The Bloody North (The Fallen Crown) (14 page)

My first exposure to fantasy was
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis. I saw the old BBC adaptation of it (which I still think stands head and shoulders above both the animated movie and the more recent Disney motion picture) and then found a copy of it in paperback at a car boot sale. I was about nine at the time. I spent months afterward trying to track down copies of all the others. I succeeded, never paying more than about fifty pence for each one. Eventually I had all seven
Narnia
books lined up on my shelf, each one from a different edition.

A year or so later
, I found a box set containing all seven, with cover art to match their respective BBC adaptations. I used that as my excuse for reading them all again from scratch. I still have that same box set now.

In my teens
, my uncle loaned me a copy of
Spellsinger
by Alan Dean Foster and I proceeded to bug him for the other five, tearing through them at a rate of knots. A few years back, I had the honour of having a short story of mine published alongside Mr. Foster. In that anthology (see: Resistance Front by Bernard Schaffer, Alan Dean Foster, Harlan Ellison, et al) I dedicated my story to Alan, thanking him for
Spellsinger
.

If the work of C. S. Lewis had introduced me to fantasy as a genre (at the age I was when I read it, I honestly didn't pick up on all of the religious notes – it was just a good story), then
Spellsinger
showed me you could take traditional fantasy and inject it with facets of modern life.

From a very early age
, we'd had three films on VHS I'd constantly watch, over and over again. The first was
The Goonies
– recorded off of the TV with commercials included. The other two were
Watership Down
and
The Lord of the Rings
.

After reading
Spellsinger
, my mind turned to those two cartoons I'd watched as a small child. So I read my way through
Watership Down
, and then tackled
The Lord of the Rings
at about the same time as
The Fellowship of the Ring
came out at the cinema. With
Watership Down,
I got to see world building on par with Narnia, but done in an entirely different way. Set in the world of rabbits, with their own language, their own beliefs, their own mythology. I found it completely fascinating.

The Lord of the Rings
was a slog most of the time, but I have happy memories of the experience. It was a long work to tackle in my teens, but I managed it, just about. A recent attempt at a reread failed miserably. I simply lost interest. A lot of that comes from the books I am used to reading now as an adult. They're faster, more concise. To my mind, Tolkien's opus is a must-read for anyone. But I don't think many will delve back in for a second go. It's a huge undertaking.
The Lord of the Rings
is a classic work of fantasy that truly established a gold standard for the genre at the time. And there have been many attempts by other writers at recreating Middle-Earth in their own work, to varying degrees of success.

Coming out of my teens,
The Dark Tower
series and J. K. Rowling's
Harry Potter
were hugely influential to me. What Stephen King accomplishes with
The Dark Tower
is something he has tried often and succeeded at rarely. That is, telling a long story and holding the reader's attention from start to finish. Some – novels like
The Stand
and
IT
– have worked brilliantly. Others . . . ugh. But for whatever reason,
The Dark Tower
grips you from the first tantalizing sentence ("The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed . . .") and never lets go. It's a little crazy, it's a bit of a mash-up of multiple genres and sources but that's okay. You take it in your stride.
The Dark Tower
is King's greatest work. A rich, hugely entertaining epic.

The very same can be said for Rowling's
Potter
series. I read them one after the other (luckily the last,
The Deathly Hallows
, was just coming out as I finished
The Half-Blood Prince
). My habit with those was to sit on the kitchen floor at night, cup of tea by my side and read into the early hours. I lived in a house with six other siblings at the time, so really the kitchen at night was about the most peaceful place for reading.

She did a fantastic job of world-building, of plotting each book out so that it was
its own self-contained story, yet progressed the overall plot piece by piece. Readers were literally spellbound (forgive the pun) by the interactions between the characters and the relationships that developed along the way. By the progression of a plot that grew steadily darker and darker – and by what had happened in the past, before the books take place. Certainly the greatest, well-rounded character of the series is not Harry Potter himself, but Severus Snape. Dumbledore's machinations become somewhat omnipresent by the end, whereas Snape comes into his own in what is a truly heartbreaking series of revelations.

Recently
, I found myself browsing the kindle store for something new to read when I came across
The Blade Itself
by Joe Abercrombie. I got the sample, devoured it in one sitting, and bought the rest of the book.

The next day
, I found myself in town buying the whole trilogy in paperback and proceeded to read them one after the other. Abercrombie takes the conventions of the genre and turns them on their head. First of all, he does away with the stilted writing of the past and brings his contemporary voice to Fantasy – complete with swearing, sex, and some of the most complicated characters I've ever come across. Each and every one of them broken in some way.

Glokta
, broken in body but not in spirit. Logen Ninefingers, broken inside as he tries (in vain) to turn away from the man he used to be. These two characters begin the story broken and end up whole by the end (though not necessarily better people as a result) whilst the character of Luthar begins whole and is steadily broken first in body, then in spirit. Abercrombie writes a kind of fantasy that critics and readers alike have come to coin "Grimdark." I guess it had its beginnings in the work of Robert E. Howard way back when, and I reckon there were the seeds of it in the dark deeds that went (mostly) unseen, in the background, throughout
The Lord of The Rings
. If Aragorn and company spent the majority of those books fighting nameless, faceless hordes of Orcs with little repercussions for their deeds, Abercrombie makes every kill resonate.

Men fight men, with all the horrific slaughter and detail involved. And when the fight is over, when most of them have died, the survivors are left with their guilt and their shame and their hurt. Left to deal with it all on their own.

It's no wonder, in Abercrombie's fictional setting, that Logen turned out the way he did.

But what some reviewers of
The Blade Itself
have criticized it, and its sequels, for is its lack of hope, and I have to disagree there. I found plenty of hope in
The First Law
trilogy. It's there, trust me. What Abercrombie does is to counter-balance these moments, these flashes of characters achieving the positive, with the darkness. If a character is winning in one chapter, the next time we meet them, their luck has taken a turn for the worst.

Is that fair? Probably not. But is it realistic to what we experience in real life?

Yeah.

I took a similar approach in
The Bloody North
, by having a character consumed with grief to the point where he'd almost stopped living. He just existed – until, that is, his company is slaughtered in front of him and he's left on his own. It's like Rowan has spent three years running from the past and now he is forced to face it and deal with it. By the end, I think it's fair to say Rowan is alive again.

The past is where it should be – behind him. And now he can move on.

But this isn't it for The Fallen Crown series. It's just the first small chapter in a truly epic story. If you think The Bloody North set the stage and introduced a few characters, well . . . wait till you read Book 2. Boy, oh boy, is it going to blow your socks off.

Till next time,

T.H., Brighton, UK March-July 2014

And now for the thanks:

I am hugely grateful to the following people. They read The Bloody North and
gave much appreciated feedback and suggestions:

Sandie Slavin, David K. Hulegaard, Gareth Tyrer
, Barbara Spencer and others. It all helped.
My usual respect and appreciation to my editor, Laurie Laliberte.
(The bold underline is there at her suggestion, ha ha!) Not even certain death can stop her from getting the work done. Big thanks to fellow authors David K. Hulegaard, Bernard Schaffer, William Vitka, who are always there to offer guidance and support. (And in the case of Bernard, to trade Harry Potter readoff's with). I also want to thank those writers who influenced me over the years in dreaming up my own stab at the fantasy genre. I think I got them all in what I said above. The ones worth remembering, anyway.

A note on my process of writing The Bloody North. The first rough draft was hammered out on a Chromebook using Google Docs. I rewrote in Word on my trusty HP, then did a pass of the text with Stylewriter. The Bloody North was then handed to Laurie, who did an editorial pass on it. I printed it, went through it from start to finish by hand, then actioned all of my changes. Last but least, Laurie did a proof of the entire text to see if there was anything we both missed. All of this sounds a lot of work, but it's been worth it.

Before we bid farewell (for the moment) to one another, I want to go back to what I said at the beginning when I mentioned the charity anthology
Resistance Front
. I found myself amongst some immensely talented writers. Some of them (Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster) were big names already. Others (you know who you are) have gone on to big things since submitting a short story for that anthology, and it's an honour to continue to call you all friends. And major kudos to Bernard, who started it all. He put the call out and we answered.

My biggest debt
of all, however, is owed to you, Dear Reader, for taking a chance on this book. I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll stick around for
The Fallen Crown: Book 2: The Rising Fire
. You won't be disappointed. – T.H.

Tony Healey is a best-selling independent author. Born in 1985, he has lived his entire life in the city of Brighton, UK.

In 2011, he found his fiction published alongside Harlan Ellison and Alan Dean Foster. A year later, his sci-fi serial FAR FROM HOME became a best-selling sensation, followed by similarly successful sequels. Since
then he has collaborated with authors Bernard Schaffer, Matthew Cox, and William Vitka on various projects. He has also had work published by Curiosity Quills Press. He is married and has three daughters.

For the latest on Tony's various projects, visit his site
www.tonyhealey.com

THE STARS MY REDEMPTION

US Click to Purchase

UK Click to Purchase

Abe has spent his entire life among the cold, hard swirl of the stars. He's been a bounty hunter, an assassin, a pirate, a drug runner. He has a talent for unsavoury occupations. Now an opportunity for change falls at his feet, and Abe must decide whether to continue living the life of a rogue or embrace the prospect of redemption
 . . .

Praise for THE STARS MY REDEMPTION

". . . loads of fun, reads at a blistering pace. Abe's a galactic criminal who wanders from score to score leaving a bloody trail of human and alien carcasses, but there's a stubborn crumb of humanity left inside of him. This is the story of how he rediscovers that lost part of himself. The action sequences remind me of Robert E. Howard. Abe would fit in well with Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane."

"The story grabs you right from the outset. It is fast paced and enjoyable. It is written in the style of Star Trek/Star Wars that lets you feel for the characters without getting swamped with the technology . . . was well worth reading."

"Story telling that is compelling and ultra-readable. Don't expect to sleep till you have finished this book. Be ready to be addicted."

FAR FROM HOME: VOLUME I

US Click to Purchase

UK Click to Purchase

The first three instalments in the smash hit FAR FROM HOME series, collected into one volume. Serves as a great entry point to the series."

Praise for the FAR FROM HOME series

"There are so many characters and story lines to be pursued! I also LOVE
that the author included so many strong female main roles and leaders. That is the future after all, equality! It's an excellent read and I strongly recommend the series in the 3 book volume forms because you will always want more! It's all good in the space neighborhood."

"Fun to read. Far from Home would make an excellent TV series or mini-series special. The stories by Tony Healey, I've so far read, have what I refer to as 'soul' in them, being more than just words on paper or in ebooks."

"An excellent book, Enjoyed it from start to finish. LOOKING FORWARD TO READING THE REST OF THIS SERIES. You go! TONY HEALEY!"

"
. . . 
very easy to get into and it pulls you in so you don't want to stop reading. If you enjoy Star Trek and other science fiction adventures you'll enjoy this great adventure with Jessica and her crew. You'll never want to put it down . . . trust me."

"As a former nuclear submarine officer in the US Navy, I was immediately transported back to my time on subs during the cold war years. Since retiring from both the Navy and Navy supporting civilian contractors, I have been reading numerous sci-fi novels. I rank
Far From Home
as an extremely entertaining story . . . the action makes sense and time travel is possibly believable. THANKS SO MUCH!!!"

"I really enjoyed this book, and am looking forward to the rest of the series. It's great to see a female commander and the action and characters really had a nice balance. Reminded me of some of my favorite sci-fi and that's a good thing! I definitely recommend for fans of Battlestar and Star Trek."