Last night, I invited best-selling fantasy and historical fiction author Christian Cameron (Miles Cameron to his epic fantasy fans) back to my live interview series. Last year, we talked about historical reenactment, how to write battle scenes, and how being a pilgrim on the Camino affected his writing.
This time around, we talked about some more practical things:
- whether character or plot is more important for a writer
- how he gets so much writing done
- why we’ve got it all wrong when it comes to women warriors.
- what’s the deal with Aristotle?
We also delved deep into why storytelling is important, and what his five dark-horse candidates are for fantasy novels that are more than simply escapist.
Christian is a joy to speak to. He’s immensely talented, multifaceted in his interests, and his stories are filled with earthiness, energy, and pageantry in ways that hark back to older kinds of storytelling. But he’s a modern writer for a modern age as well.
This is a conversation you won’t want to miss:
And here are Christian’s five recommendations for not-just-escapist fantasy that you won’t want to miss. (And yes, my TBR pile just got bigger. Drat.)
Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeanette Ng
Victorian missionaries travel into the heart of the newly discovered lands of the Fae, in a stunningly different fantasy that mixes Crimson Peak with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Catherine Helstone’s brother, Laon, has disappeared in Arcadia, legendary land of the magical fae. Desperate for news of him, she makes the perilous journey, but once there, she finds herself alone and isolated in the sinister house of Gethsemane. At last there comes news: her beloved brother is riding to be reunited with her soon – but the Queen of the Fae and her insane court are hard on his heels.
Click here to check out Under the Pendulum Sun for yourself.
Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovich
“Midnight Riot is what would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Fuzz. It is a hilarious, keenly imagined caper.”—Diana Gabaldon
Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.
“Filled with detail and imagination . . . Aaronovitch is a name to watch.”—Peter F. Hamilton
Click here to check out Midnight Riot for yourself
The Fall of the Phoenix by Daniel Kelly
The long siege of Troy, the battles fought over it, and the city’s eventual capitulation and incineration are events which have often been retold since their first recitation by Homer. Seldom, however, will they have been narrated with such close attention to the minute particulars of battle, to its reek and terror and pain, as in this startling account by Daniel Kelly.
Kelly looks minutely at every detail of archaic combat, as well as at the lives and feelings shaped by it. His Troy is not only a scene of shining glory, but also a grimy struggle for survival and mastery. And he introduces surprising questions: what if not everything in the Trojan war came to pass just as Homer tells us? What if the future of the Roman empire were hidden in the burning ashes of Troy’s – and not in the way we might expect?
Click here to check out The Fall of the Phoenix for yourself!
Blackwing by Ed McDonald
“A remarkably assured fantasy debut that mixes of the inventiveness of China Miéville with the fast paced heroics of David Gemmell.”—Anthony Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of The Legion of Flame
Set on a postapocalyptic frontier, Blackwing is a gritty fantasy debut about a man’s desperate battle to survive his own dark destiny…
Hope, reason, humanity: the Misery breaks them all.
Under its cracked and wailing sky, the Misery is a vast and blighted expanse, the arcane remnant of a devastating war with the immortals known as the Deep Kings. The war ended nearly a century ago, and the enemy is kept at bay only by the existence of the Engine, a terrible weapon that protects the Misery’s border. Across the corrupted no-man’s-land teeming with twisted magic and malevolent wraiths, the Deep Kings and their armies bide their time. Watching. Waiting.
Bounty hunter Ryhalt Galharrow has breathed Misery dust for twenty bitter years. When he’s ordered to locate a masked noblewoman at a frontier outpost, he finds himself caught in the middle of an attack by the Deep Kings, one that signifies they may no longer fear the Engine. Only a formidable show of power from the very woman he is seeking, Lady Ezabeth Tanza, repels the assault.
Ezabeth is a shadow from Galharrow’s grim past, and together they stumble onto a web of conspiracy that threatens to end the fragile peace the Engine has provided. Galharrow is not ready for the truth about the blood he’s spilled or the gods he’s supposed to serve…
Click here to check out Blackwing for yourself!
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
A retired group of legendary mercenaries get the band back together for one last impossible mission in this award-winning debut epic fantasy.“Fantastic, funny, ferocious.” – Sam Sykes
Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.
Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk, or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay’s door with a plea for help–the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.
It’s time to get the band back together.
WINNER OF THE DAVID GEMMELL MORNINGSTAR AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY DEBUT.WINNER OF THE REDDIT/FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT FANTASY NOVEL.
Click here to check out this book for yourself!
If you’d like to read my reviews of Christian’s Traitor Son series, here are a few:
If this post inspires you and you want to start reading right away, allow me to send you a free copy of my recent novella, The Son of the Deathless. Just tell me where to send it!