Brian Parsons
asked
James Islington:
James - huge fan of all your work. The Licanius Triology really got me back into reading and truly opened me up to the sci-fi & fantasy genres. What are the biggest influences to your work and the worlds you create (authors, video games, movies, etc)?
James Islington
Thank you, that’s awesome to hear.
I tend to think of authors as my biggest influences – for Licanius I’d say it was Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time was the series when I was a teenager) and Brandon Sanderson, and for the first-person storytelling of Hierarchy, probably Patrick Rothfuss and Pierce Brown (with a bit of David Farland’s Runelords series thrown in, on the magic system side of things).
I definitely draw from a wide range of inspirations, though, and I think plenty of movies / TV shows / video games have triggered a somewhat unconscious love of certain types of story or well-executed tropes. For example, off the top of my head, I’ve always been a big fan of the movie 12 Monkeys (time travel), and the Bourne trilogy (amnesiac gradually remembering his cool abilities / terrible past) – but I never really thought of those, specifically, while I was writing Licanius. And I’ve always loved stories in all forms, not just books – so my work’s an amalgam of all those influences, for sure!
I tend to think of authors as my biggest influences – for Licanius I’d say it was Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time was the series when I was a teenager) and Brandon Sanderson, and for the first-person storytelling of Hierarchy, probably Patrick Rothfuss and Pierce Brown (with a bit of David Farland’s Runelords series thrown in, on the magic system side of things).
I definitely draw from a wide range of inspirations, though, and I think plenty of movies / TV shows / video games have triggered a somewhat unconscious love of certain types of story or well-executed tropes. For example, off the top of my head, I’ve always been a big fan of the movie 12 Monkeys (time travel), and the Bourne trilogy (amnesiac gradually remembering his cool abilities / terrible past) – but I never really thought of those, specifically, while I was writing Licanius. And I’ve always loved stories in all forms, not just books – so my work’s an amalgam of all those influences, for sure!
More Answered Questions
Nunya
asked
James Islington:
Do you feel like your background as an Australian has influenced the stories you tell? Being from there myself, some themes in The Will of the Many felt like they harkened back to social issues I've seen around me in life, but I'm curious if that's something you've considered yourself, a total coincidence, or anything else.
Немања
asked
James Islington:
I just read the first book in the Hierarchy series and I loved it. I can't decide whether I like the characters or the story and the world building more. So I guess my question is this: Did you have a character (Vis) in mind first and then built the world and the story around the character or the other way around?
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more