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I wrote this essay on the speculative element in fantasy, but also on the corresponding need to ‘keep it real’, in the context of The Heir of Night, some time ago — but it never quite managed to see the light of day. So with The Heir of Night having recently won the Gemmell Morningstar Award, it seemed as good a time as any to give it an airing. So, here you go:

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” “Where,” a friend complained recently, “is the speculative element in fantasy? It is all just magic and retro medieval societies.”

I saw his point, but could not agree – and not just because the two fantasies I have written to date both contain magic and are set in medieval-style worlds. Fantasy, I argued, offers authors the ability to speculate, not just on ‘other worlds’, but on the behaviour of characters and societies. We are not bound by contemporary or historical fact and so can explore alternatives to what we know as ‘reality’

Several reviewers have already commented on the matter-of-fact equality of men and women in the Derai society of my novel The Heir of Night. The opportunity to ‘just do’ this, without either “discussion or worthy treatise” (SFX magazine), is part of what it means to write speculative fiction.

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Paradoxically though, we also have to ‘keep it real’ for readers in the midst of the magic and speculation. The Heir of Night is epic or high fantasy – and one issue I have with that genre is how one-dimensional it can be in terms of the traditional ‘good versus evil’ storyline.  Too often, ‘bad/evil’ tends to be a clear-cut and easily recognisable external force, its adherents demonic – or at least ugly – in form and usually wearing some variation on black. ‘Good’ also tends to be primarily recognizable by simple virtue of standing in opposition to ‘bad’, the characters’ ‘goodness’ usually demonstrated, not by integrity of behaviour but by actively smiting the ugly crew on the other side. (Oh yes, and wearing some version of white.)  These so-called ‘good guys’ also do a lot of questionable stuff – but that is OK, by implication, because they are on the ‘right’ side.

The more SFF I read, the more I became convinced – even as quite a young reader – that this ‘good versus evil’ formula was simplistic rather than speculative.  I also felt that many epic stories lacked the drama and tragedy of the myths that lie at the roots of contemporary fantasy. In the Greek and Norse epics, for example, it is the internal conflict within the protagonists – their struggle between the pressures of self-interest, the socio-political forces in their societies, and the codes they hold to be true and right – that give the stories power.  The heart of these stories lies in the characters and their responses to the circumstances in which they find themselves.

The desire to take the kind of epic fantasy story that I love and explore what it is that really makes ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ is what led me to write The Heir of Night (Book One in ‘The Wall of Night’ series.) On the surface, the HEIR story presents as traditional epic fantasy: magic – check; a fundamentally medieval world – check; it also sets up a struggle between externally conceived forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Or does it?

The Heir of Night story is strongly focused on the Derai people and the bleak, twilit mountain range they garrison, which is known as the Wall of Night. The Derai believe themselves to be the champions of good and right, but are a society that has been fractured by civil war with its legacy of prejudice, suspicion and fear. Both they and their aeons-old enemy, The Swarm, are alien to the world of Haarth in which their conflict is currently being fought out – and the indigenous inhabitants have their own perspective on the Derai and their ways.

Adding a cultural perspective to the traditionally conceived conflict is another nuance that I have rarely seen explored in the good-versus-evil fantasy formula. Although The Heir of Night is primarily a yarn being told, and is certainly not based on any specific historical events, I did a significant part of my growing up in an isolated, predominantly Maori community. Within that community, the sense of grievance over New Zealand’s 19th century Land Wars, and subsequent land confiscations, was still very much present. I later worked in the area of Maori land and cultural issues, so it may be that these sorts of cultural reflections are always subconsciously there for me and have ‘worked their way out’ in the Heir story. But whatever the reasons, the idea that those from the ‘other’ cultures may hold very different views on a conflict that has been imposed upon their world is a major aspect of The Wall of Night series.

The Heir of Night is still epic fantasy and there are demons, battles and magic, as well as protagonists who must undertake their ‘hero journeys’. The epic adversary exists as well – but whether it remains traditionally conceived through Books 2 to 4 remains to be seen.* Yet for me, the driving element of speculation within the story remains the concept of a society that perceives itself as the defenders of good and yet has a darkly chequered history – and the consequences of that history for the individuals caught within their society’s rigid codes.

I hope it also adds up, when all is said and done, to a yarn well told: because this is the realm of story and that is what story is all about.”

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* Note: With The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two now out, I would be interested to know if readers yet have a view on this point.