Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, my ongoing series of quick interviews with science fiction and fantasy authors talking about their new releases. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.
In this instalment I spoke to Peter McLean about his new novel Priest of Lies, which is available now from Jo Fletcher Books in the UK and Ace Books in North America. I’m a big fan of Peter’s writing, and his current series is one of the best I’ve read in a long time!
Without further ado, let’s get straight to the questions and Peter’s answers.
Track of Words: Priest of Lies is the second book in the War for the Rose Throne series; for anyone unfamiliar with the series so far, could you give a quick rundown on what to expect?
Peter McLean: War for the Rose Throne is a gangster family saga set in a fantasy secondary world roughly analogous to Tudor England. Tomas Piety is the Godfather figure, gangster turned soldier turned priest. Tomas grew up dirt-poor in the northern city of Ellinburg, where he and his younger brother turned their backs on their father’s trade of bricklaying and instead set themselves up as businessmen. This initially entailed running protection rackets around the Stink, the slum neighbourhood they grew up in, and progressed to owning taverns, inns, brothels and gambling dens across their patch.
When war came they were conscripted along with every other man of fighting age, and they were dragged through the horrors of the campaigns in Messia and Abingon. Promoted to priesthood in the army against his wishes, Tomas survived the war and returned home to find his business empire stolen from him by foreign gangsters. He didn’t take that lying down, and that’s where Priest of Bones begins.
ToW: Bearing that in mind, what would be your elevator pitch summary for Priest of Lies specifically?
PM: Priest of Lies is the story of a man who has regained what was taken from him, through he sweat of his brow and the blood of his enemies. It’s the story of a man who is now richer and more powerful than he had ever dreamed of being before. It’s the story of what that wealth and power does to him, and those around him.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them? Is anyone new going to show up, this time around?
PM: As with Priest of Bones, Tomas is once again the protagonist and narrator. He has his disturbed and battle-shocked brother Jochan with him, of course, and his second in command and best friend Bloody Anne always at his side with Fat Luka, Aunt Enaid, Simple Sam, Cutter and all the others from the first book. There’s young Billy the Boy too, of course, and then there’s Ailsa. For better or for worse, there will always be Ailsa.
But yes, there are new faces too. We journey to the capital city of Dannsburg in this book, where the nobility fight their duels with words not blades, and there Tomas meets new friends and makes bitter new enemies. How does a man who lives by his fearsome reputation make his way in a strange city where that reputation simply does not exist? He does it like a Pious Man – at swordpoint.
ToW: Can you tell us a little about the world in which this is set?
PM: As I say, this is very much a Tudor world, with perhaps a little artistic license. There’s gunpowder and cannon and emerging industrialisation, but standards of education among the working classes are shockingly low in provincial cities like Ellinburg. In Dannsburg however there are grand society balls and formal dinners, but someone is always watching. Everyone informs on everyone else, and the agents of the queen’s oppressive regime are never far away.
ToW: Prior to this series, you’d written the urban fantasy Burned Man trilogy; what inspired you to go from demons in modern day London to gangsters in Ellinburg?
PM: I wrote the Burned Man books almost by accident, to be perfectly honest. Those grew very organically from a silly online writing challenge, and while I’m still fond of them they aren’t really me anymore. Secondary world ‘swords and horses’ fantasy like Game of Thrones and gangster stories like The Godfather and Peaky Blinders are my lifeblood, so it was only natural I was eventually going to have a crack at combining the two.
ToW: What appeals to you about the Pious Men as characters to write about?
PM: What I really wanted to do with the Pious Men was explore the effects of wartime trauma on ordinary people. These men and women were conscripts, not professional soldiers, and while Tomas and Jochan may have been tough-guy gangsters before the war the others were not. Bloody Anne was a shepherd, Cookpot was a butcher’s boy, Will the Woman a pimp and brothel keeper. These were not people remotely prepared for the horrors they were about to face.
It’s always a bugbear of mine in fantasy when the heroes win the war and live happily ever after like nothing ever happened. Reality isn’t like that, and the scars of war can stay with people for the rest of their lives. Tolkien knew that, of course, and his own trauma from fighting in the First World War can be clearly seen in the end of The Lord of the Rings. That’s what I wanted to do here, start at that end point and work forward. I’ve always been a writer of primarily character-driven fiction, and I just love writing about these fascinating people and their stories, their lives and loves and motivation.
ToW: Tomas has a really distinct voice in these books; where did that come from?
PM: Do you know what, I don’t actually know. I started writing him and discovered that’s how he talks, so I just went with it. I think there’s a part of him that owes a debt to Richard Sharpe from Bernard Cornwell’s splendid historical novels, something of that dour, uneducated commoner from the slums who is a natural leader and becomes a self-made man. The voice itself though? That’s all Tomas.
ToW: You’ve created a vivid world and set of characters who really feel alive, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who would love to know more about them. Besides the novels, are you planning on telling any other stories set in this world, in other formats?
PM: All being well there are more novels to come, but to tide you over until then there’s Hunger and the Lady, a Billy the Boy origin short story, which was published in Grimdark Magazine #18 earlier this year.
ToW: How does this story compare to the rest of your work? If someone’s read the Burned Man trilogy, or your work for Black Library, is this a familiar feel or is it a bit of a departure?
PM: This is a completely different setting to the modern day London of The Burned Man or the worlds of Warhammer. That said I suppose there are common themes to be found – oppression, and struggling to even identify what the right thing is, never mind actually do it. I think War for the Rose Throne probably has more in common emotionally with my Black Library work than it has with Burned Man, which has much more of a 1970s cop show vibe to it. If you’ve only read my Black Library stuff though, just be aware that I have absolutely no language filter when I’m writing original fiction!
ToW: What do you hope fantasy fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
PM: Entertainment, primarily. I’m not a ‘message fiction’ type of author who’s hoping to teach people life lessons, I’m an entertainer. That said, if it makes you think about war and its consequences, and perhaps about family and what that means, then I’ll be a happy man.
ToW: What can you we expect from the next book in the series?
PM: More consequences. A large part of Priest of Lies stems from the consequences of what happened at the end of Priest of Bones, and those consequences will only continue to snowball into the next book. Nothing happens in isolation in real life, and it doesn’t in my books either.
ToW: Final question – when you’re not writing about gangsters, what can you be found doing?
PM: Working a day job in corporate datacentre outsourcing, or spending time with my wife and cat and grandchildren. All authors seem to be owned by a cat, I think it’s compulsory.
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I’d like to say a big thanks to Peter for taking the time to write such great answers. If this has piqued your interest in the War for the Rose Throne series, you can read my review of the first book, Priest of Bones, right here – and my review of Priest of Lies here.
Click here to buy Priest of Lies.
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