Canadian author Chris Humphreys’ new book Smoke in the Glass is out now from Gollancz, and in this piece, the author reflects whether a background in writing historical fiction a help or a hindrance to the fantasy author…

By the time I came to write Smoke in the Glass, I was not entirely new to fantasy fiction. I’d written five books for young adults, three of which I termed ‘earth magic’ rather than pure fantasy (The Runestone Saga) and a duology, The Hunt of the Unicorn and its sequel, The Hunt of the Dragon both of which are more traditionally ‘fantastical’ taking place, as they do, in the Land of the Fabulous Beast (though the protagonist, Elayne, is from modern New York.).

 

However the main field that I plowed for many years was historical fiction. As C. C. Humphreys I’ve written eleven novels in that genre. But even within that tradition, I was hardly conventional. My first novel, The French Executioner was about the man who killed Anne Boleyn – yet also involved her amputated, still living six fingered hand; her ghost; black masses in dungeons and a whole raft of hallucination-provoking substances. If the Jack Absolute novels were swashbuckling romance, Vlad was more or less a historical biography – in the form of a thriller – but about the real Dracula! (People complained about the lack of bloodsucking in the novel. I always said that the elephant in the room was a vampire – which could be a great fantasy comedy novel!). And A Place Called Armageddon, my novel about the siege and fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453? Well, change the venue to Winterfell and make the besiegers the dead, and you essentially have the same story.

Truly, the two genres are not so different as many would suppose. In either genre I write what I call, ‘the intimate epic’: character-driven stories with men and women caught up in world changing events and more often than not wielding swords or using some form of what they believe to be magic to deal with them. One of my better hammock moments – I do much of my best thinking swinging – was when I said aloud: ‘Magic happens to people who believe in magic.’ That was as true at Troy and Agincourt, as at Helm’s Deep. Spells and incantations are required to preserve a person. Deities and devils are solicited. Miracles ensue.

So was it help or hindrance to write historical epics first and fantasy ones second? Help, certainly. Knowing your myths, trying to understand how people thought, what they believed in at different eras is similar to figuring out how they think and believe in a fantastical one. Only in those, you are the one creating their history, not just reading about them. And that is bloody hard work! My agent told me, when I was contemplating the switch to fantasy: ‘Just think, Chris, you won’t have to do any research!’ Ha! You try inventing four religions without reading and contemplating others. Or try basing fantasy societies on recognizable human ones – in my case Aztec, Byzantine and Norse – without truly studying them. Ask George RR Martin how much the Wars of the Roses meant to him. I didn’t recreate the worlds – I used different god names, gave different titles to their structures of government and tyrannies. But taking the facts and then extrapolating? It was fun, and so liberating. I could use details without someone getting in touch (as they do) to tell me, ‘Oh, they couldn’t have used llama wool to make a hot air balloon in Ometepe.’ Well, yes they could, smart arse, because I invented the place! (There is even evidence that the Nazca people in 14th century Peru did have hot air balloons anyway… but don’t get me started!)

The major difference in the two genres lies, I think, in the fiction writer’s most exciting and provocative question: ‘What if?’ In history, you are somewhat limited: what if Richard III wasn’t killed on Bosworth Field? Well, tough, he was. But ‘what if’ three societies arose without any knowledge of each other… and each had immortality at their heart?’ In historical fiction there are limits to my ‘what ifs’. In fantasy though, they are extra power, where I am able to ask that question in a world I am entirely making up. The possibilities are only limited by the need for the invented world, however fantastical, to be coherent… to itself.

Ultimately, then, I believe that my background as a historical fiction writer has aided me hugely in the writing of my fantasy novels – just as myths and legends help all writers to figure out why their characters do what they do. Whether that’s Vlad, or Ut the Slayer (you’ll meet him) they all come from the same root stock – humanity’s collective unconscious. It’s how we spin the tale – and ask the ‘what ifs’ – that counts!

Smoke in the Glass is out now from Orion; click here to order from Amazon.co.uk

And check out the other posts in this blog tour: