Tempo - Steph Swainston

Note: this text is only available in Dutch translation. I am not aware of any plans to publish it in English.

In September 2016, I read Het Rad van Fortuin, the first story written by Steph Swainston of the Splinters series. Splinters are thin paperbacks published by Dutch publisher Quasis one can read in an hour or so. Most of them are written by local talent but some are translations. They are just long enough to give the reader a good impression of an author's style and talent, and evoke a sense of curiosity in the reader about the author's other work. In Swainston's case it worked quite well. Het Rad van Fortuin was the first piece I read by Swainston. Since picking it up, I read four of her novels. When I heard a second Splinter from Swainston was about to be released, I just had to go fishing for a review copy. The publisher kindly provided me with one.

In Het Rad van Fortuin, we are shown a young Jant, one of the main characters in Swainston's Castle series. For this story she chooses a different character. Saker is the immortal Archer, serving emperor San in his fight against the insects. He is scarred by battle, but perhaps even more by his turbulent love life. In this story, he looks back fifteen centuries, on his first major romance, and on the day his jealous older brother tried to put him in his place during a high stakes chariot race.

Games, in some shape or other, are a staple of fantasy. The climax of Raymond E. Feist's first novel Magician is set during elaborate gladiatorial combat, and George R.R. Martin describes jousting tournaments frequently in his ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire series. Chariot races, the subject Swainston tackles here, are also well trodden territory. In The Birthgrave, the novel that would be her breakthrough, Tannish Lee describes a particularly hazardous variety. Guy Gavriel Kay even wrote a duology massively influenced by the culture surrounding the chariot races in Byzantium.

There is a good reason chariot races keep coming back in fantasy. They make for very exciting action scenes. Tempo is no exception to that. The young Saker is a bit of a hothead and he is in love on top of that. It is easy to manipulate him into a situation where he might easily lose his life. Swainston is not just aiming for an exciting scene though. What the story really is about is accepting the consequences of immortality. The love he pursues is one with a huge social taboo attached to it. Do you want to carry that with you for eternity? Is living forever worth losing a lover over?  They are facing hard choices indeed.

Saker as the main character is the perfect choice for this story. In the books we get to see him as a bit of a tragic figure, bent by the burden of his immortality. In this story, he is young, rash, stubborn and a bit cocky. We can already see the outline of his larger than life presence in the Castle though. His tendency to get himself involved in all sorts of dramatic events is clearly present. It fits perfectly with what we know of him from the novels.

Like Het Rad van Fortuin, Tempo can be read on its own, but it clearly invites the reader to dig further into Swainston's work. The dilemma Saker faces is the centre of a nicely contained story. For the reader who is more familiar with Swainston's writing, there are plenty of details that link the story to the wider world of Castle. Given the idea behind the Splinters series, Tempo is a success. It reminded me that I really ought to dig up a copy of Above the Snowline, the only novel Swainston has published I haven't read yet.

Book Details
Title: Tempo
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Quasis
Pages: 42
Year: 2017
Language: Dutch
Translation: Jasper Polane and Pen Stewart
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-92099-26-6
First published: 2017

Fair Rebel - Steph Swainston

After a six year break, the fifth novel in Steph Swainston's Castle setting appears this month. Her previous novel, Above the Snowline (2010), is a prequel to the Castle trilogy. Fair Rebel continues the story of the trilogy. It is set some fifteen years after The Modern World (2007). Readers can pick up this novel without having read Above the Snowline. The novel reads like Swainston never really left Fourlands. It is a seamless continuation of the story and I think most readers will agree it was more than worth the wait. Swainston is clearly not done with her creation. She leaves us with a bit of a cliffhanger and the promise of a sixth novel in the making.

A decade and a half after the disastrous attempt to flood the insects out of an area of paper covered land, Castle is ready to go on the offensive again. This time with a new weapon. Gunpowder has been introduced, and with it a whole range of destructive weapons. In an attempt to gain ground on the insects, a plan is devised involving large quantities of the new explosive. Just when the trap is about to be sprung, it becomes clear that a significant portion of the gunpowder is not in the barrels it was supposed to be in. While the offensive grinds to a halt, Jant is sent out to investigate. He soon finds the trail of a conspiracy that threatens the foundations of Castle's power, and with it the worlds most powerful defence against the insects.

The novel opens with a scene that, although the technology is still a bit behind, reminded me of the western front battle fields in World War I. The use of artillery barrages and mining is very reminiscent of some of the huge battles that took place a century ago. The technological mismatch adds an element though. Fourland's armies are still in the process of figuring out the best strategies to match their new firepower, which older technology can still be applied effectively, and how to overcome the disadvantages of gunpowder and spherical musket balls. It's another example of how different levels of technology are woven into the narrative without appearing to be out of place. it is something that continually impressed me over the course of the series.

Although the opening of the novel echoes battles a century old, Fair Rebel is a book very much influenced by recent events. What Jant stumbles upon is in essence a terrorist campaign. Swainston shows us in the novel how a determined person can use the fault lines in society caused by economic inequality, discrimination and racism and tap into bottled up feelings of resentment, jealousy and hatred to unleash terrible violence. Swainston has never been easy on her characters or the bystanders that get caught in the crossfire, but this novel features some of the most brutal events in the series.

Terrorism, if the media and politicians are to be believed, is the great evil of our time. The senseless killing over political or religious differences, often including many who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time is considered an act of supreme evil. And yet, it is perpetrated be people who, despite all their misguided actions, have feelings, loved ones and dreams. Swainston could have chosen to let Jant battle a faceless evil but chooses not to do so. Instead, the main terrorist in the novel is given a point of view. We get to see their motivations and how events affect them. What Swainston does in this novel is uncomfortably close to many events occurring in the world today. Anger and violence toppling power structures without regard for the damage it causes and without a plan for what comes after. She makes it look irrational but understandable all the same.

The other side of the story is of course the temptation to go along with the hatred, fear and suspicion offered by the terrorist. It is tempting to generalize, to suspect whole segments of the population, and to deepen the rift by taking sweeping action against the terrorists. Centuries of life experience clearly does not make the immortals immune to this temptation. The spiral of suspicion, hate and violence is laid out clearly in the book. One does not have to look far in the real world to see this happening.

Swainston also continues to make us doubt the main characters. Seen from the secondary point of view, Jant is a terrible character. He is viewed with a mix of awe, fear and contempt. He has become more comfortable with his power and is ruthless when dealing with his enemies. A rather sharp contrast to the self-doubting, whining addict he can be when seen from his point of view. Emperor San himself is not free of suspicion either. At the end of The Modern World an entity known as the Vermiform accuses him of not developing Fourland's resources to their full potential and of trying to maintain a status quo with the insects. The sudden appearance of gunpowder soon after, seems to indicate that accusation stung. After facing off with the Vermiform, San doesn't seem as distantly all knowing as he did in the previous books. That Olympic quality he (and many of the immortals) started out with has tarnished. He looks like a tyrant. And, what's worse, downright vulnerable.

I did feel Swainston leaves us hanging a bit in the final chapters of the novel. While one part of the story is resolved, a rather large cliffhanger is left to deal with in the next volume. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you, Fair Rebel is a very good read. It is probably the fastest paced of the Castle novels I have read so far. It is one of those books where you just have to read the next volume to see how the story continues. After four novels, many fantasy worlds begin to feel familiar. There clearly is much more to explore in Fourlands though. I eagerly await the next novel to see what else Swainston has in store for us.

Book Details
Title: Fair Rebel
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 322
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-081697
First published: 2016

The Modern World - Steph Swainston

The Modern World (2007)  is the third volume in Steph Swainston's Castle series. It was published as Dangerous Offspring in the US. That title has a nice double meaning to it but it is also a bit of a spoiler, I think I prefer the UK title. In November a new Castle novel, Fair Rebel,  will appear that continues the story of Castle's struggle against the insects. It's probably a good thing I arrived late to this series. While the novel has a strong story arc of its own, it leaves the reader with some very interesting questions to be answered as well. Arriving late saved me a nine years wait. For those who did have to wait, the synopsis released for Fair Rebel hints at getting at least some of the answers in that book.

Castle has been on the defensive against the insects for most of the many centuries they have spent fighting them. Frost, Castle's architect, has now found a way to push them back. By constructing a large dam, a recently lost area is flooded in hopes of driving the insects out. This offensive is hailed in the media as a turning point in their struggle. A triumph of technology over the insects and the beginning of a campaign to reclaim the lost lands. Victory, so the reporters are told, is almost assured. Nobody seems to realize that flooding a large area of insect infested land is in fact a monumentally stupid thing to do. Until it is too late.

The novel opens with a fine bit of Castle propaganda and public perception is definitely a theme in this book. How the population sees Castle and the emperor himself is hugely important to the characters and playing the media is one tool in Castle's arsenal. It's one of those areas where Swainston's world is very modern, a huge contrast with its military technology. The press conference is one in a series of scenes in the novel where characters misdirect, mislead or tell bald faced lies. Lying, misleading, manipulating, -  being immortal doesn't make one a better person it would seem.

The novel has two main narrative strands. The first deals with the insects and Castle's attempt to push them back. It quickly turns into the largest military operation Fourlands has ever seen. Swainston makes sure the reader understands the enormous strain being placed on Castle and Fourlands as a whole in mounting such a huge campaign. It is such an enormous undertaking that some see it as a sign of the end of times. Especially when the emperor leaves Castle for the first time in ages. The focus is as much on what it takes to field such an army as it is on the actual fighting. The way Swainston describes just how unwieldy such a large force is, and how devastating the consequences of a wrong move can be, is impressive.

Despite my admiration for Swainston's grasp of logistics, I thought the second strand the more interesting of the two. Internal conflicts in Fourlands are a theme throughout the books and The Modern World is no exception. In this case the main source of conflict is the troubled relationship between Lightning, Castle's archer, and his mortal daughter Cyan. One has lived well over a thousand years, the other is seventeen. You can't even say it is a generational conflict, they are ages apart. It is telling that Jant, who at just over two centuries old considers himself young for an immortal, can more easily see things from Cyan's perspective than from that of one of his fellow Castle members.

Of course this connection with Cyan also tells us a bit about his character. She may have some legitimate complaints about how she is raised, that doesn't take away from the fact that she is a spoilt brat, and a rather clueless one at that. She probably appeals to Jant's rebellious streak. The eventual resolution of the conflict should make him think though. In the end his actions surprise them all. It leaves Jant with one of several complicated questions to consider at the end of the book.

Some five years have passed since the events in No Present Like Time (2005) and Jant, while still clean, is still feeling the pull of the drug he was addicted to. Swainston again shows us almost the entire novel from his perspective - one chapter is seen from Lightning's perspective - and in a few places conveys the message to the reader he is an unreliable narrator. It's a constant in these three books but what is different about The Modern World is that we get to see a number of characters very bluntly speak their mind. Jant is fairly accepting of the structure of Castle and his place in it. Perhaps even to the point of ignoring the oddities in the emperor's decisions. Sometimes an outsider perspective can be refreshing indeed.

Castle is not quite what it appears to be seems to be the message of this book. Don't believe everything you are told. Don't take things at face value. Swainston makes us question just about everything we think we know about Castle and Fourlands. There obviously is a lot more to this tale, which makes it all the more surprising that the author went on to write a prequel about Jant's early years next. You can feel Castle is at a turning point, even if it takes a while for the full impact to be felt. The Modern World deepens the reader's understanding of Fourlands and Castle in ways neither of the previous two books did. It is without a doubt my favourite of the three novels in this omnibus.

Book Details
Title: The Modern World, part three of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 302 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2007

No Present Like Time - Steph Swainston

A Dutch edition of Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune was my introduction to her writing. I decided quickly I needed to read more of her work after that, so I got a copy of the Castle trilogy. The books were originally published as individual volumes but I own the omnibus edition. I decided to review them separately rather than as one work. No Present Like Time is the second volume in the trilogy. It is set some time after the events in The Year of Our War and again follows the exploits of Jant, Messenger of the Circle. The novel was published in 2005 and was followed in 2007 by a third volume, The Modern World in the UK and Dangerous Offspring in the US, which I hope to get to later this year.

The war with the insects is far from won, but the immediate crisis Jant faced in the previous book has passed. That is not to say everything is quiet in the Castle. Infighting, bickering and challenges to positions of various members of the circle are constant pressures on the immortals. When the Castle's swordsman looses a challenge all hell breaks loose. To make matters more complicated, the Sailor has recently discovered a group of islands inhabited by a displaced population from the Fourlands. The emperor wishes to extend his influence and sends an expedition to meet with the locals. Jant is ordered along. He will have to conquer his fear of ships and the sea to make the journey. It's an experience with far reaching consequences for both Jant and the Castle.

In the previous novel, Jant was a full blown addict and the structure of the story showed that. It was basically a series of coherent snapshots in between trips. On the one hand it is a great way to express the experience of someone drawn so deeply into addiction but on the other, it made the story a bit of a ramble. At the beginning of this book, Jant is clean. He quickly slips back into dependency when he is faced with one of his biggest fears though. It's a pretty hard relapse but, despite the occasional overdose, Jant doesn't sink to the depths he reached in the first book. All of this does the narrative structure of the book a world of good. Swainston does use frequent flashbacks, but on the whole the story flows more smoothly than The Year of Our War.

The archipelago Jant visited has been out of touch with the rest of the world for some 1500 years. It has developed a peaceful society, led by a senate in a way that reminded me of the Roman republic. After such a long time, stories of insects and the emperor San are considered myths and the locals abhor the idea of one man wielding that much power. The confrontation between Castle and the islanders is comparable with what happens when a technological advanced civilization meets one that is less so. It is messy, bloody and the situation is not exactly improved when a third party decides to take advantage of the islanders' naivete.

Jant also gives us more insight into the psyche of an immortal. He thinks much on how they are ruled by fear. As we are shown in the opening scenes of the book and as the title of the book suggests, immortality is a gift that can be taken away in a moment. The pressure to keep on top of your game, and if possible to rig it in your favour is always present and to a point twists the immortals. What I found most interesting about this, and Swainston does hint at it in the book, is what happens when technology overtakes them. What good is a sailor in an age of steamships. Or a swordsman facing a gun? Or a messenger when they invent the telegraph. I wonder if Swainston is going to look into that in subsequent books. Given the level of technology in the book it is possible.

Another internal struggle for Jant is the one with his past. We get a number of flashbacks to scenes from his youth. In one of them we even find out what happened to him on the road to Castle after we leave him at the end of The Wheel of Fortune. He has, to put it mildly, had an interesting childhood. We also get a bit of backstory on how he met his current wife and why their relationship is strained at the moment. It's in this area Swainston really pushes Jant's character development. To untangle the web of dependencies, resentment and desire proves to be quite a challenge.

Between the internal struggles and the exploring being done in this book, there isn't that much happening in the centuries long war against the insects. They play a minor part in the story. In fact, we only get to see one of them. That particular specimen is destructive enough though. Jant may have brought victory a bit closer with one of his decisions towards the end of the book. The emperor doesn't appear to be pleased with his judgement though. He may even have reason to worry.

I enjoyed this second book more than the first. Where the frayed threads of Jant's life make for a bumpy ride in the first novel, this book reads a lot more smoothly. He has a bit more time to reflect on the state of the world, giving the reader a lot more insight into what is actually going on. Swainston leaves quite a lot dangling for the final volume. It has plenty of potential to be a proper climax to the series. I can see all sorts of directions in which Swainston could take the story. Swainston has not only created a fascinating world, she also keeps her readers guessing. How many fantasy novels can you think of that are truly unpredictable? I can't think of many. This sense of unpredictability is perhaps the series' greatest achievement.

Book Details
Title: No Present Like Time, part two of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 294 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2005

The Year of Our War - Steph Swainston

Earlier this year I read Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune, which has recently appeared in Dutch translation. It was my introduction to the world of Castle. While a short story can't possibly convey all the nuances of Swainston's creation, it was more than enough to convince me to try a full novel. The individual titles in the Castle trilogy are a bit hard to come by at the moment, but an omnibus edition is readily available. Besides the trilogy there is a fourth book called Above the Snowline (2010) available. A fifth novel, Fair Rebel,  is expected later this year. In an interview I did with her earlier this year, Swainston confirmed that she is working on a sixth Castle novel.

Jant is a member of the Circle, a group of immortals lead by the emperor, tasked with watching over the world until the creator returns. His role is that of the Messenger. Being the only immortal capable of flight, he uses his wings to get around the world quickly, delivering messages and reporting on what he sees. The world has come under increasing pressure from an insect invasion. Where previously they seemed content behind their wall, recently they have been pushing deeper into lands held by humanoid species. Their advance seems unstoppable and soon it becomes clear the insects won't stop until they've colonised the entire world. On top of that threat, Castle has to deal with internal conflicts as well. As the insects advance, Jant becomes ever more desperate to find a way to defeat them and restore some semblance of order in the world.

Although the author doesn't particularly care for this label, Swainston's novels have often been characterized as New Weird. Whatever you may think of that, her books  are definitely not run-of-the-mill fantasy. The world is populated by several humanoid species and interbreeding is possible. The technology level in the novel is mostly fairly modern but such things as internal combustion engines and gunpowder (or other heavy explosives) are missing. Wars therefore, are still fought with swords, pikes and crossbows and transport depends on horses and sailing ships. I had to adjust my mental image of what this world looked like several times because of this curious mix of older and modern technology.

The book is written in the first person. We see the entire story through the eyes of Jant. He is something of an anti-hero. Where in The Wheel of Fortune, set chronologically some two centuries before the bulk of The Year of Our War, Jant is just dealing drugs, by the time we meet him again, he is heavily addicted. The only thing that has saved him from an overdose is the fact that he is immortal. At times, his constant craving for his next shot makes him intensely annoying and rather pathetic. On the other hand he is well aware of what is going on in the world and, while not always completely voluntary, he does put his life on the line during the insect onslaught in more ways than most of his compatriots are aware of. He has, in other words, quite a complicated personality. Some readers might be put off by the whiny side of him and his constant worries about where his next shot will come from. I thought it was a very good bit of characterization though.

Deeply flawed yet heroic is a pattern we see with other immortals as well. Swainston portrays them as larger than life. They assume a kind of Olympic quality if you will. There is a definite parallel between Jant and Hermes in fact. The immortals' internal bickering sends shock waves through the world and ends up killing a great many people. The members of Castle are very human in some respects. Pettiness, power struggles and jealousy are part of every day life at the court of the emperor.The various currents at court adds to the complexity of the tale and gives the world more depth. Throughout the novel there are hints of the politics in the various nations as well, leaving quite a bit to be explored in further novels.

While I liked the worldbuilding and what Swainston does with the main character, structurally it is not a particularly strong novel. Not to put too fine a point on it, it rambles along here and there. Swainston uses flashbacks to give us an impression of Jant's past in some places that do more to disrupt the flow of the story set in the present than enlighten us. Throughout the story you can also feel the strain of having only one point of view character. Jant is constantly lost in the fog of war. Events in some places in the world simply outpace Jant and he frequently  has to adjust to developments he neither foresaw or was present to witness. It's reasonable when looked at from Jant's point of view but for the reader it is not always a satisfying experience. I also felt that the ending of the novel was fairly abrupt and left an awful lot of story lines open for the next volume.

In some ways The Year of Our War is a rocky start to the trilogy, but also one that shows a lot of potential. The setting is absolutely unique and after reading this book you can't possibly not want to learn more. The story is a dark one, but it doesn't overly rely on shock tactics to keep the reader's attention. Swainston is clearly interested in the darker side of human nature and her main character is a big part of that. His addiction and personality make him a character that is guaranteed to provoke a reaction in the reader. Probably not a positive one in all readers but if you can stomach a main character you can't always sympathise with, he is bound to take you for quite a ride. I'll be reading the second volume in the not too distant future to see where he will lead us and of course to find out if he can get the monkey off his back.

Book Details
Title: The Year of Our War, part one of the Castle Omnibus
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 267 of 867
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09125-2
First published: 2004

Interview: Steph Swainston on The Wheel of Fortune

Earlier this year I read Steph Swainston's story Het Rad van Fortuin for the Dutch language book site Hebban. They asked me to do in interview with Steph as well. Het Rad van Fortuin, of The Wheel of Fortune as it is called in English, is the first work of hers to be translated into Dutch. The questions in the interview are meant to introduce her to this new audience. We didn't want to withhold the result from her English language readers however. Both Steph and Hebban kindly allowed me to run the interview on my blog as well. The review of Het Rad van Fortuin can be found here in Dutch and here in English.

Hi Steph, welcome to Hebban Random Comments. The Wheel of Fortune is the first of your stories to be translated into Dutch. How did your story end up with Quasis?

I was asked by the wonderful Jasper Polane to provide a story for his new Splinters Series.

The Dutch edition The Wheel of Fortune is an expansion of a short story published in 2013. I haven’t been able to find any English publications of this version of the story. Did we get a first?

Yes, you did.

Are there plans to publish it in English?

Eventually I’ll expand it into a full-length novel. I’ve shown flashes of Jant’s brutal past in Hacilith before, particularly in The Year of Our War. I’ve wanted to tell the full story for a long time and the day is getting nearer – maybe after my current novel is complete!

Although there are hints in the story that the wider world in The Wheel of Fortune is much more complex, the story is mainly set in an early industrial environment. It features exploitation of labourers, a lack of environmental standards and a range of social problems. What made you decide on such a grim setting?

The word ‘grim’ is over-used. I’m reflecting my reality and my own background. I come from Bradford in the north of England. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution in the 1890s but is now very deprived. I grew up in the shadows of the huge, abandoned mills, where my ancestors used to work in what were often terrible conditions. At times life expectancy was as low as 12; people would migrate to the city where poverty and disease would kill them before long. The bleakness of industrial Hacilith is largely drawn from the actual circumstances in Bradford.

As a single example, the Galt Foundry in the story blasts soot out of the chimney, and it falls upon the surrounding houses. Lister’s Mill in Bradford used to do this regularly even as late as the 1950s and 1960s, when my father witnessed it. They sounded a siren before the fans started, which was followed by a thick smog of grit, soot and horrendous chemicals ‘like a pyroclastic flow’. The managers didn’t care that it fell on the workers’ houses all around. My father described having to hold onto the mill’s wall to navigate from school to home, the smog being so thick it was impossible to see your hand in front of your face.

Now, Jant lives in Hacilith in 1818, where its industrial revolution depends on water power rather than steam. Workers toil in factories, to clock time, with machinery driven by the flow of the Moren River turning huge waterwheels. Hacilith is also one of the centres of the Fourlands’ smelting industry, so even without steam power, there are still plenty of chimneys spewing out smog.

Hacilith is the capital of Morenzia, the human country. It has a north European climate, and the natural resources of Morenzia are somewhat basic compared to Awia. So Hacilith, which is on the Moren estuary, became a trading and merchant’s town much as Amsterdam did. It prospered and grew in population until, in the thirteenth century, the teeming city was much larger than the towns and villages of the rest of Morenzia. Then, from the 1600s to the 1800s, Awian refugees settled in the Old Town district, in the streets of ‘Little Awia’ and brought their silk weaving to Hacilith.
    The actions of the immortals have also shaped the city Jant knows. After Frost joined the Castle and became the immortal Architect, from 1740-1750 she built the enormous Awndyn-Moren canal which crosses the country and shapes its border. Ships no longer had to round Cape Brattice, and their cargos came to the city and fed it. Frost built an immense series of canal basins and docks in the Galt district, where Jant lives.
    The beautiful seventeenth-century merchants houses and warehouses along the East Bank were too small in scale, so they fell out of use and were incorporated into great factories built there instead, making arms, armour and military equipment for the war against the Insects.
    The people of Hacilith welcomed the canal as an extra line of protection against the Insects. The Governors of the city became more confident. They no longer built defences, they spent their money on luxuries, and on developing the rich central district of Fiennafor, where their palaces are.
    And they continued to build factories along East Bank, where the Moren River turns the waterwheels, and cools the furnaces and foundries. All the weaving – wool and cotton, and the Awians’ silk – were scaled-up and moved into the factories of Galt.
    One of them is a crossbow factory. That’s where the Bowyers’ gang is based. Peterglass, the gang leader, works there, and most of the members are factory boys – they’re very well-armed with crossbows!
    By 1818, the prosperous merchants had moved away from the smog and soot, to Fiennafor, or to Moren Wells. Moren Wells is a spa town in the east of the city, and urban sprawl linked it to Hacilith a hundred years before, when the city changed its official name to the City of Hacilith and Moren – Hacilith Moren – but still Hacilith for short.
    Galt is an area around the docks, a network of brick terraces built to house the millworkers and foundry smiths. It’s desperately poor. When Jant flew in from the mountains he spent a year on the streets, before Dotterel found him and rescued him. They live at 7 Cinder Street, in the apothecary’s shop.

The story is written in the first person.  Do you prefer to write in the first person or is it a demand of the story?

It’s a preference – resulting from how and why I write. I write to be immersed. It’s easier to be completely immersed if you see from the eyes of your characters.
    I’ve been writing Castle in various forms almost since I learned to hold a pen, so I’ve been visualising the characters and the surroundings for so long I can virtually ‘see’ and ‘hear’ them as if I’m watching a film.

I can write from the point of view of all my characters, and at the last count I had 106 characters. I always end up with a lot of extraneous material.

For a number of years, before I was published, I experimented with writing Castle in third person. It has some advantages, because then I could set up groups of characters in different parts of the country, and move the action between them more easily. On the other hand, it calls me to myself and I am more aware of myself as a storyteller, as an author writing a book. This makes writing much more a conscious act and then it becomes too easy to become over-concerned with who your audience is and whether they understand. You end up with over-explanation and the ponderous prose so characteristic of run-of-the-mill fantasy writing. I want readers to be swept along with my characters, not detachedly following a narrative.

The story is set in the same world as your novels. Can you tell us a bit about how this story fits in to the larger series?

Sure. This story is Jant before he joined the Castle and became Comet, the Messenger. It’s set during his last few days in Hacilith, where he lived for six years. Gang warfare, and his own ambition, destroy the Wheel gang which he is part of, and he is forced to flee the city with his girlfriend, Serin.
    The scenes mesh with Jant’s flashback to Hacilith in The Year of Our War. So it’s a sort of prequel.

Did the translator have many questions for you?

My translator was Eisso Post.  He didn’t need to check with me.  He’s an excellent translator and I trust him to do a good job.

You wrote full time at one point in your career and then made the decision to give that up and take a job as a chemistry teacher. Why that decision?

It was a very dark time for me. I was being overwhelmed by a number of problems; health, financial, personal, and the publishers weren’t very sympathetic. So it seemed like a way out, to change a shitty situation. It took years and a move to a new town to get on top of everything and begin writing full time again. Now I’m determined to finish the Castle sequence I had planned.

Do you feel part of a particular genre?

No. I think of it as Castle. It is all-encompassing within my life, so I don’t limit it.
I don’t like fantasy and SF’s obsession with categorising authors within neat subgenres. Most of these are invented as marketing tools. The ‘New Weird’ was conceived by China Miéville and M. John Harrison basically as a means to set fans talking.
    The obsession with genre often leads to the search for influences, usually within impossibly narrow frames of reference. Over the years I have been annoyed and amused in turn by reading what others consider my influences to be. I was sending the completed manuscript of The Year of Our War out before the publication of any of the so-called ‘New Weird’ novels, yet somehow I was apparently imitating them. I’ve not been a big reader of fantasy since my teens; you can perhaps find C.S. Lewis or Delaney in there if you really look but nobody notes the much stronger influences of Dumas, Dickens or William Burroughs. My writing has been part of my life for so long, it’s acquired influence from everything in my life, way beyond just reading. I’m not trying to shape it to fit any deterministic genre.

These subgenres are detrimental to the writer for another reason: they give readers a mental template against which works will be judged, works which may have nothing to do with the template whatsoever. Novels should be judged, and enjoyed, by their own merits. Perhaps some authors do write consciously – commercially – for a genre, but then as Quentin Crisp said, ‘Fashion’s what you adopt when you don’t know what you are.’ I have a very clear idea what I am and what the Castle mythos is, and it doesn’t follow current genre fashions.

Do you think boundaries will become even more fluid in the future?

Yes, but it won’t happen with the large publishers. Innovation is in the hands of the small publishers now.
    Large publishers have to turn a high and predictable profit, so they go for the safe market, which to them is largely the visible end of fandom, the convention-goers and bloggers. Or they’ll pursue books which are similar to movies, and commercial tie-ins, where there is guaranteed brand recognition. Small publishers are more willing to take chances and don’t have the same bloated cost structures to support.
    Thankfully there’s a number of small presses which are nimble, quick, intelligent and inventive. The web gives them publicity, and distribution to equal what a large press can do. So kudos to innovators like Jasper and Quasis, Salt, PS Publishing, Newcon Press, Snow, Unsung Stories.

One last question. Rumour has it you are working on a fifth novel. Is there anything you can say on that project yet?

It’s called Fair Rebel and it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon – go get it! It’s scheduled to be published in November but the manuscript is totally complete.

Following on from that, I’m already halfway through the next Castle book, so that’s book six. It carries straight on from Fair Rebel, but with new characters stepping to frontstage. Its working title is The Savant and the Snake. After that, there’s another planned in the sequence and The Wheel of Fortune expansion which I mentioned earlier. I’d better get back to work!

Steph's website can be found at www.stephswainston.co.uk. Her new novel Fair Rebel is scheduled for release in November 2016 and can already be per-ordered at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and The Bookdepository among others. Het Rad van Fortuin is available though the publisher's website and wherever Dutch language books are sold.

Het Rad van Fortuin - Steph Swainston

I don't often read works translated from English to Dutch anymore. Generally I prefer to read the original. In this case however, I had to make an exception. Het Rad van Fortuin is an expansion of Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune, that appeared in the anthology The Best British Fantasy 2013. As far as I can tell, the expanded version has not been published in English (yet). The translation was done by Eisso Post. The text reads smoothly, I didn't find any obvious lines in the text where he struggled with the translation. Without having read the original, the translation strikes me as a job well done.

Jant works for an apothecary in the city of Hacilith. As a little business on the side, he produces a highly addictive substance made out of a species of fern. It brings him in contact with the leader of a local gang, who besides being hopelessly addicted to Jant's product, also fancies him. When he inevitably gets into serious trouble with the gang he decides to give the wheel of fortune a spin. Together with the down on her luck actress Serin, he tries to leave the city.

Het Rad van Fortuin is a prequel to Swainston's Castle novels, in which Jant is the main character. I haven't read these novels so this story was my introduction to this world. Swainston is often associated with the new weird genre. The reason for this gradually becomes clear over the course of the story. The setting is an early industrial one, with references to many of the environmental and social problems of the era. Magical elements and non-human races are mentioned in the story as well though. It is a mix of elements that is pretty much impossible to classify and that is one of the things that makes this story intriguing.

Swainston is not afraid to show the dark side of society. Her depiction of drug use, crime, poverty and violence are graphic. Jant's world is raw, dirty and dangerous. It is the type of secondary world narrative that borrows a page from the grimdark authors that have gained popularity in the past decade. The main character is a reflection of his environment in a way. He is a deeply flawed man. The story hints at a difficult past. He is not above dealing drugs to improve his situation, without the knowledge of his employer. On the other hand he does take in Serin and helps her back on her feet. He has ambitions beyond his current job and is ruthless when it comes to getting where he wants to be. A dark character for sure, possibly a conflicted one,  but not an entirely unlikeable man. You can already tell that this combination of traits will get him in even more trouble in the novels.

Dutch publisher Quasis has released Het Rad van Fortuin as a paperback booklet as part of their Splinters series. Quasis is a small, young publisher. According to a statement on their website they are looking for speculative fiction that crosses boundaries in form, theme or genre. It looks to me like a reaction to the somewhat conservative larger publishers of fantasy (sf is virtually non-existent in translation) in the Netherlands. They play it safe and as a result a lot of not very challenging and fairly standard fantasy is being published. The reader who wants more challenging or experimental material is almost required to read in English.

As an introduction to her Castle setting, this story works very well. There is enough plot and worldbuilding to make it a story that can stand on its own. Between the lines it is obvious that the story is part of a larger whole. There are references to events that, if I'm not mistaken, drive the plot of the novel. It's a story that made me very curious about the larger world and how Jant is going to realize his goals. It also succeeds in a goal the publisher sets itself. Swainston's story is a unique mix of subgenres. The story hints at a larger and very imaginative setting that shows you can push the fantastic in different directions than the post-Tolkien material that dominates the Dutch market. Het Rad van Fortuin is a success on two levels. It has convinced me to try one of Swainston's novels and to keep an eye out for what  Quasis decides to publish next.

Book Details
Title: Het Rad van Fortuin
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Quasis
Pages: 48
Year: 2015
Language: Dutch
Translation: Eisso Post
Format: E-arc
ISBN: 978-94-92099-05-1
First published: 2013, 2015