Author's notes
Part One: Beginnings...
Written at the tender age of 18, my first book, The Powers that be still holds a fond place in my heart even though I feel my writing has progressed quite substantially from those early days where every page I wrote taught me something new. The scene with Kash and the bandits is still one of my favourites from all my writing, and I am also still very proud of some of the Varrus scenes especially. I just love the way I have drawn him as something approaching the archetypal pantomime villain in some scenes with his evil laughter, his cruel sense of humour and his love for swishing his robes about! Sounds strange, but read the entire book and tell me you don't like it too!
So... where to start? It's strange to look back at this book and remember the thoughts that started it all off back when I had just turned 18. I remember it now: I had previously been toying with the idea of short stories based around the Warhammer 40,000 universe with a character then called Cashe (I have no idea why I spelt it that way back then), when on one blustery walk home from school one day, the word 'Rishnaa' just popped into my head and it grew from there. It's strange how the creative process works really, and how I somehow managed to stick out the writing process that challenged me every single day in new and often infuriating ways. Looking back, it's a wonder I got any A-levels at all! Thinking about it now though, I would say without the cathartic release of writing this book and its two sequels, I don't think I'd have stuck at them at all. I suffered from depression for much of the period aged 18-22, and without my books I'm not quite sure what I would have done. I think that is one reason, among many, why I have focussed so much on the theme of hope, with the perceptions of many of my characters mirroring my own newly forming perceptions of the world around me. When Callum is in wonder at viewing the Magical Isle for the first time, so too am I as I write. I don't view any argued lack of description in areas such as this as a detriment to my writing; more just a reflection of my own way of perceiving the world, finding as I do, that sometimes language just isn’t suitable for expressing the emotions I’m trying to convey.
So enough of me, what about the book? As a piece of writing, at the time it was certainly my best, though I have since produced far better. I set out to write The Powers that be, in part as a response to the Harry Potter phenomenon and the perception on my part that an awful lot of people have been 'hoodwinked' by a combination of hype and distorted perceptions. I produced it also as a tribute in a way to the wonder that I had myself experienced at reading Raymond E. Feist's Magician for the first time. If any single book could be put down as my inspiration early on in my writing career, it would be Magician. Primarily though, I would say I wrote The Powers that be and it’s successors as books I would want to read myself. The reason so few people read fantasy relative to the general fiction market I find is that fantasy is such a hard, at times inaccessible medium for the average reader to easily slip into. Fantasy takes devotion; it takes thought. One of my primary aims in writing The Powers that be trilogy was to write 'easy access' fantasy suitable for both young and old that anyone can get into, that doesn't include pages upon pages of needless politics and diplomacy. Essentially what I wanted to create was fantasy with all the boring bits cut out. I like to think I've achieved this to some degree at least in my work, and For the Greater Good (the second book in the trilogy) is perhaps the pinnacle of this aspiration, and perhaps my crowning glory in this, my first literary outing.
So what of the characters? Initially you might think that of all my characters, Callum is my favourite, as in this book at least, he is the main character. Initially when I started writing him, I was thinking already of the later books in the series and the cool things I wanted him to do, but as time wore on and as my books have grown over time I would say I much prefer some of my lesser ‘fringe’ characters. I would say I perhaps hold Kash in highest regard of all, and not in the least because I actually came up with him first, but also as you will find out, because of the fact he is a Lintari. Don't worry, I won't say any more about the Lintari just yet as I don’t want to give too much away, but rest assured, the Lintari become an increasingly important part of the trilogy. The Lintari are certainly one of my favourite creations, and if I had to pick one (other than Kash of course) my favourite would be Freya, though she doesn't feature until the second book. As far as my central characters go, Kiera is my favourite, though of the central four, you could pick any one of them and there would be in each traits which I extol above the others and which I personally myself hold in high regard. It really is strange to talk about my characters in this way. I guess you can't really understand something like this until you have yourself spent five whole years of your life devoted to a project such as this, but the fact of the matter is I feel passionately about all of them. They are, after all, my pride and joy.
Part Two: Middles...
Initially written as two separate books, the two worked so well together that I decided to combine them together to form a larger book of two volumes. This combined volume is perhaps my favourite book to date and certainly contains my favourite scenes and some of my best writing. Every time I read the climactic battle in Sanctuary Hall a smile never fails to cross my face.
So why is it my favourite book? Well firstly I guess, because it holds some of the best action sequences in the trilogy. The battle in Sanctuary Hall especially is one of my personal favourites and took an awful lot of planning on my part to get everything working as it should, making sure characters were in the right places and not getting in each others' way etc. In addition to this I would say this middle book contains some of the most emotional scenes in the trilogy, both in terms of the actual text itself and in terms of the emotion I myself invested into the text when I produced it. I might add here that the W.A.S.P. lyric 'I stand at the promised land with fire in my eyes' had been an often repeated line in my head with regards to my writing, and here in the second volume it finds its place at last as the inspiration for the paragraphs describing the company's arrival back at the capital city Lambros to find it beset by war on all fronts. The paragraph I draw reference to is without doubt perhaps my favourite single piece of text and worthy of this little description I am giving it now. I often find in my writing that I am writing towards a goal of some sort – be it a scene I want to occur, a line I want one of my characters to say or indeed an emotion I want to convey at a certain point. I'm not sure if this is perhaps linked with my very regimented, organised style of planning for my books, or indeed because I like to think about books in terms of 'scenes' or 'what you see in your head'. To me, too few authors in the sci-fi / fantasy genre consider this factor when they write. If we as viewers can be wowed at the cinemas as we all were by say the use of bullet time in The Matrix or the special effects we are so used to nowadays in just about every superhero movie, why then can't we expect to experience a similar sort of thing when we come to read books? Too often I find when I read a book there is an over-emphasis on description that actually serves in some instances to have the complete opposite effect of what was initially intended. Tolkein perhaps gets it right, but then that's because his descriptive style is consistent with his narrative voice and the overall tone of his work. His work was a one-off, a masterpiece; perhaps even the greatest trilogy ever written. Too many authors these days try and emulate his immaculate description and fall in my opinion, terribly short. In the case of fiction, as with many things in life, you should stick to your strengths. My strengths in this case I would say, are action, plot and dialogue. My writing is about 'happenings'. Events drive my plot relentlessly, and action sequences keep readers of all ages (I hope) hooked and all of this is driven by dialogue which is, to me, the greatest strength of my work. It's strange but I often find myself laughing at the things some of my characters say: in part perhaps because I know the people in my life that have inspired the sarcastic tone of some of my characters, but also in part I guess, because by this second book, my central four characters have grown to such an extent that they pretty much write themselves. Sometimes I feel I'm not even a writer, but more just a recorder of events. I'm sure Aaron has something sarcastic to say about that...
Part Three: Endings...
Four years on from the start of writing the trilogy and finally I reach the end in The Last Va'leri. The Va'leri of course were responsible (in magical terms anyway) for the Sundering and the last Va'leri as I make reference to in the title, is a Va'leri, reportedly the last of his kind left living alone in the realm of Valeria, awaiting the day the one might come to set him free to rejoin his transcended race in whatever realm they now reside. As far as plot goes, I really wanted to leave the trilogy on an ending that fits nicely with the theme of the trilogy as a whole while leaving a few key questions unanswered for the follow up trilogy that by this stage I was already deeply into planning. I know certain authors (*cough* certain famous female authors of magical connections *cough*) can be accused of selling out with their books and their relentless merchandising, but in this case it really was the fact that I had a follow up trilogy in mind from the point of writing about halfway through For the Greater Good. Linking with this idea of course is the fact that this third book is actually the shortest of the trilogy, and for no reason other than that was the length at which I had achieved everything I wanted to achieve with the text and a satisfactory conclusion was drawn. The same certain series of books I have mentioned already grow notably longer and longer as the series progresses, for no good reason so far as I can see other than to satisfy insatiable children lusting for quantity over quality. Why these people haven't gone into their local Waterstones and found one of many hundreds of similar, better books to read in the mean time I don't know, but then that's capitalism for you isn't it. Because I am in no way financially motivated in my writing here, you can all rest assured that I have in no way made an attempt to either sell out, or sell the reader short in this book. Indeed, the climactic scenes in the Lambros Uprising are up there in my esteem with the battle of Sanctuary Hall and the fighting witnessed on the walls of Lambros as the city came under siege in the second book. I can assure you all now, this book certainly doesn't disappoint.