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Behind-The-Books Blog
GUEST BLOGGER: Tim Lebbon. Passing by on his blog tour…
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
Tim Lebbon, author of Fallen and the upcoming release The Island, joins us today on the A&B blog - the 2nd stop of his blog tour.
To celebrate we’re giving away a copy of Fallen - just be quick to enter this prize draw, or try your luck again at the next blog stop. Enjoy the next extract from Fallen below, and here’s a new code to enter our The Island Competition: NOMI.
Now, over to you Tim.
Hi. Nice to be here. I thought I’d talk to you about the origin of Noreela, and why I chose to set FALLEN in the early days of this fantasy world. I like origin stories. That’s why I invariably enjoy the first part of long-running movie franchises, rather than endless sequels or later films in the sequence. I prefer Hellboy to Hellboy II, Spiderman to any of the sequels, and I think I’m even in the minority because I enjoy The Fellowship of the Ring more than the second and third Lord of the Rings movies. It’s all about discovery for me, the initial look at a world or character that explores why that place or person is so amazing, where they came from, and usually sets up where they’re going. By the second movie you’re already familiar with them, and some of the sense of wonder is perhaps diluted by that familiarity. Especially with superhero movies, the creation of that superhero is a journey, and subsequent movies so often tend to be more interested with great fight scenes than character development.
This was partly the reason why, when I came to planning my third novel set in my fantasy world of Noreela (for anyone interested, it’s an anagram of my daughter Eleanor’s name, a fact which continues to delight her, I’m pleased to say), I decided to go back in time. I’ve already chatted here about the genesis of the story for FALLEN, and when I knew I wanted to write about two explorers, the only place and time to set the novel was in Noreela’s distant history. And once I realised this, I became more excited about writing this novel than I had in a long time.
DUSK and DAWN, the first two books set in Noreela, dealt with the repercussions of magic’s withdrawal after the Cataclysmic War, and describe events up to and including the Second Cataclysmic War. They were my first attempt at true fantasy writing—new world, societies, politics, religions, flora and fauna—and I enjoyed them immensely. I created the world of Noreela and explored it at great length, and after those books were finished and FALLEN started to take shape, the world was starting to feel very real to me. I’d already alluded to a diverse and intricate history, and in this new novel I had the chance to explore that more fully, and to indulge in quite a bit more world building. I love doing that.
My favourite part? Making up monsters.
FALLEN is a completely standalone book set 4,000 years before DUSK and DAWN, easily read and understood by anyone who’s not read those first two novels. I believe it’s a more successful book, because Noreela was already a real place in my mind when I started writing it, and exploring the early years of Noreela was a delight. Humanity’s hold over the land was much less secure, large tracts of this huge island were still wild and unexplored, and everything about Noreela’s inhabitants and civilisation had a much fresher, more optimistic feel. It was a wild place … dangerous, yes, but only in the way that any unexplored land might be dangerous.
Though there was that fallen god, of course … but more about that later.
There was a sense of decay about DUSK and DAWN, with humanity in decline and the results of its misuse of the world and its magic visible everywhere (an environmental analogy, though in truth I only realised that after I’d written the first book). FALLEN is much more vital. Here, Noreela is a fresh new world with endless potential and possibilities, and so many mysteries to explore. So I suppose in some ways that’s what FALLEN is – my Noreela origin novel.
After all, as a writer I love to explore, and what more exciting, thrilling way to explore a brand new land than to create it yourself? With several fantasy novels now under my belt, it never gets any easier, but it never loses its appeal. If anything, I’m enjoying creating and enlarging these new worlds even more the more I write. It’s my drug, if you like, a way to escape this world and its problems and explore new ones (new worlds, yes… and major new problems as well. My characters don’t have the best of times, I’ll admit).
There’s a real freedom in writing about a world where you are, essentially, its creator. There have to be rules to follow, but you get to decide what they are. You make up all sorts of cool and exciting creatures, plants and … things (didn’t I say I liked making up monsters?), and I found it very liberating being able to avoid all the fantasy tropes. In FALLEN you won’t find any dragons, elves, dwarves, hobbits, unicorns, or busty wenches and muscled heroes wielding magic swords. You will find humans, yes, but there are also Cantrass Angels, tumblers (sentient tumbleweed … hey, it’s my world!), seethe-gators, Sentinels, a Guild of Voyagers, chop-shops for body alterations, charm knots, wolf frogs, screeching lizards … and Sleeping Gods. One of whom might just be fallen.
But you can read more about the Sleeping Gods in a future blog on this blog tour…
Bye for now!
Read today’s excerpt from Fallen here. And catch Tim again and continue reading the excerpt on his next tour stop on May 15th at Highlander’s Book Review.
Hi Tim
We’ve just had early copies in of The Island and it looks AMAZING - you’ll be delighted with it, I promise.
Funny thing about sequels. I often prefer them precisely because everything is familiar. I wonder what that says about me … I guess my astrologer brother Archie would say it’s a very Cancerian trait. Must ask him later.
Hope you have a great tour.
Thanks Susie. Can’t wait to see THE ISLAND!
Posted on May 14th, 2009 at 4:36 pmLeave a Comment
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...Reading
West End Front, by Matthew Sweet. Lesley: A look at what was going on behind the dazzling exteriors of the grand London hotels like the Ritz and the Savoy during WW2. Chock-full of interesting details.
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