Shawn Speakman: THE WAKING FIRE is in fine bookstores today! Tell Suvudu readers about the book?
Anthony Ryan: The Waking Fire is the first volume in my new series The Draconis Memoria. The series is set in a world at a mid-19th century level of development where a small proportion of the human population can wield magical powers by drinking the blood of dragons, referred to as ‘drakes’ in the book. The powers wielded by these ‘Blood-blessed’ vary according to the breed of dragon – the blood of a Green makes them super strong and enhances the senses, Red enables pyrokinetic powers, Blue telepathy and Black telekinesis. However, dragons are found only on one partially explored continent, control of which is contested by the Corporate World – half the world being under the control of huge trading corporations – and the powerful but decadent Corvantine Empire. The key to victory may lie in the blood of the fabled White drake and the story revolves around the quest to find it, along with plenty of espionage and battles for good measure.
Shawn Speakman: Dragons have been a main staple in fantasy tales for thousands of years in different cultures. What drew you to use them in THE WAKING FIRE?Anthony Ryan: Well, who doesn’t love dragons? I wanted to explore one of the most abiding fantasy tropes in, hopefully, a new way. I’d deliberately avoided including any magic beasties in my first series, Raven’s Shadow. The creatures in those books were all either real world animals or long extinct mega-fauna like the great elk or the megalodon. For the drakes in The Waking Fire I wanted them to be as non-mystical as possible, even though they form the basis of the magic system. For the most part the drakes behave like predatory wild animals would be expected to behave. But, as the story develops it becomes apparent that, despite exploiting Drakes for centuries, humans really don’t understand them very well. It was also fun coming up with a backstory for how dragons came to exist in this world and establishing different behaviours for each breed of drake, e.g. Greens hunt in packs, Blues are aquatic and so on.
Shawn Speakman: When writing the characters in THE WAKING FIRE, where did they start? Were they the inspiration for the story or did the story pull them in? A combination of both? And did you enjoy writing one character over another?
Anthony Ryan: Claydon Torcreek, one of the three POV characters, actually began life as the protagonist of an entirely different story that never really gelled in my head. I knew he lived in a mid-19th century world of some kind, and had a good idea of who he was as a person (i.e. a crook, at least when we first meet him), but didn’t really know what he was doing there. It was only when I came up with the notion of magic contained in drake blood that it all started to come together. Lizanne Lethridge was conceived as a means of exploring the wider world and the political machinations that underpin the escalating conflict. As an ‘Exceptional Initiatives Agent’ (read spy / assassin) for the Ironship Trading Syndicate she gets to travel a lot, visiting varied cultures, meeting new and interesting people and, occasionally, killing them. Her creation owes a big debt to my love of spy thrillers, though she’s definitely more in the vein of Fleming than Le Carre, I didn’t skimp on the gadgets. The third POV character, First Lieutenant Corrick Hilemore of the Ironship Protectorate Vessel Viable Opportunity, comes out of my fondness for military and maritime adventure. He’s a direct descendant of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe and CS Forester’s Hornblower, with some added complexity and angst thrown in. I needed him to convey the scale of the war that’s about to erupt as well as providing an insight into the geography of the world. And I wanted to write some cool sea battles too. I have to say I enjoyed writing them all equally. I tend not play favourites with my characters, nor do I get overly attached as it’s always possible they’re not going to be around for very much longer.
Shawn Speakman: The US and UK covers for THE WAKING FIRE are gorgeous. Did you have any input on their design?
Anthony Ryan: I was consulted on both but didn’t feel like I had a lot to say since the original versions came pretty close to nailing it first time. Jaime Jones produced a spectacular painting for the UK edition and the US cover does a great job of letting the reader know what to expect from the book. I recall suggesting that the figure in the UK cover should be holding a rifle but Orbit thought it would be too distracting, which I can’t really disagree with. Obviously, I’m delighted with how both covers turned out.
Shawn Speakman: What are you writing next? Got a title you can share?
Anthony Ryan: I just finished a novella set in the Raven’s Shadow world entitled The Lady of Crows. I’m not sure yet when it’ll appear but hope to announce something soon. I submitted the manuscript for The Draconis Memoria Book 2 in May and I’m about to start work on Book 3. I’m still discussing prospective titles for the next two volumes with my editor but should settle on something in the next few weeks.
The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan is in fine bookstores today! If you are looking for a story with dragons, action, and a cool world setting, I highly recommend it! It's also the first book in a new series so a great place to start reading Anthony's work!
I wonder what drake blood I would try if I could... hmm...
Shawn Speakman is the author of The Dark Thorn, an urban/epic fantasy hybrid novel bestselling author Terry Brooks calls, "a fine tale by a talented writer." He also edited the bestselling anthology Unfettered.
When Shawn isn’t lying for a living, he runs The Signed Page and Grim Oak Press. Follow him on Facebook and @shawnspeakman!