Conversations podcast. I'm your host Becky Hill,
otherwise known as Soul Chaser Becky and I am
a proud Viking geek. I fell in love with the
history, culture and mythology of the Viking
Age and I have been on an endless quest for more
ever since. Join me as I discuss all things North
with those who have been inspired by Viking Age
history and North mythology in their creative
works or those who have studied the sagas and
archaeology and review. how such subjects are
being presented to modern audiences today. If
you like Viking stuff you are welcome in my Valhalla
and I hope you stay for the conversation. Welcome
everyone to Valhalla Conversations podcast. In
this episode, the penultimate one before the
Christmas break, I am delighted to say I have
three kings, as I described them, of historical
fiction in my humble meat hall of the gods. We
have Justin Hill, Theodore Brunn, and Giles Christian,
three authors that I have read all their books
of. particularly in the Viking Age historical
fiction era, because they do all write different
books, of course. And I'm delighted to have them
all here to talk about Vikings, their books,
and how they all got into it. And welcome, guys.
Hello. Right. For our audience who may or not
have heard of you guys before, and hopefully
they will do after this session, please introduce
yourself and your books. And we will start off
with Justin first. Oh, lucky me. Good morning,
welcome, everyone. And yeah, I'm Justin Hill.
I have been writing about 30 years now. And about
halfway through that, I have been writing about
Vikings or a series of books about the Battle
of Hastings, Shield Wall and Viking Fire, which
are still waiting for the third of the three.
and I also write as Justin Dehill for the Black
Library for Games Workshop and that's taken up
a lot of my time recently, so my Hastings project
is the next one to go. Very good, well welcome
to Valhalla Justin, it's great to have you here.
Theodore, could you please introduce yourself?
I'm Theodore Bruun, but you can call me Theo,
everyone else does, and I'm actually half Danish,
I think a bit like Giles, I've got some some
Viking blood in there, although weirdly that
was not the connection into the Viking world.
I studied archaeology at uni and I knew all the
material culture of Scandinavian archaeology
and I found it dry as dust. So it wasn't until
quite a few years later that I actually started
breeding. I actually know it was Wagner of all
things when I was at law school because I was
a lawyer before I became an author. And it was
Wagner and the ring cycle that specifically got
me into all the stories and the mythological
poetry. There was more to do with the Scandinavian
world rather than the Vikings. But anyway, long
story short, the end product of this was a series
of novels called The Wanderer Chronicles. A bit
like Justin, I've got one to go, four out of
five written. wondering when and how the fifth
one might come. But yes, and I do write in a
few other guises. I do some ghost writing. I
write articles and little novellas. And even
now, I've got a contemporary murder mystery on
the go. So one day, I want to come back to finish
this great cycle that I embarked on. And we'll
see if that ever comes about. But Giles, over
to you. Yeah, I'm Giles Christian. I've written,
I think it's 13, no, 13 novels, 12 of them historical
and one contemporary thriller. And I'm now writing
a video game. um I've probably met Becky back
when I first when it was Raven Bloodeye with
my first novel it was it was at Kelmarsh at the
Festival of History that's when I met you and
I think that was published in 2009 so we're going
back a bit and I think I started writing in 2004
got the publishing deal in 2007 when I was living
in New York and it was published in 2009 so it
was a long road to actually get that uh that
that first book published. And I don't know if
you guys were the same, but I was so hungry to
get published. It was all I could think about.
It was just everything to me, going into bookshops
and trying to imagine what it would be like,
what it would feel like to see my own book on
the shelf in a bookshop. And yeah, eventually
it happened. And I've sort of been doing that
and other things ever since. Well, I'm so pleased
to have finally got you all, all three of you,
into my haul. You've been on my hit list for
a long time on my Get My hit list, my guest list
I should say, not my hit list. My guest list,
I mean it took me a long time surprisingly to
get round to touching on Vikings in historical
fiction because that is how I got into Vikings.
Although it came as a strange duology for me
because I don't know if I can remember when there
used to be a channel called the Yesterday Channel,
although it was also known as Dave for a period
of time. and way back in 2000 they had a rerun
of the Blood of the Vikings series with Julian
Richards presenting and in between every episode
they were advertising Bernard Cornwall's The
Last Kingdom book. I thought oh I'll write that
down see what that book's all about and then
I was hooked ever since because as much as I
love the documentary the book was just so immersive
and it had me hooked ever since both in the history
and the mythology of the Vikings because they
both go so well together in historical fiction.
So I guess we'll start off with Justin. How did
you first kind of get an interest in biking history
and that kind of side? Well when I had hair it
was almost peroxide blonde and so I was growing
up in York in the 1980s. Well there's two reasons
really. One is kind of blonde growing up in York
during the copper gate digs and the copper gate
digs were still kind of muddy you know they were
digging when I was at primary school. We could
go there and Our primary school did a tour then.
They had so many oyster shells they dug up for
two P. You could buy a Viking oyster shell. They
had a huge kind of wooden crate of oyster shells.
So that was kind of the world I was growing up
in. But the much more kind of personal reason
was I was never really a reader. I think it might
have been dyslexic, but it was never, you know,
people didn't really bother about it then. And
I liked you get kind of electric sets with a
battery and a bulb and some wires and you could
make lights light up. And my parents were both
teachers and they were despairing that their
son didn't read. And then the guy next to me
at school was reading The Hobbit. And he had
to kind of report back to the class and I thought,
oh, that sounds really interesting. So I read
The Hobbit and loved it. And then I read Lord
of the Rings. And in a sense, Well, I remember
kind of finishing Lord of the Rings and and you
know in a sense I was spellbound, you know and
spell in the kind of the old English sense which
is you know story so you almost like you're you're
kind of you're enchanted by a story and I remember
closing Lord of the Rings and just thinking wow,
you know almost a sense of loss in that Fictional
kind of you know or a spell had been broken and
I thought when I grow up, I want to be a writer
because that has been so powerful. You know,
a world I know doesn't exist. You know, fiction
has felt so real to me. So that was kind of,
you know, that was me at 10 years old wanting
to grow up and be a writer. And the stuff that
really kind of impacted with me was all the dark
age, poetry and everything that was kind of very
red, Linton, Lord of the Rings, really kind of,
you know. I don't know. It struck a chord in
my soul. I remember one day coming back from
rugby in New York, and it was kind of a really
overcast day. The clouds were racing overhead.
And I kind of thought, this feels like something
out of Ragnarok. And that sense stayed with me
to this day. So I don't know how to describe
it. It's kind of a soul link to the Viking world
and all the way they describe their world. and
the poetry and the sagas, all that stuff. That
is wonderful and I kind of like resonate and
relate to that a lot because that's how I felt
when I got so immersed in Bernard Cornwall's
fiction because the characters are so vividly
alive, the way they talk about the world and
the weather and of course the gods and their
connection to the mythology and how they perceive
the world going. That just kind of like just
made me want to know more because I wanted to
know more. I wanted to see the world like they
did. and that's how I ended up here. Yeah, of
course, you're a Yorkshire lad as well. I am
born in York, so I like to think there's a bit
of my soul that's connected somewhere. Yeah,
so there's something in the air. All the places
around here are Viking names. All the streets
are Viking names. So you grow up in a sense,
it's subliminal. You're taking in your morning
breakfast. Oh, thank you. How about you, Theo?
It's very interesting listening to Justin talk,
because I was thinking, oh, my way in was a bit
different. But actually, there's a word that
C .S. Lewis came up with in one of his books,
which is northernness. And when Justin describes
that journey back from rugby, and he sort of
sees the scudding dark skies, and it's like something
that sort of cracks into a bolt of lightning
into the soul. And for me, that really, I mean,
I mentioned Wagner in the introduction, but it's
not him so much, but the music and the music
that I was kind of totally, my brain was saturated
and while I was studying for these exams was
evoking that same feeling of like the Northernness.
And it kind of drew me in and caused me to, I
mean, my whole life was sort of going on. on
one side and then on the other, this total awakening
of my imagination, which involved digging further
into these old sort of archaic texts and just
learning more about that world and realizing
actually I had quite a lot of grounding in this
world from my degree. And that sort of carried
on, but it was still a few years before another
kind of moment where I was in a lecture about
a very sort of obscure dark age saint called
Saint Boniface. And it was describing him chopping
down the sacred oak of Thor, obviously, propagating
the Christian religion in some dark Germanic
forest. And that was, I was, I had no designs
to be a writer. I'd written myself off completely
as having a creative bone in my body. But this
sort of sparked this vision almost in my head
of like this dark Germanic forest, torches everywhere
and this kind of crazy -eyed a monk hacking at
a big oak and everyone just bribing up in arms
about it. And that stayed with me. And that was
actually the sort of seed that fell into this
kind of seed bed, if you like, of my imagination.
And as I more dug around both his life and some
of the history that was going on, you know, you've
got invasions of the Muslims from Spain. You've
got the kind of fault line between paganism and
Christianity and da -da -da. Then my own background
came into play, which was this familiarity with
Denmark. And I thought, who's a neutral character
to explore this whole world? I've heard you talk
about this, Justin, actually, this time travel
element of being a historical writer. And someone
who's very keen and interested in history, and
to a lesser extent, archaeology. What frustrated
me always about archaeology was the distance
between you know picking up a I don't know a
comb from a Viking period or looking at a schematic
on a the page of a book of like this is what
a Viking hall would have stood and I'm like I
want to be there I want to be in that place not
only just looking at it but experiencing something
that's where the whole aspect of story comes
in and actually Justin's got a great I think
it's your afterword is it in Viking fire you
talk about something like Stars in a night sky
and the the history of the star. How did you
put it? But anyway, it was sort of like filling
in this this scene where we know we can see pinpricks
of what happened, but like you want to fill in
the whole the rest of the picture. And I think
you know what I think is what was it making constellations
or turn those stars into pictures and then making
them come alive. Yes. Yeah, well, exactly. And
that in itself is a sort of moment of northernness
right there. So then you have, you know, the
kind of rolling gray Atlantic seas and, you know,
these dark pine forests and the snows coming
in and the warm fires in these cozy halls. And,
you know, to be honest, by Danish... background
and the whole notion of Hooghly which is like
the sort of coziness of that culture in the opposition
to like the bleak and the I suppose the cold
and the danger out there in the wilds up in that
part of the world all just kind of fed in to
eventually crystallizing into the story of you
know one hero which is who's the protagonist
of my my particular series and novels but that's
kind of my way in. And as that idea grew and
grew and grew, I suppose my desire to actually
have an attempt at writing, you know, again,
you guys have been writing, well, Giles was sort
of very creative in a kind of performative way,
singing poetry and all that lyrics. Justin's
been writing forever. For me, this was a completely
new thing, age 33. It's like, what hubris do
you think you can start trying to write? a novel,
but four big fat novels later, I'm like, oh,
did I do that? And just to finish, that is, I
think, the beauty of the imagination is the more
you demand of it, and I mean anyone, the more
you demand of it, the more it gives you. But
a lot of us just kind of lie dormant, I guess,
like a seed that hasn't come to life yet, just
like. I'm not creative. So anyone listening,
I would say, I challenge that and say, just find
what it is and feed into it. I actually agree
with that last comment. Absolutely. Certainly
my own personal creativity, because I used to
be a creative writer. Hell, it was part of my
degree when I did my degree. But then I didn't
have anyone setting me deadlines. And then I
just procrastinated. So I'll do it tomorrow.
I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. And
then I went. I've always been a reader. That's
always been a lifelong creative passion of mine.
But then I went into cosplay and now I'm doing
podcasting. But at some point I've always tried
to get Vikings in there. So it's all good. You
never know where life will lead you. No, you
never do. You never do. And it's always nice
to take a look on that door of opportunity if
it ever emerges out of the ether of life and
the universe. So lastly, Giles, how about you?
When did you first get interest in Vikings? Well,
firstly, I love hearing the other guy's stories.
I think it's fascinating to see how we ended
up where we have ended up. It's brilliant. And
Justin, I had no idea that you didn't really
read as a child. I've never really come across
that before from other authors, because I didn't
read as a child either. I couldn't concentrate.
I just really couldn't. I was told at school
that I would I was actually kept down a year
because I was always wandering around the class
disturbing the other children. I could never
concentrate on reading a book. That was the last
thing that I would be able to do as a child.
So I didn't read until, I think the first book
I read was when I was a teenager when I was,
I think I was about 14 and I was off school with
glandular fever. I assume it's about 14 because
that was probably about the first time I would
have been kissing girls or something. I think
I could actually name the girl, which I'm not
going to do. And I was off school for weeks and
weeks. And as much as I love being off school
as a kid, because it wasn't my favorite place
to be, at some point I got terribly bored and
my mum bought me a fantasy novel that she just
picked up somewhere. Now my family weren't readers
either, my dad read the sports pages and the
business pages. My brother the same and we weren't
readers as a family and my mum bought me this
book called, what was it called, it was R .A.
Salvatore and it was called The Crystal Shard.
There's a fantasy novel and it had on the front,
it was the archetypal. It had a barbarian dwarf
and probably a wizard or something like that.
And I thought, what's this? And I started reading
it and that was the first time that sort of reading
a book ever. And it just blew my mind. I was
just absolutely captivated by that. So that started
a bit of a reading thing. I still find it difficult,
but that's where it started. And that combined
with as a sort of young, As a student, the poetry
of Seamus Heaney really resonated. I was just
captivated by his use of language and how he
could make you feel things just in very simplistic
language on the page, a poem about picking blackberries
or whatever it was. That nature poetry really
struck a chord with me. And that was really when
I thought, you know what, I wonder if I could
be a writer when I grow up, because I didn't
know what else I was going to do. I knew I wasn't
going to be the sort of a businessman like my
family, the family sort of path. So I knew I'd
have to come up with something else, that's for
sure. So I went to uni and started a degree in
creative writing and literature. So I thought
that'd be a great thing to combine the literature,
but also get to create stuff as well. That seemed
like a perfect sort of path for me. Although
at the time I got to uni and I, again, was just
too academic for me. I just couldn't, I couldn't,
I didn't know what everyone was talking about
half the time. I really struggled with that.
And then I had an opportunity to join a pop group
and I took it. And that's what happened with
that. So I wasn't at university for very long.
I was the first member of the family to, first
member of the family to ever get to uni, which
was like, wow, that's amazing. And then I was
the first member of the family to ever drop out
of uni. Surely the first member in a pop group
as well. Yes, that's true. My dad was a rock
and roll singer, he had a rock and roll revival
band. He was the lead singer in the rock and
roll revival band. So I'd kind of grown up around
performing and music as well. But yeah, so I
dropped out of uni and did my other thing, my
other career, which isn't entirely relevant here.
And then at some point when that started to come
to an end, I wanted an antidote to the world
of music and the pop industry and the music industry
in general, which wasn't a very nice place to
be. And I'd been pushed around in different directions
and really wasn't very happy. And then I thought,
why don't I just start writing? Because that's
kind of what I've always wanted to do, really.
And so I started writing a book. Well, I actually
went to do a diploma in the Crusades and in Viking
history and stuff in London. A couple of things
to just to do some research, basically. And I
wrote a novel set during the first crusade, the
very first crusade, which I found very interesting.
And it ended up being one hundred and sixty thousand
words long. And I didn't know what to do with
it. Sent it to a few agents. Didn't get anywhere
with it. And that was that, and I'd spent all
this time writing this thing that was just not,
it was gonna go nowhere. And I went on my brother's
stag weekend to Oslo, and one of the, I organized
it, and I thought, why don't we, because we're
obviously gonna be drinking and being stupid
and doing what we're supposed to do on a stag
weekend. So I thought, why don't we do something
cultural, go to the Viking Ship Museum just outside
Oslo, and that will give us a break from the
pubs. So we went to the Viking Ship Museum. And
we're looking at the Gogstad and the Usherberg
ship. And it's behind a rope. But you reach over
and touch it. Because as Theodore was saying,
that connection with history, to be able to just
sort of, you're probably the same as me. One
of the most frustrating things in my life is
that I can't go back. And it's like a physical
pain, an ache in your chest, the fact that you'll
never really go back. So to touch things is kind
of the closest. And I looked at this ship and
I thought, imagine us lot, these guys on this
stag did, imagine us all at the row benches on
the ship. Because that's kind of what they were
doing, is what we were doing. And I sort of put
each of us on the ship. And as soon as I got
back, I started writing a novel about a bunch
of guys going on a raid, basically. And that
turned into Raven Blood Eye. So, yeah, we come
to it by, well, being half Norwegian as well,
that played a part because I'd grown up in and
around the fjords of Norway and always, again,
just imagining, looking around the landscape
out on a fjord, on a boat, looking at the landscape,
seeing the little cottages on the hills and just
thinking it's very easy to take those away with
your mind. And then you're just left with the
same landscape that the Vikings would have been
looking at all those years ago. So it made it
quite easy to imagine. and someone with an overactive
imagination like these other guys, it's a powerful
brew, put it that way. Yeah, I love that you
mentioned Heaney because I was lucky enough to
have an English teacher who was a climber and
wrote poetry, but one of the things he was very
keen on, Heaney, and I always thought of Heaney
as a very Anglo -Saxon, very English poet, or
the language he was using. And you're so right,
he's so kind of grounded. I remember digging.
That was the one. It just spoke to me in a way
that I look at my kids, the stuff they're reading
now, and I kind of think, oh, this doesn't speak
to me at all. It's a different world almost.
So Heaney, I always think it's hugely kind of
Anglo -Saxon in his language, even though the
world he's talking about is Northern Ireland.
that's brilliant But I think that image works
in a lot of wealth for many many things But I
was talking about it just into a bunch of other
sort of creatives not necessarily writers But
in the same same way of like when you dig We
was all meant digging for diamonds like there
are diamonds down there But there's an awful
lot of kind of crud that you have to clear away.
I mean it was to do to do with procrastination
as well and just like having the courage to you
know digging back to push that metaphor like
you have to go down underground in the dark you
have to you know turn up at the face of wherever
you're doing this thing and just keep turning
out and eventually but just I suppose there's
that faith isn't there that there's a diamond
in there somewhere and occasionally you come
across one. And then you look at the pile of
crud at your feet and you think, well, it had
to be worth it, even though that's all of no
value. But I got to the thing. And the only way
I got to it was by creating a lot of kind of
stuff that wasn't necessarily a value. I mean,
this helps someone who massively overwrites books
justify all the words that eventually get deleted.
But I find and I think the original. thought
was put in my head by you, Giles, because don't
you talk about that in one of your, maybe on
your website or something, like some background
article that you've written describing your journey
into writing. So, obviously, that was a helpful
image for me. I haven't actually read that poem.
I'll go away and read it. Well, I think what's
encouraging for people out there who might be
thinking about writing or want to write is that
there's there is no way there's no set way to
do this there's no set way to get into this you
don't have to have a degree you don't have to
be educated you don't have to have gone on a
writing course you just have to write and if
you've got ability you know you can do it and
i think that's the wonderful thing about writing
with with other jobs you have to be facilitated
to do the job in in many of them but with us
we can just no one can stop us just writing That's
kind of completely up to us. It's in our own
hands. Yeah, we can create whenever we want to.
If we've got the time, we can make the time.
We can do what we do, which is a lucky position
to be in. Well, thank you for sharing those wonderful,
insightful stories and backgrounds, guys. That
was really, really interesting. Oh I always find
it especially interesting kind of like when literature
whether it's novels, fantasy or of course indeed
poetry in the case or a couple of your kind of
life influenced you not just as readers but of
course as writers and of course followed you
through to your connection to your interest in
the Viking age and history in that whole section
because of course the Viking age is a huge huge
section of history there's a lot to it involved
not just kind of like around England of course
France and the Mediterranean and then Istanbul
and Constantinople there's so much so I guess
my next question is kind of like how did you
decide which era which section of a huge spectrum
of Viking Age history did you decide to place
your characters and find your story in? We'll
go the other way around we'll start with Giles.
I think probably mine's a bit of a cliche I started
sort of at the beginning of the Viking Age that
seemed to me the obviously the raid on Lindisfarne
is an iconic an iconic thing for all of us too,
and it really fires the imagination. I remember
at school seeing the, there was always a textbook
with an image of a couple of monks being chased
or dragged towards the sea by Viking raiders.
And again, it was, even if it was the cover of
a Lady Bird book or a history book at school,
it was the images that I was into. I could never
really read the books, but just one image could
captivate me for hours. It's a little bit like.
If I go anywhere near the British Museum, I have
to go and stare at the Sutton Hoo treasure just
for as long as I can physically stand there looking
at it before somebody thinks, what's that guy
doing? Because it's just an image or an object
can just completely captivate me. So yeah, the
idea of Vikings, the iconic image of them jumping
off the Pravalong ship into the foaming surf
to grab some loot. I just thought, what could
be better than that, to be honest? So yeah, so
I started at the beginning of the Viking Age
with Raven, just a little bit after the Lindisfarne
raid. And they've always been intrigued by the
way you start yours, especially Giles, because
you start from the point of view, of course.
of the Anglo -Saxons living at the time, but
a particular character who wasn't quite a pure
Anglo -Saxon, if I could use the word pure, in
that he's got a bit of a mysterious background,
he's a bit of a stranger, a bit of an odd character,
and it's through him that there's this connection
between him and the Vikings. So he's kind of
like an outsider for both the reader and the
Vikings, and it's that... gives us a conduit
into meeting the cast of characters that you
have in your adventures. Yeah, I think that was
probably being half Norwegian and being sort
of born in England, but having a Norwegian mother
and spending a lot of time in Norway. I've always
felt like that half blood, if you know what I
mean. So things like the back of Stanford Bridge
are difficult for me. They're difficult. Yeah,
that's problematic. But yeah, so I suppose that's
why I started with Raven Bloodeye himself being
kind of not straddling two worlds, really, because
I suppose that's how I've always felt. But he's
also a bit of an outcast. And at the time, I've
always been a bit of an outcast, I suppose. But
at that time of my life, I'd come out of an industry
and I was trying to do something new. And that's
what he's that's what Raven's doing. He's falling
in with a new crowd and trying to make his way
in a new world. And I look at all my novels,
really, and they, to an extent, they've all followed
sort of periods of my life, and what's been going
on with me on a personal level at the time, which
is a psychiatrist's dream, I think, if you got
me on the couch and actually started going through
my novels and asking questions, it would open
some dark doors, potentially. That's probably
why you write them, isn't it? It's just glorified
therapy. Well, writing is hard, isn't it? I mean,
I find writing probably excruciating, and that's
probably because I would have been diagnosed
with ADHD and other things that sort of run in
the family, let's say. So I find it extremely
difficult to actually concentrate for long enough
periods to actually write a novel, which is one
of the reasons. I don't want to digress but one
of the reasons I love the thriller is because
a thriller is sort of 80 80 000 to 100 000 words
or you know and that for some of us that's like
half and that's half a novel and people people
talk about when I see other people going oh I've
just written um you know I've written 35 000
words halfway through my new novel I think what
halfway through that that's not even you've not
even scratched the surface yet basically you're
thinking Ah, I'm desperately jealous. I'd love
to be halfway through a novel with 30 ,000, especially
the first 35 ,000 words I wrote down. Yeah, exactly,
yeah. But some genre writers don't realize how
lucky they are when they can sort of just whack
out a thriller at 80 ,000 words, job done. How
about you, Theo, then? Well, I mentioned that.
that monk Saint Boniface. So following that lecture,
I kind of was intrigued by him. And so somehow
got hold, I think probably on Amazon got hold
of a sort of little biography about his life
and realized that he was connected with quite
a lot of interesting history going on around
that period, not just in the North, in the sort
of Viking area or Scandinavia, but actually in
France and Germany and There was a battle in
732 called the Battle of Tor, which is where,
again, these Muslim raiders were coming up from
Spain and were stopped by a guy called Charles
Martel. So initially, and so when I got to that
bit of reading this book, I thought, hang on.
This could be quite a, and you know, it made
much of the fact that it was a decisive battle
in European history. And I thought, hang on,
that's quite a good climax to some sort of story,
again, in the context of not being a writer at
all. But I just thought, so it sort of, it was
at that point I started putting down notes, actually,
and which eventually I was trying to figure out
who was the protagonist of the story. And so
that's where I came back to a guy from the North,
a guy based in, growing up in Jutland. And so
I suppose it switched from being a more general
kind of dark age European history thing to something
more specifically of that Viking, or it wasn't
Viking culture then, but the date of 732. pushed
it back to in essence before the sort of classic
definition of the Viking age but the material
culture was very similar and also a lot of the
raiding stuff was just going on anyway but more
in the in that sort of Scandinavian region around
the Baltic and all of that and then there were
a couple of other good sort of historical discoveries
that I made they were discoveries to me anyway
was sort of set piece scene, which I think could
have come in further down the series, which was
the siege of Constantinople in 717. And then
also there's a huge battle that's more like a
sort of legendary battle rather than what we
might call an actual historical event in some
of the Scandinavian saga texts about, what do
they call it, the Battle of Bravelia, which is
something a bit like I don't know what, the Iliads
or something. It's like the Scandinavian Iliad
where everyone who's ever been mentioned seems
to be involved in this enormous battle. In fact,
one of our colleagues or friends, Angus Donald,
wrote about it as well. But it's described in
this piece of sort of scrap of a saga. And it's
just like this kind of Viking Armageddon, as
it were. So that featured in the second book.
So it was kind of pushing me back into a... starting
point, like the origin story of what this warrior
was going to be, but also probably worth mentioning
is that, you know, if I had any kind of idea
about what these novels would be, I wanted to
do, there was also like Beowulf, in fact Seamus
Heaney's version of Beowulf in my imagination.
I was thinking, you know, the idea, the first
book's called A Mighty Dawn, and the idea of
that dawn was this kind of coming out of the
dark into the light of history. So the first
book was going to be very deliberately more mythical.
So supernatural craziness and more fantasy, which
I had no idea at the time that this was problematic
from a publishing view. The second one was going
to be like inter -legend, which to me is sort
of forward a bit. And then the third one was
going to be, you know, willed down in Constantinople
and we've got actual history going on that we
know about. So that was kind of what I did. Whether
it worked from a publishing perspective, they
were always like confused. Is this a fantasy
book or is it historical? And you can't have
too much crazy sort of supernatural, you know,
shape shifting. And I think I got a demon even
in the first one. And then you get the historical.
fiction readers going what is this tosh you know
and then you've got the other people who are
like this was you know this wasn't fantastical
enough so more dragons but it was it was the
it was the essence of the story that occurred
to me so all i can say is i was faithful to the
idea um whether it translated into you know a
great uptake of readers you know although they
were thrown so it's quite witchy poo isn't it
here history and witches which one the game of
thrones george rr martin well exactly and i i
think i was halfway through writing my first
one when that took off as a tv series and so
of course you know that the books became more
mainstream which is why they ended up being very
long because i thought well george rr martin
can write a 900 page book i'm gonna write a long
one too which then eventually you know the publishers
like no you can't printing costs say yeah printing
costs translation costs all that kind of stuff.
Well, I was always really impressed with your
first book, Theo, because it kind of had a similar
strand into Giles' character in that your character
becomes an outcast for various reasons, I won't
spoil it, but the kind of like the very epic
journey he goes on through terrain and landscapes
and weather and in climate and he kind of like
the reader feels it. I felt exhausted for him
when he was exhausted and I thought, God, when
is he going to stop? When is he going to rest?
When is he going to find rest, light and safety?
and certainly on the element of as I guess some
people call it fantasy I guess it's the way back
in these areas of history kind of like religion
very much was what we would describe as fantasy
because they believed in demons and spirits and
curses and spells I mean the Vikings were brilliant
at making curses up and the Christians had all
their kind of like demons versus angels kind
of thing and I really liked how you explored
that kind of like that meeting of worlds of kind
of like the ethereal with the real kind of like
in the way that they all see it because they
believe these things are real they believe they
could run into kind of like a troll or a demon
depending on where you're coming from away traveling
in these times so it was very real to them and
I salute you for doing it sir because it is a
hard one to pull off certainly adding that kind
of religious ritual practices. And of course,
our idea of fantasy was their idea of reality.
So in a sense, fantasy is getting much closer
to the reality of the Dark Ages or the Viking
Age than our kind of modern sensibility is. Yeah,
very, very much so. I mean, it helped that I
am actually religious and I have had a conversion
experience. And also in terms of the traveling,
I haven't mentioned it, but went on a very long
journey at one point in my life, which is probably
the only interesting thing I've ever done. So
to that extent, it made it slightly easier experiences.
of my own can get adapted and transmogrified.
I can't say I've met a demon with a big long
rat's tail. But there's evil in the world, and
there's good, and there's all kinds of... I mean,
even now, I'm sure we all may, if not ourselves,
have been involved in a bit of a return to dabbling
in spiritual... things, you know, whether it's
the new age and the shamanism of the Viking culture,
which actually, what's his name? Neil Price.
Have you read some of his books? I have touched
into them a little bit. Yeah, the mentality of
the Viking mind. I mean, I haven't come across
anyone who does it better, but I mean, it's quite...
It's gold, really, for people like us. Whenever
you want to write a story like that, it's really
trying to make an effort to put yourself in the
way that these people saw the world and the strange,
yes, interpretations overlaying reality, but
also maybe doing things that might in turn manipulate
that reality in strange ways that we sat behind
our computers might never come near. I'm not
saying that all fantasy is based on truth, but
I'm saying that their experience of life was
much more connected to nature and things that
we might think are beyond what's possible. But
that was part of the fun of me in a sincere way
believing in some of that probably made it a
lot easier and hopefully more authentic. Thank
you. How about you, Justin? Why did you decide
to conquer the Battle of Hastings era and its
trilogy of wars? Yeah, so I'd read historical
fiction, but I'd never even thought myself as
a writer of it. My early books were all completely
contemporary. I mean, literally, almost like
the year they were written. And then I think
I read Sharon Penman's The Sun in Splendour,
which is about the war of the roses. And, you
know, the Yorkists and Lancashirens are something
I loved as a kid, and I'd read tons of history
books. But I hadn't understood kind of basic
facts like, you know, Warwick the Kingmaker is
cousin to Richard III. And I thought, wow, I
can't believe that I've read all these books
and these kind of basic facts haven't been made.
alive and I guess what struck me about historical
fiction is that you make facts and people and
characters come alive and you put them in the
sense where they don't know what's going to happen
tomorrow even though we do and that that sense
of kind of of the moment being forged And I was
living in Ireland at the time and the Irish,
you know, love to go on about the English and
they have a kind of, you know, a phrase of 800
years of English oppression. And I thought, well,
that's not entirely fair because the first couple
of hundred years were Norman rather than English.
And that got me thinking actually, really, you
know, the country that suffered most under the
Normans were the English. You know, we lost,
you know, talking would go on. We lost our mythology.
We lost our language. Old English literature
was kind of 70 years old by the time of the conquest
almost. We almost have as much old English literature
time period as we do post the conquest. And so
much of that has been lost. And I just thought,
wow, it got me thinking about the Battle of Hastings.
So I thought, you know what? I should write a
battle about the Battle of Hastings, which kind
of puts the record straight. does it in a more
interesting way. And as soon as I started researching
it, I thought, there's no way you can do a single
book about the Battle of Hastings. Because everything,
we know about the 1066, but in 1016, there's
the Danish conquest of England, which no one
knows about. And so in a sense, the simplistic
version is that Anglo -Saxon England dies on
the field of Hastings. Whereas actually, Anglo
-Saxon England dies in the reign of Ethelred
the Unready. And what is created after 1016 is
really a kind of Anglo -Danish state, which I
guess in a sense really spoke to me. You know,
from being from Yorkshire, you know, kind of
genetically, you know, we're Vikings, you know,
we're the descendants of Vikings and we live
in, you know, places that are full of Viking
names and our dialect is full of Viking words.
Yeah, exactly. So I thought, okay, I will, you
know, so then this single book became a trilogy.
And the first one was Shieldwall, which is a
sense that kind of the end of, I mean, I think
it's the end of kind of the the Wessex England,
Alfred the Great's England, because Ethelred
the Inready is so catastrophic. He kind of, you
know, he he he rubs the kind of cords of loyalty
and to, you know, to breaking point. And so what
the shield was all about, you know, kind of what
comes next. And that process itself through the
character of Godwin and then setting up the kind
of the new England that, you know, the English
Danish state that is, you know, that comes next.
Because, of course, we think about Huscarls as
being kind of one of the kind of seminal figures
at the Battle of Hastings. And they're not an
English, you know, kind of, it's not an English
word, it's not an English kind of warrior type.
I mean, it's essentially the same as, you know,
a Thane, but it's an Anglo -Danish, it's a Danish
word for a Danish warrior who is defending England,
you know, on the Hill of Hastings. So all that
complexity made me think, okay, I want to write
this story. And I guess I'd thought I didn't
know enough about Anglo -Saxon England or historical
fiction should be written by people who were
experts and then kind of you know thinking about
my childhood I thought you know I've read all
the sagas I've read all the poetry you know this
is this is the kind of the the leaf mulch which
you know my reading in my imagination grew so
yeah I thought okay I'm in um and so that's yeah
so that's how I I started writing and of course
you know if you're writing um this period there's
Vikings in there and in a sense um Godwin, his
story, that story is the kind of the Anglo -Saxon
version of, you know, the mirror image of a Viking
story. But then I went on to write Viking Fire,
which, you know, opposite of Giles and Theo is
kind of the end of the Viking Age. And I loved
that book. I loved writing. I loved Harold, I
tried as a character. I love both, actually Godwin
and him, both fantastic. But to kind of to write
the end of the Viking Age felt quite emotional
because I started that book in Hong Kong. and
I finished it. I moved back to Yorkshire and
I can look out the window now and I can see York
Minster and I can see the world. So in a sense
I can see kind of the opening scene of Viking
Fire starts at the Battle of Fulford Gate and
then goes on, you know, the book ends at the
Battle of Stamford Bridge. It's almost like the
physical span of my novel I can see from this
house which felt quite special. Well, I have
to echo you. I love both books, especially because
I've only really come across a few other historical
fiction books that cover that really turbulent
period between 1016 and 1066, an era of history
which I do think... need to be taught more in
schools. We've had enough of Alpha the Great,
let's just move forward a little bit and fill
in the nice big gap that there is between Alpha
the Great and 1066. I know I've had you on before
on my podcast when we reviewed the much debated
and very creative licensed Vikings Valhalla series,
which seems to mess with time entirely. giving
modern audiences their first glimpse at Harold
Hadrod, at Harold Godwinson, and of course Queen
Anna and King Arthur and all the many throne
swapping they're under. I mean, of course, Canute,
Canute, I've always loved ever since learning
about him as a Viking King. I thought, how have
we not known about this Viking King that we've
had that actually read peacefully? That did quite
well. That was quite good. He was friends with
the Pope, for goodness sake. And Canute the Great.
You know, we always say Alfred to anyone who's
been called the Great, but Canute was called
the Great as well. Yeah, it's honestly quite
a travesty that we seem to kind of like not speak
almost like there's almost like a hidden taboo,
almost like Voldemort don't speak about Knut.
I'm afraid of getting the name wrong, that's
why. Autocorrect. One of the many things I like
about you, Justin, is that you take your time
with your books as well, don't you? Yeah. So
how long does it generally take you to? to write
a novel. They're so random. My first novel, I
mean, I think my first novel was A Curse because
it took me six months and in many ways was my
most successful, you know, critically acclaimed
novel. So for a long time, I was trying to recreate
that Shield Wall. Yeah, Drink Dream Tea House.
Where Shield Wall. it was my first kind of stab
into historical fiction and it took me five years
and it was it was quite kind of sobering lesson
because I thought you know if I'm going to make
a living as an author there's nowhere I can take
five years on a novel but I felt I had so much
to learn because I was talking about this recently
with someone saying in my novels my characters
are quite taciturn they often they're they're
not saying what they're thinking so I use a lot
of kind of physical reference or mannerisms or
expressions to kind of try and show what I'm
trying to convey and I suddenly you know in the
modern world that's very easy because you are
surrounded by things that you can draw on whereas
if you're putting your characters into a you
know a long haul you know in Sussex Downs what
are they you know what's it what's on the table
around them you know kind of what is that what's
that physical architecture because the things
that survive only are things that can survive
in soil. And so I was doing so much research
and so much kind of I had so many books. I just
didn't have the kind of information I needed.
So that was kind of why that took so long. I
also wrote about 200 ,000 words. I was up your
length. I cut about half of that. I mean, Shugal's
about 100 ,000 words. So, yeah, I take a lot
of time, and I don't mind. I don't mind how long
it takes as long as I get it right. Yeah, I like
that. There's nothing worse than authors banging
out books left, right, and center, is there?
It's like, oh, I've got another book. I've written
another book this afternoon. You think, oh, damn
it. Yeah. I think I do think of you too and I'm
like no I need to it's about quality. It's quality
guys. Yeah, I think this period is so personal
to me and so important. I kind of don't care
how long it's going to take me to write it as
long as I get it right. I feel like it nearly
kills me emotionally to do these things as well
like the fourth one it was sort of my lockdown
book so there's a whole load of probably stuff
psychologically going on but I was just like
shattered at the end of that. And it sort of
probably comes across in the book and why I haven't
even begun to dare to think about the one that
comes after it. And I remember you saying something
similar, Giles, about was it after camera or,
you know, when you went off and did your Where
Blood Runs, what is it? Where Blood Runs Cold.
And it's just like, I just got to give my imagination
a break from that world because it's just too
intense and too draining. So yeah, the idea of
like, oh, I've got another one, guys. Oh, two
coming out this year. And it's like, please.
Yeah, no, it takes everything out of you. And
if you are really giving yourself to the process
and to the story, and I'm not very, I'm slow
because I'm probably slow in the actual process.
For me, I would say if I write 1 ,000 good words
a day, I'm happy with that really. And that's
kind of my, when I've done 1 ,000 words, pretty
much exhausted mentally, and that's time to sort
of step away. So that's kind of my benchmark
as a daily sort of word count, if you like. But
I think also for me, it's the only thing in my
life that I really take care of. If I'm doing
something, if I'm hanging a picture, I probably
don't even measure like how far, where the hooks,
I just like whack it in, or just generally in
life, I'm a bit more haphazard, but writing is
the only thing that I really take care with.
take my time over. Do you find you accelerate
towards the end of the story? I'm just always
desperate to get it done. Really, I'm always
thinking about the end, but I think that's another
psychological thing. I just want it to be over
from the moment I start. This whole kind of mantra
about enjoying the journey in life, generally,
is something I've never quite managed to do.
All I'm thinking about is that's another thousand
words nearer to the end of the book. I just have
a yeah but I was like that as a kid with a chocolate
bar like I start a chocolate bar and I just want
to get to the end of it before I've even started
it so it's there's something going on there but
you know when you talk about having books on
the shelf behind you it was Tony Rich's that
I spoke to year this is going back a few years
now when people started reading more on Kindle
and stuff and he said to me we spoke about would
you still Want to do this if there were no physical
books that if you if your books were only ever
digital Would you still be interested and he
and he was yeah, of course because it's just
the story is out there All I want to do is write
the stories and get them out to readers So I
don't care what format they are as long as the
stories are out there and I found it really interesting
because I sort of I felt like maybe I wouldn't
because for me the physical book is is the evidence
of that year and a half of my life. It's sort
of like a, it's a trophy to me. It's like, oh,
I made that. And it's that physical, tangible
object that represents all that kind of pain
and misery and time put into it. And there it
is on the shelf or in a shop or something like
that. Whereas if it was just sort of a digital
file in the ether, it wouldn't. but it wouldn't
feel the same to me. So I found that quite interesting.
I don't know about you guys. Yeah, I definitely
relate to that. I think that's an interesting
question I've not thought about before, but I'd
probably fall on your side of the answer there.
Because, I mean, yeah, just the essence of a
book, the physicality of a book is a thing itself
beyond what's written in the pages. I mean, I
look at my... well, she's six now, but when she
was sort of three, four, she would just pick
up books and just turn the pages and look at
them. Whereas the older one, no interest in doing
that whatsoever. She'll do cartwheels till the
cows come home. So it's just a sort of mentality.
It's in your, woven into your nature, I think.
It's just that love of a book for whatever reason.
And I'm lucky enough, I live in Central London.
I'm a member of the London Library, which is
often St James's, which often features in kind
of whenever a TV series needs to record something
in a library. So like that. And it's just like
my so so my happy place because of the presence
of all these books. So I agree with you. It's
it's nice to be able to say I wrote that. And
that's why I love printing out the manuscripts
at the end of the process, even though my agent
then turns around and goes, do it again. But
that moment where you've got the physical evidence,
like, as you say, this kind of sweat and tears
and time that you've poured into something is
quite an important kind of artefact, really.
Yeah, I'm completely with you. And I don't read
books on Kindle. I find it hard even when I'm
so when I'm editing. I need to print it out to
see the book properly. It's much harder to see
it on screen. Although I do wonder now with audiobooks,
whether there's, in a sense, I don't listen to
fiction on audiobook really. I can listen to
factual books, but there's something, there's
something about that kind of, it's almost like
a ritual. It sounds silly to call it a ritual,
but now there's so many other ways you could
do it. I like to... you know, to sit with a book,
a physical object in hand. And I love in a sense
that books, there's been much more effort from
publishers to make books, you know, objects of,
you know, of beauty. So, so that's important.
Then I think people do listen to audio books
and, you know, audio books is a way that people,
you know, consume fiction. So I guess for them,
it reminds me when I was young, my parents took
me to see Julian Glover. He did a one -man version
of Bear Wolf. And I bought the cassette tape,
you know, half time. And it's one of those things
that I've kept. It's like a relic from childhood
that I've kept with me ever since. And I listened
to it for years. And you can now, you can download
it. He sells a kind of more up -to -date version
that he did around the year 2000. And in a sense,
that is almost a perfect way to, experience Bear
Wolf as a spoken poem. And I guess maybe in some
ways it seems that this kind of age of this oral
kind of age or oral storytelling in audiobooks
kind of fit it quite well. I often think, you
know, I tried my language to make it resonant
of kind of Germanic language or old English poetry.
So in a sense maybe kind of an audiobook would
make the book come alive in some ways that it
doesn't on the page unless you speak it aloud.
I don't know. That was going to be my next question
because of course I know Giles you have your
good friend Phil narrate nearly all your books
I think and I've listened to I think I've definitely
listened to Raven Blood I as an audiobook. I've
definitely listened to Viking Fire as an audiobook.
I loved both. I think if anything, because I've
already read it once, even though I can't remember
word for word, even the words and the sentences
sound fresh and the characters are just that
much more vivid. And the dialogue in both cases
comes through that much stronger because it is
the dialogue of speaking. It's not just words
that look like speech on a page. They come out
and they are speech. It just makes. so stronger
sense if that is a clear definition or an explanation
of how it comes across. And certainly kind of
like oral stories were so prevalent at the time
of Vikings and in history because of course a
lot of all stuff you're researching or when you're
writing in these hysteric periods was written
either centuries and kind of like not from the
people of the time so it's almost like we've
got a huge oral gap where we have no voices and
experiences and we've got to base your stories
of that time on stories from after that time.
So how do you all feel about that gap? How do
you feel? Well, with the audio side of things,
just slightly off point, but the benefits that
Justin was sort of hinting at as well is that
you get If you have a good voice actor, your
characters are characterised. The voices have
their own character and way of delivering. I'm
lucky with Phil because he's so familiar with
my books now that he can anticipate the cadence
of... my writing, the way I write, the prose
itself, he can kind of anticipate. So he doesn't
have to have those issues of running out of breath
that some audio narrators have because they don't
know where the sentence is going when they start
the sentence. And sometimes they run out of breath
halfway through. And it's a lot, it's a harder
job than anyone ever gives it credit for being
a voice actor, reading these audio books. But
I really love to hear how he characterizes them
because they can then inform the way I write
the sequel. So for example, with Lancelot, I
didn't really have voices in my head. I didn't
really know how they sounded until Phil gave
them their voices. And then when I was writing
Merlin in the subsequent book, the way he was
delivering Merlin informed the way I wrote Merlin
from then on, which I found was quite an interesting
thing to happen. The way he, yeah, sort of the
tone of his voice. as invented by Phil, influenced
how he spoke from then on. So that was quite
interesting. But in terms of authenticity of
voice, it's incredibly difficult for us because
nobody spoke the language that we're speaking.
We give our characters dialogue that no one ever
spoke. And I said this before, but I remember
one of my books getting a review and somebody
was outraged on Amazon because a character in
my book had used a word that he said that no
Viking would have ever said that word. And I
thought, well, I took that as a victory because
no Viking ever said any of the words in all of
those 150 ,000 words. And there was just one
that stood out. being an anomaly you know and
I thought that was absolutely fascinating and
that goes to what we try and do is create we
try to create a feeling of authenticity even
though it's not authentic at all. And that's
the thing, if you can make the reader feel as
though these are the kind of things that a Viking
would say and the kind of the way that they would
say it. And that comes back to Justin's talking
about sort of the rhythm, the flow of the language
itself, that feeling of it. Then we're on to
a winner. But yeah, it was funny that there was
this one word that I can't remember what it was
now, but he felt that it ruined the whole. An
immersion breaker, I suppose you'd call it. But
I don't know if that was interesting. Well, I
suppose it goes back into the tradition of storytelling,
doesn't it? Per se. And if we're talking about
the Viking era, of course, that was that was
that was all they had. But it makes me think,
you know, hearing you, I've seen a couple of
acts, let's say one of them, only one of whose
name I can remember. Have you come across Einar
Selvik, who's a musician? And it's it's sort
of it is the where your whole imagination is
kind of being made to glow, both with the music,
sort of stimulated by the music, but also the
words and the stories, the way they would have
sung them. That's why, not to flatter you guys
too much, but what I loved about both your books
in slightly different ways was that it was obvious
to me that you had a lot of familiarity with
poetry and you were thinking very carefully about...
the way you were describing things, that language,
and it really came through elevating the whole
story above the fact that, you know, essentially
these are action adventure, you know, on one
level they're action adventure stories, you know.
But this was, this made it, for me anyway, literature
and like actual art. So I don't know how that
translates to whether they're two separate things,
because there is the physicality of the book.
I think I have so much association of reading
stuff on PDFs with my legal career, which I just
kind of have a kind of allergic reaction to now,
but I just can't get that from a book. Even my
own stuff, I can't read it in the same way. But
yeah, the audio book, again, if it is predicated
on the condition that the guy or the lady is
a good reader, a bad one can ruin a book. So,
you know, you kind of take a risk when you convert
it into that form, but at the same time, you
know, I've enjoyed that in many different, not
just in fiction, but in other forms as well.
Yeah, I love what Giles was saying about you
get to hear the character's voice, you know,
changes the way you write the character. Because
it makes me think that with... we write the words
and we put it out into the world and you know
offering and say we sit alone in the room and
make stuff up and then someone else sits in a
room maybe years later maybe after we've died
and they read that book and um it comes alive
in a way that that i think with writers you you
the page is full of blanks um literally and the
blanks is all that space for the reader's imagination
to fill in um and with the audiobook or hearing
an audiobook you get to hear You almost get to
hear how a reader is responding to your work
and how they're interpreting the characters and
the voices they're giving them and the emphasis
they're giving to things. So that's a really
kind of fascinating process. And it does feel
like someone else has written it. It's interesting.
It really disassociates you from it. Yeah, completely.
I listened when I was writing. Arthur, I listened
to the previous, I listened to Lancelot and Camelot
on audio. And there are whole passages that I
had no recollection of writing at all. Just,
it was completely fresh to me. And that was a
really nice experience. Yeah. Well, it's certainly
kind of like I've enjoyed books in both forms.
And I used to read on Kindle a fair bit when
I had a bit of a longer commute. Now that commute's
only a five minute drive. I don't really have
time to listen to anything beyond just the radio
for five minutes. and of course having a child
has robbed me a lot of my waking time but eventually
I'm doing lots of reading with her and it's been
interesting seeing how albeit with very slightly
off topic to dole it with children stories my
husband will very much try and put on severe
character voices often voices that do not match
at all with the character that he's trying to
impersonate like I'm sure he's tried to impersonate
because it was the fox from Mighty Boosh for
one character in one book and my own was like
what are you doing? That's not the fox. I'm like,
I know. Dad's just being silly, Dad. And from
now on, he goes, Dad can read, but no funny character
voices. He's just got to read it with his own
voice, nothing else. Because that's what I do.
I make a slight intonation difference between
characters, but nothing much, because I can't
do accents. I can probably do a West Country
farmer and then an old lady. That's about the
range of my acting skill. It's why I haven't
quite broke into being a dungeon master yet,
because I couldn't do the voices for all the
NPCs you've got either. That's just equally.
battling I don't know how anyone does it. So
in terms of kind of like certainly with you each
having a different era of Viking history to cover
I guess with the history often lends you kind
of like the ending for the book you have an idea
of where you want your story to end but then
do you then find that makes it even harder for
you to fill in the narrative that gets you to
that point because instead of having the start
and then working towards the end you've got the
end and you've got to go back to the start and
then work forwards. Well, for me, I can easily
answer this one. I avoid the history. So that's
why I wrote about the Arthurian myth, because
I get to make it up. I get to do it my way, get
to reinvent it, reimagine it in a different way.
With the Viking series, OK, there are a couple
of historical characters in there. Charlemagne
makes an appearance. And I'm not really sure
if there are any others, historical figures.
So it's... pretty much just pure fiction. And
so that's how I get out of that, really. And
Justin has a different. And Theo as well, obviously,
there's history, obviously, historical events.
There's a lot of license there as well and and
that's kind of that's where I love the create
that Creativity to just not be so I wrote a couple
of novels set during the civil English civil
war and they were much more historic obviously
I was following battles that took place if I'm
describing a Village church, it probably looks
the same now did then so you have to get there
every bit of research was it was painstaking
and As much as it's nice when it's done. It's
it's a bit of a pain in the process. And so,
yeah, so I tend to avoid historically, real historically
sort of periods, yeah. Yeah, I think for me,
I play pretty fast and loose with the history
that is there. But I do try and use that history,
if that makes sense. So I'm not allowing it to
completely sort of bolt me down. But, you know,
if there's a big historical set piece, like a
big siege. I'll find out what I can about it,
but often you don't get, because of the nature
of the period, it's quite scant. You might get
a name, but that says nothing about who that
guy was or who that woman was, so you can, you
know, there is definitely a lot of room for using
your imagination. I think I did a bit of a no
-no in the, do you remember I referred to that
kind of legendary battle, even though it's just
sagas, but I changed the result of the battle.
So the guy who lost now won. I sort of fudged
it because I gave him an extra name at the end.
So there was ways in which you can sort of gray
the area a little bit. But generally, I just
use it as the magpie approach. It's like, I take
what's useful to me. And then if it's not, we
just ignore that. Yeah, interesting question.
I remember reading Burt Cornwall, his Uhtred
series, and reading the author's notes at the
end, and he said, you know, I changed his battle,
you know, just because it didn't really fit in
with the story. And I was appalled. Yes, that's
for me, one of the exciting things is to feel
like you are living history. And so if there's
history that's reliable, then I like to stick
to it, which then can be quite challenging. And
I, so I think, so one thing, one thing the shield
wall I really enjoyed is the book, it's a book
about Anglo -Saxon England, but it starts in
Dublin. And I thought this is great because in
a sense, you know, Ireland doesn't exist as a
country. We're in a very different geographical
place and Dublin is a Viking city, a trading
city, a kind of Singapore of, you know, the British
Isles. And so it's taking, the dull way to do
history is kind of start at the beginning and
go all the way through. So it almost kind of
forces you to do something more creative and
more interesting. And Viking Fire, I did something
different. I mean, it's kind of, it starts with
the Battle of Fulford Gate, it ends a week later
at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But in a sense,
in that week, Harold tells his story. So him
telling his story gave me leeway. I thought,
OK, I'm not just repeating history here. In the
same way that we embellish things or we leave
bits out, I'm going to do the same with Harold.
And that actually allowed me a bit of creative
freedom to play around with the story while essentially
keeping to the facts. Well it's certainly been
fascinating touching with all three of you kind
of like on the elements of your writing, your
reading and of course your innate curiosity and
indeed passion in many ways for this area of
history and I've appreciated and loved all of
your books. I know of course Justin I will long
await the next one when it arrives I will read
it, I will have my friola money ready. Fantastic.
I wish you best of luck with book five, whenever
it emerges in the imagination, starts writing,
of course book four ended. That was an intensely
dark book, The Damaged Moon. I quite enjoyed
how dark it got and it certainly makes now a
lot more sense now that you've told me that wonderful
story about where the actual genesis of the idea
came from with the monk and the tree. It took
four books to get to the actual inspiration.
But that's fine. Sometimes that's how a story
goes because from my little experience as being
a writer sometimes I would have an idea and it
literally wouldn't get done until several chapters
later even though I wanted it to be in that chapter.
Characters sometimes do have their own way of
deviating things or sometimes you get mind goes
blank. And, of course, Giles, I know, for example,
that you've written a little bit of a Viking
short story of late, which is a prequel to the
Norse Oath in Blood game that's coming out in
February next year. Can't wait to play. I've
already been on the demo and absolutely love
the dialogue in that game. The characterisation
of the NPCs, let alone the protagonist, is just
superb. And I just can't wait to play more. And
I will definitely be trying to recruit you back
to Valhalla again soon to talk more about Norse
once it's out in February. But yes, of course,
no matter what happens with your writing guys,
I'm your number one fan, and always will be.
So don't rush on my account, of course. I know
my little pittance won't pay your bills. But
of course, I wish you luck in all your creative
writing endeavors, whether it's Viking or not
otherwise, because you're all multi -counted
in different genres. And I wish you luck with
whatever happens next. And maybe we'll have you
on again in Valhalla again soon to talk about
your next book. So thank you very much, Justin.
Thank you very much, Theo. And thank you very
much, Charles. Great to hang out with you guys.
Thank you. Thank you, guys. Yeah, lovely to see
you guys. Thank you very much for listening to
this episode. I hope you enjoyed the discussions
between my special guests and myself. Please
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