Welcome back to my channel today. I have a very very special guest. Um, I kind of don't believe this is happening, but the man himself Joe Abercrombie author of the first law, which I may or may not have mentioned on my channel here and there Hmm is willing to subject himself to my inquiries So looking forward to Welcome welcome, I would like to ask some spoilery questions now that the book is out, but I'll save those for later So yeah, most of my questions are a little broader and then we'll get into grilling you about Okay, well, I think people know who you are, but if you'd like to introduce yourself, yeah, I'm I'm Java Cromby. I Write fantasy books. I wrote a series called the first law was the first thing I wrote The first one the blade itself was published in 2006 and since then I've written Nine novels and a collection of short stories in that world and I wrote the shattered sea trilogy as well at some point Which was kind of aimed at Younger those still sophisticated and discerning readers So, yeah, that's me. I write stuff generally you do indeed write stuff So, I mean I the bulk of what you written is first law So my first question was what keeps you coming back to the first law It was bills and the mortgage payments, you know, that kind of no joy Just oh god. No the joy left many many years ago I suppose, you know, I had this dream dreams a little bit, but I had this idea this ambition to write a Fantasy trilogy of the kind that I was used to reading My version of Lord of the Rings, I suppose you might say and that was what I had in mind to write I never thought about writing anything else But then when the very unlikely thing happened that I actually did write those things and Got towards the end and had by then a publishing deal My publisher asked me this question what you're doing next, you know, and I had never given it any thought it was a horrifying Horrifying moment. I suddenly realized I might have to write dozens of books in a career I was going to take this seriously and so I needed some new ideas rapidly and You know, I've never really been a world guy particularly, you know, I don't Do really Travellingly weird or strange worlds generally They're sort of standing for our world as much as anything. So it didn't feel like I needed to Produce a new world. I felt like I could just continue to write in the one that I'd I'd already come up with so I Just came up with some new stories in in that setting and I suppose that's Kind of what I've done ever since really Well, we want you to keep doing it. So No, I think it's nice to try different things and to step away on occasion You know, so it's good to do the shout see books and write in a slightly different format and in a in a different world With a bit of a different tone It's nice to do that and you don't want to get too burned out on doing the same thing Working in the same way. So I don't think I'd write more first-law stuff Next, you know, I'll try something else and see what what other things happen, but I wouldn't be it's all Surprised if I came back to it again at some point. I mean this world is kind of close to my heart and there's always been the You know, the thing that's been with me all my life really so I'm sure I'll keep coming back to it now and again This isn't on my list of questions But you brought up the shattered see and I'm curious like where in the first law Did you like take a break from first law to rain shattered see? Yeah, I mean after a country so I've written the first three in the first law trilogy and Then I wrote the three standalone books in that world and the idea always was that those books are going to be a good deal shorter You know, I was aiming for hundred and fifty thousand words with those books and Best serve cold was 240,000. So that didn't work and then the heroes was I think about 200,000 and Red country is about 180. So I was getting in the right direction But I think I thought when I when I was right in red country, I felt You know a bit burned out for all kinds of reasons not just that that was kind of you know I was tired of the world or anything but It just felt like time for a change and to try something different and to recharge the batteries slightly You know, I felt like I needed to Not just in terms of the writing but in terms of the publishing, you know, it was an opportunity to Move to other publishers in some parts of the world some territories where it hadn't necessarily worked that well, you know And an opportunity to try out some different things So, yeah, I mean it was that just felt the right time after Red Country Although I you know, I had plans still to do more stuff in the first law world But I just felt like that had been such You know Slightly tough going so I felt as though it was the right time to go and try something slightly different And then I came back to age of man this afterwards So my next question was about coming back to age of man If you had the story or something of an arc in mind or do you just decide I'm gonna come back to the first law And I'll figure out what the story is gonna be later I mean a bit of that, you know, I'm not I'm not someone who necessarily thinks Light years ahead. I don't have trunks full of ideas waiting to be done I tend to work them out one project at a time So, you know the standalone's I didn't necessarily have big ideas for those while I was writing the trilogy But I guess by the time I was getting towards the end of last argument of Kings I knew what I was doing next. I've kind of thought about that. So I was able to Plant some loose ends that would lead naturally into into better of gold and As I was writing the standalone and coming towards the end of that I did have some ideas about roughly what a new trilogy in the first law world might look like and and in particular I'd watched a production of Shakespeare's histories That went on over two weekends and it was all All of them. Yeah, so it was eight plays Spread out over two weekends You do three on the Saturday and one on the Sunday and they had the same cast Throughout they were all took place in the same theater and they kind of used a lot the same staging and made a lot of very clever Links between them all and it was really brilliant amazing thing to see And while I was watching that I thought oh you could do something along along these lines within the fantasy world and so Henry the fourth part one particularly I Don't know if you know the play but it kind of has An aging king with this young disappointing son who's out carousing all the time Prince Hal and he's contrasted with Prince Hotspur who's this wonderful Kind of heroic Military leader, you know, and so that was kind of the the basis if you like the shell for Age of Madness, you know when you describe it like that. I was like, oh And then you know other things start to get drawn in and obviously, you know a lot of it was dictated by The characters I had left over in the history of the world and the things that were going on And then I'm not sure exactly when the idea of kind of bringing it into the industrial revolution happened a little after that probably But I suppose I'd always wanted the world to move forward and to move forward in time and to kind of move into different economic and political circumstances and So the industrial revolution just felt like the next step and then naturally once you've decided on that as a setting there's all kinds of Drama and kind of tension that are inherent to that set circumstances the the economics and the sort of movement of populations from the rural to the urban and you know Growth of invention and of entrepreneurship and all those things just naturally create these these tensions And if you have different people in different places within the cast within the social strata then you naturally have these these conflicts that develop between them and so It just seemed to quite naturally develop But as always with these things they take quite a long time to kind of stew for me So I suppose a lot of it had been on my mind as I was finishing the shout-and-see stuff and you know Each project bleeds a bit into the next so as I was finishing shout-and-see off I was I was starting to think about what would be next and reading a bit about the industrial revolution and things like that and Building up some of the ideas Surely the French revolution as well Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Although I suppose that became more the focus for the the later you know the later books so It was kind of on my mind the first book would be more of the industrial revolution kind of feel but obviously the social revolution comes to be more and more the central part of it, but I think I Basically, it's a bit hard to remember now, but I think I kind of drafted the first book and then did a lot of reading about the French Revolution After the first book was done Or when I done it was drafted anyway, and then kind of went on to tackling the other two afterwards Well, you sort of mentioned several things that are in multiple of my questions So I don't know which to go to first which is the natural segue, but is the skill of Good at interviewing I just said that I wanted to That's the first step, yeah So I mean well, you did mention how you know using characters that you already had left over you put so Yeah, just the drags Offcuts like the bit of fat you cut off a slice of bacon Just still hanging around But I'm curious if you when you went back to the first lot if you originally were gonna use more characters They're familiar or you always kind of wanted to focus on new and maybe just sprinkle in I mean definitely wanted to focus on the new and I think That's something I've always Tried to do. I mean there's this danger. I think to There's a gravity to the established characters both in terms of you feeling comfortable with them because you've worked with those characters And what so they're kind of easy to write, you know And also readers are always asking for them again, you know because readers always want the thing they enjoyed last time So there's always lots of readers who want more blocks or or more Whatever And I think you need to slightly fight that impulse Because it's easy to become a sort of crap pastiche of yourself, you know and to end up plowing the same furrow over and over And that's always going to be diminishing return. So even if it's not what people say they want I think you have to Push yourself and try new characters and new things and new types of people try and broaden the range as much as you can and If you're gonna focus on a new cast which I kind of think you've got to you've got to make the book the story of those people Not the story of a set of secondary people who are kind of lingering around in the background. So You know, it's natural that a Story about some characters might include people like their parents or their mentors or you know other important figures around the setting But you've got to make sure they they stay secondary and you know if someone knew was reading these books who didn't read the previous stuff You'd want you'd want them to feel that there were interesting secondary characters in the background But not that they overpowered the kind of people who are now the focus of the story So I think in terms of balance. It's just about focusing on the new cast absolutely being in the heads of the new cast Not worrying too much about paying off You know, the old people and the old threads you might have left just letting that happen in the in the natural course of telling the new story and I think as well what's nice about these books is that naturally the The central cast are a lot of them are children of people who we know In the past and their parents loom quite large over the first book and their relationship with their parents And then as the books progress. They kind of they step out of the shadow of the parents and it becomes more and more their story so it kind of Found its way relatively naturally. I think in that respect But I try always use a character who's left over if I have one, you know if I have a slot in In the story for a world weary warrior, then I'll kind of think well You don't have left over who can fit in that. There's no one like that in the first lot There's very hard to find anyone who is that description If there is someone around I'll generally try and reuse them because I think You just naturally then have You know some drama and some history and Whereas two characters might be in the same room together you've never met before and that means nothing You know if you happen to know a lot of the background of those characters Then suddenly it becomes a more kind of vivid scene without you having to make any effort So I would insist that people read in publication order and chastise them if they don't Yeah, and people I think often do say that but I think at the same time there are quite a lot of people who start with Better of cold or you've started with the age of madness And you know it still works. That's the hope anyway so I mean There are people who read better of cold and don't know who some of the Kind of background figures are and then they'll go back and think oh, you know, it's a different way to discover What happened in the past? So I think I hope that still works and you know, I would always Advise anyone just to buy any of my books they like in any order they like and then read them or not They can throw them away and start with wisdom of crowds and then No, I mean when I talk to people at reading where I'm like, please read in publication order But if you must maybe you can start here or here, but ideally Well, I think as well you there's always this problem with with writers often that their first book is is kind of The one that readers generally start with or generally drawn to But of course your first book is often not your best book in some ways and you know the blade itself is Wonderful, of course but when I read it now I do notice a few things I probably do differently. So it's literally one of my questions is That you've grown as a writer. So if you were to write the trilogy, I'll do the questions So, you know go on I'll say since you have grown as a writer since then just by virtue of writing more if you were to write the original trilogy now Is there anything that you think you would definitely do differently now?  I mean on the one hand, I'm kind of fiercely proud of it and really enjoy it when I read it And everything I don't I'm not embarrassed by it by any stretch of the imagination I think it's brilliant I mean, I would feel embarrassed to love it that much if I heard that the author is embarrassed to have written it Yeah, no, exactly. No, I mean no, I still really like it and I still kind of There's a sort of exuberance to a first book a kind of raw Quality that in a way you're always trying to recapture thereafter Um So it's great from that point of view, but I mean, yeah, there's loads of things that change I mean The pacing of it is very weird You know, it's very weird because In some ways that works. I was trying to do a story that starts in many Different places and then is drawn together in the way that a kind of noir might be LA confidential was sort of my Model in that sense, you know, I didn't think that was something that fantasy tended to do fantasy epic fantasy often reads a bit like a An academic paper, you know, there's an introduction If you look at Lord of the Rings, it starts with Gandalf saying, well, my boy, here's what we're going to do There's a ring. We're going to take it to Mordor. That's the plan And then he shows how the ring is taken to Mordor and then it ends with Gandalf saying, well, we did it so it's kind of You know, there's a predictable shape to it and I was kind of I was interested in Mysteries and noirs that start in all kinds of weird places. You don't really understand what the story is until you get to the end, you know Difficult to do that over a three-book series without the first book looking a little bit directionless Uh, I've now realized And I was surprised to find, you know, I always thought with a trilogy. Well, you know, you understand it's it's in three parts but There are quite a surprising number of people who end the first book and go, I don't get it that didn't end Well, no, because it's three books You see that's how this works But I didn't realize that at the time and I think the pacing is a bit odd You know, it just kind of meanders around Why have one fencing scene when you can have 15? kind of thing I mean to give you more credit than you seem to be giving I think on a first go through It did mean it is a little bit like that was really great But also where's any of this going and then I remember and I mean I read I've reread the trilogy more times than I want to admit But when you do reach the end and that realization that like this wasn't just some like a pancer Just going around whatever there There are so many things planted for where this does go that you realize that even if it seemed directionless that There are so many seeds that you can pick up on on a reread They're like, oh, this always was intended to go Where it went and this is planned for from the beginning and you can see that so I think the reread ability is Amazing for the trilogy for that reason Oh, thank you. And that's great. It clearly worked, you know, as I sort of intended In that case and it does definitely work for some people and I mean there are others for whom You know, they feel like the characters in the moment to moment stuff Keeps them going regardless of whether they kind of not everyone reads the plot people have very different Kind of ways of experiencing books and things that they're looking for in a book But I think From a pace point of view it could Have more going on and there could be more drive. I think already by before their hands There's a much better Structure and organization to that where the sort of different plots Are up in some places down and others and compliment each other and there's a kind of Waves up a beach feeling of steadily gaining Momentum which the first book doesn't really have it's meandering and partly that's because I started Just writing scenes and experimenting with scenes without much sense of where I was going and some of that feeling persist into the The finished product and some people really like that But I think I could do it more elegantly now and then I mean there's all kinds of world building things that I wrote a very sort of Classical classic fantasy society without even really thinking much about that because that's just what I was told Yeah, and I wanted to work with the default in a way because it's a book about the default It's a comment on the default. So it's hard to avoid those things You know, you wanted a rigidly mentor and a boy with a special destiny and he used up man of violence Because those are the classic fantasy things and they're all men, right? So it becomes quite a man manly book that you may have noticed as A woman yourself that there are women in the world There are actually one of my questions was and maybe you've just answered it Why we never got an rd pov in the original trilogy Hmm. I mean some say I have a doubt some say that half of the population of the world are women I haven't counted personally, but Of this fact, um, I think Why is the no pov with rd? It's a good question. I mean, why do you pick the ones that are there? Who knows in a way partly because they were You know these classic archetypes but I think It's not even as much the central cast for me as it is the The secondary cast is just very very male and it was a kind of laziness or just a not even really thinking about it You know the we have ferro You have ferro You know I am or I think all the female characters in first war are brilliant both of them I mean, I would agree, but I would just like to see what's going on in arty's mind. Yeah, and and There's just only two aren't there really only two female characters All together pretty much. Well, I mean that we hear a lot from there's some females hanging about in the background A lot less than I think The ones that uh, Giselle compares arty to those exist and they exist as they're mentioned offstage There is one who wanders past I think isn't there is like a milk toast one Is the beautiful cousin that everybody thinks is so beautiful cousin who is artlessly contrasted Yeah, I mean I could have done a lot better in that sense. I mean I think you get into this mindset where you think okay I need a smith in the background whether smith is a man And the smith is going to be talking to a merchant and merchants and men and the merchants carrying goods to Market and the markets run by men because there's a man and never wants a man You know if you start thinking that way. Yeah, and so it just becomes a very manly male world the whole the whole sort of arena of um You know feminist critique Which is pretty much everywhere now on the internet and so on You can't avoid it really. I mean there was no internet when I started writing these books It didn't exist Barely And certainly feminist critique on the internet wasn't something I've been exposed to particularly So I never really thought about it and uh, then I was kind of amazed when it was pointed out to me that you know I thought I was being incredibly clever because you know my female characters were Unpleasant or shit or drunk, you know, I thought wow man, I've blown the doors off here I really like Artie as a character. I just I always wondered if there was a reason like that You wanted to withhold information from the reader and that's why we even though she's around a lot That you never actually get to see in her mind I think only that I just kind of picked the six I was going to do and I wanted to stick with that discipline, you know because I like patterns and shapes and symmetry and I felt like I've picked the six and so I've got to stay With that because if you just kind of keep introducing more Then where does it stop then you end up with feast for crows and it's too many I would not care comment upon the work of others, right? No, I I did it. You can just not exactly It helps to have that discipline because then you you left with this problem of well, what is this the story of Whose story is it? You know if you're gonna keep adding more people And so I've kind of decides on the six I was going to do and that's where that's who it is But it's kind of fascinating to consider, you know, what story you'd have if you If you did other points of view, of course there's this problem that you know Artie just doesn't appear for the whole second book Really because she's not there. Well, yeah, because you see her through the eyes of west and glocked and they're not around Yeah, yeah, so she's defined entirely by kind of the the male characters views on her, you know Well, that's why I wondered if like you'd kept Artie's mind from us because you didn't want us to have eyes on the agriant while glocked is away But I guess that's giving you too much credit Giving me way too much I mean, it was it was simply that I didn't want to make her a point of view. I never had thought of her as a point of view. Therefore, you know, I wasn't I wasn't interested in what she was doing at that point any more than I was kind of interested in what the thoughts up to When he's not on the screen, you know um, they're just I'm trying to focus as much as possible on the points of view and that sort of Always been my approach anyway to be as much in the heads of the central cast as a possibly can be throughout Yeah, that makes sense Um for the going back down to some kind of order what my questions are in Yeah, sorry all around. I don't even want to ask before But uh, you've kind of touched on this but so going into the new trilogy, um, you've mentioned, you know Handling previous characters older characters and that sort of thing But more in terms of the plot and character arcs. Were you actively trying to avoid? um Repeating the past in terms of the kind of the structure of things or like the trajectory of a character's path or you just kind of write whatever felt natural I suppose a kind of combination of the two There was a degree to which I was trying to consciously echo things Because I always enjoy that and it kind of makes me feel clever Uh, probably unearnedly so Hey, you checked me There you go Some people see you like to it No me I was trying to both do some old stuff and do some new stuff. I mean, there's a degree I was talking about not getting bored with yourself earlier in a way, but I think uh There's a degree to which you're always Circling issues that you're that you're interested in, you know, and so themes and characters and things do keep coming up um And there are things I want to say I suppose even if I'm not totally sure what those are And so I tend to circle them a little bit at times um And so, you know very consciously The end of age of man this has, you know, some mirror images of scenes that are the the end The first law But at the same time I wanted to break some new ground and I was, you know In terms of the technology and the way the world is developing It was definitely different and in terms of the characters I was taken on as the central cast. It was very different. Um And more ladies Sorry more ladies more ladies for sure. Yeah Uh, but also to a large degree. I think the first law has a lot of these very used up old characters who've got a lot of mileage on the clock and who are kind of Quite set in their ways now they've become who they are and they don't change necessarily that much That was one thing I was kind of looking at with the first law, you know, do people change or do they not? um Very few seem to change a couple do drastically, but most don't and often they revert back to the way they were before You know, that's that was quite intentional Yeah, yeah, absolutely because you know in fantasy you get these very smooth and beautiful changes of people finding out who they are and becoming going from boy to king or You know used up man of violence to sensitive family man or whatever it may be, you know, I've never seen those things happen in the first law Exactly, you know, because it's not it's not easy. It's not easy to do those things um whereas, you know age of madness the cast are a lot of them younger more unformed Making their way in the world part of the family unit, you know, they're they're all grizzled outsiders in the first law Trying to escape the past a lot of them whereas in the age of madness they tend to be insiders You know, Savine is plugged into this big social network. Leo's got his friends around him Also is air to a throne and with this huge expectation on him. So They're all, you know, much more plugged into their surroundings younger and they change that massive amount over the course of the The book. So, you know It's quite nice. I was quite pleased with the way that at the end of age of madness, you know, there's a scene between A couple of characters I won't spoil it but They have been through these amazing kind of this huge Will win the change and that's quite an interesting Difference between these books and the previous ones. So some things try to do differently and some things, you know Consciously the same and I'm sure some things unconsciously I end up doing again and again just because I'm me You gravitate towards that. Yeah. Yeah Um, he sort of hit upon two things that I had questions about It was being the sort of both kind of falling into the saying something category Um, I mean, I've always found all of the first law books quite cathartic to read Because of how they reflect more sort of how the world is as opposed to The wonderful benevolent king who does the right thing to the people and the hero that saves the day And you're like, well, that doesn't happen in real life. No corrupt people Screwing you over that sounds more like it But in particular the new trilogy is even more so seems very I don't want to say on the nose because that sounds like a bad thing but very relevant for the current day and age I don't know if it was like On purpose and if you think that books have a duty to say something Or are they just for entertainment or I mean, I don't think they've got a duty You know, that's that's asking a lot. Isn't it? I don't think they've got a duty. I mean A book can be entertaining. It can be funny. It can be Educational it can be all those things. I don't think it has to be one thing or another It's up to readers to sort of decide what they want and not to write to write what they want and Then readers to find the things that work for them, you know And I don't think for me, you know theme if you like and saying something is ever at the forefront of my mind, you know, it's sort of I try and stay focused on the characters and their experience and what's going on and then Theme is what sort of develops as you tell the story and as you as you're going but obviously you're influenced by what's going on around you for sure And yeah, that's sort of what I was wondering if the how extremely sort of relevant the new trilogy is if that was intentional Or if it was just you're being affected by the present day. So that bleeds into Well, it was really before a lot of these sort of recent events as well That's that's kind of the odd thing about it. I found that are you actually rickha and you saw this coming and you Wrote it. Well, I mean I'm like a more powerful more More foresightful rickha You're better at reading the visions purely luck I think as much as anything, you know, I wrote the first law About an evil bank and the global banking crisis happened the next year After that's like no kings. Maybe we do need to write you have your right positive things because whatever you write seems to come to pass Reason why we're in the state that we're in. I don't know but you know, I wrote the age of madness maybe Five years ago. I finished the first draft four years ago and so as before a lot of the Kind of turmoil we've had and particularly in britain. We had this whole statues debacle, you know People toppling statues and a lot of discussion about statues and when that happened. I was like, oh my god. I was you know, I've got this All sequence in the book about statues being torn down And it was just purely coincidental. I guess You're either prophetic or history repeats itself Well, I think it's a lot of that as well, you know statues and flags and things obviously with social upheaval sort of Symbols that keep coming up But it did suddenly seem like it was a bit on the nose And it seemed like I was obviously talking about certain things, you know, so I had a lot of stuff about revolution and revolt and rioting and so on and then black lives matter obviously happened And I thought oh god. It looks like I'm commenting very specifically on that and wealth inequality Yeah, be a little bit careful. And then of course the The riots happened in in january With the capital and so on. I thought oh god. No, it looks like I'm being incredibly obviously talking about that it's a bit difficult you've just got to kind of try and make sure that It seems honest and authentic for you And then not worry too much and obviously these things, you know, they come and go they seem absolutely topical for a moment and then they They kind of drift off in the history and it no longer seems like you're talking about that. Hopefully it seems like you're talking about something else Well, I mean the themes of revolution and populism. I think are recognizable no matter what era you're reading them from Yeah, I mean obviously I pulled a lot of stuff from the French revolution and the Russian revolution and You know those events generally um our matter and more unpleasant in a lot of ways than anything you can dream up so Yeah, I mean it's all it's all happened before worse at one time or another Unfortunately, it'll probably all happen again I wouldn't be surprised sooner than we think I shouldn't You kind of briefly mentioned this um, which I had a question about which is I mean arguably at least from where I sit The sort of thesis if there is one of the trilogy version be first trilogy for sure But also throughout is that the banks are evil That's kind of like what everything gets boiled down to the banks are evil And I was wondering if uh when you set out to write the first law trilogy Did you set out to be like that's going to be the big bad really ultimately or that came later? Yeah, that's a good question. Actually, it's very hard to remember now Exactly when various different elements kind of were introduced. I mean I must have known I must have known what the basic twist was going to be because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to kind of sow the seeds Throughout but it's hard to remember when and in what order things come together um So I mean certainly, you know We can probably spoil the first law a little bit, you know, I read the Law of the Rings when I was a kid obviously and I was obsessed with the law of the rings But the addition I had had this foreword by Tolkien. He was talking about Whether Lord of the Rings was an allegory for the second world war And he said something on the lines if you know if it had been then Gandalf would have used the ring and I thought oh That's kind of fascinating. That'd be an interesting story, you know because Let's be honest most Gandalf's in our world Would use the ring, right?  He used the ring Which I suppose they sort of are but They'd all be Boromir Exactly. Yeah, we'd all be Boromir. Boromir's like the best of us, man It's because men are weak though apparently Most of us are Saramans, you know Um, I have a theory that Saramans really the hero of the Lord of the Rings But anyway, that that was kind of the the principle and I suppose the thinking was you know If you really did have an immortal wizard, what tools would he use? And I think he'd kind of get bored of magic pretty quickly limited Kind of usability Goes off He'd you know get on to whatever the new thing was you get on a bitcoin or whatever Straight away So, you know, they're banking and then the story, you know, the first law was kind of about this period Rise of the merchant class rise of money And so it kind of seemed natural that He'd be behind it But the idea of banks being incredibly evil, I don't know. I mean, I think that was almost incidental really I wasn't thinking to myself well banks are obviously really evil. So that'll be the villain It was more what are the tools that the villain would use if he had this Just the fact that banks really are evil that it was just natural to write them that way Yeah, I mean it felt it felt like it's been pretty nicely Um, you I've kind of danced around the sort of modernizing of technology in the world Obviously, I mean, there's a kind of a big shift in the new trilogy and but it was somewhat gradual when you read the Stannels as well But if you do return to the world of the first law do you intend to sort of continue that trend and keep pushing it to a newer newer age? I don't know actually. I mean up to a point. Yes, you know, I like will there be bitcoin Yeah, you never know. Um, I like a world that's moving forward and that has that feeling of progress and turmoil and kind of Potentially stop start, you know, very it's very uneven. It's very lumpy uh, historical progress is these spurts are huge progress and then You know these forces that pull everything back in one way or another or things move forward technologically But back socially and you know, there's this constant push and pull going on saying I'd want The world to feel like it's in that that constant state of flux but at the same time there's kind of obviously corners of the world where The future is unevenly distributed. Was that William Gibson? something along those lines, so, you know There's huge progress in in the union, but in other parts of the world there isn't necessarily so there's no reason You can't go to other parts of the world and see a much more primitive Kind of set up and how I said if you would plan to write else because we've seen, you know, a lot of the The part of the map that pretty much all of these books have taken I mean red country took us a little off course, but the most part we've stayed essentially sort of In the north and the agriant, um, but would we ever see first law books like in girkle or elsewhere? I mean potentially potentially so but There's a slight nervousness about You know doing cultures that are not very well known to me I mean partly because of the The risk you take when you do something like that. I mean more just because It's difficult to be genuine when you do that, you know, I grew up in the north of england So there's a certain idiom of the north of england that I use for the north That is kind of genuine or that I understand That is instinctive to me and that is kind of real and honest um and likewise with the union, you know, it's a It's a kind of Englishness a class obsessed Englishness that I understand uh, whereas I don't want to do my theme park version of arabian nights Do you know what I mean because people will probably rightly say This is shit And because it won't be good by anyone's Stretch of imagination. I won't feel real or believable and I don't the world doesn't need a bad arabian nights from me We wouldn't like that but no I'd have to feel like I was I was doing it for a reason You know and that it made sense not just because Well, why don't you do that? Why don't you go there now? um So don't rule it out, but don't count on it Probably move to other you know other bits of the map though and try different to try some different stuff and It's nice to try some Different styles and story and I like writing standalone books as well. So probably be standalone's of some kind Now it would probably be a sterian one you know a sterian romance Oh, of course I don't know. I don't know a lovely happy ending Yeah, well, you know, you would hate to be utterly predictable for Incredibly cynical endings any more than you would for happy shiny heroic ones The twist is there is no twist Yeah, well, you know, of course then people will say Man, you know, he's lost it. It's all happy endings now It's always so cynical. It's so boring. No matter what you write someone will say. Oh, he's lost it.  But um, thank you I already got angry when I saw someone saying that basically because there were so many female characters in the new trilogy that it This is this is basically why a now and I was like Excuse me You'll hear everything. Yeah, you can't get upset. You just can't get upset It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Yeah I can get upset because I didn't write them. So that's true. Yeah Would you ever write any, uh, not different parts of the map, but like further his like prequel type stuff sort of like older ages of the world I kind of feel like that is again in the category of why don't you write another 16 Logan nine fingers books? No, it's it's like it's sort of Oh Man Darth Vader is so interesting. Why don't you do the Darth Vader backstory?  See what Bayez is saying is true But then he's less interested in character if you know whether it's true or not I mean, it's it. I think it falls often into that category of I'm really interested in this thing Therefore tell me all about it, but you're interested in it because you don't know all about it. Yeah, and so There's this risk of killing in the same way as There's a risk of making Logan nine fingers a very boring character if you do 16 books about him There's a risk of making Bayez a boring character if you know all the backstory and all the questions are removed and answered I mean Do you need to answer those questions because you already know what you need to know? I think um so I sort of feel like Unless you've got some brilliant ingenious plan for a prequel Which genuinely throws Everything we've seen into a different light You know, unless there's a story that needs to be told Why are you doing it unless it's just that you've run out of ideas? It's called So again, don't rule it out But um, yeah, the prequels don't Necessarily appear appeal. I don't think Because you'll always know some of the outcome, right? I mean, there'll always be some of the outcome, you know so Better to go into the future where It's an undiscovered country Yeah um, but sort of speaking of Bayez and and that sort of thing Um, obviously the first law is became the name of the series Which also I'm curious about why not that it's not relevant But like I don't know that if after reading the trilogy like well, this must be called the first law trilogy So I wonder how that came about and then just in general like where in the process you were developing the sort of The magic and the lore behind the magic Yeah A question. I mean, I think it's sort of always been in my mind somehow I've I've been having ideas for this for well, I say having I've been stealing them from other people It's stealing ideas for this series for you know throughout my childhood and Kind of young adulthood. So I sort of just built up some of the lore somehow In my mind. I don't know why I just had it and my fingertips by that point um Why is it called the first law mostly because I needed a title for it And I went through all the chapter headings One of them is called the first law And I was like, oh man All right is it's the first law is obviously quite central essential ish to the story this can't concept about magic And about rules generally, you know, there are some lines you can't cross but fundamentally Baez doesn't give a shit if I hear that And you know more guidelines than actual more guidelines This big speech at the end where he says, you know I don't care And power makes all things right Might make more in my last and so that's kind of the summing up of his his morality or indeed his total a morality You know, he stands above everything and I just don't care whatever I do is correct because I'm the last authority And so that's really what the first law is Yeah, I did always enjoy the I say did always enjoy. I mean just when I whenever I'm reading the books again The the sort of conversations that I feel like other fantasy books will have here are the laws of magic And here's the history of magic But I think what makes it feel To me any way more real is one that there are unknowns and two that there are paradoxes built in which are called out By you know bias himself saying, you know, oh, but you know The law itself is a paradox because all magic comes from the other side so the way that I mean in the real world a lot of Things like that have built in paradoxes that people get to debate So yeah, was that intentional? It's always hard to kind of pull out now From it what is intentional and what just happened is it as I was going because obviously They've been around a while. I mean the start right in these books 20 years ago if you can believe that. Oh my god the horror Well, I've never called us but It started right on 20 years ago and they've been out for 15 years that they themselves has And so there's been quite a lot of water under the bridge since then and a lot of people have talked about it and I've read a lot of things people have said and You start to then Yeah, I always meant to do that Yeah, you know people say oh, well, I have a problem. He's just commenting on this and saying this very clever And I'm like, oh, yeah, it's what I'm doing. I am very clever I must not say and uh, I don't know. I just set out to write a fantasy story You know my version of the rings like I was saying earlier And in a way, this is just what happened As a result of doing that if you wrote your laws of magic and then you sat and realized actually these don't make sense But it's fine. I'll just make them be a paradox I wanted them to be vague and weird because things are vague and weird in life Um, and I wanted it to feel I think right from the start I wanted it to feel unheroic and kind of believable I wanted the world to feel random and arbitrary and and kind of unpleasant and to not favor the heroes or the heroics you know and so The way magic worked was was part of that and I wanted the magic to feel unknowable and and kind of You know impossible to fully understand So I suppose it just grew out of that really that was just the way that it Seemed to be the way that seemed to feel right No, I mean again I just this isn't a question just a compliment that I love when magic does come up, which is not often I mean it's used sparingly and when it comes up, it's not like oh, wow Look at this magic spell that made the impossible possible. It's usually a moment of It's deeply unsettling and everyone's like, please never do that again. That wasn't natural. That wasn't right The sense of like the otherness of magic that is clearly messing with the natural order of things As opposed to being like wow, I made this pen levitate with my wand like Yeah Yeah, no, and I what that's generally how I Like magic or you know that always makes sense to me. I want it to feel alien and kind of unknowable and a bit a bit terrifying Well, it certainly does feel that way The first last so mission accomplished um uh So we've kind of talked about sexism a bit But so it just in general, you know, you have characters that including sexism or misogyny They just generally have reprehensible behaviors or thoughts or world views and as a person who I hope Doesn't hold those views What do you do to sort of get in that headspace? And not because they're not caricatures. So you have to sort of think like they do How um I don't know really. I suppose you just try and put yourself in the shoes of the person but then you know a lot of the views are Far from beyond the pale, you know, the views you hear their views that you know politicians present And their views that a lot of people have Um, and perhaps over the last few years they've become You know a bit more common a bit more commonly expressed. Although, you know, obviously It's kind of thing you heard a lot when I was a kid as well. So it's not as though it's ever gone away It's always been there. So I don't think you have to reach too far to kind of Grip why people might think a certain way and I think as well You know when you tackle those things you have to ask You know clearly it makes sense for people You might find them unpleasant But it makes a kind of sense for someone people don't do things because it's shitty And because it's nasty and because they're they're horrible They do things because it makes sense to them.  It doesn't help anyone doesn't kind of get at anything so you need to You need to try and you know, make it believable make it kind of come from Some sort of thought process that makes sense. I suppose Do you ever worry when you're writing and therefore attempt to purposely mitigate it in the text like that people will think that you think what your characters Think or do you just sort of like write it and then if they think that then let them think I read a I read a review once which has stuck in my mind, you know, as some of the ones who read very very early on do You know, and it was something along the line. So it was a one-star review of the blade itself And it's something along the lines of early on in this book one of the characters thinks to himself I couldn't be seen with a fat girl on my arm As a fat person I found myself deeply offended by this I mean, so there will always be people who you know Think everything the people who think everything. I mean, you can't believe the stuff that people say I mean, I got I got hammered by one guy because of the modest depiction of periods In one of the shattered secrets This is a guy as well of course In his review literally went through along the lines of I am outraged by the modest depiction of periods. My daughters would be very upset if they Actually, one of my questions was about uh, savine's various womanly troubles and so being a male writer What did you do to research to make that also very believable and realistic? um I don't I mean It's not rocket science. I don't think you know, it's uh, you'd be surprised though by how inaccurate I mean, I feel like there's a fantasy books where, you know a woman's character She's just thinking about her own breasts all the time and you're like what woman goes around thinking about her own breasts all the time Yeah, the rest is boobily down the stairs. They say that me I don't know.  I mean the same Discipline as with other stuff And I suppose, you know periods are a routine part of female experience generally lot lot of women have You know very painful periods very difficult periods, especially different times in their lives Just part of the experience, you know, uh in the same way as Going to the toilet Is is something that I spend quite a lot of time on in my books because it's something people do spend quite a lot of time doing One way or another and especially in kind of the medieval You know here of medicine people would develop all kinds of problems with these things that would be very hard to solve They're very easily solved these days Um, so you know that and childbirth and things.   Well, it's actually I had a question about your how do you get further the plot? That's one they'll always be saying the the point about sex scenes. They don't further the plot Like what? What what does that even mean? What does that mean isn't further the plot? I mean, this is like the some of the most vital and important moments in someone's life And it's not of interest just all I guess if they're not a character driven reader If they're entirely a plot driven reader, then I suppose this is wasting time This quest is not progressing because they're stopping But then, you know, surely the relationships between the people are The absolute essence of anything that's happening. I agree and Violent or a violent scene or action of some kind is just one sort of a set of relationships that are going on and so you know sex and romance are like one whole huge half of Most people's experience in life So it's the sort of say that whole experience. Why are you boring me with half of life?  I challenge them to find a more interesting sex scene, but Exactly But I mean on that topic so like having Violence in books be sort of grim and realistic I mean Happen to think that you're the best in the biz but that's something that is found in other books But the grim darkly realistic sex scenes is sort of I have never seen anyone else do that Was that something you knew you wanted to do and then once you decided to do that? How did you approach doing that? Not necessarily right from the start. I suppose I did very much want to take the kind of gritty honest Look at fantasy staples in a way And Tolkien skipped over that entirely Exactly He did and you know definitely to apply that to violence and so the blade itself, you know Has lots of violence of that kind, but it doesn't really have any sex in it because I don't know I didn't get to that point in the story or maybe I was nervous about what my grandad would think or something I'm not sure. I can't remember It's not until the second book. I really you know Got As far as doing a sex scene, but when I reached that point. I felt like well You know, you've got to take the same unflinching Look at it With the sex as you do with the violence and just approach the scene the same way in the character's head blow by blow You know what is going on and make it kind of as honest and Believeful as you could and not make it this kind of shiny transformative heroic thing that you know You sometimes getting fancy Down by the moonlit river where you know, nothing will ever be the same between these promised people As it was before and so, you know, I've just tried to take that approach Throughout whenever it's come up um And indeed the age of man that sounds actually quite a lot of sex in here compared to Other things that I've done a little hatred, especially it's like guys just constant sex Well, you have more ladies around so You know Yeah, yeah, you know, I can do that. I'll have a go Um, you just mentioned your grandad, but I'm curious about your kids reading first law. How do you feel about that? Well, I mean chance would be a fine thing if they showed any interest in me or anything that I do then that would be lovely Double-edged sword they show interest and then now they're they're picking it up Well, I'm fine. I'm you know, absolutely. They should understand what life is all about As far as I'm concerned they So my oldest is 14 nearly 15 and she's read Uh the shattered sea ones Um The others just haven't really got round to it, but you know, if they wanted to read them So my son's 10 you know, I think I wouldn't discourage him, but I just don't think he would be interested Ever or this age But I hope that one day they'll read them or some of them Certainly at this age, but you know, they can read him when they want to read him. It's up to them really I wouldn't try to either Encourage them or stop them from doing it You know, it's it's lively dinner conversations I do the conversations are pretty filthy anyway. I wouldn't worry too much about that. They're not going to do anything. They don't know already See a whole new side to dad Well, maybe maybe or maybe they'd just be like, yeah, well, you know, pretty much what I was expecting You kind of mentioned this before just about sort of the Northmen being natural But specifically the names of the Northmen Some of them we get back stories for them Not all but do you have back stories in your mind for all the names even if we don't ever see that? No, I barely have front stories for most of it So where do the names come from? Well Sometimes are there things that I see around the place Sometimes they're just words that get put together in a sentence by somebody and I'll be like, oh, those two get with the work together I mean downside There's a school called downside school not far from as we drive past it all the time and So I saw the sign I was like downside I thought I'd use that one and then often you'll pick the name and then you'll apply the name to the character and that'll suggest a certain something about them So the character dictates the name and the name dictates the character sometimes, you know, they work And sometimes they just work but also you want to as you're saying earlier about things not quite Always working and you know not being simple rules You know some Northman don't have a name like that So but thought is just called but thought Because in real life people do Have weird names some footballers just are known by some weird nickname That's just how it is others are called Jim Doyle or whatever You know names are weird and all sorts of people have all kinds of different names So sometimes they just kind of come up and they work and They're suggested by the type of character You know three trees suggests Steady solidity You know and so it works for that character and uh Yeah, they're just I don't know where they always I don't always know where they come from and often I hear things on the You know, I'll be watching tv and someone will have a certain Kind of name or a certain shape to their name and I think that sounds good I'll change one element a bit or another to retain the rhythm and the kind of feel So I'm always on the lookout for new ones. Sometimes you'll use one In haste and then you'll think I don't know. That's not so good You'll think of another that works better and that gives you a whole new kind of outlook on a character So very important. I mean I find them to be Really brilliant value in terms of world building Because there's nothing more boring for me than lengthy expositions about World and history and culture and stuff, but if you can get across a sense of the culture Very kind of economically through the names or just through the way they talk or the sayings they use then that can just be a really elegant way of of getting the job done I find No, I mean just saying the name joe doesn't tell you a whole lot about the person but three trees or the dog man You already have an image Yeah Absolutely and and I think that worked well and then you get to one like stranger come knocking so It's just just really good and I don't know why it's particularly good There's no story for that one where you came up with stranger come knocking No, I don't even remember where someone knocked on your door and Maybe it was something like that I mean I I don't know exactly where it came from but You know, some people go, oh, I love ragnar blood axe. It's so cool sounding And I always find those sort of things really weak You know, I want it to sound Evocative like what what does that mean? What is it about same with titles on the books? You know I want them to ask a question Well, I love the the quotes that they're pulled from at least for the trilogy the original trilogy Yeah, exactly. So, you know that It's a fragment of something it asks a question When you know what it's drawn from That's part of the answer, but there's more to think about and likewise with the With the name, you know What a stranger come knocking me. Where does it come from? How did he get it? It's all these questions that are just there Naturally, I find that much more interesting than ragnar blood axe myself Now you have to write a short story about ragnar blood axe You know I assume the answer is pretty similar for things like the sayings they have like back to the mud or ferro with her Fucking pink or things like that just kind of generally, they're just things that happened while I was writing As a one-off not with any intention of doing anything particularly clever with it And then as I'm revising I think oh, that's a good one And then I start using it again, and then it sort becomes a Thing then For the characters to kind of have mantras is that the same to where they said it maybe once and then in revision You're like, what if they said it a whole bunch? Well, exactly. Yeah, I mean or something like say one thing for loganine thing to say you know that was just One thing that came up while just piddling around with the chapters and try to develop his voice And then once I've done it once I was like, oh you could do that again and then of course it becomes a kind of thing that Is a is a running joke you can mess with and redo and reuse endlessly and and you know, I Enjoy that a lot. Everyone has those things. I think a lot people do those repeated ways of Expressing themselves that sort of tap into a repeated way of thinking about the world and So, yeah, they just always worked nicely and I always try and find Phrase or some phrases that you know help to sum a character up, but then others, you know, you wouldn't it wouldn't really work So Savine say It wouldn't work if she was endlessly Doing mantras to herself because it's just not she's too calculating and everything that she does for just you calculating and structured in her thinking You know, I don't think it would it wouldn't help or add For her so it all depends on the character Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I do have some spoilery questions, but quickly before I ask those spoilery questions Would you ever try your hand at writing sci-fi? I doubt it just because I don't feel passionate about it You know, I like sci-fi for sure, you know, there's plenty of sci-fi things that I either enjoy, but it's not really my Thing So if you keep modernizing first law eventually we're gonna have by as in space I suppose you might do I could find ways to avoid that. I'm sure, you know, I can easily take the whole world back to stone age like that no problems Very spoilery for I mean some of these questions are I think the question is spoilery and some I think that the answer will necessitate spoilers Okay But so this is a big spoiler for wisdom of crowds. So if anyone hasn't read wisdom of crowds, you need to look away now Um, did you know at the outset that orso would die and if so, could you not have made him less likeable? Yes, I did know I mean I wasn't absolutely sure because you sort of find your way there But I think it's pretty clear that his first chapters calls A little public hanging and the last one is called a little private hanging I mean the hanging thing he starts at his first words are hey hangings, right?  So Yeah, you would never choose to make them less Likeable in that sense less funny less interesting less appealing I mean they might do horrible things for reasons that hopefully You know make sense But then You also want to have an impact, right?  It is the other chiefs nothing So Yeah, I mean you want him to be likeable all the way through and then I mean, I didn't feel much when stour died I was I supposed to feel something We've not been in his head True, you know, I'd like to think you probably feel something when leo's mounting the scaffold in in um trouble with peace I mean not as much as or so because leo is not as Great a character as or so. Well, he's well written, but I mean, I don't personally have great affection for him Yeah, well, you know some things are more successful than others And this is kind of the biggest the biggest moment of the book, right? So it's right that it should land Oh, it landed It worked, right? So why are you telling me that I should have done something different? Because you broke my heart I'm not here for True, it's true I just I sort of felt like or so is the closest that we've ever had to kind of a good guy doing Good things for the purpose of being good like is More so than I don't I don't know that I totally more so than a lot of other characters also more so I think No, I mean, I think there's other there's other good characters around I think temple and shy of both good characters I think I'm racking my brains now I think most of the cast of age of madness are pretty good rick is pretty Gets it gets a little bit hard because she has to but I think she's pretty Good hard also doesn't fucking achieve anything No, but I feel like his motivations tend to be At least seemed to me less selfish where he's already very pampered He doesn't really need to do anything for his own ambition. So he's sort of like, well, I should be a good king, right? I should do the net good. I shouldn't kill these people, right? That's not a good thing to do, right? So that tends to be sort of his mindset and then when he died I was like, well, he was too good for this world He should have been more cutthroat but I think that's A question I'm always interested in, you know, is motivation important or are results so If you look at someone like Aragorn He's heroic in every sense. He has heroic motives He does heroic things He avoids unheroic things and he achieves heroic outcomes, right? So he's heroic in every way You look at someone like Gost He's heroic on the battlefield. He's as hero hero as they come, right?  Yeah, reading the heroes is Quite a peek behind the curtain. The outcomes are awful, right? So What is he heroic or isn't he likewise also, you know, yeah, I mean he's got you've got great motives, but he doesn't really He doesn't achieve much In the end what are the outcomes? He sort of did this and admittedly that's He's partly stuck with that But is he then better than Savine who is awful? And does lots of horrible things But achieved something see that's the thing that you did you made us root for incest in a perfect world Savina Norse though would rule together and everything would be wonderful You'd have all the all the good there. You'd have the actual calculating effectiveness and the pleasant Did you uh That was the sort of another one of my questions then about the incest like did you know when you started writing this That they were gonna like be romantically involved and then were you sure that you were going to have them find out Uh, why this is no good or did that come later? Um, I suppose it must have been reasonably early on because once you start thinking who the central character is going to be And obviously you've got you know, you've got that complicated history with the parents So as soon as you've decided made the choice to have those As two of your central characters, then it's a possibility that I couldn't I just couldn't help myself Did you ever consider having them not ever find out? No, because The finding out is drama, right?  You got true In the specter and I mean in that particular case, it's kind of the engine of a lot of what happens Yeah That relationship and the fact it blows up in their faces. I mean that kind of is what Causes Savine to do a lot of what she does so It's inextricable from the whole shape of the plot. I would say Well, certainly the way it is now, but you know an early draft might have gone differently Well, it could be anything. That's the thing how you think anything could happen in an early draft Was there ever a time when you were considering minking Glocked as kid a boy and not a daughter Not I don't remember that as a Option so I guess no it's always going to be that's my girl Yeah, I think so And funnily enough I'd read a lot of people or not a lot of people I think I Lodges vaguely in my mind that someone had been talking about What Glocker and RDSun would be like I thought that's why the presumptuous of you So it might be that with the seed for doing the opposite. I don't know purely reactionary Purely reactionary. I mean occasionally I do, you know, it's a question I often ask myself these days what if this character was you know the other gender or Was old instead of young or those kind of things because I try to Having had that experience if you know just rather unthinkingly making everyone the same I do see if there's anything to be gained by You know changing people around Switching them in and out see what happens. I think yeah, it had always been planned to be a daughter I suppose there was a Having made this very patriarchal world There's this question of What sort of woman can make that kind of impact When it's so difficult you know, you need Certain almost superhuman characteristics like Monza has. Monza is a bit of a cheat really because she's kind of super humanly stubborn and persistent and I can't imagine Jez Al's daughter She'd be like or so Well, yeah, maybe exactly so, you know, but Glocker and RDS daughter Feels like someone who could You know take the world by the Savine is a great argument for nurture over nature since really she is Jez Al's daughter. So Well, then I mean, I don't think that's there's that much of a question in my mind about nature and nurture. It's pretty much It's 80% nurture. I would have thought She just gets her good looks from Jez Al Good looks from Jez Al, but you know killer instinct from RDS. Maybe I don't know Yeah, and then trained up by Glock to can't ask for better than that Exactly Um, did you know when you started writing the new trilogy that the the master puppeteer behind everything would be Glock to I'd had that idea for some time and I think when I was first developing it, I was thinking about what the kind of end game of it would be And that seemed to be the best mirror for the first book the first trilogy that sort of underlined the theme if you like and I suppose the crux of it is when Savine says to him, you know You you beat Beas so you could become Beas, you know, and that is sort of the point The only way to beat him is to become him. There'll always be someone who has to Be behind the scenes you can change the person but the structure remains so Yeah, that was kind of the The essence of it and in fact, you know the the scene where um Beas has kind of revealed to Glock to to be the guy behind it or he sits at a chess board He Glock to comes home to his flat and he finds Beas sitting at the chess board ready to tell him what's going on And similarly Vic is brought to her Place of residence to find Glock to there at the chess board ready to tell her what's going on and a lot of the lines are the same or kind of mirror images of each other So it was kind of very consciously on my mind that that would be the way it Worked Vic obviously makes the opposite decision to Glock to she decides She doesn't want any of that But yeah, it was definitely from early on the the central idea Well, I like seeing Glock to back. So he's my My favorite character, but my second favorite character probably is shivers Which happened over time and I'm curious if when you first wrote young call shivers just popping up in the first autology Did you have any inkling that this character would? grow into No, not at all um Or not really. I mean I I guess it was kind of a reasonably important secondary character reasonably What he represents to Logan anyway Yeah, I mean because he kind of you know, I needed a traitor on the I needed someone to come over from Bethod side for various reasons and so that was sort of important But also the history of Logan obviously was was important and then you know, he played his part in In the original trilogy and so then when Besseff Cole happened it was the case of you know Who's left on the shelf that I could Insert into this story and he fit the bill there and it was really just a case of with each story that came up he kind of Fitted the bill to be in it and likewise again with this one. So it's not as though. I kind of said oh, I need some central thread to a proposed ongoing set of many books I will Introduce him here. It was just you know each time he's And his place on the page kind of thing So that's why he's there. There are others who've sort of been you know, like pike is one who has been around As well in everywhere that guy In one form or another so there are a few sort of Threaded through one way or another which I like and it's sort of funny how shivers I think he makes he explains his name as being something to do with like striking fear And people's hearts even though the back story is not but it's it came true I mean shivers by the time you're in wisdom of crowds as soon as he shows up on the page People are all that shivers Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, he's been through quite a Tumultuous set of changes over the years become quite mellow in his old age. I like to think Yeah, yeah, no, I am always excited to see shivers when he pops up on the page Especially with ricka, which is an adorable family unit Yeah, and isn't as well. Obviously. I think You know isn't there's always been a quite a winner even from a first appearance in Last time went to kings and which turns up as a little girl and you know, that was that was quite a winner Then so I can remember in a couple of actually I had planned for her to be in the heroes But I can't remember exactly why She didn't appear I can't remember why but she didn't anyway And so it felt like now is the right time to bring her in. It's funny. She'd have been Rickers age in the heroes probably so it would have been a very different character And obviously in a kind of 30s or whatever by the time of age of madness, so They're slightly different dynamic, but they're a great unit between the three of them Yeah, I love reading about them. But I mean sort of speaking of I mean is certain it plays a big part in the long eye And that we had heard obviously about the long eye and and things like that earlier but not very much so bringing in this kind of almost Not new but really new to the central story form of magic Was that like, I don't know. Did you already know you wanted to sort of really develop this sort of prophetic kind of Magic and then use that to kind of give foreshadowing and privacy for the whole series or did that come later? I can't remember I should have a better answer than that. I'm not I'm not sure again. It's always difficult to remember when different elements kind of get introduced because A lot of the planning is sort of very for me is I just splat stuff down on a piece of paper And think about stuff. It's not very It's not very coherent And then you know, I'll start writing and then when I finished a draft I rewrite and rethink and and try and pull it all together so I mean, obviously by the time I started the draft and the first chapter is here waking up from having this vision so that was obviously pretty Foundational very early on that was what I wanted with her character. But exactly how it worked I suppose I fiddled with as time went on I mean, uh, it kind of It's a tricky thing to play with because you're having to give things away In order to have these things that people expect to come to fruition, but Not exactly. So it's how much and how little Yeah as there is If you ever want to surprise people, you know, I mean It's interesting rica Part of the problem with her is she starts very young and naive And you're completely in her head and on her side But then it's necessary to create this distance In order for her to surprise the reader and basically not tell you what the plan is Right, which is kind of cheating in a way It's kind of not cheating, but it kind of is cheating When you when you have to do that It does create this like distance. So she becomes a bit more closed off and difficult to like I think You don't have that problem with some of the other characters And I think one thing that makes also very appealing is that, you know, he's just He has no secrets from the reader because it's not really He doesn't have a plan so He's easy to like but He doesn't achieve much plot wise for the writer You know, and there's a lot of characters that are similar to that um That are very easy to write and work very well on the page, but don't do the heavy lifting You know the characters that do the heavy lifting and move the plot along likes a veen are often harder alike You know, they're not fan favorites in the same way But they're kind of more important as far as the Making the story work go Well, you mentioned earlier that people suggest that sex scenes mean that the plot isn't moving forward and also has a lot of sex So are you saying that it's true because or so has a lot of sex. He's not moving the plot forward I just boring Yeah, I don't know Maybe maybe that maybe it's I do you see I just think Sex can entirely be moving the plot forward. It can entirely be Because I was saying, you know the relationship between also means if he knows I was a lot of sex and she's obviously moving the plot forward Well, exactly. Yeah Yeah And I think they're both, you know, they're both on the sex they're having together is moving both of their archport and the plot too It's a deep concern to the reader It's achieving multiple things Yeah, very true. Um someone that I kind of thought might pop up and didn't so I'm curious if they ever will pop up again Is pharaoh? No, yes, she can ever come back to the story. I don't know As I say, you know, if it feels like they they belong um and the The moment just hasn't really quite come Where I felt like it was the right way to go I mean, where would she be in in in the age of madness? I don't know. You're the master story teller Well, I could I could wedge her in there if if I really answered I mean if you need an ally against bias I feel like she'd always sign up for that I feel like she's a bit of a she's just not one to draw into a complex scheme, you know A smoking ruin definition of a wild card Very true. Very true So who knows maybe she'll turn up again at some point. It just depends whether it feels like the moment has come I guess Um, did you have a favorite among the new characters that was your favorite to write and were they your favorite from the beginning or they became your favorite? I don't think I had one particular favorite. I mean, there are times when you like them and times when they when you're struggling with them um And some are harder work than others for that kind of reason that specified that they've got to do more of the work so, you know Savine has to move the plot along and that requires That her motivations make sense And that's not always easy to do You know, so she has to do things and there have to be reasons why she does things also can just blunder from one mess to another So, you know, you don't have to really worry about how do you end up in this position? Why isn't he doing something else? You know, then Leo is difficult because He has to Move a long way You know, but the seeds of his final self have to be there in his earlier self and that has to kind of be consistent Oh, that that's like tough to do tough to manage um whereas someone like clover just kind of is Has to sit and be And just be around stuff and comment. He's like a chorus So that was one of my questions. Did you kind of know that clover would be kind of the last man standing? Funny enough. He was the last character added He was a late addition. So i'd written the whole first part and At that point Savine had an internal monologue like locta Didn't work took it out um And It was lacking that earthy northern voice a little bit Which you know is something that generally I find quite natural and I do reasonably well, I feel so um I put him in for that reason and to kind of be a point of view on The other start the other side of what's going on the north so He was a late addition, but then having done that then yeah, it seemed natural to bring him back to where Logan kind of started So again, his last chapter is kind of very consciously echoes one of the early ones of Of Logan meeting Bayard's it's the same a lot of the language is the same a lot of the setups the same You said he brings the northern voice But just to me the character he most reminded me of was Koska sort of bringing that lazy wild card Yeah, I mean That's been there done that kind of uh the wisdom of avoiding a fight. I think he and Koska would agree Yeah, he's sort of a bit of a northern Koska. That's true. There's some similar Yeah, and I do love Koska. I kind of refer to Koska as the Jack Sparrow for the first law. Yeah, that's probably fair Always drunk don't never know what he's up to Yeah, no, exactly. He was always good to write Koska. Good fun Um, was there anyone from the previous books that you were originally putting in the new trilogy and then you cut them? No, I don't think there was Um Because usually You've decided you want a character You know a character's their server purpose and If you can use an old one then why not so I don't think I don't remember removing anyone consciously But then I rarely remove characters anyway once they're in you know, if they've got in they tend to be in for a reason Well, I thought you might have a camey. I mean we had had cameos like investor of cold You know, we have a moment like where we see Giselle pop up and we get references to old sticks and Speaking of I thought we'd see more of Japo and wisdom of crowds, but we didn't Yeah Yeah, I mean that was perhaps, you know I felt like it was necessary to go to stereo a bit and and to get a little Flesh and owl what was going on there and just some variety of setting um And to keep that ball in the air but Yeah, it didn't it didn't necessarily likewise reshanked, you know shanked people are always going oh And then he didn't I like not necessarily give people what they say they want Yeah So I'm not that you have to say what but I mean, I assume you plan to write first law Something in the future. So unless you want to say do you have in mind kind of already? Where or what or who it would be about not really? um No, not really. I mean not concrete enough that I There's any point going on the record because it just won't be that But yeah, I mean, I think there will it probably be standalone another three standalone. I think if I if I did Do it again. Oh, you know, maybe one at a time. We'll see Uh a standalone Let's say that and then you know, I suppose Looking into the far future. Maybe I'll do another trilogy after that And then three more stand-alones and then another trilogy and then exactly There's some short stories in there There's many many books available still to do But you're currently working on something else or about to work on something else Yeah, working on something else. I've been for a while halfway through draft bit of a mess I'm sure it'll be good. I'm sure it'll be great Is it Is it a trilogy as well that you may imagine it's not a one book which could mushroom into more I suppose the uh The aim was to do, you know A series that is like a detective series not in that it is anything to do with detectives But in that it has a kind of recurrent cast to Tackle the different thing each time um And you can just keep adding them without necessarily committing to Lengthy series or not If you know what I mean That was sort of the deal episodic Yeah, you know, you know like Like a detective has a new case each book This will have a new problem to solve I did like the sort of detective investigatory Type of plot we got with glock done best then uh before they were hanged so Yes, if it's anything like that Well, you never know. I don't think it will be much like that If I'm honest, it's about a kind of group of monsters um It's about here goes the weird pitch. It's about a group of monsters who are employed by the pope to solve the problems that require monsters to solve You know like a suicide squad but from the Vatican Actually, that's not a million miles away That's a pretty good way of putting it It's the Vatican suicide squad Only it's not the Vatican and the pope is a 10 year old girl other than that Very pretty close All right, sounds just like reality Yeah, it's it's kind of weird, but you know, it'll be great. I'm sure would it be set in our You know, I might say not our real world because we don't have those monsters But I mean a magical version of our reality or a whole different world I kind of really messed up version of our world that requires minimal research. Yeah Are these monsters sort of of your own invention or or inspired by no, they're absolutely the classics vampire a werewolf a magician Yeah, who makes corpses dance an elf? Uh, a knight who was cursed by witch and can't be killed perfect No hobbits No hobbits trademarked Oh, otherwise No hobbits Hobbits is the one thing I'm not going there Well, I'm very excited to read anything you write so and that does but that also just also sounds pretty good Thank you.  It's writing writing it. Well, that's the issue I don't think if it's the way you describe it. I don't think anyone could accuse you of just doing first law again That sounds very different.  So monsters from the vatican I don't know a sort of research I mean books about saints and books about relics and you know all sorts of whatever seem as appropriate Yeah, are you trying to avoid being hyper relevant and accidentally foretelling the future?  So Probably be there'll be some huge catholic church Yeah, kind of the scandals will blow up just as I'm ready to release this and then What timely commentary you have made I don't know. We'll see Yeah, well sounds good to me Well, thank you so very much for speaking to me for quite some time today Absolutely. No, it's been a real pleasure. Thanks for the questions. It's been fun to do Always without myself Did I ask anything that has have never been asked before? I think generally. Yeah.  So yeah, it was good It's good to talk about some That's true or not. I appreciate the lie Oh, yeah, no As long as the lies are appreciated Yeah, so thanks again and uh, best of luck with everything that is an isn't first law Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure to talk and maybe again sometime we shall do this any time