{"id":23340,"date":"2013-12-02T06:30:33","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T17:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=23340"},"modified":"2013-10-31T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:58:09","slug":"favourite-questions-from-recent-interviews-tim-jones-asks-about-the-epic-continuum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/12\/02\/favourite-questions-from-recent-interviews-tim-jones-asks-about-the-epic-continuum\/","title":{"rendered":"Favourite Questions From Recent Interviews: Tim Jones Asks About the Epic Continuum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently, The Gathering Of The Lost<\/em><\/strong> was shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award<\/a>, and as a finalist I was interviewed on a number of fora around the traps.<\/p>\n

I was asked a number of great questions so thought I\u2019d share a few of them\u2014plus my answers, of course!\u2014here on the blog over a number of weeks.<\/p>\n

Tim Jones, in his interview with me on SF Signal, asked a very interesting question on the epic continuum—and generated an indepth answer!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

“Tim: High or epic fantasy can range from the deeply heroic \u2013 such as The Lord Of The Rings<\/em> \u2013 to the deeply anti-heroic \u2013 such as the A Song Of Ice And Fire<\/em> series. If you\u2019re willing to admit the existence of such a continuum, where along it would you place The Gathering Of The Lost<\/em> \u2013 and would you place the predecessor volume, The Heir Of Night<\/em>, at the same place on the continuum?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Helen<\/strong>: That\u2019s a very interesting question, Tim. I do think there is a continuum, and I tend to think of THE WALL OF NIGHT<\/strong> quartet (of which The Heir Of Night<\/strong> and The Gathering Of The Lost<\/strong> comprise Books One and Two respectively) as \u201cepic-heroic\u201d fantasy. What I mean by \u201cepic-heroic\u201d is that it is primarily a story of adventure and heroism and magic, where there is a lot at stake and what\u2019s at stake matters. In that sense it draws on the High Fantasy tradition of the Morte D\u2019Arthur<\/strong>, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/strong>, and Parsifal<\/strong>, with their notions of quest and doomed stands, the trumpet blast at dawn, the banners of noon day, and the twilight of both heroes and gods.<\/span><\/p>\n

Squarely, you may therefore assume, at the Tolkien end of the epic fantasy spectrum \u2013 except that another major influence on my writing is history, and that means I try to temper the heroism with realism, particularly when it comes to dealing with war and conflict. One way I do this is through a focus on characters, so as I said in a recent post: \u201calthough The Gathering Of The Lost<\/strong> is heroic fantasy \u2026 people who matter, people those in the story love and care about, are going to get injured and killed in the armed conflicts-because that is what happens in war \u2026 So as part of achieving realism, I try and make sure that those caught up in the conflict are real people for the reader, not just \u201credshirts\u201d who can be killed off with zero emotional cost.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe this aspect of the storytelling is not incompatible with what is happening in the A Song of Ice And Fire<\/strong> series \u2013 but I would argue that it\u2019s not incompatible with Tolkien either. The Lord Of The Rings<\/strong> is probably higher and more heroic storytelling, but it is also all about the emotional cost of war, so perhaps that is a thread that binds the continuum together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Emotional depth is also the respect in which I feel the WALL<\/strong> series is very much its own story. For me, a good film or a good book is always about the emotional power in the storytelling, and the depth and subtlety of the characters. Do they feel real and believable, do I lose myself in what is happening in their lives \u2013 because those are the characters I want to meet in my reading and bring to life through my writing. Much as I love heroism (and I really do), I believe both The Heir Of Night<\/strong> and The Gathering Of The Lost<\/strong> are primarily about human<\/em> characters. So although Heir<\/strong> may be a more magic-driven story and focused on the \u201cunrelentingly dark, haunting atmosphere\u201d (Specusphere) of the Wall of Night, while Gathering<\/strong> is more adventurous and opens up into a wider world, I believe they do sit together on any continuum.”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, The Gathering Of The Lost was shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award, and as a finalist I was interviewed on a number of fora around the traps. I was asked a number of great questions so thought I\u2019d share a few of them\u2014plus my answers, of course!\u2014here on the blog over a number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-my-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23340","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=23340"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23345,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23340\/revisions\/23345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}