Interviewing RJ Barker

This week I’ve been lucky to interview RJ Barker the author of the fantastic fantasy series the Wounded Kingdom and more recently The Bone Ships on the new books and his approach to writing

Helloooo!!

Thank you for The Bone Ships!  If you were book tempting the novel how would you describe it?

 I have always (quite against the advice of my agent) described it as Hornblower Vs Godzilla. Which I think is kind of fair. Although it’s not really Vs, or Hornblower. But it gives you a feel for it. Big ships, big dragon in what is quite a unique fantasy world.

I know you’ve said the work of Patrick O’Brian was an influence on the sea setting. What is it about the setting of the sea that appeals to you?

I’ve always been fascinated by the sea. Just its power. Its nature in its rawest and most powerful form and it can turn on you at any moment. We kind of take it for granted until you think about, and about how utterly destructive the sea can be when roused. And I like that in fiction, to paint nature as this raw and powerful thing. Partly that was the thinking behind the sea dragons, they’re an avatar of nature, uncontrollable, and powerful, and probably not even really aware that there are people shipping about above them most of the time. I can’t remember not being fascinated by the sea. When I was growing up we used to go to Whitby and the sea was fun, for paddling in and going on boats. Then under the pier was a sign saying ‘This Pool is Deep and Dangerous’ and I think that duality is kind of hypnotic to me.

There’s a song called ‘Ocean Size’ by Jane’s Addiction and it has a lyric in it that I’ve always tried to live by and it spoke to me when I heard it when I was in my teens:

Wish I was ocean size 
They cannot move you 
No one tries 

…
I've seen the ocean 
Break on the shore 
Come together with no harm done  

The ocean has always been with me. I think. Never still, always shifting, always moving and I can watch it for hours. 

The world of the Bone Ships feels more complex than Wounded Kingdom as we get to see so much more of it – not just the locations but the religion, technology and biology of the place. Was that a new challenge in writing?

I don’t know if challenge is the right word. Before I wrote the Wounded Kingdom books I wrote a big SF book called A Darkness Against The Stars which almost sold but that was a huge and expansive world and I think that might be the way my mind wants to go. And when it didn’t sell one of the main reasons that was fed back was ‘too much happening’ so maybe, subconsciously, I write something that was a lot less ambitious worldwise with Girton, and now I’ve had the opportunity to go off on one again. It’s actually harder writing in third person, I think. I naturally gravitate to first person so that was the bigger challenge.

In the Bone Ships we get a lot of characters getting a second chance. A theme I also noticed in The Wounded Kingdom. What’s the appeal of writing characters who have to learn to be better?

 I think it’s just about life really. We all make mistakes and do stupid things and that’s how we learn to be better people, we’re all a gradual evolution of ourselves. Sometimes the world seems very combative and I’m not sure that’s always the best way, it creates little tribes that become more insular and firmer in whatever they believe and it’s probably not good for us. I think, generally, if you give people reason and room to be better people they will take that option. My books are just an extension of that thinking really, more dramatic and the mistakes a bigger, but the thinking behind it is the same.

In The Wounded Kingdom we have a very ableist society and the disabled seem to be written off by the world but here we see many disabled characters getting the opportunity to prove themselves as they serve their Captain.  Was this representation deliberate?

Yes. I didn’t want to make Joron disabled because that would be too close to what we got in The Wounded Kingdom but in the real world to be disabled is to be a second class citizen in a lot of ways, the world isn’t built for you and the world of the Bone Ships takes that a step further, making disability part of the social structure and something that, in a lot of ways, controls your destiny and nobody thinks about that. It’s just the way your world is.

Was there anything you found easier in writing a second trilogy that you knew to look out for?

Not really. I’m not someone who thinks about things a lot. I just tend to do them. There’s sort of behind the scenes things like with edits and covers and knowing what to expect, but not with the writing. That’s always an adventure.

You’re also a big fan of science fiction and crime. Would you like one day to write in those genres too?

I wrote a science fiction book before Age of Assassins that I would like to see published one day and I think that the Wounded Kingdom books really are crime books at heart, although there’s a big fantasy world going on around it each one is built around a murder mystery. But I think I would like to write a “straight” crime novel one day as it’s a genre I really love.

If there was one book you wish you could throw into someone’s hands and say read it – not your own – what would it be?

Well, can I have two. Cos I would say Mick Herron’s Slow Horses which is just brilliantly observed and funny and clever and I am always telling people to read it but I recently read Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith and was left literally open mouthed by it, such an impressive, ambitious book that builds a world and then rips itself apart around itself while telling the reader something really important about life and happiness.

Ed Cox in an interview with me mention how he lives with you and Gav Smith.  What is your take on this literary co-habitation?

Well, it’s quite a pleasant existence really. Ed lives in the west wing and I live in the East wing and Gavin is our rather grumpy Butler, but he loves it really.