Fantasy Book Club Series discussion

Some stories start with a painting, some with a premise that began as a light-hearted joke, some as a bolt from the clear blue - how did the Wars of Light and Shadows begin?

A long time ago, I was still a teen, actually - I read so many fictional books, practically the library in the small town where I grew up. By the time I graduated from high school I had grown quite annoyed of books where the hero was Always a Big, Blond Strapping Guy, and the bad guy, dark and secretive and clever.

I was the middle kid, and mouse colored - tired of heroines with the pretty fair hair.

I decided - first - to write a story to turn that convention upside down. No big guy. And maybe the handome fair haired boy was not all he might seem.

That is too simplistic, you betcha - but the first idea was two half brothers, and a conflict between them, using unconventional roles.

It grew.
I will not apologize. It snowballed and actually ate a very great deal of my life.

Because I started with this 'five arc' outline that was really a page in single space - and the Idea Took Over.

By the time I got to college, I had hundreds of pages, all just awful...and I realized, big-time, I had to learn to write a lot better, AND, I had to design a pretty solid backdrop. So I set about it.

And the idea didn't just snowball, it turned into a snow mansion - massive!!! But with depth and height, not sprawl. The cast of characters stayed small, on the scale of many epic fantasies today.

At this point, I was into all sorts of craziness, like sailing and reenactment and riding, and far too many hobbies for a sane person to manage. Wanting an authentic ring to my 'backdrop' I began to research.

Since (as you may see if you read) Athera is an intricately designed world (she may LOOK like a midieval fantasy, but, boy, when you get to Fugitive Prince, that veil will shred plenty quick) but there is a lot more design and depth. Knowing I had to 'mix and match' period tech to get the pitch exactly right for this world's development, I started looking at history from about the Romans forward to the moment when gunpowder changed the stakes.

I read and read - every tactical war, every book on period stuff, from many cultures.

THEN - I stepped into a black and white documentary film done on the Battle of Culloden Field, when the Scottish highland clans were once and forever defeated (and ancestors of mine are still buried in trench graves on the Highland side). I'd read history, read books, read FICTIONALIZED accounts of this - but never Ever as this film did it - bare truth, with the gloves OFF. No romantic angle, no 'bonnie prince' and NO defiant stand. In fact Culloden field was a bloody BOTCH in which nearly unarmed, freezing, conscripts were shot to ribbons by British cannon fire, in the ice and rain and mud, in an UPHILL charge that happened - late to never - because the command was never given to move. Only one flank charged the guns - the rest just - died.

And the aftermath was ugly as anything anywhere, with an entire culture held and deported in "coffin ships" (read slave conditions aboard) to another continent.

I came out ANGRY. More than angry - enraged. Because up till that point, history, books, fiction, TV, movies, school always glorified the Might Makes Right concept until war of any kind was presented as a 'solution' and - worse - having JUST READ all the tactical recaps of ALL THOSE HISTORICAL WARS - I was sick to realize - they were ALL like Culloden, in one way or another. Slaughter by ineptitude, superior tactics, superior numbers, superior supply - one thing meant ravage for the other side.

Who wrote the justification but the survivors?

And worst of all - my FAVORITE genre, fantasy, was the worst of the lot. Good and Bad (read EEEVIILE) had a fight and the heroes win the day.

Right there, this series went volte face. It became what it is today - sort of. I began to assemble a very different sort of fantasy, and the ideas kept rolling.

I was also quite aware I had nowhere near the skill to do this huge work - that I had to have a lot more experience under my belt.

At nearly 5 volumes in draft, I set it aside.

Started over, learned to write short stories, sold two standalones, and two trilogies (one a collaboration with Raymond E. Feist). Some areas of those early books separated a skill I'd need in the larger work.

In between, every minute, I kept on evolving Athera, the characters, the whole tapestry. And I kept writing and revising the bits I had down.

Book I The Curse of the Mistwraith was first published by HarperCollins in London - still with the series, now, distributed world wide. The first edition in the USA was a hardback, sold to Roc.

I sold the complete manuscript, polished and final - because I wished to be positively certain the editor who bought it would be able to work with the concepts, entire. The books have been produced, very steadily, at regular intervals since the first was published in 1993. Into that first volume, went 20 years of work.

And all of the subsequent arcs build on it with extreme care and intricacy - so that EVERYTHING in them unveils or builds something that is set in place, for later.

Now I am 2 volumes from the ending and precisely, intricately on schedule. This has been a labor of love that has survived publishing mergers SIX TIMES or more, has been orphaned - at least nine times! And is still here after every sort of industry change and pressure.

This story and its impact is not for everyone - it was never meant to fall into the middle register - or please every single reader. The edges and the creativity are too individual to attempt that. As a writer, artist, and musician, seriously, I tried to give the cream of the cream of those angles of perceptions, as they bear on the story and its many layered magical mysteries. But that level of detail will not necessarily ring the chimes for all.

It is a labor of love - a story not only about what happens but WHY it happens. An odyssey of the spirit in which every single character will grow and change.

Enjoy, and welcome to the discussion, and may you enjoy your journey every step and every word.

It has been designed so intricately that, guaranteed, every single volume will change your perceptions, and unveil more and more. The first book will read with a completely different angle, after the Eleventh volume (under contract, firm) is published. Many of the period research has been my own, actual experience - offshore sailing, to wilderness treks, to riding. Let the story take you out of your armchair and into first-hand view.

Buckle your seat belts and hang onto your socks, and may you laugh, cry, and savor the experience of a vivid dream that is Athera, and the Wars of Light and Shadow.

I am. Doing all of that. Can't put the damn thing down. :D

I decided - first - to write a story to turn that convention upside down. No big guy. And maybe the handome fair haired boy was not all he might seem.

I love this! I'm 6'0" barefoot and get so sick and tired of all the women being "petite" and "narrow waisted" which is one of the things I love about Brandon Sanderson's heroine Sarene in Elantris She's TALL. In fact she towers over most of the inhabitants of Kae and Elantris. Now I'm really excited to read your series, Janny because I hope to be surprised that the characters don't fit the boring norms!

P.S. My books have arrived, now I just have to finish Elantris, as I'm not a person who can read multiple titles at a time. I'm very sequential in my novel reading!

Janny have you ever travelled to where the Battle of Culloden Field took place ? If so what were your impressions when there.

Jeanne wrote: "
I decided - first - to write a story to turn that convention upside down. No big guy. And maybe the handome fair haired boy was not all he might seem.

I love this! I'm 6'0" barefoot and get so si..."

Jeanne - welcome aboard!

JJ wrote: "Janny have you ever travelled to where the Battle of Culloden Field took place ? If so what were your impressions when there."

JJ - yes, in fact.

How could I not?

Before I went, I listened to the audio version of John Prebble's Culloden, which details the history in the unvarnished words and views of its contemporary figures.

The day we went it was summer, and rainy. The lay of the land was - if viewed in tactical terms of what actually occurred there - disastrous. Unimaginably sad. The clan burials are actually trench graves with only one marker - and yes, I have ancestors there.

I dislike visiting the scenes of events like this, intensely. But in this case, I owed the site for the impact of the inspiration I received.

One cannot view this site by itself, or quite grasp the fear the highland army represented - unless one visits the nearby (and massive) fortification built to garrison the troops intended to keep the Scottish people from ever staging another rebellion. THAT was as bleak a statement as anything documented on that battlefield.

The book sounds interesting. I added it to my 'to read' pile.

Sandra AKA Sleo wrote: "The book sounds interesting. I added it to my 'to read' pile."

John Prebble also did a wrenching (and accurate, by contemporary view) nonfiction history on the Massacre at Glencoe. Glencoe. I do recommend him, highly.

Jeanne wrote: "Now I'm really excited to read your series, Janny because I hope to be surprised that the characters don't fit the boring norms!"

They don't. :)

Jeff wrote: "Jeanne wrote: "Now I'm really excited to read your series, Janny because I hope to be surprised that the characters don't fit the boring norms!"

They don't. :)"

ditto!

Thank you for writing that all out. I always find it so fulfilling to know how a writer comes to develop their works.

Mawgojzeta wrote: "Thank you for writing that all out. I always find it so fulfilling to know how a writer comes to develop their works."

You're most welcome. If any other questions occur, fire away.