Today we’re talking to our friend Toby Frost about his new Dark Fantasy novel “Up to the Throne”, and what it’s like taking the step into the brave new world of writing dark fantasy.
Hi Toby. Your new book, Up to the Throne,is now available for pre-order. What’s it about?
It’s about a woman who returns to the city-state where she grew up to take revenge on the criminal who scarred her and left her to die. Once, she was a petty criminal, but now she’s a seasoned thief-catcher and bounty hunter. However, he is no longer a mere gang leader but a powerful politician with his eyes on the throne. He will be extremely hard to kill – and if our heroine does take him out, something even worse will take his place.
Now, the answer should be obvious from the previous, but you’re going to get asked this a lot anyway, so we’ll ask as well – is this is Space Captain Smith novel? Or does it mark the end for Space Captain Smith?
It’s not a Smith novel, and I should be clear that it’s played straight and isn’t a comedy. I do want to return to Smith’s world, as there’s a lot more that I could do with it. How exactly I’ll return, I’m not sure. I’m wondering about writing a story set at something of a tangent, perhaps about some of the minor characters – but we’ll see.
Up to the Throne is a Dark Fantasy novel but, unlike much of the genre, is set in a quasi-renaissance period. Why did you take this decision? And how does it make it different from classic pseudo-medieval fantasy?
The pseudo-Renaissance setting just appealed to me more than the standard Medieval one. When you’re writing fantasy, you’re looking at a kind of caricatured past- the Medieval era appears as knights, wizards and dragons, or the Victorian age is represented by swashbuckling explorers and steam-powered gadgets. The caricature of the Renaissance includes both amazing achievement in art,engineering and thought, but subterfuge, corruption and murder. It’s a good environment for extreme characters to co-exist – and by “co-exist” I mean “conspire again each other”.
How did you go about creating a whole new world? Where did you start? Do you have a huge file filled with minute detail or do you make it up as you go along?
I was lucky here.The Renaissance setting lends itself to a city-state like the Italian city-states, which means that the action is largely confined to one city and its surroundings. I like this, as it gives me the opportunity to talk about strange characters and bizarre architecture like one of my favourite novels, Titus Groan (the first Gormenghast book). So I do have a file full of details, often adapted from real life, but they’re often very small, precise details, not the sprawling landscapes you might find in an epic fantasy novel. It feels rather like zooming in instead of a huge panorama
Characters in a fantasy novel can do anything – use magic powers, survive horrible injuries, turn into gigantic toad frogs – how do you make you characters real in an unreal world?
I think it’s a matter of consistency and believability. Consistency is very important in an unreal world: readers need to know what to expect, and to feel that they aren’t being surprised in a way that breaks the suspension of disbelief. You have to feel that everything, even surprises, are logical within the setting. Believability, to me, is all about understanding the motives of the characters and the decisions that they take. If you look at a work of historical fiction,like I Claudius, or far-future SF such as Dune, you can understand why the characters act in the way that they do. I think that’s very important in terms of making the characters feel “real”.
Is Up to the Throne the first of a series? What next from Toby Frost?
I’m certainly going to do a sequel to Up To The Throne. I’ve got plans to make it part of a larger set of stories in that setting, but it’s all rather vague at the moment! But there certainly shall be a follow-up. What next after that? That’s really hard to answer! There’s loads of things that I’d like to do – the hard bit is finding the time to do them all!
Finally, where should we go to buy Up to the Throne?
It’s on Amazon Kindle from the 18th of December. That’s 18/12/18 (not that I planned it – I’m not that organised!). After that, I’ll have a think about making paper copies,and we’ll see how things go. But Amazon Kindle is the first port of call.
