{"id":19393,"date":"2013-03-13T06:30:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=19393"},"modified":"2013-03-10T19:59:40","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T06:59:40","slug":"romance-vs-reality-war-conflict-in-epic-fantasy-and-the-gathering-of-the-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/03\/13\/romance-vs-reality-war-conflict-in-epic-fantasy-and-the-gathering-of-the-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance vs Reality: War & Conflict in Epic Fantasy and \u201cThe Gathering of the Lost\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

UK\/AUS\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

With the mass market edition of The Gathering Of The Lost<\/em> recently published in the UK<\/a>, I\u2019ve been re-posting a few of the features from last year\u2019s Blog Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post was first published on Australian author Trent Jamieson’s Trentonomicon<\/a> blog, but since Trent has subsequently revamped his previous blog and started anew, it is now only available here.<\/p>\n

I also feel it complements my recent post on my UK publisher Orbit’s blog (although the content is different): War and Power—Sources of Conflict In The Gathering Of The Lost<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

“Romance vs Reality: War & Conflict in Epic Fantasy and The Gathering of the Lost<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

The Wall of Night<\/strong><\/a> series is epic fantasy and deals with the grand sweep of events and conflict between peoples. These conflicts range from political manoeuvering, personal quarrels (the central society in the series, the Derai, have a tradition of blood feuds), street fighting and skirmishes, through to the threat of full-blown war. At one level, this is very much the fare of epic fantasy, in part because war is shorthand for conflict on the grand scale, and partly because historical tradition tell us that major conflicts do<\/em> frequently lead to war.<\/span><\/p>\n

A common criticism of epic fantasy is that it romanticises war, focusing on the glamour of combat and weaponry, rather than presenting the real consequences of armed conflict\u2014the \u201cwar is hell\u201d so succinctly attributed to General Sherman<\/span><\/a>, who undoubtedly had plenty of experience of its realities. I believe it is true that this sense of \u201cdead and mangled bodies \u2026 the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated\u201d<\/em> (also Sherman) is rarely emphasised in epic.<\/span><\/p>\n

The romance versus reality of writing war and combat is an ongoing tension for The Wall of Night<\/strong> series\u2014and perhaps most of all in this new book out, The Gathering of the Lost<\/strong>.<\/em> Much of the action takes place within the knightly society of Emer (very loosely based on that of the Burgundian knights during the hey-day of their power) and since I like an adventurous story, the combination of action with heavily armored knights lends itself to both tournaments and armed engagements. Plenty of scope, in other words, to romanticise plate armour and chivalry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chivalric, adventurous stories are always fun to read, too, and I for one enjoy reading them. Nonetheless, I remain wary of romanticizing, not just war but the medieval period of western European history, which was both warlike and frequently a very harsh time in which to live. In The Gathering of the Lost<\/em>, I have tried to balance the tension between romance and reality by setting the action in an environment where starvation is much an enemy as an armed knight, and a history of prolonged warfare has given several main characters a passion for peace. In the words of the Duke of Emer: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes in order to have peace we need to make peace\u2014to give something, as well as demand concessions.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As in The Heir of Night<\/strong>,<\/em> the first book in the Wall series, when people pick up weapons and attack each other, they are frequently wounded and often die. The focus of the book may not be on Sherman\u2019s \u201cdead and mangled bodies\u201d, but when fighting occurs that reality is integral to the story. Or to quote from the book again: <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo now you know what battle is,\u201d the hedge knight said. \u201cThere is no field of glory, only the charnel house.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I would still argue that The Gathering of the Lost<\/em> and The Wall of Night<\/strong> quartet are very much big epic. But rather than focusing on a romanticised view of war, it is the internal conflict within the protagonists\u2014their struggles between the pressures of self-interest, the socio-political forces in their societies and the codes they hold to be true and right\u2014that drive the power and drama of the narrative.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the mass market edition of The Gathering Of The Lost recently published in the UK, I\u2019ve been re-posting a few of the features from last year\u2019s Blog Tour. This post was first published on Australian author Trent Jamieson’s Trentonomicon blog, but since Trent has subsequently revamped his previous blog and started anew, it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-booklaunches","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19393"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19409,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19393\/revisions\/19409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}