Bradley P Beaulieu’s new fantasy series blends the traditional epic fantasy norms with the eastern tales of old.
Set in a desert with an intriguing layer of mystery about it, undoubtedly Twelve Kings in Sharakhai offers something different for fantasy readers. The opening chapters effortlessly take the reader to the hot environs of Çeda’s home and tease further with Çeda’s fighting skills.
In 2004 Bradley’s short story Flotsam took second place in L Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future 20, and he hasn’t looked back since. This is Bradley’s second epic series, with The Lays of Anuskaya series already out on the shelves. Twelve Kings in Sharakhai is the first book in The Songs of the Shattered Sands series, published in the UK by Gollancz, and in the US by DAW.
Welcome to SFFWorld, Bradley! As George R.R.Martin borrowed from the War of the Roses, and Terry Brooks used Tolkien’s work as a source, does Twelve Kings in Sharakhai use Arabian Nights as a template or merely a starting point?
More of a starting point. It certainly provided inspiration, but I didn’t want to hew to stories from our own history. Certainly the milieu of Twelve Kings in Sharakhai is heavily influenced by the Arabian Nights and medieval Persia. But instead of a monotheistic religion, I have a Romanesque pantheon of gods, creatures who walk the earth and meddle in the affairs of man. And instead of a society ruled and dominated by men, I tried to create a world that was more egalitarian.
I did borrow one basic framework from Arabian Nights (though I didn’t use it to the same degree), and that’s the notion of story within story. There are twelve tribes that surround Sharakhai, and their history is largely oral, tales told over campfires and shared between the people of the desert. Their love of story was adopted by the settlers of Sharakhai, and I wanted to show that cultural richness. I didn’t want it to be a litany of unrelated tales, however. They needed a central thread to keep them together. That thread shows up in the form the hero, Çeda, and her story, which weaves through the tribes of the desert, the Twelve Kings who rule it, and the dark pact they made with the gods that granted them their immortality.
Aside from the One Thousand and One Nights influences, what lengths did you go to in researching the background for Twelve Kings in Sharakhai?
This is always a difficult question to answer. The world in the books isn’t our world, and because it isn’t, I’m not as concerned about real events in Earth’s history. That’s not to say they can’t provide a great framework. As you alluded to above, just look at what George Martin did with A Song of
Ice and Fire and the War of the Roses. I already had the background in mind for this world, though, and so I focused more on the level of technology, traditional garb, customs, weaponry, food, and the like.
One of the things I spent a lot of time on was a Pinterest board that’s filled with part-historical, part-fantastical artwork and photographs. It’s filled with inspirational and reference photos. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with it when I first started creating it, but I found myself going back to it again and again, using it to re-orient myself when I felt like I was losing the thread of the story. It’s a great way to remind yourself why you’re writing a story in the first place for the very fact that you’re only pinning those things that speak to you in some way.
Çeda (pronounced CHAY-da) starts her journey as a fearsome pit fighter. What caused you to create a female lead with such a singular drive for vengeance?
When I first started writing the story, it began with one small kernel: a scene where the asirim, powerful creatures who were once human but who have now been reduced to animalistic husks of their former selves, wander through the city taking lives as tribute for the protection they provide to the city. I didn’t know why they were doing that yet, but that scene eventually spun off into thoughts of loss and what that might mean on various levels, not just individually but as a family as well, as a people.
I knew shortly after that this was the throughline I wanted to pursue with this story—loss of loved ones, loss of safety, loss of identity—and when it came time to figure out who the hero of the story was, it felt more natural to me to tell it from a maternal perspective. Çeda and her mother, Ahya, grew naturally from that urge. The Blade Maidens who protect the Twelve Kings did as well. And once things started to take shape, it felt like the perfect way to tell this tale.
One of the ways it manifested was through the mystery of Çeda’s mother. Her mother, we learn early, was working against the Kings. She’s killed because of it, and Çeda wasn’t old enough at the time to have learned what her mother was trying to do, and more importantly why. That mystery is played out through the course of the books, and it’s been one of the more fun things to write about, doling out those bits of the grander mystery as the books march on.
Battle and fight scenes are known to be complex things to write and with an experienced fighter for your main character the intricacies of each battle are important both physically and emotionally. You didn’t make it easy for yourself! Writers are known to live inside their characters’ heads, so was writing from Çeda’s perspective a tiring experience?
At times, certainly. For me, the most draining points in a story tend not to be the battles themselves (which I try to play with to make them as active and fun as I can), but what the battles mean. Said another way, it’s the emotional points in the story that are the most difficult to write. So while a battle may be hard fought and painful (both physically and mentally), the characters often aren’t actively thinking of consequences and the like while doing so. To a degree they are, certainly, but it’s usually after the battle ends that’s the most emotionally draining, or the time leading up to a battle. Those are the points where the characters are struck the hardest by the decisions they’re faced with or the things they’ve done. In many ways, choices and consequences are the very heart of fiction.
As you say, I definitely live through my characters (at least when the words are flowing) and it can lead to some draining writing sessions. But I’m a seasoned enough writer to know that those moments are gold. They are the moments when I’m really in the groove, when some of my best fiction comes out, so when they happen, I try to live in those moments for as long as I can.
If critics are to be believed, Epic Fantasy isn’t truly epic without a map. You’ve been working on some additional maps with the help of Maxime Plasse, for example. Does this help with your world building and visualisation or is this effort purely to thank the fans?
Yeah, I totally wish I had done the maps sooner. I had some crudely drawn maps early on, and I did use them. They absolutely help to frame the story in my mind, and hopefully that’s true for the readers as well. I remember long nights of reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when I was young, constantly flipping back to the maps at the front of the book to see where the hobbits and their allies were in the journey. That was great fun for me, and I’m happy to have such great maps drawn up by Max: one for the region and one for the city of Sharakhai. They really are beautiful pieces of art, aren’t they?
After one roll of the dice too many (I stress dice, not drink…*ahem*) you wake on a scratchy hay-stuffed cot, triggering the world’s worst allergy attack. The attentive automata left to watch over you informs you that you are not allowed to stay in the City of Brass and have greatly offended the Jinn by doing so. In his best ‘tick-whur’ voice the sandblasted automaton adds that in order to return home you must appease the Jinn. How are you going to get home?
A few years back I came across Aaron Becker, a wonderful artist who “wrote” an illustration-only children’s book called Journey. In it, a girl learns that she’s able to draw things into reality using a magic crayon. So what does she do? She draws a door, of course, and gets whisked away on a grand adventure, including a journey through a Persian-styled desert filled with magical creatures and a cruel king.
Clearly I arrived in the City of Brass by the same method. I look into my pocket and, lo and behold!, there lies the blue crayon I used to get here. As the automaton stands and calls the alarm, I draw a magic carpet and hop on top. The automaton grasps for its edge, but the carpet lifts too quickly.
As I soar into the bright desert sky, I wave to the automaton and wonder how long it will be before the Jinn comes for me.
Finally, you’re known to take time to interact with your readers and fans. Combining the number of words in your novels with the output on your blog and website, I fear for your quality of life! You also attend conventions and co-host podcast, Speculate! along with Mike R. Underwood and Gregory A. Wilson. The podcast offers an insider views of writing and the publishing industry as well as reviews and author interviews. How important is Speculate in building that relationship?
Speculate has been a really great platform for helping to build my network in terms of relationships to fans as well as other authors and editors. It’s kept me busy reading, which I feared was going to fall off as I put more emphasis on writing, and it also keeps me analyzing work critically, which is a large part of what Speculate is about. So from that perspective alone, it’s been a great show to be a part of.
But It’s also been an honor working with Greg, who’s been running the show with me from the start, and more lately Mike Underwood, who joined the show late last year. You’ll be hard pressed to find two brighter minds working in the spec-fic field today.
Thank you for joining us, Bradley. I look forward to reading Twelve Kings in Sharakhai and the rest of The Songs of the Shattered Sands Series.
You can discover more of Bradley’s latest creative antics over on his website: www.quillings.com, where you’ll find the first three chapters of Twelve Kings in Sharakhai free. You can also find him on Twitter
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Interview by Shellie Horst – SFFWorld.com © 2016
