Q. Is The King's Peace out?
A. Yes. It came out in October 2000, and the paperback in June 2002.
Q. When wasl The King's Name published?
A. November 2001, and in paperback in November 2002.
Q. Will there be any more sequels after that?
A. Definitely not.
Q. Huh? I thought I saw in Locus that you'd sold two more
novels set in the same world?
A. Well, yes. But they're not sequels.
The Prize in the Game is about the Isarnanagan characters in The King's Peace, before they appear in that novel. It's kind of a prequel, or maybe inquel (thanks for the term, Del!). The events of the book all happen in the time covered in the first part of chapter 12 of The King's Peace. It's really a standalone novel, a different story about some of the same people. I didn't mean to write it, it sort of ambushed me.
The Giant Will Rise with the Moon is set in the same world thirteen hundred years later, in the equivalent of their late eighteenth century. It's not really related much at all. Nor am I writing it at the present moment. While anything might happen in the future, I have no plans to write anything else in Sulien's world. I'd rather do different things.
Q. How do you pronounce "Sulien ap Gwien"?
A. Sulien is three syllables. Soo-lee-en. Sue-li-en. Ap is just like "tap"
without the T. "Gwien" is like someone lisping "Green" to "Gween" except
the end is the same "ee-en" as "Sulien" "Gw-ee-en". Or however it suits
you.
Q. How do you pronounce all these other names? Where do they come from
anyway?
A. Tanagan words are kind of Old Welsh, not so much anglicised as
fantasyized for ease of pronunciation, so they don't quite work with Welsh
rules any longer. A lot of the way I've done the names comes from looking
at Latin names for Celtic tribes and places and considering what was done
to put them into Latin and then trying to take them out again. The real
world equivalent of Sulien's period was a time where Old Welsh was emerging
from the original Brythonic spoken in Britain after it had been highly
influenced by Latin. If you look at Latin words like "ecclesia" and Welsh
words like "eglwys" (both meaning "church") you can see how the languages
work together to do odd things and come up with an in between version that
English speakers can get their tongue around. It's also the process that
gets "Fortriu" out of "Verturiones". (If you find this interesting, you
might be interested in the late Prof. Kenneth Jackson's work on the
subject.)
Vincan is, of course, just straight Latin.
Jarnish is just Anglo-Saxon and all Jarnish names are real A-S ones, (or occasionally Norse) but sometimes with spelling tweaked in favour of pronunciation. (Frex Ayl rather than Aelle.)
The few Malmish names in the novel are Visigothic but tweaked for being spoken in a mostly Vincan/Tanagan country. Marchel's name is not actually Malmish but an adopted version of the Vincan Marcella, where the "c" had already, in Narlahena, softened into the Italianate "ch". I didn't make this up at all, there's a Caer Marchel in Powys which is named after someone who got their name in precisely this way. I am indebted to John Morris' The Age of Arthur for drawing my attention to this and giving me the idea for the character.
The names are supposed to be easy to say. If you don't find that they are, why don't you just say them the way you want? That's fine by me.
Q. But I want to say them properly! How do I do that?
A. Well, for Tanagan names, C, G, and Ch are always hard, like Candle,
Grape, and Bach, or Loch. "Ch" is hard in every name instance in the novel
except for Marchel and Chanerig. R is rolled. I don't think there are any
other useful general guidelines. If you can't pronounce anything specific,
email me.
Q. You're British, so why is your book being published in the US?
A. Nearly all the people who would want to read it are in North America,
and the rest are fans and therefore entirely used to importing books from
the US. With internet ordering, it's very easy.
Q. What does it mean "the inspiration that came from a game"? Was it all
a roleplaying game and you wrote it down?
A. No. None of the plot or world of The King's Peace was ever part of a RPG. It's complicated though. There was once a Prince Valiant game produced by Chaosium, which I ran a complicated Arthurian campaign. It was very Malory, all quests, but with some of the Welsh stuff threaded into it -- the death of Llachau especially. There are two things that came out of that game and into my conception of the story. The first is Sulien herself, who started to be defined in the game, especially such things as her attitude to sex, which developed in play as a contrast to the way one of the other female characters was very flirtatious and sexual. The other was the character of Morthu, so is very closely based on Jez Green's Mordred, who smiled and smiled and was a villain. There is even one line in the book which is one that Jez used in the game. (Bet you can't guess which.) Otherwise there's nothing, no other characters, no situations, not the world, and certainly no plot overlap.
Q. If I like The King's Peace what else will I like reading? A. That depends what you liked about it.
Peter Dickinson The Blue Hawk
Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic, Tigana and A Song for Arbonne
Rudyard Kipling Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies
Jill Paton Walsh Knowledge of Angels
Poul Anderson The Broken Sword
Marion Campbell The Dark Twin
Alan Garner Red Shift and everything else.
John James Not For All the Gold in Ireland and prequel
Votan and Katherine Kerr Daggerspell and sequels. R.A. MacAvoy The Book of Kells. Ian McDonald King of Morning, Queen of Day. Gillian Bradshaw's Down the Long Wind also published in
three volumes as Hawk of May, The Kingdom of
Summer and In Winter's Shadow. The first two are mostly
about Gwalchmai and the third is mostly about Guinevere. Mary Stewart's Merlin books. I like the first two The Crystal
Cave and The Hollow Hills a lot. John M. Ford's Arthuriana in the collection Time
Steps Poul Anderson Three Hearts and Three Lions and the short
stories collected in The Armies of Elfland John Barnes One For the Morning Glory Terry Bisson Talking Man Katherine Blake (Dorothy Heydt) The Interior Life
Steven Brust Jhereg, and everything else. Lois McMaster Bujold The Spirit Ring Emma Bull War for the Oaks, Finder C.J. Cherryh The Paladin
Kind of Arthurian
Just Good Fantasy Novels
Susan Cooper The Dark is Rising Series
Pamela Dean Tam Lin
, The Secret Country, The Hidden Land, The Whim of the Dragon, The Dubious Hills, Juniper, Gentian and RosemarySamuel Delany Tales of Neveryon
Diane Duane The Door Into Fire and sequels, So You Want to be a Wizard and sequels
Lord Dunsany The King of Elfland's Daughter and anything else you can find, especially his short stories.
John M. Ford The Dragon Waiting
Lisa Goldstein Tourists, Dark Cities Underground, and others.
William Goldman The Princess Bride
Barbara Hambly The Silent Tower and everything else
Robin Hobb Assassin's Apprentice and others.
P.C. Hodgell Godstalk and others.
Nina Kirriki Hoffman The Silent Strength of Stones and others.
Keri Hulme The Bone People.
Guy Gavriel Kay The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, The Darkest Road
Rosemary Kirstein The Steerswoman, The Outskirter's Secret. These aren't really fantasy, but they're terrific books and people who like fantasy should like them.
Ellen Kushner Thomas the Rhymer and Swordspoint
Ursula Le Guin The Earthsea Trilogy
C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia
Megan Lindholm The Windsingers and Wizard of the Pigeons
Elizabeth Lynn Watchtower, A Northern Girl, The Dancers of Arun
Patricia McKillip The Changeling Sea and everything else
Robin McKinley Deerskin, The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, Beauty, Rose Daughter, Spindle's End also her short stories.
George R.R. Martin A Game of Thrones and sequels.
Yves Meynard The Book of Knights.
Tamora Pierce Alanna the First Adventure and everything else.
Michael Scott Rohan The Anvil of Ice and others.
Delia Sherman The Brazen Mirror
Sharon Shinn The Shape Changer's Wife
Sean Stewart The Night Watch, Cloud's End, Nobody's Son, Mockingbird and others.
Michael Swannick The Iron Dragon's Daughter
J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit.
Lawrence Watt Evans Dragon Weather and everything else.
Terri Windling The Wood Wife
Patricia Wrede Talking to Dragons and everything else.
Patricia Wrede and Carolyn Sterverer Sorcery and Cecelia
Jane Yolen The Books of Great Alta and everything else.
Gillian Bradshaw The Lighthouse at Alexandria, Island of Ghosts and others, but these two in particular deal really wonderfully with the late Roman Empire.
Alfred Duggan The Little Emperors and others.
Dorothy Dunnett King Hereafter
, The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolo.Robert Graves I Claudius, Claudius the God, Wife to Mr Milton, Count Belisarius.
Patrick O'Brian Master and Commander and everything else.
Mary Renault The King Must Die and everything else.
Georgia Sallska Priam's Daughter
Helen Waddell Peter Abelard
Mary Renault The Mask of Apollo, The King Must Die, The Persian Boy and others.
Robert Heinlein The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Double Star.
Raphael Carter The Fortunate Fall.
Gail Godwin Father Melancholy's Daughter and others.
Robert Graves I, Claudius and others.
Mary Stewart Merlin books
Marge Piercy Braided Lives.
Q. Gosh, I wish I could rush off and buy some of those books now.
A. There's a link to Amazon back on the main page.