Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview – this time around I’m chatting to author Anna Stephens about her new novel The Stone Knife, the first book in a new trilogy called The Songs of the Drowned. It’s due out from Harper Voyager in hardback, ebook and audiobook on the 26th November, so take a look at the interview to get the lowdown on what you can expect, and then head out and get your pre-orders in!
Without further ado, on with the interview…
ToW: To start off, tell us a bit about your new novel The Stone Knife. What’s it about?
Anna Stephens: Hi, it’s the story of the Empire of Songs’ plan to conquer the entire peninsula of Ixachipan and bring it under their song-magic, and the people of Tokoban and Yalotlan who resist their advances.
It’s a novel about empire and colonialism, resistance and magic, shamanism and religion. It’s got some very bad monsters and some very good doggos and a whole truckload of questionable morals and poor decisions.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters in this book and what do we need to know about them?
AS: We follow point of view characters on both sides of the conflict, those doing the conquering and those doing the resisting. We’ve got military leaders who are decent and honourable and unaware they’re actually the bad guys (Pilos), warriors fighting to preserve their way of life and freedom (Xessa and Lilla) shamans whose curiosity may be their undoing (Tayan) and politicians whose scramble for power could destroy everything they’ve tried to build (Enet).
ToW: This is a totally new series, and separate from your Godblind Trilogy, right? Could you talk a little about the world in which this story is set, to give us an idea of what to expect?
AS: Yes, I wanted to step away from the Godblind universe and develop something new. I wanted a completely new environment and all the challenges and opportunities that would come from that, so I chose to set the series on a tropical peninsula of heavy jungle and hilly terrain. The inhabitants practice shamanism and some of them worship spirits and ancestors and a mother goddess, while others practice song-magic and worship water-dwelling creatures they refer to as the holy Setatmeh.
The people of Tokoban and Yalotlan are generally peaceful, though clashes along their border do occur, but when the Empire of Songs begins expanding ever further, they form an alliance to resist the invasion.
Aside from the threat from the Empire, both peoples have to deal with what they refer to as the Drowned – scaled, humanoid predators that live in water and have a siren-like, irresistible song that draws the unwary to their deaths. These are the same creatures the Empire worships as gods, so there’s an extra layer of tension, because the defenders do all they can to exterminate the Drowned and so are, effectively, slaughtering the Empire’s gods.
ToW: Why this story? Where did the idea for The Songs of the Drowned as a series come from, and what made you want to write this in particular?
AS: I wanted to include the things I’m good at writing – namely conflict and fights and battles – because I enjoy exploring the best and worst in people when they’re pushed to their limits. I think that people’s true selves become clear when they’re in desperate circumstances, not just whether they’ll do bad things to survive, but how much they wrestle with themselves over whether they can justify those bad things.
But I also wanted to challenge myself to explore much larger themes, and in particular to examine empire and colonialism from the perspectives of both the oppressors and the oppressed, which is a big, ambitious topic and I hope I’ve done it justice.
The other big thing I wanted to do was create a world and societies that have equal gender roles, no patriarchy, and no homophobia. Anyone can do, be, and love anyone they want. So there are a lot of terrible things about the Empire of Songs, but also some very good things, which made for a very complex society, and I enjoyed exploring that complexity.
ToW: How would you say this compares to the Godblind trilogy in terms of tone, style etc? Have you taken a similar approach, or would you say it’s a departure from your previous work?
AS: I don’t think The Stone Knife is quite as grimdark as my previous trilogy, though I appreciate that grimdark itself is extremely hard to describe. Some people might still see it that way, but for me, it’s much more epic in scope than my last series, addressing bigger themes, which necessitated a slightly different approach. It’s a longer book, for a start, and the individual chapters are all longer to give us more time in each character’s head, and there are fewer points of view, too. All these seemed to happen naturally and probably as a result of my evolution as a writer, rather than any conscious effort, though.
I made the decision to change the tone of voice in some places as a result of the focus on song and song-magic. So in some places I departed from my previous style and injected some more lyricism into my descriptions of place and ritual to reflect that.
And also Xessa, one of our main protagonists, is deaf, so she experiences the world mainly through vision and touch, so I tried to give her points of view more richness of description.
ToW: How did you find the writing process for this, compared to your previous books? Was it easier, knowing you had already written the Godblind Trilogy? Harder, because you wanted to match or exceed what you’d achieved last time around?
AS: Oof, well, with my debut trilogy there were no expectations on me. I was unknown, nobody knew what to expect. This time around, while I don’t exactly have a legion of loyal readers, there are people who know my name which brings certain expectations, I guess. But mostly, the pressure I felt was because this is my career now and I want it to be successful, so I needed to produce a worthy successor to my debut series.
That’s one of the reasons I took a risk and went bigger, more epic, larger themes. Also, I do feel I’ve improved as a writer, and a bigger plot landscape gave me more opportunity to showcase that.
Actually conceiving of an entire trilogy and getting the outline down on paper in a very short amount of time – compared with my first series – was a real challenge, as was figuring out what I wanted to say in the first book but in the end, with the help of beta readers, my agent, and my editors, I’m really proud of The Stone Knife.
ToW: Can you talk a little about the influences you drew upon while writing this? Was there anything in particular that inspired you?
AS: Deciding to set this in a climate and geography I’m unfamiliar with meant I needed to do a lot of research into societies that are perfectly adapted to that environment. I settled on Central America because it has a good diversity of geography that I could place my characters within. So then I did a LOT of research into Central American civilisations and societies, everything from agriculture to architecture, warfare and travel, to create a realistic society within that setting.
I didn’t want to use the social, economic and religious aspects of Mayan and Aztec Triple Alliance culture, because of the risk of appropriation, so I built those myself and then hired a sensitivity reader to make sure I hadn’t made any errors.
The art and architecture of the Central American civilisations is stunning, and I was definitely inspired by that, and their use of colour, as well as how intimately they were connected with their environment. I wanted to replicate that feeling of symbiosis in my own created societies. Character and place names are also derivatives of historical and existing Mayan languages.
ToW: What do you hope fantasy fans will get out of The Stone Knife by the time they’ve finished it?
AS: I love to know that readers have been entertained, first and foremost, because that’s the majority of my job as a writer. I want to take them on an emotional journey and put their feelings through a wood-chipper, but I also want them to be satisfied and entertained by the story.
Secondary to that, I hope that people might look differently at questions of representation, diversity, and the harm perpetrated by colonialism.
ToW: How are you getting on with the next book in the series? Can you tell us anything about what to expect, or when it’s likely to be out?
AS: I’ve got a first draft written, but I’m rewriting it extensively based on the edits The Stone Knife underwent and the changes in tone I mentioned above.
At this stage, the planned release date is November 2021. I guess the ongoing pandemic may result in a shift of publication, but so far my deadlines remain the same and I’ll continue to work towards them.
ToW: Lastly, if readers would like to keep up with all the Anna Stephens news, what’s the best way for them to do that?
AS: I’m pretty active on Twitter – @AnnaSmithWrites – and my website is http://anna-stephens.com. I’ve also got a patreon – Anna Stephens, Word Seeker – with three tiers of content at $1, $2 and $4 respectively where I talk about works in progress, editing and cut scenes, and post original fiction.
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Massive thanks to Anna for taking the time to get involved with this interview, and for providing such great answers. The Stone Knife sounds fab – it’s definitely going on my TBR list!
If you’re in the UK and would like to support local independent bookshops, you can buyThe Stone Knife from my store on Bookshop.org*
Alternatively, buy The Stone Knife from Amazon* (also available as an audiobook)
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