Malarat is Jessica
Rydill's third book set in the same world as her earlier stories, but can be
read as a stand-alone novel (
available for the Kindle): “Annat Vasilyevich is a shaman and an outcast
Wanderer. No longer her father's apprentice, she watches enviously as he sets
out into enemy territory with his new pupil, Huldis of Ademar, and their
companions. War has come to Lefranu, and while Annat remains to defend the city
of Yonar from siege, her father Yuda has to face his destiny and confront a
demon from the lore of the Wanderers.”
Jan Edwards asked the questions and Jessica Rydill provided
the answers:
Tell us a little
about yourself.
I’m the younger daughter of a naval architect and a social
worker. My elder sister is the Fantasy writer Sarah Ash, who has had a huge
influence on me, though our books are very different. I’ve spent most of my
life living in Bath or London, but I think Bath has won out now. I studied
English at University and would have liked to become an academic, but I didn’t
get a good enough degree. So I trained as a solicitor and had a somewhat
chequered career in local government. The best bit by far was working as a
locum for the London Borough of Lambeth; as a housing lawyer as I got to stand
up in court (though solicitors have horrible gowns, unlike barristers). I gave
it all up in 1998 in order to write. A writing course at Fen Farm taught by
David Gemmell was a breakthrough for me. It made a huge difference to my writing
though it was still some time before I produced a book that was publishable!
Malarat is standalone book and somewhat darker than previous
books in this world. Can you tell us a little about that?
I suppose Malarat is
on a more epic scale than the others. I like to imagine my books as movies, and
Malarat is a bit like War and Peace in scope. The beginning is
quite light, and one of the main characters is preoccupied with what she’s
wearing. But in that first chapter there is a hint of what’s to come. There
will be a war, and all the characters will be affected.
In some ways it’s a story about obsessions of various kinds.
The Duc de Malarat wants to rule the country through a puppet king. The
Inquisitor wants to eradicate magic. And behind that is a man with the weirdest
obsession of all – Colonel Carnwallis. He sets out to change history and the
afterlife in line with his view that the Anglit – the English, in effect – are
true descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The way in which these
characters set out to achieve their ends is disastrous for everyone else. So
there are some dark episodes. The standalone bit relates to the fact that you
don’t need to have read my first two novels to understand this one. If anything,
I have enlarged the amount of contextual detail relating to the world and
country where the story is set. Some of the characters are the same, but the
entire episode is separate.
You have two previous novels set in this world: Children of the Shaman – short- listed
for a Locus Best first Novel – and The
Glass Mountain. Fill us in on the details.
Children of the Shaman
introduced the Vasilyevich family. They are Wanderers, an ethnic group similar
to the Jews. They also have magical powers to varying degrees, which is why
they are known as shamans. The children, Annat and Malchik, have been brought
up by their aunt and grandparents. Their father abandoned them and their mother
died young. Malchik is rather nerdy and weedy and Annat, the young girl, is bolder
and more adventurous. When their aunt has to go into hospital, their father,
Yuda, takes custody of them. He’s on a secret mission to a frontier town called
Gard Ademar (which does exist – it’s called La Garde Adhemar). Since the Great
Cold ended, the Railway People have been constructing a railway north into the
unknown wastes of what is (more or less) northern France. And when they reach
Gard Ademar, they accidentally disturb a hornet’s nest.
Yuda is there to investigate a series of murders, and he and
his children get caught up in the magic of the place. He’s a very mercurial and
charismatic person and not at all an ideal father; he can’t accept that his
son, Malchik, is not only not a shaman but also completely bookish and wimpy.
The Glass Mountain
deals with some of the fallout from Children
of the Shaman. It talks a lot more about what it means to be a shaman and
focuses on Yuda’s twin sister, Yuste. In this story most of the trouble is
caused by a Magus who carries two suitcases with … unusual … contents. He
practises necromancy and fancies himself as a rival to the powerful Sklavan
Magus Kaschai the Deathless. The mountain of the title is his hideout, and he
kidnaps Annat and Malchik to further his purposes. The setting is 19th
century again but there are mediaeval elements because of the fact that parts
of the world have been set back by the Great Cold.
There are (at least) two kinds of magic in this universe.
Shamans are an evolutionary phenomenon. Before the Great Cold, they were rare
and were found mostly in Cine (which is China). After the Thaw, the centre for
the study of shamanism was established in Inde (India). They had a long
tradition of academic study, and they were excited when news came through that
shamans were starting to be born in Europe. So they sent out a number of
emissaries, one of whom was Prakhash Sival, who planned to establish a school
or college for shamans in Masalyar. Sival “discovered” Yuda and Yuste
Vasilyevich when they were children, and recognised that they were both
unusually powerful. So he set out to study and train them.
The characteristics of a shaman are that they can use
telepathy, heal, and travel into other dimensions, particularly the spirit
world. A small number of them have much more flamboyant powers and can also
fight. They are often but not always bisexual, and they tend to be on the short
side. But there are exceptions to every rule!
The Magus is a shaman who uses other forms of magic. He
casts spells and uses mirrors. The shamans frown on this type of magic because
it’s superstitious and tends to involve abuse of power.
There is another species of magic which only gets hinted at:
gifts, which are a specific magical ability. In Children of the Shaman there is a painter called Cluny who can use
his paintings to escape from his confinement. He is not a shaman and has no
other magical powers.
If you could visit a
fantasy world from another book where would it be?
That’s a tricky one! I would once have loved to go to
Narnia, but discovering that it was a Christian allegory rather knocked that on
the head for me. More recently, I have wanted to go to Lyra’s Oxford. The
trouble with fantasy worlds is that they’re dangerous. It’s not unlike travelling,
going backpacking, and I these days I prefer my home comforts such as
sanitation, hot and cold running water, and sofas. I’m emotionally close to
Bilbo Baggins before he set out for Erebor. So I think I’d choose Middle-Earth,
specifically the Shire, because you can smoke and drink beer (and eat well) but
there is also the possibility of Elves.
How do you see the
rise of ebooks affecting writers and writing?
I believe it’s too soon to call, really. The effect could be
quite deleterious in one scenario. At the moment, many people are rushing into
print before they have had a chance to learn their craft, and there is no
editorial control. There are thousands of ebooks out there and it is hard to
discover which ones are any good. It’s also very hard to get reviews for
self-published ebooks due to the sheer volume being produced. So on the one
hand there is the opportunity for people to publish work that might not
otherwise have been published – but on the other hand there’s no gateway, no
vetting process and so it’s almost as if there is an ebook for everyone in the
world.
I love “traditional” reading but I fear that in the future
it may not survive. I may be completely wrong, but I get the impression that
young people enjoy so many different formats – games, films, tablets, music and
more. Sitting down to read a book is a much more concentrated and reflective
experience. On the other hand, ebooks have a lot of unexplored potential. One
could incorporate music, images – who knows what! – into such a book.
So I feel the rise of ebooks is a challenge; they rely on
technology and a hi-tech society to exist. I’m a bit of a Luddite – I love low-tech
things like steam trains and wind-up gramophones – but I have to confess I also
love iPads and computers and suchlike.
Who is hot on your
reading list?
I want to read Wind
Follower by Carole McDonnell, which has been waiting on my Kindle. Lots
more Sherlock Holmes, and some of my Terry Pratchett pile. The Kindle is quite
bad for a book hoarder like me (in one way) in that I can download stuff and
there it is, waiting for me! I am keen to read more of the Graceling books by Kristin Cashore.
What next?
I’ve started something called Winterbloom. That’s its working title. I’ve got to scan my first
two books to bring them out as ebooks, but Winterbloom
is pre-occupying me. It’s my work-in-progress and it looks as though some of it
may take part in England – a fictional 19th century England – and
also in the Anglond of the shaman world. At the moment there appear to be
characters from three parallel worlds interacting. It may also have Sherlock
Holmes in it, but I’m not sure because Conan Doyle was such an outstanding
writer. But I used to love the old Sherlock Holmes TV series with Jeremy Brett
playing the Great Detective, and now I am a huge fan of Sherlock with Benedict
Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Mark Gatiss. I’m terribly fan-girly about the
whole thing! So Winterbloom might
have a Sherlock Holmes strand. After Malarat,
I wanted to do something a bit more playful, and I have always wanted to mingle
my characters with someone else’s. The main problem at the moment is structural
– I know what I want to do but not how to get there!
