Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where I’m delighted to welcome back Sebastien de Castell to talk about his new fantasy novel Play of Shadows, which is out now from Jo Fletcher Books! Set in the same world as his Greatcoats series, this kicks off a brand new arc – and you definitely don’t need to have read the other books already, as I can testify myself (more on this later). I had a blast reading Play of Shadows, and I’d recommend it to any fantasy reader whether you’re a fan of the Greatcoats or, like me, new to this world. So read on to find out more about what to expect from Play of Shadows, its cast of characters, and the power of theatre in a fantasy world!
Track of Words: To start things off, could you tell us a bit about Play of Shadows and what readers can expect from it?
Sebastien de Castell: Play of Shadows is a swashbuckling fantasy set in an ancient city beset by brutal militias and secret societies whose leaders fear only one thing: that a lowly troupe of actors might hold the key to uncovering their true identities.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do readers need to know about them?
SdC: Our narrator and hero – if you can call him that – is Damelas Chademantaigne, a fugitive from a judicial duel who takes refuge among a company of actors inside one of the city’s most prestigious theatres. Though his grandparents were both Greatcoats – sword-wielding magistrates who risked life and limb hundreds of times defending the King’s Laws – Damelas considers himself a coward who’s rubbish with a sword and whose greatest talent is running away from trouble. But there’s a different kind of steel in Damelas, one that won’t allow him to stand by when his friends are in danger. Now, he just needs to find the means to protect them before it’s too late.
Play of Shadows features a large cast of scheming nobles, enigmatic assassins, bloodthirsty militias and shadowy cabals, all of whom seem intent on taking the city for themselves. As for the city’s defender’s…well, they consist mainly of a band of bickering theatre actors relying on daring, reckless courage and rather unusual stage theatrics to uncover the truth about a hundred year old murder before a long-planned rebellion sends their beloved city up in flames.
ToW: What can you tell us about the world in which this story is set?
SdC: Jereste is an ancient yet vibrant city famed for both its cultural heritage and its political intrigues. Filled with legendary theatres and operatos, back-alley bravos and fame-seeking duellists, a traveller to Jereste might envision a kind of 17th Century Venice if Carnivale were going on all year and the citizenry perpetually engaged in a dance of scheming and shifting alliances. The famed Operato Belleza provides the stage for the gradual unfolding of a treasonous conspiracy more than a hundred years in the making, and the uncovering of a historical secret whose revelation could soon tear the entire duchy apart.
ToW: I haven’t read any of the previous Greatcoats books, but I had a brilliant time reading this and it felt like a really great introduction to the world. For anyone who isn’t familiar, could you talk a bit about the Greatcoats as a whole, and how this book (and the Court of Shadows series) fits into the world and the chronology?
SdC: I’m a big believer that every novel, whether standalone or part of a series, should be able to stand on its own. What the reader needs to know about the world or the characters should flow naturally within the story we’re telling. When writers fail to do this, the audience ends up feeling as if they have to go back and reread everything in a series before starting the latest instalment. When readers get sick of doing that, they stop buying books until the entire series has completed, and that is what’s killing so much great fiction these days.
Often, a wonderful debut hits the shelves, but because readers don’t trust that the trilogy or quartet or whatever it is will be completed when promised, they skip it for later. Bookstores then decide the book isn’t worth re-stocking and publishers conclude that the story doesn’t suit the market. That’s one of the reasons why publishers are avoiding series and putting out books as standalones even when they insist the writer make it “series ready”.
My solution to this has always been to treat every book as if it’s the last one people will read: tell a complete, satisfying story, then make sure the next book has its own story to tell rather than simply taking one giant narrative and publishing it one part at a time. With the Court of Shadows series, I went one step further: you can read most of the books in any order, never feeling as if you’re lost or need to refer back to some earlier instalment. That’s what I look for in the novels I buy, so it’s what I’ve tried to do in my own writing.
ToW: It’s been a while since the original four Greatcoats books, but now you’re back with not just Play of Shadows but also the prequel novel Crucible of Chaos. Why return now? And were you always planning to revisit this world or was it just a case of finding inspiration?
SdC: The short answer is that I’ve been contracted to write four new Greatcoats books ever since the last one was published in 2017, and I’ve been working on the Court of Shadows series ever since. The challenge is that when you’ve had a successful series and told a complete saga, as was the case with Falcio in the original quartet, you have to simultaneously remain true to the world in which you’ve set your tales while also doing something new and different: something the readership will enjoy without retreading the same terrain. That was a tall order for me, and one reason why I’ve already written so much of the other books in this new series. I needed to explore the troubled world of the Greatcoats widely and deeply enough to make sure I was bringing something fresh to my beloved sub-genre of swashbuckling fantasy.
ToW: Damelas feels like a nice change from the traditional, overtly heroic fantasy protagonist. What was behind your decision to take this approach, and how did you find writing him?
SdC: One of my favourite movies of the last twenty years (to which I offer a small homage in the opening scene of Play of Shadows), is “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan. I adore that film for the mixture of daring and humour that infuses every scene. When I began writing Play of Shadows, I wanted Damelas to be fighting not only against the malignant forces of the Iron Orchids, but the expectations of others about who he should become. His grandmother intended for him to be a Greatcoat like herself, the Duke wants to make him a pawn, and even his closest friends insist that they know better than Damelas himself does as to who he’s meant to become. In the end, though, each of us has to define for ourselves what it means to be heroic, and which path will take us there.
ToW: Over the course of the story Damelas finds himself in the company of a series of incredibly dangerous women, who are all a lot of fun to read about. How did you find writing these characters, and putting them in Damelas’ path?
SdC: It’s a dangerous city, and so breeds dangerous people whether male or female. While I’d never planned for Damelas to find himself beset by so many remarkable women, I found each one brought something new to the story. In fact, it’s not so much the plight of Damelas that informed those particular characters, but their own intentions and plans that often brought them into conflict with one another.
For example, Rhyleis is a Bardatti Troubadour, and so inherently distrusts Shariza, who, as “The Black Amaranth”, is rumoured to be a Dashini assassin. Both have their own schemes when it comes to saving the city, and neither trusts the other’s motivations. Ferica di Traizo, the legendary “Vixen”, doesn’t care a fig about Damelas – only the risk to her own reputation of allowing him to escape an honour duel against her. The Viscountess Kareija sees Damelas as a means to protect her nephew, the Duke, while Zina, the young “alley rat” and thief, feels she has to protect Damelas from his own naiveté. Each of these characters bring their own agendas, and poor Damelas finds himself bounced between them as he tries to navigate the wider intrigues endangering his friends and his city.
ToW: While Damelas might not consider himself particularly heroic, it’s interesting to see his responses to the rampant inequality he sees around him, and how he tries in his own way to push back against tyranny and oppression. Was that something you specifically set out to explore here?
SdC: There’s an oddly rebellious quality to Damelas: he never sees himself as a revolutionary, yet can’t help but fight against the inherent injustices of his society threatening the people close to him. Actors and musicians have always been political, and even today the potency of their voices subjects them to attack when they dare speak out. Damelas keeps waiting for some revolutionary warrior to rise up and save his beloved city from the forces of oppression, but he soon comes to see that such heroes rarely appear when needed, and sometimes those who play them on stage must carry that heroic spirit to the streets if they hope to bring about change.
ToW: After the overt, in-your-face magic of The Malevolent Seven, this time around the magical elements are somewhat quieter, subtler and rather more self-effacing – in fact the words “shitty magical talents” appear at one point! Theatre has its own unique magic though, and I really enjoyed the idea of using performance to revisit and rewrite history. Do you have a particular connection with the theatre yourself, that you could draw upon while writing this?
SdC: I used to choreograph swordfights and battle scenes for theatre productions ages ago. Working as a fight director was such a privilege because it allowed me to share in that strange, oddly magical camaraderie of the theatre where actors and crew attempt the impossible together: convincing an audience accustomed to big-budget special effects movies and multi-million dollar video games that a bunch of performers on a stage are in the midst of a fight for their lives. That monumental endeavour fosters an almost militaristic sense of camaraderie, which was something I wanted to capture for my readers with the troupe known as The Knights of the Curtain.
The Veristor form of magic, in which some actors are believed to possess the ability to channel the spirits of dead historical figures they portray on stage, was something that came to me from observing just how passionately actors take their craft. It’s not simply a matter of memorizing lines or emoting on stage; some actors develop an expert knowledge of the life and history of the characters they’re playing on stage. While we have many ways of exploring history, one of the most fascinating to me is when we ask an actor to attempt to become a historical figure on stage. When everything is just right, from the costumes to the lights to the actor’s innate empathy for their characters, well, something magical happens. I hope I’ve captured a fraction of that magic with Damelas and his fellow Knights of the Curtain.
ToW: I enjoyed the way you structured this book, with a first person perspective and lots of short chapters in the vein of a thriller. Was that just the approach that felt right, or was it a conscious choice to fit this story?
SdC: I lean towards shorter, tighter chapters in part because that’s the way the industry has gone and it’s the way most readers prefer to experience books. Ten years ago, when I was first published, chapters might be as much as a hundred pages long separated by scene breaks. Now, though, I prefer using chapter breaks as intentional pauses to allow the culmination of the previous scene to “breathe” a little longer. Comic artists have long used the white space between panels to guide the experience of the audience. Chapter breaks and act breaks (which also allow me to include the spectacular illustrations found in Play of Shadows) are another tool for creating a more immersive telling of a story.
ToW: From a writing craft perspective, is there anything in particular that you learned during the process of working on this novel?
SdC: Every novel I write follows a different process, though I often wish I could find some magical system or routine that would work for me every time. Alas, my writing brain doesn’t work that way. Instead, the act of writing a novel is in many ways a treasure hunt as I search for the process that will best let me find and tell that story.
Because Play of Shadows is partly set in a theatre, I decided to write the first draft as if it were a play itself. This allowed me to focus on the intricate dialogue of the characters (who are always trying to one-up one another) and discover the elaborate settings such as the Operato Belleza, the Grand Library of Jereste and the Ducal Palace. Approaching the story this way is one of the reasons why Play of Shadows features some of my favourite lines of dialogue – especially those elaborate theatrical insults Abastrini hurls at Damelas.
I’m not sure this approach would work for any other book, but then, that’s part of what keeps novel writing so exciting for me: before I can bring the audience on an adventure, I have to go on one myself to discover the story I want to tell.
ToW: What can you tell us about what’s next for you, now that this is out?
SdC: Oh, nothing much. Well…except for writing the sequel to Malevolent Seven, publishing my first mystery novel, writing an outrageous new YA fantasy, working on Our Lady of Blades (the second book in the Court of Shadows series), finalizing negotiations on the television option for Spellslinger, travelling to conventions and other events in Europe and North America, selling my first science fiction book co-written with a fabulous writer friend of mine, doing marketing for all the various book launches, writing the next Tales of the Greatcoats short story collection, giving notes on the pilot script for a TV show based on Traitor’s Blade…umm…I might be rather busy for a while.
ToW: To finish off, if you were to join the Knights of the Curtain, either on stage or backstage, what role do you think you would take and why?
SdC: I discovered early on when I was a touring musician that I had to be right there at the front, revelling in that strange, indefinable energy that’s conjured during a live performance in front of an audience. Purest form of magic I’ve ever found.
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Sebastien de Castell’s acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series, The Greatcoats was shortlisted for both the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy and the Gemmell Morningstar Award. His YA fantasy series, Spellslinger, is published in more than a dozen languages. He spends his time writing, travelling, and going on strange adventures.
Find out more at Sebastien’s website.
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As always, thanks so much to Sebastien for talking to me for this interview, and also to Ella Patel at Jo Fletcher Books for organising everything. I hope that has whetted your appetite for Play of Shadows – I can confirm that it’s a lot of fun!
See also: an exclusive commentary and excerpt from Play of Shadows
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