:14.530 --> 01:08:17.350
there's history, obviously, historical events.

01:08:18.500 --> 01:08:21.699
There's a lot of license there as well and and

01:08:21.699 --> 01:08:24.380
that's kind of that's where I love the create

01:08:24.380 --> 01:08:28.100
that Creativity to just not be so I wrote a couple

01:08:28.100 --> 01:08:29.659
of novels set during the civil English civil

01:08:29.659 --> 01:08:31.659
war and they were much more historic obviously

01:08:31.659 --> 01:08:34.920
I was following battles that took place if I'm

01:08:34.920 --> 01:08:37.479
describing a Village church, it probably looks

01:08:37.479 --> 01:08:39.920
the same now did then so you have to get there

01:08:39.920 --> 01:08:43.340
every bit of research was it was painstaking

01:08:43.340 --> 01:08:46.880
and As much as it's nice when it's done. It's

01:08:46.880 --> 01:08:50.460
it's a bit of a pain in the process. And so,

01:08:50.579 --> 01:08:55.680
yeah, so I tend to avoid historically, real historically

01:08:55.680 --> 01:09:02.000
sort of periods, yeah. Yeah, I think for me,

01:09:02.479 --> 01:09:05.659
I play pretty fast and loose with the history

01:09:05.659 --> 01:09:09.100
that is there. But I do try and use that history,

01:09:09.100 --> 01:09:13.380
if that makes sense. So I'm not allowing it to

01:09:13.380 --> 01:09:17.079
completely sort of bolt me down. But, you know,

01:09:17.079 --> 01:09:19.930
if there's a big historical set piece, like a

01:09:19.930 --> 01:09:23.770
big siege. I'll find out what I can about it,

01:09:23.850 --> 01:09:26.550
but often you don't get, because of the nature

01:09:26.550 --> 01:09:29.210
of the period, it's quite scant. You might get

01:09:29.210 --> 01:09:31.510
a name, but that says nothing about who that

01:09:31.510 --> 01:09:35.829
guy was or who that woman was, so you can, you

01:09:35.829 --> 01:09:38.329
know, there is definitely a lot of room for using

01:09:38.329 --> 01:09:41.289
your imagination. I think I did a bit of a no

01:09:41.289 --> 01:09:44.430
-no in the, do you remember I referred to that

01:09:44.430 --> 01:09:47.090
kind of legendary battle, even though it's just

01:09:47.090 --> 01:09:49.819
sagas, but I changed the result of the battle.

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:52.819
So the guy who lost now won. I sort of fudged

01:09:52.819 --> 01:09:54.939
it because I gave him an extra name at the end.

01:09:55.159 --> 01:09:58.659
So there was ways in which you can sort of gray

01:09:58.659 --> 01:10:04.640
the area a little bit. But generally, I just

01:10:04.640 --> 01:10:07.739
use it as the magpie approach. It's like, I take

01:10:07.739 --> 01:10:11.479
what's useful to me. And then if it's not, we

01:10:11.479 --> 01:10:16.500
just ignore that. Yeah, interesting question.

01:10:17.710 --> 01:10:20.770
I remember reading Burt Cornwall, his Uhtred

01:10:20.770 --> 01:10:25.189
series, and reading the author's notes at the

01:10:25.189 --> 01:10:26.930
end, and he said, you know, I changed his battle,

01:10:26.949 --> 01:10:29.229
you know, just because it didn't really fit in

01:10:29.229 --> 01:10:34.630
with the story. And I was appalled. Yes, that's

01:10:34.630 --> 01:10:36.689
for me, one of the exciting things is to feel

01:10:36.689 --> 01:10:39.670
like you are living history. And so if there's

01:10:39.670 --> 01:10:43.109
history that's reliable, then I like to stick

01:10:43.109 --> 01:10:46.590
to it, which then can be quite challenging. And

01:10:46.590 --> 01:10:50.949
I, so I think, so one thing, one thing the shield

01:10:50.949 --> 01:10:53.210
wall I really enjoyed is the book, it's a book

01:10:53.210 --> 01:10:54.609
about Anglo -Saxon England, but it starts in

01:10:54.609 --> 01:10:58.350
Dublin. And I thought this is great because in

01:10:58.350 --> 01:11:00.329
a sense, you know, Ireland doesn't exist as a

01:11:00.329 --> 01:11:02.310
country. We're in a very different geographical

01:11:02.310 --> 01:11:05.630
place and Dublin is a Viking city, a trading

01:11:05.630 --> 01:11:08.170
city, a kind of Singapore of, you know, the British

01:11:08.170 --> 01:11:12.510
Isles. And so it's taking, the dull way to do

01:11:12.510 --> 01:11:13.689
history is kind of start at the beginning and

01:11:13.689 --> 01:11:16.600
go all the way through. So it almost kind of

01:11:16.600 --> 01:11:19.239
forces you to do something more creative and

01:11:19.239 --> 01:11:24.579
more interesting. And Viking Fire, I did something

01:11:24.579 --> 01:11:27.539
different. I mean, it's kind of, it starts with

01:11:27.539 --> 01:11:29.239
the Battle of Fulford Gate, it ends a week later

01:11:29.239 --> 01:11:34.260
at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But in a sense,

01:11:34.680 --> 01:11:38.239
in that week, Harold tells his story. So him

01:11:38.239 --> 01:11:40.880
telling his story gave me leeway. I thought,

01:11:40.899 --> 01:11:43.779
OK, I'm not just repeating history here. In the

01:11:43.779 --> 01:11:47.960
same way that we embellish things or we leave

01:11:47.960 --> 01:11:51.159
bits out, I'm going to do the same with Harold.

01:11:51.399 --> 01:11:53.060
And that actually allowed me a bit of creative

01:11:53.060 --> 01:11:57.000
freedom to play around with the story while essentially

01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:03.630
keeping to the facts. Well it's certainly been

01:12:03.630 --> 01:12:05.949
fascinating touching with all three of you kind

01:12:05.949 --> 01:12:07.869
of like on the elements of your writing, your

01:12:07.869 --> 01:12:11.149
reading and of course your innate curiosity and

01:12:11.149 --> 01:12:13.310
indeed passion in many ways for this area of

01:12:13.310 --> 01:12:15.369
history and I've appreciated and loved all of

01:12:15.369 --> 01:12:18.470
your books. I know of course Justin I will long

01:12:18.470 --> 01:12:20.930
await the next one when it arrives I will read

01:12:20.930 --> 01:12:24.539
it, I will have my friola money ready. Fantastic.

01:12:24.739 --> 01:12:27.359
I wish you best of luck with book five, whenever

01:12:27.359 --> 01:12:29.699
it emerges in the imagination, starts writing,

01:12:29.800 --> 01:12:32.119
of course book four ended. That was an intensely

01:12:32.119 --> 01:12:34.260
dark book, The Damaged Moon. I quite enjoyed

01:12:34.260 --> 01:12:36.779
how dark it got and it certainly makes now a

01:12:36.779 --> 01:12:39.260
lot more sense now that you've told me that wonderful

01:12:39.260 --> 01:12:42.039
story about where the actual genesis of the idea

01:12:42.039 --> 01:12:45.020
came from with the monk and the tree. It took

01:12:45.020 --> 01:12:47.640
four books to get to the actual inspiration.

01:12:49.229 --> 01:12:51.890
But that's fine. Sometimes that's how a story

01:12:51.890 --> 01:12:55.890
goes because from my little experience as being

01:12:55.890 --> 01:12:58.630
a writer sometimes I would have an idea and it

01:12:58.630 --> 01:13:01.430
literally wouldn't get done until several chapters

01:13:01.430 --> 01:13:03.390
later even though I wanted it to be in that chapter.

01:13:04.369 --> 01:13:06.529
Characters sometimes do have their own way of

01:13:06.529 --> 01:13:08.310
deviating things or sometimes you get mind goes

01:13:08.310 --> 01:13:12.310
blank. And, of course, Giles, I know, for example,

01:13:12.390 --> 01:13:14.489
that you've written a little bit of a Viking

01:13:14.489 --> 01:13:16.670
short story of late, which is a prequel to the

01:13:16.670 --> 01:13:19.250
Norse Oath in Blood game that's coming out in

01:13:19.250 --> 01:13:22.930
February next year. Can't wait to play. I've

01:13:22.930 --> 01:13:24.609
already been on the demo and absolutely love

01:13:24.609 --> 01:13:26.649
the dialogue in that game. The characterisation

01:13:26.649 --> 01:13:29.189
of the NPCs, let alone the protagonist, is just

01:13:29.189 --> 01:13:31.890
superb. And I just can't wait to play more. And

01:13:31.890 --> 01:13:34.149
I will definitely be trying to recruit you back

01:13:34.149 --> 01:13:37.010
to Valhalla again soon to talk more about Norse

01:13:37.010 --> 01:13:41.899
once it's out in February. But yes, of course,

01:13:42.020 --> 01:13:43.800
no matter what happens with your writing guys,

01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:45.739
I'm your number one fan, and always will be.

01:13:46.439 --> 01:13:48.819
So don't rush on my account, of course. I know

01:13:48.819 --> 01:13:51.520
my little pittance won't pay your bills. But

01:13:51.520 --> 01:13:53.399
of course, I wish you luck in all your creative

01:13:53.399 --> 01:13:55.920
writing endeavors, whether it's Viking or not

01:13:55.920 --> 01:13:57.560
otherwise, because you're all multi -counted

01:13:57.560 --> 01:14:00.300
in different genres. And I wish you luck with

01:14:00.300 --> 01:14:02.140
whatever happens next. And maybe we'll have you

01:14:02.140 --> 01:14:04.380
on again in Valhalla again soon to talk about

01:14:04.380 --> 01:14:07.000
your next book. So thank you very much, Justin.

01:14:07.300 --> 01:14:08.899
Thank you very much, Theo. And thank you very

01:14:08.899 --> 01:14:11.680
much, Charles. Great to hang out with you guys.

01:14:11.859 --> 01:14:14.439
Thank you. Thank you, guys. Yeah, lovely to see

01:14:14.439 --> 01:14:36.409
you guys. Thank you very much for listening to

01:14:36.409 --> 01:14:39.609
this episode. I hope you enjoyed the discussions

01:14:39.609 --> 01:14:42.869
between my special guests and myself. Please

01:14:42.869 --> 01:14:45.569
do check out the episode blurb for links to their

01:14:45.569 --> 01:14:48.489
works and websites. If you liked this episode

01:14:48.489 --> 01:14:51.270
let me know by giving it a thumbs up. Let me

01:14:51.270 --> 01:14:53.409
know if you learned something new in the comments.

01:14:53.829 --> 01:14:57.090
And of course click subscribe to Valhalla Conversations

01:14:57.090 --> 01:15:00.449
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