Age of Assassins is the first of The Wounded Kingdom Series published by Orbit Books in the UK and US. R.J. Barker’s debut novel follows the antics of Girton, a club-footed assassin, as he works to discover who’s attempting to kill the heir to a kingdom.
Released this summer, readers are already eager to get their hands on book two.
The blurb:
TO CATCH AN ASSASSIN, USE AN ASSASSIN . . .
Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land’s best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But their latest mission tasks him and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince’s murder.
In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire land.
With plenty of offended would-be-kings training to become Riders, as well as the usual political manoeuvrings and one-upmanship, there are enough suspects to keep things paced. Girton and his master are coerced by the Queen into finding out who wants the heir to her kingdom dead strongly enough to do something about it. There are plenty of possible suspects. We discover that despite the expert tuition and maternal role of Merela, Girton desperately wants to be one of the boys – a distraction that could cost him and his master their lives.
R.J. Barker himself is a lively character, fresh from British Fantasy Society’s Annual Fantasycon he’ll be at the York Pub Meet 
in October bringing his book to life. Knowing this I couldn’t exactly let him leave SFFWorld out.
Welcome to SFFWorld, RJ! Let’s start with the most important question: what have you got against dunking biscuits and what’s with the antler obsession?
Dunking biscuits is wrong, and if you are a dunker, well, I’m not saying we can’t be friends because I think it’s important we all learn to get along but I am judging you for your terrible choice to negate the crispness of the biscuit: crispness being the biscuits essence.
Now antlers, I’m not really sure, my first conscious thought about the coolness of Antlers was The Knucker, a dragon that appeared in 2000AD’s Slaine. I’m actually re-reading The Horned God at the moment and a lot of has stuck with me from when I read it the first time in my teens and I can see it in Age of Assassins. I’m also quite fascinated by folklore and the antler motif is a recurring one. And antlers are cool, if you like antlers you don’t need to justify it, they’re the thing, we all know it. Deep down, we do.
There are several interwoven aspirations (both political and career based) within Age of Assassins. How much time did you spend plotting out these complexities?
None. That sounds terrible doesn’t it? But I just don’t write like that. I started out with Merela, Girton Queen Adran and Prince Aydor as characters and I knew how Girton and Aydor would interact with each other, and I knew who the murderer was out of the rest of the characters. But that was about it. I always say the entire story jumped into my head in a flash and that’s not quite right. The bones of it did but at least fifty percent of the characters and plot, if not more, only came into being as I wrote Age of Assassins. And I’ve written both Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins[1] the same way.
There are many scenes where Girton’s club foot and learning abilities are both a social and physical disadvantage. With your own experience of chronic illness, how challenging was it to write these scenes?
I’m not sure challenging is the right word. The act of writing is generally quite a joyous one for me and I don’t really think about being ill, it’s my normal so I don’t dwell on it. I think most people have that experience of being singled out for being different in some way, or not conforming and I was thinking about that more than anything. I don’t see disability as a separate thing, or something special it’s just a facet. It’s the least interesting thing about me, and the same with Girton, his disability is part of his life. Part of the book really is his realisation that to other people he is seen as different.
Merela appears to exploit Girton – buying him, and training him beyond the limits he believes he has. He is repeatedly grateful for the life he now has, all but worshiping his Master. Will Girton grow beyond this?
Oh, now that’s a question that’s hard to answer without spoilers, innit? There are quite big gaps in time between the three books so you get to see, definitely in the second book, how as he’s grown and he’s started to strain at the bit. And for the third, well, you’re presuming they both survive book two…[2]
Age of Assassins has the flavour of a traditional fantasy, with a hefty dose of grimness. What authors/books influenced you to write?
This is always such a hard question to answer because there is so much that influences me. And as well as authors there’s music and art and people I’ve met and it’s just constant. I’m not really influenced by the “grimdark” thing, in fact I didn’t really know it was a thing until after I’d written Age of Assassins. I think that the ‘grimness’ of it is probably more influenced by a love of history than anything than my reading as I tend to read a lot of crime and SF at the moment. You can’t be aware of history without realising how unpleasant it was to be anyone but an aristocrat for most of human history.
In Girton’s intensive training to become a killer, he is left no room for doubt of his own ability. What one doubt would you be willing to work at to be rid of?
I’d love to feel more sure about grammar. If you are reading this and you are still in school, pay attention. It’s really worth doing.
As I mentioned earlier, you have been all over the country reading from Age of Assassins. You bring a level of performance to each reading. How do you overcome the pre-reading nerves?
I don’t get nervous past the slight buzz of a little adrenaline. Reading to an audience is something I really enjoy doing and the worst thing that can happen is a mess it up and look a bit foolish. I’ve been doing foolish things all my life and I’m always ready to laugh at myself; so it’s not a big worry.
Girton’s mentor and master, Merela has a reputation and agency of her own. Will we learn more about her in Blood of Assassins?
No.
Not enough? Ok.
I was really aware when writing book two[3] that people would want to know more about her and her past but I also had a definite
plan. Blood of Assassins is set in a world in flux because of the events of Age of Assassins, as such the book doesn’t follow the same format[4]. This is a bit pretentious but there’s mention of balance in Age of Assassins and I think of the trilogy like that. Book one and three I plan to mirror one another in form, where book two deviates a bit, it’s the centre of the scales, if that makes sense. We will find out about Merela in King of Assassins.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, RJ.
It was a pleasure!
As well as being my first interviewed author to add official footnotes (achievement unlocked!), RJ Barker is a regular chatterer on Twitter, or you can check out his website. You can find out more about his book Age of Assassins here. Age of Assassins is of course available from all good bookshops.
*****
Interview by Shellie Horst – SFFWorld.com © 2017
FOOTNOTES.
1 In fact, when writing King of Assassins I literally sat down with no more idea than ‘They are all going to a place.’ Most of the plot was a huge surprise to me.
2 Spoiler or lie? SPOILER OR LIE, RJ??? Not telling.
3 Partly because my editor, the lovely Jenni Hill wanted to know but she backed me on my plan even though it has meant she had to wait to find out what I was up to.
4 It’s still first person and a murder mystery though.
