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July 5, 2022

Stargazy Pies And Imperial Stories - Part 2

Best place for a signature dish

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Mythmakers

Part 2 - How can you find an original voice in fantasy? Discount code available. You wait for a listener to the podcast to suggest one to you, of course! Julia Golding is in conversation today with Victoria Goddard, a Canadian author who has imagined a big world of Astandalas and Zunidh and gone on to set different connected series in it. Each series has its own genre flavour. Victoria was influenced by the Inklings and Dorothy L Sayers and speaks about how they encouraged certain aspects of her writing. Julia and Victoria discuss Hands of the Emperor and the fabulous character of Cliopher (Kit) who is an unconventional hero in fantasy - a government bureaucrat making fiery change from within the system. That doesn't do justice to this book - it has so much heart. In honour of Stargazy pie, they conclude by picking which fantasy worlds have the best use of signature dishes. Victoria has kindly offered a discount for her books. Please go to https://www.victoriagoddard.ca/discount/OXFORD20 - the one-off code of 20% is OXFORD20

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Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.380 --> 00:00:10.830 Yeah, I think the thing which I've taken away from it is a sense of love and 2 00:00:10.840 --> 00:00:15.510 fellowship between these palace servants who have given up a conventional life 3 00:00:15.570 --> 00:00:19.580 to serve the emperor and the emperor himself. Um, 4 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.460 and it's, they've, they've been the person who dresses him, 5 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.020 the person who guards him, that kind of thing, 6 00:00:26.360 --> 00:00:29.220 the person who writes his letters, um, and it's, they've, 7 00:00:29.220 --> 00:00:34.140 they've made this own little community and a hu huge amount of humor in it as 8 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:35.620 well, because you can get the perspective, 9 00:00:37.050 --> 00:00:39.370 even though it's all from Cliff's point of view, 10 00:00:39.630 --> 00:00:43.650 you do understand their perspective on him because he's self aware enough to 11 00:00:43.650 --> 00:00:46.610 know when they're sort of manipulating him into a, 12 00:00:46.610 --> 00:00:51.290 yet more ridiculous outfit for some ceremony or something. Yeah, 13 00:00:51.310 --> 00:00:54.850 that's absolutely lovely. So, uh, you've answered the question as your, 14 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:59.320 in this one, you were character led, but do you swap your, um, 15 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:03.640 technique depending on what sort of genre you've decided to write in, 16 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:06.080 in your extended world? Would you, in another one, for example, 17 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:09.080 plotted out more entirely. 18 00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:14.560 To a certain degree in general, I'm a character led writer. And, um, 19 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:20.270 even with like the Starkeys E pie and the greening and dark books are more plot 20 00:01:20.530 --> 00:01:25.470 driven. Um, but even there, I tend to kind of focus on the character more. 21 00:01:25.870 --> 00:01:30.270 I tend to be a writer into, I write into the dark, um, which is to say, I, 22 00:01:30.310 --> 00:01:32.950 I I'm an exploratory writer. Um, as I said, 23 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:36.100 I usually know kind of where I want the story to end, 24 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:41.380 and I know how it fits into my overarching kind of, uh, world building, 25 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.860 but I leave a lot of it up to, to just figuring it out as I go along. 26 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:50.660 And I find that I find that very fun. I enjoy that process. Um, yes, 27 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:53.170 I would say I'm normal character, character led. 28 00:01:54.510 --> 00:01:55.650 So do you, I mean, the, 29 00:01:56.730 --> 00:02:01.210 arguably the sort of very special thing about fantasy and science fiction is 30 00:02:01.210 --> 00:02:04.450 that you do your own well world building though, of course, 31 00:02:04.510 --> 00:02:08.130 in historical fiction, you're also building a world in a sense, but anyway, 32 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.440 it's clearly more of a well building task. Do you have any, um, 33 00:02:11.510 --> 00:02:15.720 tips for people who are wanting to write their own fantasy, um, 34 00:02:16.750 --> 00:02:19.210 how to organize or approach well building? 35 00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:22.730 Well, I wouldn't say I'm very organized about it. 36 00:02:22.730 --> 00:02:24.890 People are forever asking me if I have maps and things like that. 37 00:02:24.890 --> 00:02:25.690 And I'm kind of like, well, no, 38 00:02:25.690 --> 00:02:28.610 I have sort of sketches that I've done on the back of a piece of an envelope 39 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:31.040 kind of thing. I'm not, I'm not very organized. Um, 40 00:02:31.440 --> 00:02:36.040 I don't have a binder of all the useful measurements and stuff like that, which, 41 00:02:36.180 --> 00:02:38.120 uh, I probably could do with, um, 42 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:40.760 it's one of those things I keep thinking I should go back and like make an 43 00:02:40.760 --> 00:02:44.280 actual, make more notes for myself. I keep a lot of it in my head, 44 00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:49.190 but from that point of view, one thing I do find is, as I said, 45 00:02:49.230 --> 00:02:53.510 I try and draw from like less obvious sources. 46 00:02:54.130 --> 00:02:57.550 And for me that's often, um, I read a lot of, 47 00:02:57.690 --> 00:02:59.240 of sort of micros histories, 48 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:04.000 I guess you could say about specific things and try and build out from there. 49 00:03:04.140 --> 00:03:07.840 That's one element. So, you know, you read a history of oh, 50 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:11.720 garden design or costumes, or, um, 51 00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:17.750 I dunno, just looking at my bookshelves here, even something like, um, 52 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:22.990 top or, you know, the history of the teapots or something like that. And like, 53 00:03:22.990 --> 00:03:26.350 they sound very silly, but, and very, very, very precise. But at the same time, 54 00:03:26.850 --> 00:03:29.710 if you kind of think about, well, where did they come from? Who builds those? 55 00:03:29.930 --> 00:03:32.390 You know, give your characters slightly different things to do, 56 00:03:32.730 --> 00:03:35.110 cuz that's more fun too. Like, you know, like some, you know, 57 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:37.900 where's the cloth coming from? Where is the food coming from? 58 00:03:37.900 --> 00:03:42.060 Where's the water coming? How is it being cleaned or not cleaned? You know, 59 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:45.820 what effects does that have? Where's the waste going? I once, um, 60 00:03:46.420 --> 00:03:51.340 <laugh> once went to the sewer museum in Paris and that is ever after made me 61 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:55.570 question this, this thing about like, where is the water purification system? 62 00:03:55.570 --> 00:03:58.050 How is that working? You know, that could be working by magic. 63 00:03:58.050 --> 00:04:02.330 That's how it's working on Zuni than, um, in other places it's, it's not, 64 00:04:02.590 --> 00:04:05.930 you know, it's much more traditional, like, uh, you know, um, 65 00:04:06.920 --> 00:04:11.650 sort of refu and rubbish rubbish, but that matters. So that's one element I do. 66 00:04:11.670 --> 00:04:15.440 And the other part that I find is if I've made a mistake or something that 67 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:18.960 seemed like, you know, if you're like, oh, in that book, I said this. 68 00:04:18.960 --> 00:04:20.760 And then in this book I said the other thing, and they, 69 00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:23.280 those seem to directly contradict each other. And you know, 70 00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:24.320 if it's a work in progress, 71 00:04:24.340 --> 00:04:27.640 the logical thing is to fix the one that's a work in progress. 72 00:04:27.700 --> 00:04:31.910 But I often find that if you stop and say to yourself, no, wait a moment. 73 00:04:32.050 --> 00:04:35.670 How can those both be true? You know, what can I do to make those both work? 74 00:04:36.170 --> 00:04:40.550 Is that because person a misunderstood it or person B 75 00:04:40.660 --> 00:04:44.950 understands it better or there's something bigger that those are both kind of 76 00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:47.870 elements of, or, you know, like that kind of thing. 77 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:51.820 I find that adds a real depth and nuance to the world because like, 78 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:57.550 if I I'm one of those people that I find if I do too much, like, 79 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:01.790 um, too much like front of brain, world building, 80 00:05:01.850 --> 00:05:05.550 it becomes a little too smooth and there's not like a lot of the nooks and 81 00:05:05.550 --> 00:05:06.470 crannies in it for me. 82 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:09.380 Whereas I find if you do kind of the back end world building, 83 00:05:09.400 --> 00:05:14.220 as you go and try and let it grow out 84 00:05:14.220 --> 00:05:19.100 logically out of kind of something unusual that it becomes much richer. 85 00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:22.820 So for me, that's something I enjoy and I try really hard to visualize, um, 86 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:26.780 places. I'm not always great at that. I'm better with, um, gardens. 87 00:05:26.780 --> 00:05:30.610 That's a kind of a hobby of mine gardening. And so I really think about the, 88 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:35.730 the like ecology of a place and what that might feel like and look up 89 00:05:35.730 --> 00:05:39.440 that kind of stuff. So I guess for world building, if you make a mistake, 90 00:05:39.440 --> 00:05:42.560 it can be an opportunity, um, to make it much richer. 91 00:05:43.710 --> 00:05:45.640 Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. 92 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:48.550 I haven't heard anyone say it like that actually. Um, 93 00:05:49.010 --> 00:05:53.070 so how was your journey to publishing? What, what route have you taken? 94 00:05:54.440 --> 00:05:55.850 Well, I decided, um, 95 00:05:56.990 --> 00:06:01.040 decided I was going to do kind of the indie publishing side largely because I 96 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:04.880 wanted to write these interconnected stories and I wanted to be in control of 97 00:06:04.880 --> 00:06:06.120 what I was writing and when, 98 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:11.400 and when I kind of really became serious about writing was when that it was just 99 00:06:11.400 --> 00:06:15.240 after the kind of first flush of that in the kind of, you know, 100 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:17.950 2012 was really when it kind of started to really pick up. 101 00:06:17.970 --> 00:06:20.030 And I had a friend who was much more, um, 102 00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:23.830 aware of how self-publishing and indie publishing was going. 103 00:06:24.290 --> 00:06:26.510 And we'd spend a lot of time talking about it at that point. 104 00:06:26.650 --> 00:06:30.190 And I thought to myself, because I wasn't writing conventional stories, 105 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:33.510 cuz I like these ones that are like around the corners of the epic quest and 106 00:06:33.510 --> 00:06:35.740 things like that, that I thought, you know, 107 00:06:37.580 --> 00:06:39.200 that's really something I want to do. 108 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:42.760 I don't want somebody to tell me that that's not like a going to sell because 109 00:06:42.760 --> 00:06:45.320 it's not a conventional story, you know? And, um, 110 00:06:45.320 --> 00:06:48.080 which is a real concern cuz of course they're trying to, 111 00:06:48.080 --> 00:06:50.360 there are businesses and they're trying to make money back as well. 112 00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:53.040 Whereas if I was willing to do it myself, I could, you know, 113 00:06:53.230 --> 00:06:55.630 if I have something that nobody likes because it's a very strange book, 114 00:06:55.630 --> 00:06:59.990 then that's okay, that's mine. So for me it was that. And then I've just spent, 115 00:07:01.060 --> 00:07:01.520 you know, 116 00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:06.160 I probably spent the last six or seven years working on building up my, um, 117 00:07:07.420 --> 00:07:10.960 my works. And um, for me, 118 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:12.430 what I did was I, 119 00:07:12.510 --> 00:07:17.270 I kind of decided to take the approach that my stories are interconnected and my 120 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:21.230 style is fairly consistent. Um, my, or I guess my, my voice, 121 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:24.590 my authorial voice is fairly consistent across, across my books, 122 00:07:24.700 --> 00:07:28.190 even when they're in somewhat different genres. And I thought to myself, 123 00:07:28.190 --> 00:07:29.830 you know, if, if somebody likes one of my books, 124 00:07:29.850 --> 00:07:32.460 they're largely gonna like most of them or all of them, 125 00:07:32.460 --> 00:07:33.780 they're gonna go and read the other ones. 126 00:07:33.780 --> 00:07:36.980 And so my general plan was basically to just keep writing them until I got to 127 00:07:36.980 --> 00:07:39.180 some sort of hopefully, um, 128 00:07:39.510 --> 00:07:43.780 level where there were enough that and enough readers coming in that, 129 00:07:44.320 --> 00:07:47.570 um, people would be, you know, 130 00:07:47.770 --> 00:07:50.440 enjoying finding the others and that's worked, I am going, 131 00:07:50.440 --> 00:07:54.760 full-time writing this week. So I'm pretty pleased with that. Thank you. 132 00:07:56.140 --> 00:07:56.973 So I basically. 133 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:02.720 So how do you, um, manage with the editing and all that kind of stuff? 134 00:08:02.870 --> 00:08:06.560 Have you got a, a team of beta readers behind, you know. 135 00:08:07.170 --> 00:08:11.550 I'm a one, one reader kind of person? Um, 136 00:08:12.230 --> 00:08:15.110 I like standing, I do have, 137 00:08:15.230 --> 00:08:19.670 I do have a couple people that other author friends, particularly, um, 138 00:08:19.810 --> 00:08:22.950 and we kind of trade reading and talking about plots and, 139 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:25.830 and kind of craft level things. And then I, um, 140 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:30.980 have somebody to do kind of copy editing of some form once we 141 00:08:30.980 --> 00:08:31.700 get to that point. Yeah. 142 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:36.140 I do layout in the cover design myself <laugh> so I've been working on that and 143 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.100 um, that's something I may well outsource in future, 144 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.500 but I enjoy it and I enjoy the, the kind of, that process of it too. So yeah. 145 00:08:43.640 --> 00:08:48.210 So for me, um, yeah, so that's how I do it basically. 146 00:08:50.150 --> 00:08:53.370 So what next for you? Are you, um, 147 00:08:53.880 --> 00:08:57.240 remaining in your extensive world? Are you, where are you going? 148 00:08:58.160 --> 00:08:58.993 I am remaining in my. 149 00:08:59.710 --> 00:09:00.543 Somewhere else. 150 00:09:02.020 --> 00:09:03.880 Um, well actually I'm writing a, 151 00:09:04.070 --> 00:09:07.840 I've been working on a sequel to the hands of the emperor for the last couple of 152 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:12.040 years. And this is, I'm kind of moving to focusing on that, um, over the summer. 153 00:09:12.100 --> 00:09:16.910 So I'm hoping that will be out in probably late October, early November is, 154 00:09:16.970 --> 00:09:20.430 is the goal with that one. It's gonna be another big honking book. 155 00:09:20.430 --> 00:09:23.990 So I'm not giving an exact date until it's a little closer to completion. It's, 156 00:09:24.020 --> 00:09:27.190 it's more than halfway done right now, but, um, you never know the, 157 00:09:27.190 --> 00:09:30.190 the kind of the final throws every once in a while you write something and you 158 00:09:30.190 --> 00:09:32.460 realize the story's gone way off to a different direction, 159 00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:35.060 that's much better and you have to throw out a whole bunch of it in order to 160 00:09:35.060 --> 00:09:39.980 make that work. So that could still happen. And, um, so I'm working on that. 161 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:43.900 The re the book I just had coming out, come out last week is called, uh, 162 00:09:43.900 --> 00:09:48.140 the red outable Prama pool, which is, um, kind of the second in a, 163 00:09:48.680 --> 00:09:52.290 in a new series, um, about the red company. 164 00:09:52.990 --> 00:09:54.290 And I'll be working on that. 165 00:09:54.290 --> 00:09:57.690 And those should be another greening and dart later this year, 166 00:09:57.690 --> 00:10:00.290 beginning of next year as well. So keep on going with those ones. 167 00:10:00.390 --> 00:10:02.050 The greening and dart series is at six, 168 00:10:02.050 --> 00:10:04.610 and I think they'll probably be 12 by the end time that that one's done. 169 00:10:04.670 --> 00:10:07.650 So just sort of poke along with those. I'm one of the, 170 00:10:07.650 --> 00:10:11.080 I don't like writing the same character point of view back to back. 171 00:10:11.160 --> 00:10:15.960 I find it much better to switch to a new character. And so I tend to, 172 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:17.560 to skip around a little bit like that. 173 00:10:19.630 --> 00:10:22.840 Well, put a link to your, uh, website in the show notes, 174 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:25.160 so people can come and find all these books and, uh, 175 00:10:25.300 --> 00:10:29.030 decide which one they're going to start with. So, um, 176 00:10:29.580 --> 00:10:33.750 star GZ pie for people who don't know is actually a real dish that you would 177 00:10:33.860 --> 00:10:38.270 find a traditional dish from. I think Cornal, uh, in fact, and it's, um, 178 00:10:39.270 --> 00:10:41.750 a pie where it is the pastry is laid. 179 00:10:41.890 --> 00:10:45.550 So the fish and head and tail poke out as though it's sort of breaking through 180 00:10:45.550 --> 00:10:49.500 from the crust. So in our podcast, 181 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:53.220 we always end up with where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place for 182 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:56.780 something. And I thought I would ask you, um, 183 00:10:57.280 --> 00:11:02.140 for where in all the fantasy worlds that you've seen on television and films or 184 00:11:02.570 --> 00:11:03.420 read about in books, 185 00:11:03.830 --> 00:11:08.450 where do you think has the best sort of speciality dishes that, uh, 186 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:09.890 you know, you'd like to sample. 187 00:11:11.260 --> 00:11:14.830 Well, surely we all want to eat the meal that Billbo produces for the, 188 00:11:15.170 --> 00:11:19.990 for the dwarves, right? I I've made CD cake as a result of that particular, um, 189 00:11:20.100 --> 00:11:23.780 encounter that one's always been the one that, those stories and, um, 190 00:11:24.330 --> 00:11:26.340 some of the ones in the Narnia books too, to be honest, 191 00:11:26.410 --> 00:11:30.180 I've always loved the food descriptions in, in both of those, those books. 192 00:11:30.410 --> 00:11:32.940 Otherwise, I don't know, like, 193 00:11:32.940 --> 00:11:36.100 I feel like in some ways those are really high points in terms of food 194 00:11:36.100 --> 00:11:38.900 descriptions. Um, you know, it's, 195 00:11:39.010 --> 00:11:43.810 it's like that meal that Shasta gets given in the horse and his 196 00:11:43.830 --> 00:11:48.450 boy, um, is, you know, like that he is the first time he's ever had half of, 197 00:11:49.150 --> 00:11:50.010 you know, and like, you know, 198 00:11:50.010 --> 00:11:52.650 the description of the wine and all that kind of stuff, but yeah, 199 00:11:52.790 --> 00:11:55.240 and bill those thing, and then I've also Al you know, the, 200 00:11:55.260 --> 00:11:56.920 the picnic and the wind and the willows, 201 00:11:56.920 --> 00:11:59.200 those are the classic kind of British ones. And I, I don't know, 202 00:11:59.260 --> 00:12:02.200 I'm not sure that there's been a lot more that, that kind of peak over those. 203 00:12:02.780 --> 00:12:03.600 But, um, I, 204 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:06.640 I was reflecting on this not long ago and thinking that I really needed to up 205 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:10.840 my, um, food descriptions, something kind of work on that a little bit more, 206 00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:13.830 really have some sort of great feasts that are like, 207 00:12:14.050 --> 00:12:16.990 but not necessarily like spectacular banquets, 208 00:12:16.990 --> 00:12:19.870 but just really delightful dishes. Um. 209 00:12:20.180 --> 00:12:23.150 Yeah. And they can be used for comic effect as well. I, for me, 210 00:12:23.210 --> 00:12:26.390 the one I was going to pick is comes in the film galaxy quest. 211 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.310 Have you ever seen that? It's one of my favorite films that. 212 00:12:29.310 --> 00:12:31.860 Is very funny one, the bit where they're all giving, where they're giving them, 213 00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:33.100 what are theoretically all their, 214 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:37.460 like FA their regional specialties for the characters they are. 215 00:12:37.570 --> 00:12:41.470 That is such a funny movie. I really enjoy that. So I like this. 216 00:12:42.410 --> 00:12:45.030 For those of you hadn't seen it. What happens there is, uh, 217 00:12:45.030 --> 00:12:49.980 an alien culture has taken a television sci-fi series as being 218 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:50.813 historical. 219 00:12:51.400 --> 00:12:56.180 So when the characters are taken by this culture to try and help them 220 00:12:56.310 --> 00:13:00.660 solve a sort of bad problem, they've got, they've built everything for real. 221 00:13:01.400 --> 00:13:05.180 And this is all very well for the human characters who are given, I know, 222 00:13:05.540 --> 00:13:09.770 burgers and French fries, whatever. Um, but poor old Alan Rickman, uh, 223 00:13:09.790 --> 00:13:12.170 his character, Dr. Lazarus is given this, 224 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:16.650 this sort of soup tour of life bugs, 225 00:13:17.940 --> 00:13:19.290 which crawling out, 226 00:13:19.310 --> 00:13:22.690 and he's supposed to eat this because on the program that was supposed to be 227 00:13:22.710 --> 00:13:27.480 his, uh, his food. It's just a, and of course, nobody did. 228 00:13:28.540 --> 00:13:33.200 Sardon better than Alan Rickman, uh, much missed. 229 00:13:34.270 --> 00:13:39.040 Yeah. So that's my pick Victoria, thank you so much for, uh, joining us. 230 00:13:39.140 --> 00:13:43.440 And it's a delight to find somebody who has taken a lot of her inspirations from 231 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:46.790 the inkling writers. And from, of course, we, uh, 232 00:13:46.790 --> 00:13:49.190 we also mentioned briefly Dorothy L Sayers, 233 00:13:49.250 --> 00:13:53.710 but you've said that she's another person who, that you've really enjoyed, um, 234 00:13:53.780 --> 00:13:55.950 reading on your route to your own writing. 235 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:59.390 So it's been wonderful to meet you and thank you very much for joining us. 236 00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:02.230 Well, thank you very much. I thank you for having me. I'm, 237 00:14:02.290 --> 00:14:05.100 I'm delighted you enjoy the hands of the emperor and I hope, uh, 238 00:14:05.340 --> 00:14:08.140 a few of your readers do as well. And, uh, yeah, 239 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:12.700 the inklings have been a huge part of my, of my formation as a, as a writer. 240 00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:16.980 And, um, in many ways I kind of keep reflecting back on them. 241 00:14:17.540 --> 00:14:19.700 Probably the green wing and dart ones are a little books are a little more 242 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:22.010 obvious, especially as you get later on into the series, 243 00:14:22.010 --> 00:14:25.450 you'll see some much clearer kind of echoes of, 244 00:14:25.750 --> 00:14:29.650 of some of the CS Lewis and elements in particular, but overall, 245 00:14:30.390 --> 00:14:32.650 the questions that they raise and the, and 246 00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:38.250 the joy they have in description and in food and in characters, 247 00:14:38.820 --> 00:14:42.360 world building is something that I've always really, really admired. 248 00:14:43.020 --> 00:14:45.840 So thank you really enjoyed getting the chance to talk to you about this. 249 00:14:46.610 --> 00:14:47.443 Thank you very much. 250 00:14:48.030 --> 00:14:48.863 Welcome. 251 00:14:54.220 --> 00:14:58.680 Thanks for listening to mythmakers podcast brought to you by the 252 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:03.560 Oxford center for fantasy visit Oxford center for fantasy.org 253 00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:04.840 to join in the fun. 254 00:15:05.430 --> 00:15:10.110 Find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus 255 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:12.510 visit our shop for great gifts. 256 00:15:13.140 --> 00:15:17.630 Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts 257 00:15:17.900 --> 00:15:18.510 worldwide.