Science Fantasy

Anyway, in that moment I decided to design a world properly, from first principles, and spent a good bit of the next few years doing so (to the detriment of my academic career, it need not be said). I put in the geology, the meteorology, the ocean currents, the forests of different kinds, ecosystems, trade routes, several thousand years of history etc.

And then I had to tone it right down, because a completely alien environment is incomprehensible without masses of explanation, and that rarely makes a good story. The reader has to hang her hat on familiar things, so my characters ride horses, not six-legged purple gnurrls, and much of what they eat is familiar. Above all, I'm not trying to impress anyone with my cleverness, but simply to tell the best story I can. I just aim to write popular fantasy for ordinary readers, where the action never stops and the reader really worries about the characters.

With the different races and human species in the Quartet, I wanted them to be fully rounded, and I wanted them to be alien yet at the same time very human (because ultimately the four human species do have a common ancestor). I also wanted my characters to be different. I didn't want the cliché warrior, the cliché mage, the cliché waif, king etc.

Furthermore, when I had been writing fantasy for a while, ten or twelve years ago, I suddenly realised that I was writing female characters who led every bit as exciting lives as the males. They had adventures and when they got into trouble, which was practically all the time, they got themselves out of it by their own wit and cleverness, rather than being helped by some heroic bloke. I wasn't trying to be politically correct, or to make any kind of point about equality. That's just the way my stories ended up.

Once I realised that, I also realised how rare such characters are in (popular) fantasy. So often women are portrayed as helpless victims, or completely under the thrall of males in a patriarchal society, or manipulators behind the scenes, or just window dressing. No doubt at this point readers are thinking, 'But I've read lots of books about women warriors'. Well, I have too, but in most they're women acting like men. I wanted to write about women who had adventures but were still characteristically women.

I also discovered that, in my worlds, women occupied positions of power and influence just as often as men. What's so difficult about that? Quite a lot, judging by current fantasy. How often do you read about a fantasy world where women have the same kinds of opportunities as men? Practically never! Why not? Why do we have to recreate versions of Earth's past in EVERY fantasy?

I wouldn't say that I try hard to be even handed, because I don't. Again, that's just the way I write. But of course, having created that kind of world, there is always the temptation to start tearing it apart in future books and see what happens ?

I wanted my characters to have weaknesses, and doubts, like we all do. I wanted them to fail occasionally, and make mistakes. There are no all-powerful characters in my books, good or evil.

When I began writing THE VIEW FROM THE MIRROR I wasn't deliberately reacting against the good versus evil cliché, though as I grow older I find it more infuriating the more often I come across it. I loved THE LORD OF THE RINGS but I have no wish to read another thousand inferior versions of it. These days, once I identify that theme I think 'Oh no, not again!' and usually heave the book out the window.