Ask the Author: Erin Bow
Answered Questions (6)
Erin Bow
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO NOTICED THE HYDROLOGY.
Yes, you're quite right, you can't drain Erie without affecting Ontario.
I did it anyway. I figured: Erie is shallower, and it has historical resonance as a troubled body of water. And most importantly, the geography of the conflict in the book meant that doing the same thing to Ontario didn't work.
There used to be a paragraph in the book about the PanPolar hydrology project that rescued Lake Ontario, but it turned out that none of the characters cared about it, so I took it out. It was pretty hand-wavy anyway, and mostly there to show the audience that the author did in fact know which order the Great Lakes flow. My early readers said that a) it was boring, and b) no one would notice about the lakes, and until now, no one has.
Yes, you're quite right, you can't drain Erie without affecting Ontario.
I did it anyway. I figured: Erie is shallower, and it has historical resonance as a troubled body of water. And most importantly, the geography of the conflict in the book meant that doing the same thing to Ontario didn't work.
There used to be a paragraph in the book about the PanPolar hydrology project that rescued Lake Ontario, but it turned out that none of the characters cared about it, so I took it out. It was pretty hand-wavy anyway, and mostly there to show the audience that the author did in fact know which order the Great Lakes flow. My early readers said that a) it was boring, and b) no one would notice about the lakes, and until now, no one has.
Erin Bow
I'm not great at English-teacher kind of labels, but I am interested in villains who have actual human motivations. Real people don't set out (for example) to destroy a city just for kicks and mustache wax. They have reasons. They are wrong, of course, but they still have reasons.
It's more interesting to me as a writer and reader if the villain's reasons are ones I can relate to. I am not drawn at all to villains like Sauron or Voldemort, who simply want power, or immortality, or to watch the world burn. I like instead villains who can be cast as heroes who have gone wrong.
And so I like Linay. He is motivated by grief, love, and a desire to save his sister, with perhaps a side-helping of madness and revenge. Kate, who also feels grief, love, and the longing for family, connects to that in him. She also thinks he is terrifying and needs to be stopped. What interests me is that those two things are not a contradiction.
(And don't get me started on Talis.)
It's more interesting to me as a writer and reader if the villain's reasons are ones I can relate to. I am not drawn at all to villains like Sauron or Voldemort, who simply want power, or immortality, or to watch the world burn. I like instead villains who can be cast as heroes who have gone wrong.
And so I like Linay. He is motivated by grief, love, and a desire to save his sister, with perhaps a side-helping of madness and revenge. Kate, who also feels grief, love, and the longing for family, connects to that in him. She also thinks he is terrifying and needs to be stopped. What interests me is that those two things are not a contradiction.
(And don't get me started on Talis.)
Erin Bow
I once started to. It was about a human!Taggle trying to get a place at a swordsmanship academy. This is one of my most embarrassingly bad ideas, born purely out of my love for Kate and Taggle and Drina -- I missed spending my days with them. I *still* miss writing for them, but I feel as if their stories are done.
Erin Bow
Hereditary rulers, like Greta and Xie, see their thrones pass sideways into regency until they themselves can produce an heir. For the PanPols, the regent would typically be some royal cousin with hostage-aged children.
The upshot is that our heroes not only get to spend their childhood has hostages, they get to have early marriages and babies whether they want them or not. Fun! But not historically atypical for royals.
Hufflepuff, because kindness is valorous.
The upshot is that our heroes not only get to spend their childhood has hostages, they get to have early marriages and babies whether they want them or not. Fun! But not historically atypical for royals.
Hufflepuff, because kindness is valorous.
Erin Bow
Way back when I studied experimental particle physics, and liked that a lot -- a very satisfying mix of machine shops and QCD theory. These days I write for the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and of our nine fields I like writing about strong gravity the most -- I can almost always hook a reader with a black hole. Quantum fields and strings are my toughest beat.
Erin Bow
Yes! I'm putting finishing touches on a companion book right now.
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