Six Questions for Ari Marmell (Gollancz)

A quick interview with the author of The Conqueror’s Shadow:

1. How did you come up with the idea for Conqueror’s Shadow? Who would you say is the biggest influence on your work?

The very earliest kernel of the idea was just one of those random thoughts that strikes out of nowhere: I was having lunch with my wife, and I just sort of came out with “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to have a fantasy novel where the ‘hero’ is a retired evil warlord who has to come back to stop someone even worse?”

Really, the genesis was just that basic. Obviously, the concepts of the novel grew and evolved well beyond that – for instance, my decision to take the opportunity to take many classic fantasy tropes and twist them throughout the book came later, and was much more deliberate – but the core just sort of dawned on me.

As for my biggest influence? While there are several, if I had to pick one, I’d say probably Steven Brust. Specifically, his Vlad Taltos novels.

2. You’ve been writing and developing fantasy products for a long time, from Dungeons & Dragons to White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade; what made you decide to finally create your own fantasy world, and how did you find that process?

The truth is, while I’ve been publishing mostly role-playing game materials for most of my career, my actual writing happened the other way around. I wrote five full-length original novels before I ever wrote a single word for the games (though I’d been playing the games for years). The first three of those novels were, to put it kindly, a learning experience, and are utterly unsalvageable. The other two, after massive rewriting, became The Conqueror’s Shadow and The Goblin Corps.

But at the time, I wasn’t having any luck getting my fiction published (in part, I’ll admit, because I wasn’t good enough yet). So when the opportunity came to write for RPGs, which were also a passion of mine, I jumped on it. As I said, though, the original stuff actually came first.

As to what made me decide to start shifting focus once more from RPGs to fiction? Simply the fact that I’m finally having some success with the latter. It’s always been my ultimate goal. (I don’t see myself abandoning the RPG stuff any time soon, though. It just won’t be as much of a focus as the fiction.)

3. What can we expect from your upcoming novels, The Warlord’s Legacy (the sequel to Conqueror’s Shadow) and The Goblin Corps?

The Warlord’s Legacy picks up six years after TCS, with things having not even remotely gone the way one might expect from the ending of the first book. I think it’s a more mature novel; not necessarily a better book, but better written. (At least, it feels that way to me, and I hope it is.) While there are some far-reaching ramifications of what’s happening, it is, in a way, a somewhat more personal story for the protagonists than TCS. (This despite the fact that it’s a threat to his family that brings Corvis Rebaine
out of retirement in the first book.) I can’t really say more than that without spoilers, but I’ll admit that I’m very much looking forward to seeing how fans of the first book react to the second.

I did, incidentally, do my best to make TWL stand alone. It’s better if you’ve also read TCS – you’ll have a more emotional connection to the characters – but I’ve had several people read TWL first and tell me they didn’t feel like they were at all confused or missing important details.

The Goblin Corps is something of a different beast. It’s completely unrelated to my other novels – different setting, different tone – and it’s rather more exaggerated. What I mean by that is, anyone who’s read any of my prior novels knows that I enjoy the juxtaposition of sarcastic humor and bloody violence. TGC takes both of those to an extreme. It’s both funnier and gorier than TCS, and while TCS focused on a very dark anti-hero, TGC actually focuses on the villains. They’re not “dark good guys”, they’re not looking for redemption; they’re the bad guys, and unapologetic about it.

Basically, take your typical almost Tolkien-esque epic fantasy. Then turn it around, so you’re telling a tale about what’s happening to the villains during these events, rather than the heroes. Then flavor the resulting story with a dollop of Quentin Tarantino and a tiny sprinkling of Sam Raimi.

4. How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Frustrations, pleasant surprises, different processes depending on genre, etc.?

Well, I really enjoy working from home, for one thing. The dress code is pretty relaxed, and the hours are flexible.

Honestly? It has its ups and downs. Income is far from steady, there are no benefits, and a huge amount of my time is spent waiting and hoping. I don’t have access to nearly as much information as I’d like – in terms of sales, marketing, audience, etc. – and I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. There’s a lot of frustration, a lot of waiting, a lot of worrying.

But I’ve also gotten to meet and work with some truly fantastic people, including several who I now count among my very close friends. More importantly, I love what I do, and I truly can’t imagine doing anything else.

So far, there’s not a huge difference in terms of genre. Obviously, when I work on tie-in materials, there’s more creative control from above, but since I developed my career doing freelance work, I usually find that pretty easy to work with. And while it’s important for any given book to have only one hand actually at the rudder, I’ve found that the collaborative process can actually produce some pretty cool results.

5. What else do you have in the pipeline?

Well, I can’t go into too much detail, but I can say this much. In addition to The Goblin Corps, I’ll be publishing another novel through Pyr Books. It’s currently untitled, but it’s a fantasy set in a culture somewhat reminiscent of Renaissance France. It’s actually my first young adult novel, but it should prove perfectly accessible to my older fans as well.

My agent is currently shopping my first urban fantasy novel. (That is, modern or near-modern fantasy. Near-modern, in my case.) I obviously can’t talk about it until it sells, but I have really high hopes for it. I feel it’s one of my best books to date, if not the best.

And I’ll be doing some more tie-in novels in the future as well, though again, I can’t yet talk about what or for whom, I’m afraid.

Beyond those? Dunno. I have a whole heap of ideas, but which one(s) I go with really depends on how everything else turns out. (I wouldn’t mind going back to the setting/characters of The Conqueror’s Shadow and The Warlord’s Legacy, if the opportunity arises. But to be perfectly blunt, that’s all a question of sales, now, whether it happens or not.)

6. Who are you reading at the moment (fiction and/or non-fiction), and which books of 2011 are you most looking forward to?

I’m right in the midst of James Lovegrove’s Age of Zeus at the moment. I recently read Gary Corby’s The Pericles Commission and Peter Brett’s The Warded Man. Next on my list (in no particular order) are The Desert Spear (Brett again), The Wolf Age (James Enge), Shadow’s Son (Jon Sprunk), and, well, a whole mess of novels from Pyr Books.

Books I’m looking forward to? Man, there’s a lot; I’m sure I’m going to forget a bunch (and if any of my friends are on that list, I humbly apologize). Some are actually already out, but I haven’t gotten them yet. In any case, they include another heap of Pyr novels (far too many to list here), new instalments in Simon Green’s Nightside series and Drood series, Echo (Jack McDevitt), Unsympathetic Magic (Laura Resnick), Iorich (Steven Brust), Servant of the Underworld (Aliette de Bodard), the start of the Iron Druid series (Kevin Hearne)...

Man. At this rate, I’m not going to have time to write anything...

Big thank you to Ari for taking the time to answer these questions!

The Conqueror’s Shadow is out now in both the US and UK, and was reviewed on this site, here. The novel has also been nominated for the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy!

The Warlord’s Legacy will be published in the US on January 25th 2011 (Spectra/Random House), and will be published in the UK in May 2011 (Gollancz/Orion).

“The Conqueror’s Shadow”, by Ari Marmell (Gollancz)

A brilliant new fantasy, with a sense of fun and a classic feel.

They called him the Terror of the East. His past shrouded in mystery, his identity hidden behind a suit of enchanted black armour and a skull-like helm, Corvis Rebaine carved a bloody path through Imphallion, aided by Davro, a savage ogre, and Seilloah, a witch with a taste for human flesh. No shield or weapon could stop his demon-forged axe. And no magic could match the spells of his demon slave, Khanda.

Yet just when ultimate victory was in his grasp, Rebaine faltered. His plans of conquest, born from a desire to see Imphallion governed with firmness and honesty, shattered. Amid the chaos of a collapsing army, Rebaine vanished, taking only a single hostage – the young noblewoman Tyannon – to guarantee his escape.

Seventeen years later, Rebaine and Tyannon are married, living in obscurity and raising their children, a daughter and a son. Rebaine has put his past behind him, and given up his dreams of conquest. Not even news of Audriss – an upstart warlord following Rebaine’s old path of conquest – can stir the retired warrior to action.

Until his daughter is assaulted by Audriss’ goons.

Now, to rescue the country he once tried to conquer, Rebaine once more dons the armour of the Terror of the East and seeks his former allies. But Davro has become a peaceful farmer. Seilloah has no wish to leave her haunted forest home. And Khanda... well, to describe his feelings for his former master as undying hatred would be an understatement.

But even if Rebaine can convince his onetime comrades to join him, he faces a greater challenge: does he dare to reawaken the part of him that glories in cruelty, blood and destruction? With the safety of his family at stake, can he dare not to?

I’ve not got much experience reading Marmell’s work. I do know his Vampire: The Masquerade novel, Gehenna: The Final Night, which I thought was good, but I am not familiar with his roleplay output at all. Despite his success in the US, the author doesn’t appear to be too-well-known in the UK; it probably doesn’t help that I’ve yet to actually see a copy of Conqueror’s Shadow in any bookstore, despite it’s recent publication over here.

The author’s first foray into an entirely original setting, the Conqueror’s Shadow exceeded my expectations, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

The Conqueror’s Shadow is lighter in tone than much of the top fantasy output these days, despite some of the sinister and grim content. One gets the sense that Marmell wants his novel to entertain just as much as make the reader think on its themes – maybe more, and for this reason we are put in mind of early, classic fantasies. That being said, despite its classic feel, The Conqueror’s Shadow still retains a contemporary ‘grittiness’, and can sit comfortably alongside the novels of Lynch and Abercrombie, while also appealing to fans of Gemmell and Erikson. If I had to choose one of Marmell’s peers to compare him to, I would say that Scott Lynch is probably the closest in style and quality, if not content. At the same time, his world had a similar feel to that in the Fable computer game series.

The humour Marmell sprinkles throughout the novel is good – it’s made up of understated quips, sarcastic or amusing comments, observations and asides, rather than laugh-out-loud moments. It doesn’t always work (sometimes the comments fall a little flat, or come a little too close together), but rarely did I go a chapter without smiling or chuckling at a comment or snippet of dialogue. Marmell’s writing can lean towards the flamboyant or florid on occasion, but it’s easily forgiven as the pace of the story and quality of the plot and writing pulls you quickly onwards.

Marmell writes all of his characters well and realistically. His companions are well-rounded and their banter makes it easy to visualise them as a loyal, if difficult, band of warriors. The more you read, the more you will become invested in the fates of Davro, Seilloah, and you’ll even come to like Khanda. There’s an interesting twist about three-quarters of the way into the novel, wrapped around a red-herring that was satisfyingly dealt with. Audriss never comes across as clichéd or cartoonish. The author’s take on vampires, the “Eternal Legion”, is pretty sinister and an interesting, original take on the supernatural species. The relationship with Corvis and Tyannon was initially difficult to accept (it felt like an extreme example of Stockholm Syndrome), but as we get to know Rebaine it feels more plausible.

The author has a good knack for describing locations and atmosphere: his descriptions are sparse, but still evocative, allowing the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks, or the perspective of the characters to fill out our impressions. A good example is Rebaine’s walk into Theaghl-gohlatch, the (horribly “fantasy”-named) haunted forest in which he searches for a former companion. Rebaine is clearly spooked by his surroundings, with all-too-human and familiar fears and phobias creeping into his thoughts.

In general, Marmell’s characterisation is solid and very believable, and I don’t think any characters came across as contrived. The dialogue is fluid and quick, as are the author’s prose. The plot rattles along at a fair clip, which is a very good thing as this is not a short novel. I was never bored, reading this, and never felt myself starting to skim-read. Rebaine struggles with the ease with which he falls back into the role of warlord, and some of the actions he condones (sometimes without all the information) haunt him.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Conqueror’s Shadow. It is a fantasy novel that invites you in and allows you to stay for as long as like, entertaining you all the way. It was easy to sink into each time I picked it up – unfortunately, there were altogether too many other things going on while I read this – although I still managed a couple of into-the-wee-hours reading sessions, and found myself grabbing any and every opportunity to read even just a couple of pages. The characters are all well-realised, engaging and likeable, and it was fun to get to know Rebaine and his companions over the course of the novel. Marmell draws on a number of classic fantasy tropes and makes them his own – we have a band of ‘heroic’ companions, a quest to retrieve long-forgotten treasure, and also an evil marauder to slay.

Marmell maintains a sense of fantasy, wonder and fun in his novel that sets it apart from many of his contemporaries. This is a great fantasy novel and getting inside the mind of a former-marauder, and one who is all too familiarly human, is a welcome premise.

Very highly recommended, The Conqueror’s Shadow is an absolute pleasure to read, and offers an alternative to the more ‘gritty’ fantasy output that dominates at the moment (not that there’s anything wrong with this type of fantasy). I really can’t wait for The Warlord’s Legacy.

For fans of: Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, Gav Thorpe, Nathan Long, William King, David Gemmell, KJ Parker, Graham McNeill, Col Buchanan

The Warlord’s Legacy is is published in the US in January 2011 by Spectra, and UK in May 2011 by Gollancz.