Despite his busy schedule, Edinburgh native, Brian Ruckley, has agreed to spend some time with us discussing the wonderful world of story.  Brian’s fantasy novel, Winterbirth introduced readers to his epic trilogy, The Godless World.  Bloodheir, which was just released last week, continues the saga.  I enjoyed the originality of Brian’s world and the toughness of his characters, so I invited him to join us.  I hope you enjoy our talk as much as I did!

1.  So, Brian, you’ve come up with some really juicy villains for your trilogy.  Please choose your favorite and tell us what he or she would be most likly to do, assuming nobody was looking: 

a.  Pick his/her nose and wipe it under the table. 

b.   Sing showtunes out the tower window. 

c.  Talk to the dogs like they’re wittle babies. 

d.  Fart repeatedly because they enjoy the smell that much. 

Please explain. 

          With the caveat that I don’t really think of any of the characters as out and out villains–more as misguided folk with (admittedly rather severe) personality defects who make some really, really bad decisions–I guess I’d have to pick Aeglyss, the mad halfbreed who starts off in Winterbirth as a generally despised, relatively ineffective character but gradually becomes (says he, frantically trying to avoid spoilers) . . . considerably more alarming and considerably more central to the plot.  In fact, Bloodheir is arguably more about him than it is about anyone else.

         As to what he’d be most likely to do, I’d have to go with (c): talk to the dogs.  Basically, the guy couldn’t form a normal, functional relationship with a properly sentient being–human or otherwise–to save himself.  Dogs would be about his level, I suspect, when it comes to emotional interaction.  In fact, dogs would be more or less perfect for him, since one thing you can normally rely on from dogs is unconditional love and loyalty, and those are precisely what Aeglyss craves.  It’d be a match made in heaven.

          Mind you, people aren’t the only ones with personality defects in the books: there are one or two dogs in there that might be inclined to take his face off if he spoke to them in a silly voice . . .

2.  Okay, all goofing aside for, like, three minutes–revenge seems to be a powerful theme in your books.  Why did you choose that as a character motivator?

          I’d probably call it ‘unfinished business’ rather than strictly revenge, I think.  The books are stuffed with societies that have basically been carrying collective grudges of one sort or another for centuries, and some of the characters have their own unresolved issues that get laid over that like a bitter icing on the shared cake of dissatisfaction.  It seemed to me that was a pretty fair reflection of how a lot of history in the real world plays out, in both our recent and distant past.

          I was particularly keen on the idea of not having bad guys who did what they did just because they were . . . you know, bad.  Even people doing the most insanely terrible things tend to think, however bizarrely, that they’ve got some sort of reason to be doing what they’re doing, and those reasons often spring from their personal or cultural history, so when I was casting around for plausible motivations for all the unfortunate stuff that goes on in the books that’s where I turned.

3.  You’ve accomplished quite a difficult task in creating a brand new world that convinces even as it fascinates.  How long had it been developing in your mind before you finally began to put it all together?

          Depends on your definition of developing, really.  I’m sure it’s the same for most writers, but certainly in my case all kinds of very indirect influences simmered away in my brain for years.  When I actually decided to get serious about trying to write a novel, a whole load of stuff began to come together that I had unknowingly been storing away in the dusty corners of my brain for ages.  Probably the biggest element of that was all the reading (and watching and visiting) I had done on historical subjects.  None of it had been intended as research or preparation for a novel, but it turned out I’d accidentally accumulated most of what I needed to come up with a more or less plausible and convincing world, and to give it a more or less plausible and convincing history of its own.

          In practice, the details of the world kind of developed in parallel with the plot.  I actually don’t have huge piles of background notes–in some ways I wish I did, but it’s too late to worry about that now–but I do have a fairly clear vision of my invented world, and an outline of its history, sitting snugly in my head.  A lot of it came into focus as I was writing.  It’s one luxury you have when you’re an unpublished writer working on your first novel, I suppose:  there’s no great rush, so you can allow these things to develop gradually and naturally.

4.  Have you ever wished you could live in the world you created?  Why or why not?

          You’re kidding, right?  I mean, it’s a world that even its own Gods abandoned because they couldn’t get its inhabitants to play nice.  You did not notice all those crazies running around with swords?  I’d last about ten minutes flat.

          Actually, in one respect I’d love to visit it.  I’ve got a long-standing interest in landscape and wildlife (more of a love than an interest, to be honest), not entirely unconnected with growing up in Scotland which has its fair share of rather nice examples of both.  So when inventing a world, I got to do some wish fulfillment on that front.  The landscape is an exaggerated version of Scotland–wilder forests, higher mountains, etc.–and the wildlife is pretty much what Scotland had before us humans decided the place would be much nicer if we tidied away all the bears and wolves and other natural inconveniences into extinction.  I’d love to have a chance to just wander around a bit, taking in the scenery, enjoying the wilderness, so I suppose if I was going to live in that world I’d be a bit of a recluse, off in a cabin somewhere with a nice river outside my front door and a good view of the mountains.  So long as none of the sword-wielding crazies tracked me down, I’d probably be fine.

5.  I’ve often thought that writers are frustrated travelers.  If you could go anywhere without the limitations of time and space, where would you visit and why?

          It’s probably a bit rude for a guest to flagrantly disprove their host’s hypothesis, but I wouldn’t really fit the category of frustrated traveller.  I’m more of a slightly jaded traveller:  I’ve been ludicrously lucky in that I’ve travelled my little socks off, and to be honest I kind of ran out of steam a bit on that front.  I’ve been to some staggering places–Borneo, Mongolia, Namibia, Patagonia amongst many others–and wouldn’t have missed it for anything, but spend a lot of time in hotels, living out of suitcases and getting your brain smeared by jetlag and the glamour of it all gets blunted a touch.  Actually, I guess that doesn’t disprove your hypothesis at all: maybe I was a frustrated traveller before I did all that travelling.

           Removing restrictions of time and space is more than enough to get my traveller juices flowing again, though.  Innumerable tantalising possiblities spring to mind: the Byzantine Empire somewhere between the 7th and 11th centuries, because I’m fascinated by its history and would love to see Constantinople in the full flower of its glory; London a few hundred years from now, because I’m wildly curious about the future and wildly frustrated that–barring miracles–I’m not going to get to see it; and as far as the present is concerned, I’ll have Mars, please.  Because . . . .well, it’s Mars.

6.  Feel free to ramble here in case you’ve thought of an answer I forgot to ask the question to!

          Thanks very much for inviting me over here.  It’s been fun.  You’ll be posting that ticket to Mars to me, right?    

Sure, Brian, just as soon as I win three or four lotteries and they let regular folks like us hitch rides, we’ll both be set, because I wouldn’t mind doing some planet hopping myself!  In the meantime, thanks so much for dropping by!  If you want to learn more about Brian, be sure to visit his website at www.brianruckley.com.  You can also contact him at the following e-mail address: brian@brianruckley.com.