Trefoil asked Megan Derr:

In books you've written,I've noticed there's always traces of supernatural elements,magic,fantasy creatures.Some books have a lot of it, others have hints of it.Even your Unbreakable Soldiers series has dragons in the first book, and mentions of creatures in some forest.In Tales of the High Court series however,there is no magic, supernatural creatures.I've read 30(!) books of yours,and find this interesting.Thoughts?

Megan Derr Fantasy and romance have always been my greatest loves, when it comes to books (media in general). I included little notes, like the dragons, in Unbreakable Soldiers because I thought it made a nice counterpoint to all the more 'modern' elements like the guns and stuff. That series is slightly pre-steampunk. Initially I had wanted it steampunk, but that would mean electricity and all would be available, and it just would have made things too easy (like allowing telegrams and things like that).

High King I wrote sort of vindictively, in that it has none of the usual dragons/magic/etc. I read an article or blog post or something that basically amounted to 'if it doesn't have X,Y,Z, it's not real fantasy' and as is typical with me, my response was 'well, how about fuck you' and when the prompt for High King came to me, it seemed a good opportunity for that fuck you, so to speak.

But generally speaking, if I can find a way to include dragons and/or magic, I'm gonna include dragons and/or magic. The only thing that is more predictable about me is that one of the characters will be a long-suffering smartass with no manners and who is actually a marshmallow.

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