Latest / Mythmakers / Notorious Virtues: Alwyn Hamilton and a 1920s Heiress Fantasy

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Notorious Virtues: Alwyn Hamilton and a 1920s Heiress Fantasy · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives
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  brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today I am joined
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  by Alwyn Hamilton who has in them she's halfway through a really exciting series aimed at I'd say
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  young adult outputs and it's called the first part is called the notorious virtues.
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  So welcome Alwyn, welcome to MythMakers. Thanks for having me Julia, I'm excited to be here.
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  Now you might be able to tell a keen listener that Alwyn's accent isn't the same as mine,
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  so Alwyn tell us where you're from and how you made that long road to being a fantasy writer.
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  Yeah of course so the accent is Canadian, so it's one of my passports. I was born in Canada
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  and my parents worked for a company that was based in Canada, based in Toronto,
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  but to had offices in France and offices in Italy as well and so when it was just me we'd
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  move between all three and then my brother was born and ruined everything,
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  settled somewhere permanently and so we ended up settling in France just because they have a
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  better education system and so that's where I grew up in France. So people always think,
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  oh you're a French Canadian, no I'm Canadian and French, it's different and then I ended up
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  coming to the UK for university when I was 18 back when you still could with a French passport,
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  pre-Brexit and just sticking around and staying here. And yeah and I think growing up in France
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  is probably one of the big things that made me a fantasy reader because I was everything that was
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  sort of written in English was a foreign world to me whether it was we're going to prom or we're
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  going to fight dragons that was equally not something that I had in my daily life and I just found
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  sort of fighting dragons a little bit more relatable than sort of oh we're kissing boys at prom or
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  we're going to English boarding school or all those things that were equally fantasy worlds to me
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  that did have a little bit less jeopardy and a little bit less magic for and does interesting.
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  So I hugely think that growing up sort of in a second culture is one of the things that made me
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  a fantasy reader over a reader of other genres as a kid. So were you reading French fantasy?
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  So I'm wondering if the French homegrown fantasy is a different track from the sort of obvious ones
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  for English speakers? I never really was. No I speak fluent French and I went to French
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  state school for 15 years but I have never really read for pleasure in French except for comic books.
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  comic books is a big thing in France and well I do think that my French is excellent it will
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  never be as good as my English and I'll never be as comfortable in my English but I think also
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  part of that is because quite quickly it became a divided thing in my brain that reading in French
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  is reading for school and reading for pleasure so if I had to turn for a book for fun it would
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  always be in English so I never actually read and actually the first time I ever had was reading
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  something similar to my classmates was when Harry Potter became a phenomenon and that was the
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  first time that we had something in common because I'd always be reading something they'd never heard
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  of they'd always be reading something I had no idea about and then Harry Potter came up and
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  I was like oh my god we can actually talk about this now but of course the catch was all of the
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  titles of sort of proper nouns in the book series were different so like Hogwarts was Poudlard
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  you know things like that so they'd say like oh I love the part where he goes to Poudlard and I was
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  like I don't know what you're talking nice lard what is that so it wasn't quite the sort of bridge
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  but yeah it's interesting what you were saying about how the sort of living in France thing made
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  anglophone world particularly American by the prom reference seem like fantasy because I think one
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  of the things about that Harry Potter series is that a lot of it is just boarding school stuff without
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  much magic you know the sort of house points and plague you know all that stuff the structure
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  and that's a foreign world to me having never been to boarding school either and I think there is
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  something exotic about the idea of kids dispatched to this world um aside from before you even get
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  as far as magic yeah yeah I suppose that's that's true yeah I there was a certain sort of appeal
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  because I also did read a fair few boarding school mystery books oh yeah they exist too
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  like they have eyes or things like that so there's something appealing about independent from your
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  parents hmm off to off to have an adventure whether it's magical or not isn't it well that the
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  first rule of writing for children is get rid of the parents yeah I mean that could be literally
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  that they're gone I a the classic orphan or it could mean that they're the problem yeah
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  should be mysteriously abroad yes really abroad I've used that and I don't want to kill off parents
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  there because if they're there they'd reign on the parade of the child and you know what where's
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  the space for adventure anyway we must and talk more about your book notorious virtues which I
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  devoured I started reading it on Thursday and finished it on Sunday and it's quite a long book
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  um it's oh it's 500 pages and I didn't do the skip read you know sometimes when I'm reviewing books
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  I I'll quickly get the gist you know I do that I actually sat and read it all the way through which
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  make as a massive vote of confidence in the story so tell us about notorious virtues yeah
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  so so the notorious virtues is my second series of books so I wrote a trilogy as my debut
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  called Rebel of the Sands which was first person sort of action adventure and I loved writing it
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  and I love those characters but by the time I got the end of writing three books from one point of view
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  I was like you and I need to make other friends girl like I was like we need to talk to other people
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  I've been in one head for quite a long time and there are also quite a lot of action sequences in
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  Rebel of the Sands and and so when deciding what I wanted to write next I very was very clear on
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  the fact that I wanted to write something a little bit less action heavy that sort of I got to
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  there is there are certainly action sequences yeah there are but there's also parties and
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  ballgowns and caviar and things that you can't have when someone is racing for their life across
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  the desert and so I pitched this idea as 1920s New York eras is meet scrim fairy tales so the
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  conceit was that it's a family that has passed down wealth and magic generationally through
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  trial of virtues and it's very much based on all those fairy tales that you hear that are sort of
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  you know the king had three sons and he didn't know which one should be king after him so he sent
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  them on a quest for a golden bird and they passed an old lady on the road and got the first one spot
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  on her the second one kicked her and the third one was like here have my sandwich and oh god it turns
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  out that the old lady knows where the golden bird they were sent to find is and by not being a
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  complete prick the third one is the winner and sort of ascends the throne by virtue of his virtues
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  essentially so it's essentially that test that happens generationally to test who is the
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  worthiest to inherit so and so I sort of wanted to explore that theme and also explore the theme that
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  we tie sort of money to worth to sort of if you're rich it's because you've earned it or is it
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  you know generational wealth but also that not all virtues are created equally you know just because
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  your brave and jumping out of a plane doesn't necessarily make you a good person sort of all sorts
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  of different different virtues can be mean different things and not all are sort of measured equally
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  and I would say and then I also wanted to subvert the trope so one of the there's four main characters
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  and one of the main characters Nora has been very entrenched in the family the whole time
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  and then one is a new rival to the family which is quite a sort of classic fairy tale trope of sort
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  of being plucked from obscurity and and brought into this family but I wanted to explore that in
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  reverse because I have a friend who is a social worker who once pointed out to me that there is a
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  real lack of books that are both that are sort of positive to give to children who are not being
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  raised by their biological parents and children's literature coming back to sort of Harry Potter is
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  the example it's the oh you're being raised by the horrible dursleys but oh your your birth family
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  is you know wonderful and glorious and gives you access to this magical thing and that's a you
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  know a lovely story and a frequent trope but she works frequently with kids in foster care or
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  kids in adoption that's not the right message to give to them she says there's sort of two that she
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  really thinks are positive for kids in that situation and one of them is Superman because Superman
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  is being raised by a lovely adoptive family but it still acknowledges his birth and that's why he
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  has his powers and then the other one that she thinks is really healthy for kids is kung fu panda
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  because he is being raised by the crane but it does not erase his pandanus and so her point was
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  basically I wish that someone would write more positive adoption stories more positive fostering
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  stories and apparently what I heard was terrible birth family so my way of sort of inverting the
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  trope was was not to write a positive adoption story I hope many people do but to write that trope
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  of oh you're plucked from how you're being raised back to your birth family but oh they're awful
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  they're just some of the most self-involved people and you're also you're going to be made to prove
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  that you're worthy to belong to them essentially so yeah so that was sort of the the origin point
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  of everything so the one who's within the family is Nora and the one plucked from obscurity is
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  lotty what I found interesting about the trial of the virtues is that the people running the trial
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  the creatures running the trial it seemed very sour and that's why they're notorious virtues
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  they're not like a religious saint like virtue they are you can be an awful person and still
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  win a trial yeah yeah on a technicality or being in the right place or doing it quicker
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  so were you sort of purposely adding this sour note to that you started off with the idea of
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  the three kids and the old woman which is usually straightforward virtue there you go save the cat
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  um so were you adding this sour note to sort of slightly slant the fairytale idea here because
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  very dull creatures aren't very reliable no I I think that's part of it and I think so what I started
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  by doing quite straightforwardly is sort of listing what virtues it was possible to be tested
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  there were some very obvious ones like bravery and and things like that but I also wanted I think
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  I approached it from a character point of view first I wanted to make it challenging for our main
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  characters Nora um who is the one in scouts in the family is from the beginning of the book smarter
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  than everyone else that is never in question uh and so it was very deliberate that there is no trial
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  of intelligence there's nothing in there for her to sort of just already validate who she already is
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  and prove that she's smarter than everyone else she has to live up to other parts of her
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  of who she is and sort of push herself a little bit so that was very deliberate to kind of
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  to sort of challenge to sort of challenge her and who she was and both of them and who they
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  thought themselves to be essentially um and sort of try them in their most difficult things that
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  they might have to live up to there is other eras is other than the two of them competing in these
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  trials the whom is modesty who is a very difficult person who is not who is a person who is sort of
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  exactly what I'm talking about within terms of sort of not our all virtues are created equally
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  that she is from the outside she looks glamorous and beautiful and fun and you know and she's nice
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  and it up but underneath she's actually quite a bitter nasty person who is sort of grubbing for
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  this money yeah and so I kind of wanted to highlight her is the reader you very much know the wrong
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  person is being rewarded but she is the one who faced the troll you know you can't argue with that
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  it's it's that's the you know the sort of the tricky thing and I don't want to spoil or anything
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  but it sort of hopefully brings you slowly to who their grandmother is as well yeah no I mean blame
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  the parents blame the grandparents why she's like that yeah so you've done the period of the sort
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  of 20s flapper periods you mentioned that you had a sort of in mind New York I was also thinking
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  midford sisters and of course if you know the real midford family which is a fascinating
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  messed up family from the English class system and I was also thinking Berlin with that kind of
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  sour note of the sort of cabaret feel to the world heading towards fascism or something really
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  dark which fits with the grim yeah obviously in fantasy you're allowed to mash all these things up
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  but why the 20s why aren't you doing the classic swords and sandals you know dragon fantasy from
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  with the castles you know yeah why not that and why 20s I think there's a there's a few different
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  reasons one of them is one of them is going to be quite boring and practical so I'll start with that
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  which is that rebel of the sands my trilogy is set in kind of like an 1880s ish
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  technologically and one of the characters Nora's grandmother her other grandmother not the one
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  she shares with all the other eras says is a teenager in the notorious in rebel of the sands so
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  so there is a link they are on the same world these two series and I very much did want to link
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  them that's a character who appears in the second and third book of the trilogy and you
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  meet her when she's a teenager and the hell has gone off and is now someone's grandmother and I
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  wanted to sort of say that evolution so just in terms of sort of time passage and where we all
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  technologically with rebel of the sands it made sense that it was 1920s and I wanted to have
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  the sort of technology present the other reason that I want to do it was sort of thematically
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  which is that that sort of depression era 1920s I think is a big time of a sort of
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  financial and so sort of divide and huge change it's the time when we see a huge disparity
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  between wealth sort of coming out of the of the 19th century into the 20th century and also
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  we do we see wealth now but it's not the same wealth as wealthy people who have the money in the
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  1920s that you know the Vanderbilt the Gettys and things like that that money was all dispersed
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  over generations all those people who made money from railroads and industries and things like
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  that has been quite dispersed over the last century since then essentially so I kind of that's
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  partly where the idea came from of this fear of dispersing the money is where the Holtz Hall's
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  the main family in the book have found that sort of keeping it on one person keeps their power and
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  keeps them keeps them running the system essentially that by not dispersing their wealth that is how
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  they have never changed and grown and evolved and maybe seen that the world is evolving around them
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  essentially yeah that's interesting that idea of consolidating the money in one because of course
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  that's how kingships work yeah and there is a sort of fantasy trope of thinking the kings
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  of the answer you know return of the king that if you have a king you're fine yeah never a king
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  benevolent magnate in the case of your worlds you everything's fine yeah but you're actually unpacking
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  the fact well what about concentrating it on that one person what happens to everybody else and
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  how it yeah perverts their way of behaving I also had a a feel of the sort of Russian revolution
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  yes that's very much yes because it's so fragile the society if the world were like a
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  so yeah the you've got this um this this story with lotty and Nora but you've got some other
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  characters in in there um you've got some male characters Theo and August uh August is the
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  journalist CEO's a sort of bodyguard figure if I if I thought of everybody and then there's the
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  sort of the old folk tale yes yes as well so that's 2345 different POVs how do you manage that
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  and how do you avoid the problem of say the reader just liking I know Nora and not wanting to
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  read about August because that's a real challenge for multi viewpoint books yeah it was a challenge
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  I and also even just the the challenge of getting into the habit of writing in third person
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  having written three books in first person when I was first drafting I would literally switch mid-sentence
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  without realizing I'd be writing sort of she walked down the street I looked up at the sky
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  backspace backspace backspace she looked up at the sky you know kind of um so it you know it took
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  it's a muscle uh within writing like everything else I think that I had to build up and
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  notorious virtues was a huge learning process I had never been a planner before I had always sort
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  of roughly known where I was going and seen big pillars but I discovered that with multiple points
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  of view I really did need to plan a little bit more yeah um and then the other thing that you always
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  have to be conscious of and uh is there are four points of view but they are all geographically
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  in the same place um and their story where they all do have individual stories their stories do
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  crossover at and then merged towards the end so I wanted to be very conscious of you know when we're
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  in you know a room with all four of them even though we're in Norris point of view that the others
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  do need to be sort of acknowledged and um and say something and sort of have been noticed by the
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  point of view character because you as a reader do care about them as well because they were your
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  POV character last chapter and they were your pew they'll be your POV character in the next chapter
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  so um so it's a so I don't have a have a good answer to this is how it's done it was very much a
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  learning process and trial air and sometimes I would find myself halfway through a chapter that
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  they were all in and then realized this would be much more resonant from a different characters
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  point of view so I would go back to the beginning and all the sort of events would be the same of
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  you know we're going here and we're doing this but it would I would have to rewrite the whole thing
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  because it was now no longer in Theo's point of view it was in Norris point of view um or what have you
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  said so um having said that I think a lot of people have picked favourites and that favourite tends to
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  be Norris so I'm also not oblivious to that uh I think you manage really well because um I think it's
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  for me it's between Lotty and Nora thank you yeah yeah because I think that August and Theo are
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  plot drivers that they have part of the plots um that's their driving and I think that's how you
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  how you answer that question is you make sure that when you switch to a chapter there's something
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  in that that you need to know that I've got soft spot for August of course um August actually
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  wasn't when I pitched the book I pitched it with three points of view characters I didn't August
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  wasn't part of it and then as I started to write it and Norris um storyline became more and more
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  about the mystery because um the reason that these trials are happening is because Norris mother
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  who was the ares hasn't expectedly been murdered and so there's also sort of a murder mystery
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  investigation amidst these trials happening and uh very quickly became apparent why Sherlock Holmes
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  has a Watson why you know if run as a psychiatrist this girl needs someone to talk to you know she
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  needs someone to sort of have be her partner in not in crime and crime fighting and crime investigating
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  but he's also her way into experiencing a lower class life um because she's been this
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  gilded butterfly or seemingly a gilded butterfly and uh he's sort of struggling journalist um
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  who really has to worry about where the next paycheck is coming from so I think that was a great
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  choice um good in that one Theo uh so in lotty is the one put a put a put a put a put a put a put
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  for lives for
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  yeah so the Hauptswalze are our main family who are sort of the ones holding these trials um
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  and they the one of the reasons have accumulated so much land so much wealth all of these things is
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  because they have the ability to create a space that's outside of the dangerous of the woods
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  that every one lives in. So there's these sort of enchanted woods that are a little bit like the
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  woods that you read in fairy tales that you go in and you might get lured off the road by a big
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  bad wolf kind of thing. And they have the power to protect people from this and in order to like
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  live on their land and be protected, people have offered them things over generations whether it's
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  you know chickens or or money or in the case of one night who came along running from something
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  in the woods it's his loyalty. So a thousand years ago essentially a night fleeing from
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  something in the wood that had captured his love, stumbles into there and says that if they
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  protect them then if he is protected by the family then he and his descendants will protect the
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  family forever. And so a thousand years later his descendants are still protecting the descendants
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  the original Holtzfall and this is not a decision any of them have made. None of them have ever
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  been allowed to make the sort of life decision of what do you want to be because the answer if you
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  were born into this family as night you are going to be a protector of this of this family. And
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  there are some who see that as their duty and as their purpose in life and there are some that
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  very much chafe against it. So yeah and it's got a self-destruct element is because it's a magical
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  pact. It's not like. Exactly. Not like you can just be like actually I think I want to be
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  an artist. Yeah exactly. Explore my other side. Yeah and it's and it's sort of point out that even if
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  you're really not suited to it that's your life and there's some people who are just not that great
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  at it but they weren't given the option to become an artist and but and there is a very sinister
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  element to it that if the head of the family tells them to do something they have to do it.
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  And I don't know if you I just one of my favorite books from childhood and I see you find the
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  the things cropping up from your childhood without realizing it. I don't know if you've read Ellen
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  Chanted by Gail Carson Levine. I love that book. It's a it's a Cinderella retelling where as a child
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  Cinderella is given the gift of obedience quote unquote unquote under gift so that she'll be
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  the perfect young lady and that's how she ends up in denture to the step family as they realize
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  that if they tell her scrub the floor Cinderella she has to do it and that's how she sort of gets
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  into that situation. I that's one of my sort of childhood books I've read easily a hundred times
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  and you find these things influences from your childhood creeping into your adult books. You're like
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  oh that's you know the bit of the knights having to do what they're told that's pure Ellen Chanted
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  that's where that came from. Yeah so me and fantasy is obviously very often a mirror we sort of
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  reflect up against society I kept thinking of a lot of modern parallels particularly about
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  inequality in wealth I would I would say that are equivalent of the getties and what have you
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  these days are much less stylish agreed but did you was that something you had consciously in your
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  mind or is it something you saw afterwards because I think it off for me it often works afterwards
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  I find oh yeah that's worked out something which I didn't realize I was thinking about.
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  Yeah I think I think I worked out afterwards because I think looking back on it how quickly
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  things have changed in the last few years is apparently when I started writing this book it was
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  pre-pendemic it wasn't we weren't it you know obviously the wealth disparity has always been there
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  but it wasn't as obvious as it has become in the last few years of you know pick your crisis
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  pandemic elections wars you know terrible things that have happened I think the wealth disparity
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  has become more and more obvious there's an there is another version of this book that doesn't
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  exist anywhere in reality but this book could have very easily been told from the point of view
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  of the Grims and be about toppling sort of the the power hungry I mean the the holds falls are
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  literally referred to at one point to sort of sitting on their hoard of money like dragons and
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  there is a there is an element of that it could be about the brave Grims fighting and killing the
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  dragon and taking the wealth in order to sort of create equality that would be a much more sort of
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  straightforward version of this story I didn't want to do that because I kind of already done it
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  in rebel of the sands it's not about wealth inequality it's about dictatorship but that is the
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  story of sort of the little people rebelling against the big power so that's why I didn't want to
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  do that but the the narrative could very easily be switched and it would be a different a different book
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  not from the holds falls point of view so I wanted to try that line quite carefully of making them
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  interesting characters that you want to follow but not being like isn't art rich people the best
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  aren't they just you know so I don't I don't think you particularly have a heroic class because I
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  found the Grims very unreliable and I'm not convinced there'd be any better running the place than
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  the rich the current rich people my shorthand for the Grims whenever I was sort of referring to
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  them quickly talking about the books with his magical communists and as you said sort of Russian
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  revolution the best of intentions can work out very very foolish yeah and I think you'll see more
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  of that in book two of how how it's working out for them essentially how idealism translates
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  into action poorly sometimes yeah no I can I can I can see the logic of that going so one of the
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  questions I was thinking about partly because I was I was thinking about this when I was teaching
• 27:01
  other people writing is about how magic systems work so you know magic in fantasy works like a
• 27:08
  currency yes how you spend it so have you got favorite magic systems from other fantasy books you've
• 27:18
  read and what kind of thinking went into how your own economy of magic works so if I give you a
• 27:25
  scale so in Harry Potter there seems to be no end to magic if you know the spell you can do it
• 27:31
  it's not yeah whereas in some other magic systems it's like a sort of rare resource that has to
• 27:39
  be mined or something like that yeah so where are you where are you in your magic economy I it's
• 27:45
  interesting I was thinking about this the other day because I I do a mentorship program for
• 27:51
  for yeah a mentorship for a program and I was talking about to my mentee about her magic system
• 27:58
  and sort of saying that you can't have it both ways of it being you're born with it and also you
• 28:03
  can learn it and I think those are the two that I think of for for me I think you can be born with
• 28:07
  it and get better at it get trained at something or you can it can be something that you can learn
• 28:13
  from books and and things like that and I have I think tended towards the born with it
• 28:22
  magic in my systems so far so the magic in Rebel of Sands primarily exists with children who are
• 28:30
  children of supernatural beings and humans they're sort of demigods by any other name so I they
• 28:35
  all have a power like a sort of how Hercules has super strength they have and things so that's
• 28:40
  I think that's always sort of a a touchstone for me in this one the power is sort of
• 28:47
  very much directly quite as you said they're spending it's very much directly linked to money it
• 28:52
  is another form of wealth and it's also being used to power cars but also power you know
• 28:58
  charms that can fix your hair quickly or whatever sort of things frivolous if you have the money
• 29:03
  to spend non frivolous if you need it to heat your house kind of things so it's I want to treat
• 29:08
  it very much like like money in the situation the thing that's really important to me and that
• 29:14
  matters to me both as a writer and a reader for magic systems is that there be some sort of sort of
• 29:21
  touchstone to come back to for me that's always a creation myth all of my whether it's true or not
• 29:28
  or whether it's whether it's it's true to this characters or actually true in the story I will always
• 29:34
  have some kind of myth of the making of magic or the making of people of why we are here so that
• 29:42
  myth in the notorious virtues is the very tale the interstitial fairy tale chapters that you were
• 29:47
  referring to tells the story of how the family got their power to begin with and so that
• 29:54
  that is always clearly there and anytime there might be sort of a question or can magic do that I
• 29:58
  can always sort of come back to that touch point in terms of favorite sort of favorite magic systems
• 30:03
  in books there are a ton I love the magic system in Libertigo's Grishaverse series I always
• 30:11
  think that that one's very sort of clever is called the little science in her in her books and so
• 30:17
  it works out it sort of is treated like a sort of additional sign like a higher science something
• 30:25
  that could be taught and learned but there are also people who would treat differently who are
• 30:28
  very superstitious of it there are histories of people with these powers being either mistreated
• 30:35
  or killed and their bone treated like relics that could do magic things like that that I thought
• 30:39
  was just genius and fascinating and then one that I've read really really recently
• 30:45
  is ml1's blood over bright haven would you like me to spoil or it or shall I not
• 30:51
  yeah house how spoilery okay I can't I just it's very spoilery but in that is a
• 30:58
  I'll I'll make it as unspoiled as I can there is a city that that is sort of that is clearly built
• 31:04
  in the Arctic that is shielded by magic that is run entirely by magic and and it is and it is
• 31:13
  and it is sort of the bright haven of the world but as the the book goes on a young woman who is the
• 31:20
  first female practitioner of magic and is very much breaking down those gender barriers starts to
• 31:25
  sort of discover the darker side of it and what the actual cost of it is and it is an absolutely
• 31:32
  harrowing book and a harrowing discovery and it's a wonderful read and I think I've rarely seen
• 31:38
  sort of the cost of magic done better than that in terms of the book I highly recommend it
• 31:43
  I we were reading it for book club and someone finished it sort of literally an hour before
• 31:47
  book club and we all got a sort of series of raging sort of text being like what do you
• 31:52
  mean it's a standalone there's no sequel that's where it ends what do you tell
• 31:57
  sort of thing and we were like oh literally just finished it this this will make for a fun
• 32:02
  discussion yeah I've got one which is in the sort of YA area is a writer called Madeline
• 32:11
  Celia I think she's written a series of books and one of them is called the Spoken Mage series
• 32:22
  and what I found them through download you know she's I think she's more in that space
• 32:27
  but anyway what I really like about her idea is that it really exposes a class system so
• 32:34
  magic in her world has been sort of corralled by those who can write it and they become the sort
• 32:41
  of the ruling classes and there's there's training and strict rules about how to begin and end
• 32:49
  your spells and the quicker you get the shorter the spell is they're more sort of powerful
• 32:55
  magician you are and then out of the blue this working class lasts from a not you know happy
• 33:01
  lovely family and discovers that she can speak magic and explode the system and they don't know
• 33:08
  what to do with her because in some ways she's weaker than them and in other ways and she obviously
• 33:15
  hasn't been brought up in the right classes and in other ways she is more powerful because she's
• 33:20
  more flexible right and the series I think it's three or four books explores what happens when
• 33:29
  she enters that system that's been doing magic one way and she comes in of another and I really
• 33:36
  I really like that yeah and another series I have enjoyed the magic system is the Trudy Cannivan
• 33:42
  Magician's Guild since yeah and I mean they've been a lot in around oh and the other one
• 33:49
  Garth Nyx and Sabriel I've just reread um liberal recently and I'm just thinking I really like
• 33:57
  your magic system with the with the right the descriptions underlying everything it's great if
• 34:05
  you haven't read those highly recommended I can't yeah I can't see a bell without thinking of
• 34:10
  Garth Nyx yeah and then the reference uh this is that um the abhorcer who's like the
• 34:17
  necromancer figure a good but good has bells that take you through the gates towards death
• 34:25
  and it's just brilliant it's wonderful wonderful book series yeah so um we usually finish
• 34:32
  all win with having a bit of fun about just thinking about all the fantasy worlds we've enjoyed
• 34:38
  in books and on screen or wherever and we think of one theme from your book and work out if we
• 34:46
  were going to take that idea elsewhere where would we have the best experience and I your book has
• 34:52
  a lot of of those parties the bright young thing parties of you know sipping champagne and dancing
• 35:00
  the night away where do you think in all the fantasy worlds is the best place to go for that kind of
• 35:07
  high-class party we're not talking like a hobbit needs up with you know champagne and caviar and
• 35:13
  dancing it's so funny because the first one that came to my mind uh was at the rose bargain by
• 35:20
  Sasha Payton's write the book that came out about this time last year which is that sort of an
• 35:24
  alternate regency version of England uh where essentially for the last few hundred years instead of
• 35:32
  by the kings and queens uh with things have been ruled over by a fairy queen who sort of appeal
• 35:37
  appeared on a tutor battlefield and took over just because sort of the magic and all of these
• 35:43
  these beautiful uh these beautiful things immediately came to mind and then I thought of the quite
• 35:47
  sinister side world and the fairy so I thought maybe not that and the next one that came to my head
• 35:53
  is um uh I recently read this this may be recency bias but I recently read the Raven scholar by
• 35:59
  Antonia Hodgson which is a phenomenal book she's a former crime writer who has written a murder
• 36:06
  mystery fantasy and one of the things in her world is that there are different animals that you
• 36:14
  can be associated to that you can sort of pledge your your allegiance to essentially and it determines
• 36:19
  the course of your life so for instance um you know people who pledge the fox might be thieves or
• 36:24
  assassins what have you and the thing that I really loved about it that I felt is often missing
• 36:29
  fantasy books is that if you pledge yourself to the monkey that makes you an artist so they're
• 36:34
  incredible singers and painters and dancers and all of these things that I sometimes find that we
• 36:39
  miss out in fantasy books just because we're so preoccupied by the plot and the killing and the sort
• 36:45
  of you know even I think there was a scene in the notorious virtues where they went to sort of an
• 36:49
  art gallery opening that just had to get caught for pacing and time as you say it's it's quite a
• 36:53
  long book but they throw a great party the monkeys and the the sort of people who are pledged
• 36:59
  the monkey temple in the book because they sort of put up beautiful um you know canopies and
• 37:06
  gorgeous you know and you can watch a performance while you sip your wine and sit there and enjoy
• 37:10
  yourself um and I think that is what what comes to to my mind because I think it's sort of the
• 37:16
  creativity and the beauty of that make would make for sort of a very beautiful beautiful party. So
• 37:22
  that's what came to my head. Oh that's a good pick. I feel as though I need to go slightly
• 37:27
  different from you now. So um I was also thinking Regency as sort of um good air. I always get the
• 37:38
  the name wrong is mr. Strange and Dr. Norrell or Dr. Norrell or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Narell
• 37:44
  yeah um that because that's the Regency bias as you say um but I think probably um I would go for
• 37:52
  sort of a sci-fi version of it and I think you could have a hilariously elegant party but
• 37:58
  bit spoof in the world of Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on one of the planets
• 38:04
  is probably in that universe a party planet. There probably is. I would say for David Rocks would
• 38:10
  turn up yeah so I think I'll choose that just to put go a little bit different um I think you've
• 38:16
  given me some great book recommendations whilst we've been going on so I'm going to have to
• 38:21
  make your brain smaller and then move over the heave and not overbraid have them yeah
• 38:27
  your red books ones harrowing ones ones less so okay um but I would say we've both read your book
• 38:35
  but I want to really highly recommend it to um our listenership if you like if you like your
• 38:43
  parties in the 1920s with Grimm's fairy cell trial uh it's it's a brilliant read and you were telling
• 38:52
  me that it's going to be two parts and you have written the second part that's right yeah the
• 38:57
  second title yeah it's called the glorious vices uh we were just talking about how difficult
• 39:03
  before we got on here we're talking about how difficult tidaline a book is uh and it was so
• 39:08
  difficult tidaline lignatories virtues that we titled the second book at the same time but so we
• 39:13
  always know it's going to be the notorious virtues and the glorious vices and it is due out very early
• 39:18
  next year so Jan Feb of 27 yeah so if you're like my daughter and won't start a series until you know
• 39:26
  this it's going to be complete rest assured it's going to have the second part so you can start
• 39:31
  on the first part this year and pick up the second part next year anyway oh and thank you so much
• 39:36
  for joining me and all the best with um the glorious vices thank you it's for a pleasure
• 39:46
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