In a rare break from the regular anime reviews and exceedingly irregular writing news, let's get 2021 off on the right footing with something a bit different. I first met Tej Turner at Fantasycon the year before last - or rather, I'm pretty certain we'd met no end of times before that, but that was the first occasion we properly got talking. Since Tej is a lovely bloke and I knew where to find edible takeaway food in the near vicinity, we hung out a fair bit, but I don't recall getting much into his writing career, since I'm far too ill-mannered to ask all the regular questions you're supposed to ask in these situations. Well, I'm addressing that right now! Tej has a new book out, titled Bloodsworn, and what better time to pick his brains on the subject? And, um, inquire about his tastes in anime?
-oOo-
- You've mentioned that your first two novels
were semi-biographical. Is that a common
approach for you? How much of yourself
and your own life experiences would you say goes into your books?
I think that, to a certain extent, I'm always
putting a part of myself into my characters (even if for some of them it is
only a very small part), and I often write from what I know, drawing
upon my own experiences.
I won't go into too many details here, but I didn't have the easiest childhood, and those two novels were part of a cathartic process for me dealing with that. None of the characters in them were completely me, but lots of the things they went through were inspired by events that happened to me during my youth. By writing the novel in such a way – using personal stories about myself, but warping them, and projecting them through fictional characters whilst entwining them with fiction, some of my dreams, nightmares, and a bit of surrealism – I was able to exorcise some of my personal demons whilst not exposing too much about myself and maintaining a certain amount of psychic distance.
I'm glad I wrote them that way, but I'm not sure if I will ever write novels of that nature again. I penned them when I was young and experimenting with different methods of writing, and I reached the catharsis I needed at that time. My adult years, in comparison, have been both much more stable and enjoyable.
- You describe those first two books as coming of age novels; were there opportunities in writing younger protagonists that would have been missing with older characters? Were there ways in which it felt like a restriction?
It's certainly true that one cannot cover the
full spectrum of the human condition by writing coming-of-age stories alone, but
I've never claimed to have achieved such a thing (I don't think any single
writer can). It was just what I wanted to write at that time and it was
appropriate for those two novels. My latest novel (Bloodsworn,
soon to be released) does also feature some youthful characters, but also several
adult narrators too.
One thing I realised recently is that one of
the themes which repeatedly occurs in my writing (whether I'm composing weird urban
fantasy, epic fantasy, or some other sub-genre) is protagonists who are, whilst
young, somewhat older than their years through circumstance, and I think that,
just because a book is mostly told through young protagonists, that doesn't
mean it doesn't contain adult themes. And it certainly doesn't mean it
is not an adult novel. I think that, after the YA phenomenon happened, it
became a label people felt inclined to throw at almost anything with a young
protagonist, despite a huge amount of the adult epic fantasy before that term being
coined featuring focal characters who were coming of age.
- You're extremely well-travelled, and
obviously that's been a huge part of your life.
What have those experiences contributed to your writing? Would you encourage other writers to do the
same if they can?
Yes, it certainly has. Travelling has not only
exposed me to many different cultures, climates, and landscapes, but I think it
also informs my writing.
I have first-hand experience of a lot of
things that will be familiar to readers of fantasy. I know what it's like to
live in a jungle – without electricity and other modern comforts of the first
world – and I've made long journeys through some of the world's highest mountain
ranges, where I've suffered altitude sickness and been lost in the snow. I know
what it's like to suddenly find oneself in a land which feels very strange,
where no one speaks your language, and had to get by whilst crossing cultural
divides as an outsider. I have even visited parts of the world that are quite
lawless and had my life come into danger.
That said, I wouldn't say that you cannot
write about these things without experiencing them; that's what research is
for. 😊
I would recommend everyone to travel, for
a whole host of reasons beyond enriching one's writing. Travelling broadens
your horizons (beyond the literal sense), opens up your mind, and gives you a better
understanding of how the world works. It exposes you not only to different
places but, if you do it the right way, different ways of living, and, most
importantly, different ways of thinking.
Although, I do also understand that travelling
isn't possible for everyone. Not necessarily because of money, as it doesn't
have to be as expensive as a lot of people believe (at least not the way I do
it). A lot of people are not fortunate enough to be able to travel due to a
whole host of other reasons, such as health, commitments, or, most commonly, which
part of the world they were born in.
One thing I do want to put out there is this;
if you are from the first world and thinking about going backpacking through
less developed countries, there are some moral implications you should make
yourself aware of. You should understand that you are, in a sense, taking
advantage of a worldwide monetary system that is unfair, because you're
venturing to places in which – by some rigging of the system most of us don't
understand – your money suddenly becomes worth more and goes further. I don't
think this should necessarily stop people travelling – because cultural
exchange is mostly beneficial to world society and travellers inject
much-needed money into growing economies – it is just something you should be
conscious of so that you understand how important it is that you behave
appropriately.
Yes, it was. When I said that I've lived in
the jungle without electricity and other such things, that was one such
occasion. I spent almost two months at Merazonia, and whilst a lot of it was
hard work – and sometimes heart-breaking – it was also very rewarding. I was
most often placed on duties that involved caring for primates, as they had a
pair of baby woolly monkeys which needed babysitting, as well as a group of
older ones they were preparing for release, along with a mischievous gang of
capuchins. They had all kinds of other animals there, including tamarins,
kinkajous, sloths, howler monkeys, a puma, and many tropical birds, all of
which I helped care for at some point.
I've written a more in-depth account of my
time at Merazonia, which can be found on my travelblog by clicking
here. There are also links on that page to more
information about them as an organisation if anyone reading this is tempted to
volunteer there too or help them in other ways.
- You write both fantasy and sci-fi, but so
far your novels have leaned toward the former.
Will we see a Tej Turner SF novel one of these days?
I didn't think of myself as an SF author until
Elsewhen
Press (my publisher) pointed out to me that The Janus
Cycle (and its
sequel Dinnusos
Rises) featured time travel.
I think that urban fantasy as a genre is one
which blends fantasy and science fiction so seamlessly that it's not always
glaringly obvious that they've been combined.
I'm not sure if I'll ever write anything which
is purely science fiction though. I like magic too much. Also, as someone who identifies
Pagan – with animist beliefs and somewhat mystic leanings – my idea of reality
is probably somewhat different from the post-Enlightenment materialism which
pervades much of the consciousness of western contemporary culture. So, I have
a feeling that, even if I one day write something purely futuristic, it will
still contain elements that others will perceive as 'fantastical'.
I am currently writing a novel which is based
on a world which is tidally locked – as in, one side of it is permanently faced
to the sun, whilst the other is always dark – and I had to do a lot of research
into astrophysics for it. That said, the people of the story (who live in the
belt in the middle of the planet where it's constantly twilight) are in a
mediaeval(ish) society, and thus have no idea that their cosmological alignment
is somewhat strange and are unlikely to be building any spaceships soon. Does
that count as science fiction?
I think that fantasy and science fiction can
be both escapist and culturally introspective, and most books are both of those
things at the same time. My first two novels were deeply political
(particularly Dinnusos
Rises, which featured a grassroots activist
movement rising up to incite societal change) as well as inclusive, featuring
many characters who are LGBTQ and/or victims of social injustice.
My new epic fantasy series (being
non-contemporary and somewhat less biographical) is a little more escapist in
nature but has some political themes. One of the main protagonists is gay, and
I channelled some of my own experiences of confronting prejudice into his
thread of the story.
I don't believe there's such a thing as an 'unpolitical novel'; even by attempting to write such a thing one is making a political choice, and I can guarantee that, when such novels are put under a magnifying glass, certain views and prejudices of the author will be revealed through the choices they've made concerning the characters, events, setting, and themes.
I think my favourite anime of all time is Neon
Genesis Evangelion. I've watched it dozens of times, but there is such a vast
ocean of subtext that I still to this day notice new details which bring new
revelations with each viewing. The story of its production is an interesting one
too: Hideaki Anno – its creator – had a nervous breakdown halfway through
making it and, instead of giving up, chose to project everything he was feeling
into the series. Its concluding film, The End of Evangelion, is a work
of art, and for a large segment of it, it very much feels like the veil between
narrative and Anno's psyche has been peeled away, and he's let his raw feelings
about the human condition be laid bare. It is a masterpiece.
Some titles I've enjoyed during more recent years include; Claymore, Death Note, Children of the Whales, Attack on Titan, and Rwby.
It is a novel which will initially seem
familiar to most readers. It begins like many of its ilk do – with a handful of
youngish characters from the backwaters of a medieval secondary world – but the
story takes a surprisingly grim turn when they receive the call to adventure, and
from there veers in a direction that is much darker than most readers will
initially expect. Like much of my writing, it is quite gritty. I don't want to say
too much about it here because doing so would ruin the surprise. Its blurb
(which can be read here)
is a good introduction, and it's spoiler-free. 😊
I grew up reading epic fantasy, so it was only
natural that I would one day want to write it myself and do it my own way. I'm
not sure if there was any singular idea it grew from, more a plethora of them,
and there are way too many to mention them all. Some are probably subconscious
and I'm not even aware of them.
I think it was the characters that I dreamt up
first; both their relationships with each other and their individual stories
were the initial skeleton with which I filled in everything else. And as
always, I channelled some of my life experiences, both from my childhood and my
adventures overseas.
Doubtless, much of what I've read over the
years has inspired me, but I think other mediums have had an influence on me
for this particular project too. Such as all the anime I mentioned earlier;
that seems to have bled through quite heavily, as the world of Bloodsworn
is filled with lots of strange mutant creatures, and some of its characters gain
metamorphic abilities during the story.
Yes, you could say that. 😉
One of the biggest pleasures in writing
medieval fantasy for me lies within constructing a believable world. It's not
enough to merely draw a map, but it's a good place to start. Once you have a
terrain, you can look at it and consider how the people who dwell within it have
been shaped by their geography. The cultural setting is just as important as a
physical one, and a world filled with historical nuance will always be more
believable.
Something else I did concerning the
worldbuilding of this series – which is probably a little unusual for medieval
fantasy – is that I made the world somewhat cosmologically different to our own.
It has three moons, which made for all sorts of consequences concerning things
such as its tides and calendar. Seafaring is an activity people seldom risk there,
and they mark their days in 'aeights' (eights) rather than weeks, and their
years are longer. I often do such things when I create second worlds (even when
they're historic ones) because I find it a bit odd that epic fantasy seems
almost exclusively filled with worlds that just so happen to be astronomically
identical to our own, with one moon, regular seasons, twenty-four hour days,
and 365 of them each year.
-oOo-
For those who'd like to know a little more about Bloodsworn, here's the blurb...
Bloodsworn: Book I of The Avatars of Ruin series
“Everyone from Jalard knew what a bloodoath was. Legendary characters in the tales people told to their children often made such pacts with the gods. By drawing one's own blood whilst speaking a vow, people became 'Bloodsworn'.
And in every tale where the oath was broken, the ending was
always the same. The Bloodsworn died.”
It has been twelve years since The War of Ashes, but animosity still
lingers between the nations of Sharma and Gavendara, and only a few souls have
dared to cross the border between them.
The villagers of Jalard live a bucolic existence, nestled within the
hills of western Sharma and far away from the boundary which was once a
warzone. To them, tales of bloodshed seem no more than distant fables. They
have little contact with the outside world, apart from once a year when they
are visited by representatives from the Academy who choose two of them to be
taken away to their institute in the capital. To be Chosen is considered a
great honour… of which most of Jalard's children dream.
But this year the Academy representatives make an announcement which is
so shocking it causes friction between the villagers, and some of them begin to
suspect that all is not what it seems. Just where are they taking the Chosen,
and why? Some of them intend to find out, but what they discover will change
their lives forever and set them on a long and bloody path to seek vengeance…
“Classic epic
fantasy. I enjoyed it enormously”
– Anna Smith Spark
And here's Tej's bio...
Tej Turner has spent much of his life on the move and he does not
have any particular place he calls 'home'. For a large period of his childhood,
he dwelt within the Westcountry of England, and he then moved to rural Wales to
study Creative Writing and Film at Trinity College in Carmarthen, followed by a
master's degree at The University of Wales Lampeter.
After completing his studies, he moved to Cardiff, where he works
as a chef by day and writes by moonlight. He is also an intermittent traveller
who every now and then straps on a backpack and flies off to another part of
the world to go on an adventure. So far, he has clocked two years in Asia and a
year in South America. He hopes to go on more and has his sights set on Central
America next. When he travels, he takes a particular interest in historic
sites, jungles, wildlife, native cultures, and mountains. He also spent some
time volunteering at the Merazonia Wildlife Rehabilitation
Centre in Ecuador, a place he hopes to
return to someday.
Bloodsworn is his third published novel. His
debut novel The
Janus Cycle was published by Elsewhen Press
in 2015, followed by his sequel Dinnusos
Rises in 2017. Both of them were
described as 'gritty and surreal urban fantasy'. He has also had short stories
published in various anthologies.
He keeps a travelblog on his website, where he also posts author-related news.
No comments:
Post a Comment