Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, part of my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new or upcoming books. 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 (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.
In this instalment I spoke to Justin T. Call about his debut novel Master of Sorrows, which was released in the UK by Gollancz in 2019 and is out now in the US as well. If you’re interested in an engaging modern fantasy novel which subverts the usual Chosen One/Dark Lord tropes a little bit, this is well worth checking out!
Without further ado, over to Justin…
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Master of Sorrows?
Justin T. Call: While attending an anti-magic school for warrior-thieves, a young boy with a penchant for magic must choose between following the dark traditions of the Academy’s masters or the enlightened path of a prophesied hero. Choosing either destiny will require him to either betray his friends and mentor or else abandon the girl and the life he has always longed for. Worse, instead of being the fated hero of his story, the young boy may in fact be the Dark Lord reincarnated.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
JTC: Annev is the protagonist of Master of Sorrows. He’s a seventeen-year-old student, clever, and idealistic. He’s also passionate and conflicted and woefully naïve about certain parts of life. He has a very strong paternal relationship with his mentor (Sodar) and he’s got a crush on the daughter of the Academy’s headmaster (Myjun).
Sodar is Annev’s priestly mentor who also secretly tries to teach Annev magic. He loves Annev like a father or grandfather but always at a distance. He’s full of secrets and has a sense of humor, but he can also be a bit churlish.
Tosan is the stern headmaster of the Academy. He’s a bit hypocritical in his views against magic, and that hypocrisy is reflected in the school’s mission to confiscate any magic artifacts in their sphere of the world.
Myjun is Tosan’s daughter and Annev’s love interest – a pretty girl who is training to become a witwoman (a sort of midwife-ninja-assassin). Like her father, Myjun’s worldview is a bit skewed and runs towards prejudice. Annev is initially blind to this due to his crush on the young woman.
Fyn is another student at the Academy and, as the class bully, he serves as one of Annev’s chief antagonists. He is physically superior to his peers and he holds a grudge against Annev receiving special privileges denied to the other boys.
Kenton is another of Annev’s classmates who was once friendly to Annev but has now fallen in with Fyn and his lackeys.
Titus and Therin are two more of Annev’s classmates, both friendly and yet lacking the prized combat skills that might elevate them from ‘acolytes of faith’ to ‘avatars of judgment’.
ToW: Can you talk a little about the world in which this story is set?
JTC: Master of Sorrows (and the rest of The Silent Gods series) takes place in a roughly medieval world called Luquatra. Gods and monsters inhabit its lands, and magic – which was once in abundance – now carries a powerful stigma. Within that world, there is a secret village nestled in the heart of the Brakewood whose sole purpose is to deprive the world of its remaining magical artifacts. Most of the book takes place within this village and the lands immediately surrounding it. Likewise, the events in Master of Sorrows chiefly take place over a period of less than a week.
ToW: Why this story? What made you want to write this in particular?
JTC: I’ve always been fascinated by origin stories and villains’ backstories, but I feel like I’ve never gotten enough of either in a single series. For this series, I wanted to explore both of those and I wanted to give the villain a chance to be viewed with the same level of empathy we usually only reserve for the hero. That meant telling a longer story from the perspective of a character that may or may not be the series’ villain. Simply calling that character a villain, though, robs him of that empathy, so I’ve deliberately tried to frame him as a hero within the context of his own story. It’s not something I’ve seen done (at least not to this level), though one of my peers, Christopher Ruocchio, is attempting something similar in the sci-fi genre with his Sun Eater series.
ToW: I’ve heard talk of you drawing on all sorts of influences, from David Eddings to Patrick Rothfuss – if you had to point to one key influence on your writing, and this book specifically, who/what would it be?
JTC: That’s a tough one since those two would definitely be at the top along with Brandon Sanderson. I think, though, that I lean more towards David Eddings because we both play rather heavily with the notion of gods walking among and interacting with men. Our stories are also written for adults but with a strong bent towards the YA genre, making them a genuine breed of crossover fiction (YA/Adult epic fantasy). Having said that, my stories also carry a darker flavor to them and a higher penchant for visceral violence.
ToW: You have a background in games development as well – what do you think that brings to your writing?
JTC: I pay close attention to rules when designing both my games and my fantasy novels. That tends to make the magic systems in my books more akin to the ‘hard magic’ you might find in a Brandon Sanderson novel. Also, I like to give a nod to the tropes of both genres now and then by including items, characters, and setting descriptions that evoke something you might see in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s not heavy handed, but if you notice any similarities between my own writing and the Drizzt stories written by R.A. Salvatore…well, there is a reason.
ToW: How much of your own worldview and experiences has gone into this book? Themes like ambiguity, seeing stories from the other side, clashes with authority…do they come from you, or more from a desire to see things in storytelling which maybe aren’t often portrayed?
JTC: My worldview is very centrist, so I like to fully understand both sides of an issue before making judgments about anything. Likewise, I’m prone to playing devil’s advocate on issues I may already have an opinion about simply because I think it’s helpful to see both sides of an argument. I try to instill that perspective in my books because I think that’s how the real world is – full of ambiguity and yet with clear lines of good and evil if you can see past that ambiguity. I certainly haven’t had many clashes with authority figures, but I recognize someone who is abusing their position of authority, I tend to react strongly against those abuses.
Within the context of Master of Sorrows, though, I think this culminated in wanting to tell a bildungsroman [a novel dealing with a character’s formative years] from the perspective of a character who might later be identified as the ‘Dark Lord’; I wanted to explore that character’s perspective from an early age and show the good that he aspires to and then (as the series progresses) to then show how that perspective can change due to cause and circumstance. To make that more poignant, I also felt it was important to include a lot of perspectives from characters who could be identified as ‘other’ simply because they were different from what society deemed as normal.
ToW: From what I’ve read in other interviews it sounds like you had lots of the big picture of this series mapped out before writing the novel. Did you find that much changed during the writing process, or have things remained close to your initial plan?
JTC: Things have remained rather close to my original plan, though I have had to cut down a lot of what I had initially outlined simply because I had planned far, far too much. If I’d stuck 100% to that original outline, The Silent Gods tetralogy would probably be twenty books instead of four. Having said that, I’ve still kept the core elements the same and much of what I had outlined for books 1-3 is unchanged (just with certain side narratives either trimmed down or cut out entirely).
Can’t beat a bit of David Eddings!
ToW: What do you hope fantasy fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
JTC: I’m hoping to tell a good story, first and foremost. I set out to write something that my 13-year-old self and my 30-year-old self would both enjoy, and I think I’ve succeeded so far – but I hope fantasy fans agree with me. Lastly, I’m hoping to establish a unique narrative that is simultaneously classic yet modern, nostalgic yet fresh. I’m hoping to tell a story that is familiar (the hero’s journey) but in a way that inverts a lot of the tropes (by being told from the perspective of the Dark Lord). Time will tell if I succeed.
ToW: As I understand it, this is book one of four – what can you tell us about the next book in the series?
JTC: The Silent Gods is a tetralogy, that is correct…but I also have plans for two more tetralogies. Assuming I get my wish, that would make the full series 12 books long with a major story arc for each of the three tetralogies.
Having said that, I’ll say that my main objective in writing The Silent Gods (the first tetralogy) is to tell the origin story for the series’ Dark Lord, but in a way that feels more reminiscent of a more traditional hero. I’m giving myself four books to reach that point because I’ve got a lot I want to say and I want to make sure the resolution of that arc is satisfying for readers who stick with my protagonist. Book 1 introduces him and the world he inhabits. It establishes a good baseline for the themes of the series and how the magic works. Most of all, though, it shows that Annev is a character who is conflicted about his own destiny.
The second book in the series (Master Artificer) will deal with the next step in Annev’s heroic journey. He’ll grow as a character, become less naïve, and learn to control more of his magic. He’ll also begin to make decisions that lay the foundation for his final character transformation. The setting itself will also be greatly expanded, both in terms of the length of time that passes and in terms of the physical and metaphysical space that the characters travel over the course of the novel. Master Artificer also has four or five more character points-of-view outside of Annev’s, which is a deviation from book 1 (which focused almost entirely on Annev’s narrative POV). To accommodate those new points-of-view, Master Artificer is also a lot longer than Master of Sorrows (almost twice as long, though I’ll be revising that first draft in the next few weeks).
***
Many thanks to Justin for taking the time to contribute such great answers! If this has whet your appetite for Master of Sorrows, make sure you check out my review here.
If you don’t already follow him, you can find Justin on Twitter @Justin_T_Call, or check out justintcall.com.
Click this link to buy Master of Sorrows, or this one for the audiobook edition.
Click here if you fancy taking a look at some other Author Interviews. If you have any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or find me on Twitter.
If you’d like to support Track of Words and help me to keep working on new content, you can leave me a tip over on my Ko-Fi page.
