I’ve been interviewed over at fantasyliterature.com by Justin Blazier, talking about The Scar-Crow Men, ebooks, psycho-fairies and folklore.

When I decided I was going to write an historical fantasy, the attractions of the Elizabethan era were many. It was, for one, a time very much like our own, when society was going through massive changes – a rapid increase in new technology changing the way people lived their lives, foreign wars over resources and in pursuit of power, religious intolerance and religiously-motivated acts against the state funded by foreign powers, heightened surveillance at home, a fear of foreigners among the common man, rising wealth for a few but near-poverty for many, and massive leaps forward in art, literature and music. Not only would we understand the Elizabethan man and woman, there were stark resonances with our own age that would add a nice layer of complexity to any story.

Spain was the sixteenth century equivalent of the US, a global superpower influencing geo-politics at many levels. Under King Philip, the country ruthlessly pursued power and wealth, invading Portugal and putting pressure on France and the Low Countries while exploiting the New World’s resources of gold and silver. Though a devout man, Philip was not averse to using religion as a cover for some of Spain’s more aggressive actions and thereby keeping his subjects firmly behind him.

Beside Spain, England was a small nation with ambition and pluck, but little real power and no great wealth. Thanks to Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic church, the nation lived in a near-constant state of fear of either retribution from the Catholic powers of Europe or insurrection within from Catholic agitators. Young priests were being trained in foreign seminaries and sent to England to foment revolution and to spy. The Government feared Philip’s expansionist policy and rumours of an invasion of England began long before the Armada set sail.

This was a dark time of terror and sweat and deceit. Yet in a sequence of stories that were essentially about duality, I could also look to the other, more positive face of the time. This, too, was the English Renaissance, with Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Bacon and other writers blazing a trail, alongside composers like Tallis and Taverner, and architects like Inigo Jones. There was a great deal of enlightenment after long centuries of moral repression. Brothels were tolerated, including one composed entirely of young men. London was growing at an astonishing rate – faster than it could truly cope – and had become one of the great cities of Europe. So it was an exciting, vibrant time too.

The stories were to be about the point where fantasy collided with reality, but the more I researched, the more comparable and contextual collisions I found – socially, culturally, religious, political. Any fantasy – any story – needs a rich world and plenty of innate conflict. It was all here.

And while England was increasingly embracing what would come to be science, it still had the supernatural fears of past centuries at its back. The Elizabethan era was really the point where the country was caught between reason and unreason, hope and fear, past and future.

With the idea of a country trying to move forward while held back by the hooks of a superstitious past came the opening for my antagonists, the otherworldly Unseelie Court. Their existence was encoded in every myth and legend and folktale; the English had always lived in fear of the Fair Folk. But under Queen Elizabeth, England wanted to break free of their shackles and move into a new, brighter age.

Next time I’ll look at some of the historical characters who populate The Sword of Albion and The Scar-Crow Men and why I chose them.

The Scar-Crow Men, the second of my Elizabethan fantasy novels, is out soon in the US and UK. It’s fantasy noir, renaissance punk, historical fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical urban fantasy or one of half a dozen other labels, depending on who’s speaking. Like some of my other work, the story exists at the point where the fantastic smashes up hard against reality, only in this sequence that reality is in the past, five hundred years gone, among well-documented, pivotal events.

Writing historical fantasy – to adopt the broadest label – has its own peculiar demands. We’re talking about an alien world here, with its own customs, clothes, politics, transport, weapons, social classes, art, music and economy and every aspect needs to be fully realized for the reader to settle into it.

To say this entails a massive amount of research, doesn’t begin to do the job justice. The writer needs to understand everything, both as its own thing and in context within the time period. This involves more than the invention of a secondary world fantasy, more than looking out of the window or Googling or location research for a contemporary fantasy (both of which I’ve written in the past).

Our knowledge of history degrades the further back we go. Characters walk on stage and then disappear. Our understanding of events is based on often-biased accounts. And sometimes there are vast parts of life that are simply missing in contemporary accounts.

The Elizabethan Age is reasonably well-documented, particularly with regard to affairs of state. The lives of the common men and women are there too, but the information is scattered widely. While writing this sequence, I sometimes had to embark on three different strands of research for a single sentence.

The Scar-Crow Men unfolds in the shadow of the murder of the playwright Christopher Marlowe, a killing that has all the mystery and intrigue of the JFK assassination. The previous volume, The Sword of Albion (or The Silver Skull in the US), is set at the time of the Armada and the Spanish invasion of England.

Over a few posts here I’m going to be writing about what goes into creating these historical fantasies, looking at the places, the people, the milieu, not only setting the context but also underlining the basic premise that the more reality you get, the more effective the fantasy.

The Sword of Albion has appeared in two best of 2010 lists – at SFFworld.net and at Rob Will Review.

Edit: make that three: The Eloquent Page also listed it, as Paul mentions in the comments…

Here’s the final version of the Pyr edition of The Scar-Crow Men, by artist Chris McGrath.

You can pre-order the UK version here.

Or the US version here.

I’ve just been informed that my novel, World’s End, the first book of the Age of Misrule sequence, has been shortlisted for Prix Julia Verlanger, France’s premier SF/Fantasy book award.

Under it’s French title, La Nuit sans fin, the novel was published by Orbit towards the end of 2009.

The other nominees are:

Ceci n’est pas un jeu – Walter Jon Williams (L’Atalante)
Cygnis – Vincent Gessler (L’Atalante )
L’Empire ultime – Brandon Sanderson (Orbit)
Le Nom du Vent – Patrick Rothfuss (Bragelonne)
Nuigrave – Lorris Murail (Robert Laffont/Ailleurs & Demain)
L’Odyssée du temps 1 – Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter(Bragelonne)
Rien que l’Acier – Richard Morgan (Bragelonne)

I’m answering questions on my contribution to the superhero anthology Masked over on Stargate Universe producer Joe Mallozzi’s blog.

The anthology compiled by editor supreme Lou Anders has been massively well-received, and features stories from both prose and comics authors, including Paul Cornell, Gail Simone, Mike Carey, Bill Willingham, Ian McDonald and more. Many of them are answering questions over on Joe’s blog (where he also has a little fun and identifies each of us as well-known super-heroes. Guess who I am?)

My story, By My Works You Shall Know Me features the debut of the hero Nox and the villain Styx.

Oh, yeah, you can buy it here.

Just heard from my editor in the US, Lou Anders, that he’s bought the Kingdom of the Serpent sequence – Jack of Ravens, The Burning Man and Destroyer of Worlds – to be published shortly by Pyr.

For American readers, those books will finish off the massive story that began with World’s End in the Age of Misrule, a trilogy of trilogies covering more than two thousand years of human history, three worlds – this world, the Otherworld and the world beyond death – and our greatest mythologies.

Maybe I’ll stop getting all those emails now.

I’m on Stargate producer Joe Mallozzi’s blog talking about my short story in the just-released superhero anthology, Masked.

And a Writing For TV panel at the alt.fiction literature festival with me, Rob Shearman, Stephen Volk and Bill Boyes has just been made available as a podcast.”

I’m currently neck-deep in the second draft of The Scar-Crow Men, where I expect to be for a while, so it will be a little quiet around here.

But just to keep things ticking over, here’s a new interview about The Sword of Albion, by Sandy Auden at SF Site.

And here’s an appreciation of The Dark Age books by Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column, which also includes a look at Mark Charan Newton’s excellent Nights of Villjamur.

Art genius John Picacio has made his Pyr cover to World’s End available as free download wallpaper, including a version for iPhone.

You can get it here.

Is this going to stop all you lot asking for free Picacio artwork? Probably not. Sigh.

…is published today.

By John Picacio, coming soon from Pyr.

Art by Chris McGrath. Coming from Pyr.

I’m currently head down and writing the final part of the next book so it’s necessarily been a bit quiet round here. The Swords of Albion series is a departure on many levels from what I’ve done before, particularly the degree of necessary research ( and if you’ve read any of my books you know I do a lot of research). But it seems to be coming together pretty well, I think.

In advance of normal service being resumed, here’s a quick catch-up:

Firstly, take a look at the new cover for the Pyr edition of The Queen of Sinister, Book Two of The Dark Age. Once again it’s by the astonishing John Picacio.

Secondly, the first US review of The Devil in Green, Book One of The Dark Age, is in, and it’s from Rob Will Review. To be honest, I don’t read most reviews, even if they’re brought to my attention. I do what I do, and it’s up to readers to take it or leave it. But there are a handful of reviewers I respect, and I listen very closely to their criticism and try to improve my work accordingly. Rob is one of those. You’re probably already aware of the others. In fact, here’s another…

…from Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review. It’s the first UK review of The Sword of Albion, out in May from Bantam. Not only did Graeme like it, he made some good comments which I am now addressing in the next book.

Here’s the new cover to the US edition of The Devil in Green (Book One of The Dark Age) coming from Pyr in May:

The art, as with the previous and interlinked Age of Misrule titles, is by the great John Picacio.

Careful viewers will note the thematic links with John’s cover for World’s End, which echoes the themes in the two stories.

The blurb:
Humanity has emerged, blinking, from the Age of Misrule into a world substantially changed: cities lie devasted, communications are limited, anarchy rages across the land. Society has been thrown into a new Dark Age where superstition holds sway. The Tuatha De Danaan roam the land once more, their terrible powers dwarfing anything mortals have to offer. And in their wake come all the creatures of myth and legend, no longer confined to the shadows. Fighting to find their place in this new world, the last remnants of the Christian Church call for a group of heroes: a new Knights Templar to guard the priesthood as they set out on their quest for souls. But as everything begin to fall apart, the Knights begin to realise their only hope is to call on the pagan gods of Celtic myth for help.

US readers can order the book here.

As the UK edition is currently out of print, I don’t have any problem with British readers filling a gap in their collection with this one. You can buy an imported edition in the UK here.

I’m very gratified to see Destroyer of Worlds, Kingdom of the Serpent Book 3, sitting at number three in SF Site’s 13th annual Editors’ Choice Best Books of the Year.

It’s a prestigious list that gets a fair bit of attention. And frankly, the company is great: Daryl Gregory’s The Devil’s Alphabet at five, Julian Comstock: a Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson at four, The City and the City by China Mieville at two, and the hugely deserved Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson in the top slot.

Here’s the SF Site review of the book and here’s a new review at the excellent NextRead site.

And as if by magic, the mass-market paperback of that book has just been published in the UK.

Came across a quote today (from Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, used in relation to the US finally passing its health care legislation) which perfectly summed up the theme of Age of Misrule, The Dark Age and Kingdom of the Serpent:

“Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope is an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. Hope is the knowledge that we can choose; that we can learn from our mistakes and act differently next time. That history is not a trash bag of random coincidences blown open by the wind, but a long slow journey to redemption.”

Here’s the finished article and a first look at the cover copy for the UK edition.

Very different from the US version (which the artist Christian McGrath styled on the work of Caravaggio, fact fans), but I like the sense of adventure and intrigue here too.

The front cover photo is by Jonathan Ring and the design by Stephen Mulcahey. The Sword of Albion is out in the UK from Bantam in May and you can pre-order it here.