Ask the Author: Anna Smith Spark
Answered Questions (4)
Anna Smith Spark
Agh, sorry, I didn't find this until now (don't go on Goodreads very often). Yes, the next book, The Tower of Living and Dying, will be out in summer 2018, the third and final book in summer 2019. And short stories set in the Empires of Dust world are/will be in the Art of War anthology, Legends III and Grimdark Magazine #12.
Anna Smith Spark
Hello Giovanna. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to answer your question. I'd offer lots of excuses, but basically I just didn't notice it on Goodreads and I'm sorry about that. Especially as it's a question I like to answer.
So .... I honestly have no real idea where the Empires of Dust world came from. To sound very pretentious, it sometimes feels like it was there, fully formed, in my mind, before I started to write. Writing The Court of Broken Knives was very much a process of discovery, the world and the characters revealing themselves to me as I wrote. As the action moved across different parts of the world, it did feel as though I was discovering these places, seeing them for the first time.
I studied classics at university, I read a great deal of history and mythology. The Empires of Dust world is heavily influenced by the Homeric Greece of Iliad and of Alexander the Great; the Britain and Ireland of the Tain, the Gododdin, the Mabinogeon, Beowulf. And the great poetry of fantasy cities - Yeats' Byzantium, Coleridge's Khubla Khan, Flecker's Golden Road to Samarkand. I think the world of Empires of Dust is probably the sum and substance of my reading and studies over my entire life, in book form.
So .... I honestly have no real idea where the Empires of Dust world came from. To sound very pretentious, it sometimes feels like it was there, fully formed, in my mind, before I started to write. Writing The Court of Broken Knives was very much a process of discovery, the world and the characters revealing themselves to me as I wrote. As the action moved across different parts of the world, it did feel as though I was discovering these places, seeing them for the first time.
I studied classics at university, I read a great deal of history and mythology. The Empires of Dust world is heavily influenced by the Homeric Greece of Iliad and of Alexander the Great; the Britain and Ireland of the Tain, the Gododdin, the Mabinogeon, Beowulf. And the great poetry of fantasy cities - Yeats' Byzantium, Coleridge's Khubla Khan, Flecker's Golden Road to Samarkand. I think the world of Empires of Dust is probably the sum and substance of my reading and studies over my entire life, in book form.
Anna Smith Spark
Hello Mike. Apologies for not replying sooner - I've been off besporting myself at a convention ... Thank you so much for the kind words. There are three books in the series (it's fantasy - a trilogy is the legal requirement). Book two, The Tower of Living and Dying, is due out summer 2018, the third book will follow in 2019. I've also got stories set in the Empires of Dust world in Grimdark Magazine #12, and in two or three forthcoming anthologies. Most importantly, a short story set in the world is in The Art of War anthology which Booknest.Eu is publishing to raise funds for Medecines Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). I'm extremely proud to be able to support this cause through my writing.
Anna Smith Spark
Hello Outis... Apologies, I, um, haven't been on Goodreads much, obviously. The book seemed too dark and sad for several mainstream publishers, but did then get snapped by by HarperVoyager. I suspect actually it was just my pessimism talking, to be honest. I felt desperate to find an explanation for why it might not sell - and homoerotic feminist grimdark fantasy is maybe a little unusual in someways (!). Better that as an explanation than 'I suck'. But now writing what I write seems even more urgent and necessary, and let's just hope to god the publishers see that.
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