Stargazy Pies And Imperial Stories - Part 1

WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:08.430Hello, and welcome to myth makers.2 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:13.470 Myth makers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives 3 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:18.390 brought to you by the Oxford center for fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. 4 00:00:18.690 --> 00:00:21.700 I'm an author, but I'm also director of the center. 5 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:26.740 And today I am joined by Victoria Godard, 6 00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:32.060 who actually was invited on the podcast by special request of one of our 7 00:00:32.060 --> 00:00:34.180 listeners. So don't say we don't deliver. 8 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:37.930 So if you've got any more ideas for guests, please do send them in. 9 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:41.930 Because for me it's been an enormous pleasure over this week, 10 00:00:42.650 --> 00:00:46.010 actually getting to understand and read Victoria's fantasy works. 11 00:00:46.150 --> 00:00:47.570 So first of all, hello to Victoria. 12 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:49.730Hello. Thanks for having me.13 00:00:50.550 --> 00:00:53.370So, Victoria, where are we talking to you? Where's your home base?14 00:00:54.490 --> 00:00:55.930I live in prince Edward island,15 00:00:55.940 --> 00:01:00.160 which is the smallest of the Canadian provinces it's in Eastern Canada and the 16 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:00.993 Maritimes. 17 00:01:01.950 --> 00:01:02.783Fantastic.18 00:01:03.340 --> 00:01:08.180 So should we have a little overview of the kind of things you write? Um, 19 00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:13.220 so people understand where you sit in the fantasy Panion as it 20 00:01:13.220 --> 00:01:14.100 were. What are the, 21 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:17.290 what kind of series do you write and how would you describe them? 22 00:01:18.470 --> 00:01:19.920Well, I tend to, uh,23 00:01:20.070 --> 00:01:24.520 tell people I write in the general kind of mythic tradition from the inklings 24 00:01:24.520 --> 00:01:28.040 onwards. So this was a nice fit with your podcast. Um, 25 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:33.320 I'm kind of one of those English derived medievalists by background. Uh, 26 00:01:33.320 --> 00:01:35.550 my family's British and, um, 27 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:40.630 first my dad was a immigrant actually. And, um, always been very, 28 00:01:40.820 --> 00:01:42.750 very fond of them. I tend to, 29 00:01:42.910 --> 00:01:47.270 I like writing kind of a vast sprawling interconnected narrative universe, 30 00:01:47.460 --> 00:01:50.670 exploring different, different elements of it. And I tend to like writing, 31 00:01:51.950 --> 00:01:52.270 I suppose, 32 00:01:52.270 --> 00:01:57.060 the stories that happen around the epics what's going on after you've had the 33 00:01:57.060 --> 00:01:57.760 grand speech, 34 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:02.460 how do you get from there to the actual work of the work of living 35 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:05.380 and how you, how do you do it? That's something I find really interesting. 36 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:10.500So you recommended to me as did the listener who wrote in, um,37 00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:12.810 one of your books called the hands of the emperor, 38 00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:16.610 which I'd be absolutely thrilled to talk to you about in a moment, 39 00:02:17.310 --> 00:02:19.330 but you also, as you say, connected to this, 40 00:02:19.350 --> 00:02:23.330 you sort of dip into the history before and later, and, um, 41 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:27.290 you use your world building to go where you want, 42 00:02:27.830 --> 00:02:32.200 but you also have a series which is more like a, a duo, uh, two, 43 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:37.120 two connected characters. And that starts with the Starz book. Is that correct? 44 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:40.560Yes, that's right. Um, I like, I,45 00:02:40.640 --> 00:02:43.600 I enjoy writing a whole bunch of different kinds of books and that's something 46 00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:46.840 I've always really liked, um, to connect to, to your kind of thing. Like, 47 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:50.550 I've always liked that about say Toki where you have such different books in the 48 00:02:50.550 --> 00:02:54.910 same universe as the Hobbit and the Lord of the rings. And, and, um, so I've, 49 00:02:54.910 --> 00:02:58.150 I've enjoyed that or somebody like Dorothy Sayers in her mysteries where she 50 00:02:58.150 --> 00:03:00.320 writes different kinds of mysteries with the same characters. 51 00:03:00.340 --> 00:03:02.240 And so that kind of a, that's always appealed to me. 52 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:05.800 That's sort of stretching yourself as craft and just being able to tell 53 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:08.960 different sorts of stories and focus on different elements of them. 54 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:14.560 And so the green wing and dart series is sort of a bit of a more, yeah, 55 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:18.030 it's a duo kind of friendly, a little, a little bit of a cozy mystery, 56 00:03:18.180 --> 00:03:22.110 sort of underlying it there and a bit of an adventure. And, um, 57 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:26.510 whereas the hands of the emperor is, you know, it's a bit a, among many things. 58 00:03:26.510 --> 00:03:30.910 It's about a bureau cut on the edge of retirement kind of thing. And, um, so, 59 00:03:31.950 --> 00:03:33.930 so I suppose in terms of genre, I just kind of say, well, 60 00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:35.130 I'm right in the middle of fantasy, 61 00:03:35.270 --> 00:03:37.320 but I tend to write these sort of slightly off, 62 00:03:37.460 --> 00:03:39.840 off kilter towards genre conventions. 63 00:03:40.830 --> 00:03:44.440Yeah. And I think that's what is so wonderful about your writing Victoria,64 00:03:44.460 --> 00:03:48.200 is that you feel really original. Um, that's, 65 00:03:48.670 --> 00:03:51.240 there's nothing wrong with reading something which F fits in a genre. 66 00:03:51.460 --> 00:03:54.400 So if you read a romance or a detective story, 67 00:03:54.420 --> 00:03:58.830 you know how it's gonna turn out or a Western, you, you know, before you start, 68 00:03:58.830 --> 00:04:01.990 what's gonna happen more or less, but you dunno what the journey is. Whereas, 69 00:04:01.990 --> 00:04:03.710 when I started reading hands of the emperor, 70 00:04:03.750 --> 00:04:07.830 I had no idea what the journey was gonna be. And it was a pure delight. 71 00:04:07.980 --> 00:04:12.230 It's a longer book. It's not a sort of thing you can knock out in a a day. Um, 72 00:04:12.230 --> 00:04:16.500 but I have a thoroughly enjoyed my week spent with your main character 73 00:04:16.910 --> 00:04:20.500 Clefa. So, but before we come to him, um, 74 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:24.180 I'm just thinking about the influence and place, uh, 75 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:28.980 on your stories because the wining and dart series feels quite 76 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:33.490 like a sort of 18th century feel. 77 00:04:33.850 --> 00:04:38.730 I mean, people are the sort of small, small villagey town type society. 78 00:04:38.780 --> 00:04:41.130 There feels like that. Whereas the, 79 00:04:41.510 --> 00:04:46.090 the world of the hands of the emperor is very much a much bigger 80 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:48.410 scale. It's got, um, 81 00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:54.600 a sense of almost mixture of the sort of Chinese bureaucracy 82 00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:58.640 and the exams that used to have to do to be part of the Chinese bureaucracy, 83 00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:03.520 but also island culture that could be from, um, I dunno, 84 00:05:03.690 --> 00:05:08.280 Maori or Pacific islands. I mean that you are, you're creating your own world, 85 00:05:08.890 --> 00:05:12.510 but I felt that there was a sample of different elements that you were going 86 00:05:12.570 --> 00:05:15.070 for. So as a writer, 87 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:19.750 have you traveled first and gone around squirreling away all these 88 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:21.750 ideas? Or is it something that you think, oh, 89 00:05:21.790 --> 00:05:23.950 I want to do this and then go and have a look at it. 90 00:05:24.950 --> 00:05:28.350It's a little bit of both. Um, as I said, my family's, uh,91 00:05:28.350 --> 00:05:32.390 British and I've spent a number of visits and some quite some time visiting 92 00:05:32.390 --> 00:05:35.630 family members in various parts of England and Wales, particularly, 93 00:05:35.730 --> 00:05:40.270 and I did a year abroad in Scotland, um, when I was in undergrad. And, 94 00:05:40.690 --> 00:05:45.230 um, and so for me, I've always really enjoyed that kind of, 95 00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:50.220 yes, the 19th century, sort of the Jane Austin or early, late 18th, 96 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:55.020 early 19th century, that kind of period of the early novels. Um, and then, 97 00:05:55.640 --> 00:05:59.160 and the sort of early Regency stuff. 98 00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:01.000 And then also just sort of the, 99 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:04.960 the kind of idealized vision that people have of Oxford and Cambridge and things 100 00:06:04.960 --> 00:06:07.120 like that. And I enjoyed playing with that and thinking about, 101 00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:09.840 I have an academic background. And so I enjoyed thinking about, you know, 102 00:06:10.270 --> 00:06:14.280 what the, the good parts of that, and also the bad parts of that in some ways. 103 00:06:14.280 --> 00:06:16.870 So we haven't seen that much of the university experience, but I, 104 00:06:16.950 --> 00:06:21.630 I enjoy thinking about it. And, um, so for me kind of travel, 105 00:06:21.990 --> 00:06:26.350 I, I once spent about six months walking down the length of England and staying 106 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:28.270 with various relatives and friends along the way. 107 00:06:28.650 --> 00:06:32.710 And so that kind of sense of the landscape, um, was a great 108 00:06:34.620 --> 00:06:37.770 resource for me. Um, otherwise I've lived around quite, 109 00:06:37.840 --> 00:06:40.050 I've moved quite a lot around Canada, growing up, 110 00:06:40.380 --> 00:06:43.450 lived in 14 places across the country. 111 00:06:44.270 --> 00:06:48.570 And my parents spent 10 years in pap, new Guinea north of Australia. 112 00:06:49.070 --> 00:06:53.010 And so I had a lot of stories about Papua New Guinea in Australia growing up. 113 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:56.240 And I think that really comes out strongly in the hands of the emperor with the 114 00:06:56.930 --> 00:06:58.960 white seas Islander culture, which is, um, 115 00:06:59.370 --> 00:07:03.160 quite strongly based on sort of Polynesian historic Polynesian culture. 116 00:07:03.220 --> 00:07:07.080 But there's quite a lot of P Guian elements in there too from the TRO brandand 117 00:07:07.080 --> 00:07:09.000 islands and the Highlands, which is where my parents lived. 118 00:07:09.260 --> 00:07:12.670 And so I had lots of stories in like the material culture of that, 119 00:07:12.670 --> 00:07:16.070 that white parents had various elements of it and friends of theirs, um, 120 00:07:16.090 --> 00:07:19.830 who come to visit us, or we visited them. I've only been there once, but, uh, 121 00:07:19.830 --> 00:07:23.690 that I remember I was there when I was very, as a baby, but as an adult, 122 00:07:23.690 --> 00:07:28.330 I've only been there once. And so it was a very, um, rich experience, 123 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:32.920 even being a quite short trip. So I enjoy, uh, that combination. I, 124 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.920 I feel like it's important to be very respectful of other cultures and I try 125 00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:41.720 really hard to, uh, not to appropriate, um, cultural elements, 126 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:45.520 um, especially for ones that have been, you know, historically colonized. 127 00:07:45.860 --> 00:07:46.760 But at the same time, 128 00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:50.590 I also think it's very important to try and broaden the base that you're 129 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:51.290 building off of. 130 00:07:51.290 --> 00:07:55.230 So the grooming and Dick dart series is quite largely based off of kind of the 131 00:07:55.230 --> 00:07:59.590 English country tradition and country like country, house, um, 132 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:03.950 stories too, right? Like that kind of the mysteries that you get out of, or, 133 00:08:03.950 --> 00:08:05.150 and that, that tradition there, 134 00:08:05.610 --> 00:08:09.220 but the hands of the emperor and the world that that's set in, which is Zuni, 135 00:08:09.700 --> 00:08:14.620 I deliberately wanted it to be a non-Western European, uh, based society. I was, 136 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:17.980 I really wanted to, to get away from that. So I, I, 137 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.140 the different parts of Zuni are drawn from different, um, 138 00:08:22.450 --> 00:08:25.690 non-Western cultures as a conscious choice there. 139 00:08:26.870 --> 00:08:31.330And what the person who wrote in said, is I something along the lines of,140 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:36.170 I defy you not to fall in love with Clefa now Clefa is the main character, 141 00:08:36.950 --> 00:08:40.170 um, of the hands of the emperor. He is the hands of the emperor. 142 00:08:40.670 --> 00:08:43.250 You could describe him very boringly as bureaucrat, 143 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:47.360 but actually he is just the most wonderful, 144 00:08:47.550 --> 00:08:49.400 wonderful character. Um, 145 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:54.640 I was saying to you just before we started recording that he reminds me very 146 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:57.280 much of the, um, 147 00:08:57.330 --> 00:09:01.800 count Rosoff who is the lead figure in the fantastic, um, 148 00:09:02.010 --> 00:09:06.400 novel gentleman in Moscow by Amor towels, which is a historical novel, 149 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:10.440 I think being filmed at the moment. Um, but the, 150 00:09:10.780 --> 00:09:14.670 how that story works is that you just love spending time with that character. 151 00:09:14.670 --> 00:09:19.550 And I felt absolutely the same about Clefa. And as you were just saying, 152 00:09:19.660 --> 00:09:22.790 what you're thinking about in this book are things which don't make it into 153 00:09:22.790 --> 00:09:26.590 fantasy. It's the stuff that's not around the battle. It's um, 154 00:09:27.130 --> 00:09:29.830 how do you hand on power? 155 00:09:31.230 --> 00:09:32.880 How do you retire? 156 00:09:33.820 --> 00:09:37.680 And there's also a really strong theme about what do the people back home think 157 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:42.560 of those who have gone into another walk of life and got success elsewhere, 158 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:45.440 which doesn't translate into the local context at all. 159 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.480 They completely misunderstand him in sad ways. 160 00:09:50.850 --> 00:09:53.910 So when you started this book, 161 00:09:54.010 --> 00:09:56.430 did you start with the character and just see where it went, 162 00:09:56.450 --> 00:09:59.870 or did you already have those themes in mind and then, you know, 163 00:09:59.870 --> 00:10:01.150 built him to fit the plot? 164 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:06.670No, <laugh>, it was a very character driven, um, different book.165 00:10:07.130 --> 00:10:11.420 So my, my kind of general project, as I said, I tend to, 166 00:10:11.460 --> 00:10:15.060 I write these sort of, it's a sprawling interconnected stories in my, 167 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:19.460 in my narrative universe here. And they, they there's sort of two parallel core, 168 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:22.580 um, to that, that project. 169 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:25.980 One of them there's this empire called the empire of a stand laws, 170 00:10:26.110 --> 00:10:29.330 which has this catastrophic cataclysmic, 171 00:10:29.330 --> 00:10:33.610 magical collapse that happens. And so I, it's sort of, 172 00:10:33.830 --> 00:10:37.090 one of my projects is the lead up to, to that collapse. 173 00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:39.930 And then what happens afterwards, I'm not really a dystopian kind of writer. 174 00:10:40.070 --> 00:10:42.850 I'm really much more interested in how do you rebuild, um, 175 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:44.730 what happens afterwards, but that, 176 00:10:45.400 --> 00:10:49.880 that kind of shadow that falls across the entire, um, 177 00:10:50.180 --> 00:10:54.400 entire cultures and individuals is something that I find a very interesting to 178 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:54.820 think about. 179 00:10:54.820 --> 00:10:58.760 And I think this connects back to something like Toki and the shadow of world 180 00:10:58.780 --> 00:11:01.000 war, I, that's always behind, um, 181 00:11:01.380 --> 00:11:03.440 all those authors of the first half of the 20th century. 182 00:11:03.860 --> 00:11:07.110 And I've always found that interwar period quite interesting for that with, 183 00:11:07.220 --> 00:11:10.070 with people, not always talking directly about it, but it's always there. 184 00:11:10.450 --> 00:11:14.030 And so in my novels that kind of the fall of a stand laws is, is that, 185 00:11:14.300 --> 00:11:19.130 that culture wide devastation that people don't always talk about, 186 00:11:19.130 --> 00:11:20.970 but is always there. So that's one part of the project. 187 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:24.840 And then the second part of the project is this figure of, um, 188 00:11:26.910 --> 00:11:31.490 of one character, um, and who is, um, 189 00:11:31.490 --> 00:11:32.530 called Fitzer cell. 190 00:11:32.530 --> 00:11:35.490 And he's a mean character in various books and referred to in other ones, 191 00:11:35.490 --> 00:11:37.890 he's this poet. And so as part of that, 192 00:11:38.070 --> 00:11:40.490 one thing I was interested in with the fall of a Standal as, 193 00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:44.680 and the effects of it was the character of the last emperor of a Standal as who 194 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:45.550 survives the, 195 00:11:45.550 --> 00:11:48.680 this destruction and ends up having to kind of rebuild on a personal level. 196 00:11:49.260 --> 00:11:53.520 And so I started off writing this, what was going to be a short vignette, uh, 197 00:11:53.610 --> 00:11:57.480 about the last emperor and what he was like in the period after things had sort 198 00:11:57.480 --> 00:11:59.600 of settled down after the fall. And I thought, oh, his, 199 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.680 secretary's probably a good window onto what he's like as a person. 200 00:12:03.260 --> 00:12:06.560 And so I started writing about his secretary and it was really only intended to 201 00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:09.160 be a couple of scenes or maybe one scene, like that was all I was doing. 202 00:12:09.500 --> 00:12:13.110 And by the end of the scene, I had fallen in love with CLE, for as a character. 203 00:12:13.110 --> 00:12:16.670 He was just so interesting and he just kind of kept going. And, 204 00:12:16.670 --> 00:12:18.390 and that was the story was, was an, 205 00:12:18.530 --> 00:12:22.710 was an unusual one to write because I usually have more of a sense of what the 206 00:12:22.710 --> 00:12:25.600 story is to start with, or at least like, 207 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:29.560 I often know what the emotional tone I wanna end with is, or like the, the very, 208 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:32.030 the Demont, I don't always know what the climax is, 209 00:12:32.030 --> 00:12:34.670 but I usually know what the Demont is and where the characters end up. 210 00:12:34.930 --> 00:12:38.590 And so for that one, I had no sense of what the arc was at first. 211 00:12:39.030 --> 00:12:42.070 I just kind of kept, but I kept being drawn to writing scenes, 212 00:12:42.130 --> 00:12:44.950 and I just kept imagining them, like, I'd be driving or I'd be, you know, 213 00:12:44.950 --> 00:12:46.350 taking the dogs for a walk or something, 214 00:12:46.350 --> 00:12:49.460 and the scene would come into mind and I, I just have to go write it. 215 00:12:49.460 --> 00:12:53.020 And so for, I don't know, a year, a year and a half, maybe two years, 216 00:12:53.140 --> 00:12:56.260 I just kind of kept going back to it and picking away at it. 217 00:12:56.280 --> 00:12:58.540 And I was enjoying writing it so much. 218 00:12:58.540 --> 00:13:02.380 Like I just love spending time with Clefa and eventually I was like, okay, 219 00:13:02.380 --> 00:13:03.860 you know what? I'm not getting any other books done. 220 00:13:03.860 --> 00:13:05.980 I'm just gonna focus on this one and see where it takes me. 221 00:13:06.280 --> 00:13:07.450 And eventually at that point, 222 00:13:07.530 --> 00:13:10.930 I realized that the reason I had had so much problem seeing what the arc was was 223 00:13:10.930 --> 00:13:13.530 because it was an incredibly long book. And so I'd written, you know, 224 00:13:13.530 --> 00:13:16.170 80,000 words, which is normally coming towards the end of a, 225 00:13:16.270 --> 00:13:19.690 of a novel that I usually write. But that's really, I mean, 226 00:13:19.690 --> 00:13:22.330 not even a third of the way through this one. So the, 227 00:13:22.470 --> 00:13:27.400 the kind of character arc was just really getting going. And so, yeah, 228 00:13:27.400 --> 00:13:29.840 I just loved writing it. So the character really drove that story. 229 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:34.000 I had a sense of what was going on with the, with the emperor. Um, 230 00:13:34.180 --> 00:13:36.720 and I knew at some point he was gonna be leaving, you know, 231 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:40.600 there there's some elements there, but, um, but Clefa as a character, 232 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:45.590 just sort of shouldered his way into being sort of one of my favorites 233 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:48.990 and a, a really important person in my, in my stories. 234 00:13:50.310 --> 00:13:51.830I think it's a very good, um,235 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:56.390 illustration of how it is that characters are the things that draw us to books, 236 00:13:57.530 --> 00:14:00.410 um, because the, the, 237 00:14:00.510 --> 00:14:05.040 the slice of one person's life through these momentous events is a really 238 00:14:05.040 --> 00:14:09.360 fascinating one to take cuz he passes through the fall and the rebuilding 239 00:14:09.950 --> 00:14:14.160 he's had his own personal journey, but no one which, which lots of people, 240 00:14:14.300 --> 00:14:16.280 you could have written the book about his journey home. 241 00:14:16.820 --> 00:14:20.040 He has his time in his life where he wants to go and find out someone to his 242 00:14:20.040 --> 00:14:22.270 family, but nobody's interested. 243 00:14:23.090 --> 00:14:26.350 So he only gets to tell it right later on in life. 244 00:14:27.050 --> 00:14:28.270 And that itself is, 245 00:14:28.270 --> 00:14:33.090 is a really fascinating sort of it's do it's dodging the most obvious, 246 00:14:33.090 --> 00:14:37.890 like it's not a quest in that standard sense. It's not a there and back again, 247 00:14:38.350 --> 00:14:41.280 uh, in, well, except I suppose it is. Uh, 248 00:14:41.660 --> 00:14:46.160 but not in the sort of talking que setting out to find a dragon way. Um, 249 00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:48.320 and what I've thought was 250 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:53.960 fabulous about it was the way that you are really expanding a sort of, 251 00:14:54.230 --> 00:14:58.520 this is what fantasy can do. Um, and, and, 252 00:14:58.520 --> 00:15:01.720 and finding a really original, uh, area to, 253 00:15:01.860 --> 00:15:06.760 to explore the stuff between main events. Well, 254 00:15:06.760 --> 00:15:11.310 main events are happening, but the focus is on the experience of a, 255 00:15:11.550 --> 00:15:14.670 a man passing through those. So I would, 256 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:18.670 can't recommend it enough listeners go and you need a while. 257 00:15:19.190 --> 00:15:22.830 I think I would say that, stick with it because I was, 258 00:15:22.950 --> 00:15:24.990 I couldn't understand it to start with, well, why are we, 259 00:15:25.290 --> 00:15:27.150 why are we on holiday with this guy? You know, 260 00:15:27.170 --> 00:15:31.140 why have we started there and don't get it until you think, ah, okay. 261 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.860 And something really big happens where he takes a decision and that has the 262 00:15:35.860 --> 00:15:38.140 consequences then kind of like the, 263 00:15:38.140 --> 00:15:42.860 do the first domino that goes down and the rest of the book follows. So, 264 00:15:42.890 --> 00:15:44.020 yeah. Fantastic. 265 00:15:44.970 --> 00:15:47.330Well, thank you. I think for me with that book,266 00:15:47.430 --> 00:15:51.890 one of the things I find it like that I just find endlessly fascinating too is, 267 00:15:52.910 --> 00:15:53.743 and for me, 268 00:15:53.810 --> 00:15:58.730 I feel like that question of you have a family that you love, 269 00:15:58.830 --> 00:16:01.770 but you have a desire to go traveling or to go and do other things. 270 00:16:01.770 --> 00:16:05.440 And they may or may not understand that is, you know, is, is a very true one. 271 00:16:05.730 --> 00:16:08.360 We're not all orphans, you know, with Fs and whatnot. 272 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:10.920 Like you can just want to have those adventures. And that's something I, 273 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:12.480 I explore in different parts of my stories, 274 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.200 those kind of complicated families that, um, 275 00:16:16.910 --> 00:16:17.743 that are there, 276 00:16:18.020 --> 00:16:21.920 cuz I feel like I don't know the people who love their families and you can 277 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:24.120 still have a complicated relationship, no matter, you know, 278 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:26.070 if you love them and are loved by them very well, 279 00:16:26.770 --> 00:16:29.110 but it doesn't stop you from having those desires, 280 00:16:29.110 --> 00:16:31.630 but it makes them much more complicated. And I find that. 281 00:16:31.630 --> 00:16:33.470 So like that's a thread through that story too, 282 00:16:33.690 --> 00:16:36.950 and kind of found families as well and how that interacts with your, 283 00:16:37.220 --> 00:16:42.100 with your biological family friendship is the themes that I find really 284 00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:42.933 important too. 285 00:16:45.910 --> 00:16:49.060Thank you for listening to part one of this week's podcast.286 00:16:49.930 --> 00:16:52.620 Come back next week to hear part two. 287 00:16:53.910 --> 00:16:55.820 Thank you for listening to myth makers. 288 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:07.330Thanks for listening to mythmakers podcast brought to you by the289 00:17:07.470 --> 00:17:12.210 Oxford center for fantasy visit Oxford center for fantasy.org 290 00:17:12.390 --> 00:17:13.490 to join in the fun. 291 00:17:14.080 --> 00:17:18.610 Find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus 292 00:17:18.860 --> 00:17:21.160 visit our shop for great gifts. 293 00:17:21.750 --> 00:17:26.240 Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts 294 00:17:26.510 --> 00:17:27.120 worldwide.