The Expendables by S J A Turney

We’ve all read books or seen movies where we know damned well that the hero will survive and the villain will die a grisly death. After all, that pretty much describes 90% of all books and films. And usually, when the hero does die or the villain does live, it’s expected too. Gladiator had to turn out as it did. Any tale or movie of the life of Julius Caesar us unlikely to throw you an unexpected ending. Angus Donald’s recent ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ might be the most extreme example I can come up with, but it proves the point well. And (at least in literature rather than on screen) Batman’s enemies are always banged up rather than killed. The point is we expect lead characters to survive and villains to die. And usually when that’s not the case, we are led to expect that from the beginning.

Often that’s a thing a writer is comfortable with, because their readers are comfortable with it. And if you’re writing a series (say a run of detective novels) it might give you something of a headache to kill off your detective part way through. On TV this has not always been the case, of course. Taggart without Taggart. From Morse to Lewis. But on the whole it doesn’t work well in book series. Writers don’t like to kill important characters without the readers wanting it.

But sometimes it’s nice to buck the trend. Lord of the Rings threw me my earliest curveball when Boromir took those three arrows to the torso less than a third of the way into the story! Guy Gavriel Kay in ‘A Song for Arbonne’ kills off the character we all spent the book hoping would reconcile with his brother and come back. Darth Vader! Be honest. No one ever wants Darth Vader to die. He’s too cool for that. And on the flip side, James Wilde in his Hereward books actually has Hereward the Wake live through the end of his revolt and go on to whole new adventures where historical record sees him disappear. Go on… kill off the ones they like. You know you want to.

 

Perhaps the best example of that for me is also Star Wars. Because we all know that Boba Fett is the cool customer, and don’t you just wince at the awful decision of George Lucas’s to drop him in the Sarlacc Pit? And that’s why a novel was written around how he got back out. Because that sat so badly with fans.

But the things is that these deaths, especially when carried out in an arbitrary and off-hand fashion, create an atmosphere of tension and the unexpected. When Boromir dies, we spend the rest of the book on edge, aware that Tolkien could very easily kill off another of our faves. In Angus Donald’s Outlaw series, the Sheriff of Nottingham dies less than half way through the saga! And Little John is gone in the penultimate book! (Sorry for the spoiler there.) So that means that no one is truly safe from Donald’s pen. And that makes the series lively and tense. It adds something. Some writers take it to the level of an art form. I write in the historical genre and I do this often. Gordon Doherty and Anthony Riches are both well known for their body counts of principle characters, too. My latest novel (Insurgency) is the fourth in a series of historical fantasy books. And in the first of that series (Interregnum) I kill off a character so important to the plot part way through that I regularly receive emails from readers who are astonished that I did it.

On a similar note, with crime novels, while it’s fascinating to read about a murder and then follow the investigators through the book working out how it was done, it is often so much more exciting to read them when murders continue to happen throughout the book, perhaps becoming a race against the clock, or a race between criminal and investigator.

Expendables, you see? Throw an unexpected death in from time to time and keep the reader edgy and uncertain. It adds so much to the experience.

Insurgency by S J A Turney

For twenty years, civil war has torn the Empire apart, and the once proud soldiers of the Imperial army now fight as hired hands for greedy lords fighting over the remnants of a more glorious time.  Now the Empire is rising again under the benevolent reign of Emperor Kiva the Golden. Meanwhile his younger brother – the gifted warrior Quintillian – has been driven away from the Imperial Palace by an uncontrollable love for the Emperor’s wife Jala. Instead the honourable fighter chooses a life of simplicity as a sword for hire leaving the long legacy of his family behind. But not all ties of loyalty can be escaped and the bonds of family run deep…

Insurgency is published by Canelo, priced at £3.99 as an ebook

More information about SJA Turney can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @SJATurney or find him on Facebook.

The Ides of April with Lindsey Davis

Today’s guest and exclusive blog post is by Lindsey Davis.  A former Chair of the CWA, Lindsey Davis was the inaugural winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, she has also been awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library for her body of work.  A former Honorary President of the Classical Society she has also won The Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective, The Premio Colosseo awarded by the city of Rome to someone who "has enhanced the image of Rome in the world and in 2011 the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Best known for her series of books featuring Marcus Didius Falco she is also the author of The Course of Honour a novel about Vespasian and his lover Antonia Caenis, Rebels and Traitors which was set in the period of the English Civil War and Falco: The Official Companion which is considered to be the best author’s handbook on a series to be written. Her new series features Flavia Alba, Falco's British-born adopted daughter who is a private investigator in her own right. The first book in the new series The Ides of April is published today.  The Shots Magazine review of The Ides of April can be found here.

‘Will there really be no more Falcos?’ readers demand tearfully. I have to admit I am starting to feel tetchy, because I have written other things, which many people were surprised to find they liked – juicy standalones like Master and God and even Falco: the Official Companion, a series handbook like no other. What other series handbook contains both a Damart vest and an attempt to assassinate Bismarck?

I haven’t even said there will be no more Falcos; I don’t know.  I don’t want to be pushed into making a statement just to shut people up.  At the moment I want to do something different, so the quality of writing will be high because I am happy and refreshed.  I thought a new spin-off series would be reassuring – but I detect very strong hints of ‘You are being judged!’  I’ll say ‘hints’, not ‘threats’.  My readers always seem particularly nice. These are the people who tell me reluctantly ‘we know he is not real, really’.  They are sensible. Only one has ever sent me a birthday card for a character.

I believe they will become just as devoted to her. I think Flavia Albia is a rip-roaring heroine who will hold her own against even her papa.  I am certainly enjoying writing about her, and my standards for that are pretty high.  One thing slightly worries me: in Ides part of the plot revolves around the fact that it’s the date Albia has chosen as her ‘official’ birthday because she doesn’t know, and will never know, her real one.  I just want to remind everyone the Romans didn’t send cards.

This book is unusual in that I have used a murder plot that is probably real.  I won’t give it all away, but a historian mentions a weird series of killings, where people didn’t even know they had been attacked.  It may not be true, because he wants to illustrate public fear and hysteria during the paranoid Domitian years – a nicely grim period when the new series is set. I did not want a teenaged protagonist; I have always addressed adults, been satirical about sex and politics, felt free to make dark events feature heavily. I think an investigator needs to have experience, or how can they be any good? And trust me, Albia is good.  As a woman in a man’s world, she needs to be.

So I’ve moved on twelve years from Nemesis.  No, we are not having old Vesuvius erupt (though we may find out at some point what happened to the Falco clan when it did). There are familiar locations and characters for existing fans, but Albia explains them in her caustic style so new readers won’t feel left out or fazed.  And there will be plenty of new ‘regulars’.  I have such fun inventing them, and if readers will just give it a go, I think they will have fun too.

Books to Look Forward to From Atlantic Books and Corvus

The Praetorian Guard have proclaimed Claudius Emperor – but his position is precarious.  To secure power, Claudius’ freedmen must manufacture a quick victory for their new Emperor.  They call on Vespasian to retrieve the Eagle of the Seventeenth, lost in Germania nearly forty years before.  With a band of cavalry, Vespasian and his brother try to pick up the trail.  But someone is determined to sabotage Vespasian’s mission.  In search of the Eagle, pursued by barbarians, Vespasian will battle his way to the shores of Britannia.  Yet can he escape his own Emperor’s wrath?  Rome’s Fallen Eagle is by Robert Fabbri and is due to be published in September 2013.

The Magus of Hay is by Phil Rickman and is due to be published in November 2013.  A man’s body is found below a waterfall.  It looks like suicide or an accidental drowning – until his home is investigated.  The police send for Merrily Watkins, the Diocese of Hereford’s official advisor on the paranormal.  It is nearly forty years since Hay was declared an independent state, seen at the time as a publicity scam by a self-styled king.  But a dark design was forming, creating a hidden history of murder and ritual-magic.  It’s a situation that will take Merrily Watkins – alone for the first time in years – to the edge of madness.

The Amber Amulet is by Craig Silvey and is due to be published in August 2013.  Meet twelve-year-old Liam McKenzie, who patrols his suburban neighbourhood as the Masked Avenger – a superhero with powers so potent not even, he can fully comprehend their extent.  Along with his sidekick, Richie the Power Beagle, he protects the people of Franklin Street from chaos, mayhem, evil and low tyre pressure – but can he save them from sadness?

A new stand-alone historical thriller from the author of the Inspector Troy series, moving from London during the Blitz to divided post-war Berlin.  John Holderness, known to the women in his life as ‘Wilderness’, comes of age during World War II in Stepney, East London, breaking into houses with his grandfather.  After the war, Wilderness is recruited as MI5’s resident ‘cat burglar’ and finds himself in Berlin, involved with schemes in the booming black market that put both him and his relationships in danger.  In 1963 it is a most unusual and lucrative request that persuades Wilderness to return – to smuggle someone under the Berlin Wall and out of East Germany.  But this final scheme may prove to be one challenge too far…  Then We Take Berlin is a gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller – a moving story of espionage and war, and people caught up in the most tumultuous events of the twenty-first century.  Then We Take Berlin is by John Lawton and is due to be published in November 2013.