The Fantasy Books that Shape a Writer
It is an of cited truism that you cannot be a writer if you’re not an avid and voracious reader.
Perhaps it is an obvious point to make, especially amongst whom I hope are my Savage Oathsworn (subscribe please! Also Savage Oathsworn? Are we liking the name? I shouldn’t pitch fan names. It’s kind of like trying to pick your own nickname as a kid at school isn’t it?)
In any case, this saying it is as true now as it ever was, in the age of the genAI novel, wherein self-styled ‘authors’ do not seem to read even their own works, let alone those of others…
Not only does reading provide inspiration (and no small amount of professional envy) but it installs an instinct for the lyrical flow in your own work, and helps craft your own voice when it comes to sitting down before that tyrant the blank screen and overcoming it. It enhances your vocabulary, and allows you to infer the meaning of complex words or concepts though context.
With the release of The Hobgoblin’s Herald, the first of my Savage Oaths Pentalogy, well underway, I thought now would be a grand time to talk about not only my favourite books, but the ones I found most formative in my life and subsequent writing.
In any case, this saying it is as true now as it ever was, in the age of the genAI novel, wherein self-styled ‘authors’ do not seem to read even their own works, let alone those of others…
Not only does reading provide inspiration (and no small amount of professional envy) but it installs an instinct for the lyrical flow in your own work, and helps craft your own voice when it comes to sitting down before that tyrant the blank screen and overcoming it. It enhances your vocabulary, and allows you to infer the meaning of complex words or concepts though context.
With the release of The Hobgoblin’s Herald, the first of my Savage Oaths Pentalogy, well underway, I thought now would be a grand time to talk about not only my favourite books, but the ones I found most formative in my life and subsequent writing.
Childhood Villains and Early Favourites
As a child, I was always fascinated by the antagonists, allowed as they were to be abnormal and fascinatingly strange in appearance and thought to the heroes; Luke had little for me in the Star Wars trilogy, and my infant imagination was enamoured more by the menagerie of characters in Jabba’s Palace (anyone remember Elfan Mon?) and wanting to know more about their tales.
With that in mind, my earliest forays into fantasy novels were Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. Colfer sets the world of fairytale and folklore into a high-tech masquerade of magical realism, blending the heist thriller with sci-fi fantasy. But what really set those books apart from other similar series at the time was the titular villain protagonist, a ruthless young heir to a family of Irish gangsters, seeking to loot the treasures of the fae folk for his own ends. In the hands of a lesser writer*, Artemis could quite possibly be the most annoying character in existence, but with Eoin’s deft character work, he is a fascinating figure who you can’t help but root for as a clever swine pitted against a foe of supernatural power and technology.
With that in mind, my earliest forays into fantasy novels were Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. Colfer sets the world of fairytale and folklore into a high-tech masquerade of magical realism, blending the heist thriller with sci-fi fantasy. But what really set those books apart from other similar series at the time was the titular villain protagonist, a ruthless young heir to a family of Irish gangsters, seeking to loot the treasures of the fae folk for his own ends. In the hands of a lesser writer*, Artemis could quite possibly be the most annoying character in existence, but with Eoin’s deft character work, he is a fascinating figure who you can’t help but root for as a clever swine pitted against a foe of supernatural power and technology.
The Mortal Engines Years
As my teens gave way to young adulthood, another series which managed to grab me immediately by the eyeballs and never let go was Phillip Reeves’ Mortal Engines quartet. A delightfully demented and sardonically ludicrous diesel-punk post-apocalyptic fantasy of predatory cities and undead cyborgs, it is a setting suffused with midnight black satire and very British humour.
In many ways I feel it shares a lot of conceptual DNA with the Warhammer 40K setting at its best**, but I found its greatest strength was its characters. Chief amongst them is Hester Shaw, who I would contest is the greatest of the YA dystopia heroines of the early noughties. She is feral, allowed to be ugly, ruthless, bitter, and morally complex***, beyond any other. Her love for the male lad is possessive and twisted, beautiful and terrible in equal measure. A protagonist allowed to fail, be wrong, and still be one we as readers utterly fall in love with. A character for whom the world tried to grind beneath their figurative (and quit literal) tracks, but one who bitterly claws her way out. I don’t mind admitting that I took great inspiration for Mallory from Hester (with shades of GRRM’s Arya).
In many ways I feel it shares a lot of conceptual DNA with the Warhammer 40K setting at its best**, but I found its greatest strength was its characters. Chief amongst them is Hester Shaw, who I would contest is the greatest of the YA dystopia heroines of the early noughties. She is feral, allowed to be ugly, ruthless, bitter, and morally complex***, beyond any other. Her love for the male lad is possessive and twisted, beautiful and terrible in equal measure. A protagonist allowed to fail, be wrong, and still be one we as readers utterly fall in love with. A character for whom the world tried to grind beneath their figurative (and quit literal) tracks, but one who bitterly claws her way out. I don’t mind admitting that I took great inspiration for Mallory from Hester (with shades of GRRM’s Arya).
Tolkien and the Question of Orcs
Now of course I couldn’t speak of my fantasy inspirations without the big two authors with Rs in their middle names…
Lord of the Rings. Prevalent and all pervasive, I believe even those fantasy authors who distance themselves from Tolkien are at least in dialogue with the professor’s work. What particularly gripped me, and continues to do so, is how the Lord of the Rings himself, Sauron, was written, a black hole of raw power by his very absence from the novel. A being depicted through his oozing corruption and the legacy of his actions, the author of his own demise through the high narcissism of his mind of mechanical, totalitarian order. In the coming novel of the Pentalogy, I have explored the tyranny of powers who would proclaim to delivery salvation and a cure to ills.
Another facet of Tolkien which really inspired me was a topic which seemed to vex him; the moral ambiguity of the orcs as a created evil. Are the orcs capable of salvation? What does orcish salvation even look like? Is what an orc through being corrupted, or is to do evil to become orc?
Lord of the Rings. Prevalent and all pervasive, I believe even those fantasy authors who distance themselves from Tolkien are at least in dialogue with the professor’s work. What particularly gripped me, and continues to do so, is how the Lord of the Rings himself, Sauron, was written, a black hole of raw power by his very absence from the novel. A being depicted through his oozing corruption and the legacy of his actions, the author of his own demise through the high narcissism of his mind of mechanical, totalitarian order. In the coming novel of the Pentalogy, I have explored the tyranny of powers who would proclaim to delivery salvation and a cure to ills.
Another facet of Tolkien which really inspired me was a topic which seemed to vex him; the moral ambiguity of the orcs as a created evil. Are the orcs capable of salvation? What does orcish salvation even look like? Is what an orc through being corrupted, or is to do evil to become orc?
Other Authors Who Inspire My Style
There have been many fascinating takes on orcs by authors over the years. The narrative of orcs as barbarians, played with in DnD, Warcraft and for me most fascinatingly in Stan Nichols’ setting, which was the first novels I encountered with orc protagonists undermining many of the classic tropes forged by DnD. The Orken setting is a writing and traditional art multi-media project which compels me, codifying orcs as indigenous, whilst deftly avoiding the cliché of the Khar of that world being passive victims of colonialism, and makes a more nuanced and challenging angle.
My own hobgoblins I hope to place within this conversation, but focussing more on the nature of the orc as a created enemy. What would the collective psyche of a race which knows it was born to be an antagonist look like? Savage Oaths seeks to give some answers, or at least ask interesting questions.
However, to avoid trailing off beyond just my inspirations for my setting, there are certain authors who have influenced my writing style.
Joe Abercrombie and Adrian Tchaikovsky are my biggest style influences. I love the way Abercrombie writes humans, and I adore the way Tchaikovsky writes the very unhuman. Also, the man is positively Kingian in his prolificity****
Though I am admittedly a late convert, I adore how Ursula K Le Guin deals with gender, and the ways they play with language to construct worlds that explode the gender binary.***** She was writing before many of the established rules of writing were ingrained.
This is fundamentally the greatest gift of reading for a writer. In seeing what came before, better lets to place your works within the ever expanding and deliriously heterogenous pantheon of writers.
And on that pretentious metaphor, I bid you all good day, and happy reading.
My own hobgoblins I hope to place within this conversation, but focussing more on the nature of the orc as a created enemy. What would the collective psyche of a race which knows it was born to be an antagonist look like? Savage Oaths seeks to give some answers, or at least ask interesting questions.
However, to avoid trailing off beyond just my inspirations for my setting, there are certain authors who have influenced my writing style.
Joe Abercrombie and Adrian Tchaikovsky are my biggest style influences. I love the way Abercrombie writes humans, and I adore the way Tchaikovsky writes the very unhuman. Also, the man is positively Kingian in his prolificity****
Though I am admittedly a late convert, I adore how Ursula K Le Guin deals with gender, and the ways they play with language to construct worlds that explode the gender binary.***** She was writing before many of the established rules of writing were ingrained.
This is fundamentally the greatest gift of reading for a writer. In seeing what came before, better lets to place your works within the ever expanding and deliriously heterogenous pantheon of writers.
And on that pretentious metaphor, I bid you all good day, and happy reading.
*(We do not talk of the Disney movie adaptation in this house…)
**(My thoughts on 40K I’ll yap about in a later blogpost)
***(We also do not talk about the filing down of her figurative teeth Hester suffered in the movie adaptation of mortal Engines in this house…)
****(Fun fact: I have been published alongside Tchaikovsky, in the short story anthology Wicked Women.)
*****(I feel like Anne Leckie is a spiritual successor for Le Guin, and her Ancillary Justice series plays with gender in equally fascinating ways.)
**(My thoughts on 40K I’ll yap about in a later blogpost)
***(We also do not talk about the filing down of her figurative teeth Hester suffered in the movie adaptation of mortal Engines in this house…)
****(Fun fact: I have been published alongside Tchaikovsky, in the short story anthology Wicked Women.)
*****(I feel like Anne Leckie is a spiritual successor for Le Guin, and her Ancillary Justice series plays with gender in equally fascinating ways.)
Main article photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash