Interviewing Tej Turner

Hellooooo!

I recently reviewed Blood War by Tej Turner the third instalment in the Avatars of Ruin an epic fantasy that has a refreshingly modern approach to the usual type of younger characters we see in these stories. It also delivers a very impressive world and storyline to keep readers on their toes. It was a pleasure then to invite Tej back to the blog to talk about this book and the challenges a war-focused tale ;posed.

How do you like to booktempt Blood War? 

I always find it a bit awkward figuring out how to go about selling a sequel. Your loyal readers will find it anyway, so it is not really about selling that particular book but rather re-selling the books that came before it (and, as I am sure many authors can also testify, this is backed up by sales figures as earlier books in a series always receive a renaissance in sales when a new instalment comes out).

So I guess what I will do here is booktempt the series in general. It is called the Avatars of Ruin. I have made various attempts to come up with a catchy one-liner to plug it and my current favourite is ‘Wheel of Time meets the Walking Dead’. It starts in the same vein as many classical epic fantasy stories – with a handful of youngish protagonists from the backwaters of a fantasy world – but shortly in it takes a grim turn and becomes something darker. The magic system involves ritual experimentation and there are lots of mutants.

The first instalment is called Bloodsworn, and I have a page for it here on my website (which has links to reviews and the various ways it can be purchased).

What did you want to achieve with this instalment of the saga? Was it always going to feature a war?

Yes, the war was foreshadowed in the very first chapters of Bloodsworn and much of the story in the two previous books has been building up to it. I certainly didn’t want to disappoint in that regard so all of the stakes from the previous books are escalated and many of the foundations I set reach their climax in this book.

But, besides the war aspect, there were various things that I wanted to achieve. The reader will be introduced to a brand new part of my world and another civilisation is brought into the story with their own agenda and part to play. There are a few new characters too, and the ones who have been there from the beginning all continue developing.

One thing that became apparent to me – whilst I was writing it – was that two characters were perhaps not the most likeable in the first two books, but get a glow-up in this instalment. I won’t be surprised if they become some people’s favourites now.  

How was writing a war versus the smaller battles we have seen to date? Is the build-up important?

Fight scenes are exciting to write but also a challenge and – in my experience – need a lot of work so this book was very ambitious for me in that regard. I had spent two books foreshadowing this war and not only is there a lot more fighting in this book than the others but the fighting was on a much bigger scale.

When it comes to writing about war, I find battle scenes that are too long and try to encompass everything that happens by going long-winded descriptions a little tedious, so I steered away from that. Instead, I decided to write personal stories of those involved. Some of them are on the ground fighting it, a few are strategizing from a distance, and others get involved in various skirmishes that happening around it. All of these personal stories work together to convey to the reader what is going on.

We see a new part of the world in Babuton. What did you want to do with this setting and its people?

Yes, as I mentioned before, a brand new civilisation finds itself pulled into the story.

I guess one of the foremost things that I wanted to do with this new civilisation is to diversify the world. Not all of my readers know this but I am actually (when I am not a novelist) a travel blogger and I have spent four years travelling around Asia and Latin America, so I have experienced many types of geographical regions and cultures throughout my life. Yet the settings for the first two books have been fairly limited so far. Sharma is mostly Euro-centric in its inspiration, and temperate, covered in forests, arable lands, and hills, whilst Gavendara is mostly a barren steppe surrounded by ice-capped mountains.

Babua – the new setting introduced to the story – is more tropical and covered in a thick jungle. This not only makes for an exciting setting but also influences the people who dwell there and how they live. The differences in their culture are not just superficial things – such as how they dress, what they eat, their architecture, etc – but also their entire outlook on life. They have alternative family structures with elements of polyamory, and they have an entirely different understanding of how magic in their world works (which ends up having ramifications for the story).

Another thing that Babua brings into the story is an entirely different socioeconomic model. Gavendara is feudal and imperialistic (like many civilisations in epic fantasy), but I do offer an alternative to this in the first two books through the nation of Sharma (which is a post-feudal meritocracy). But, despite Sharma offering some kind of alternative from what is often the standard for epic fantasy written by Western people, both of these nations are still grounded upon a Eurocentric monetary system. Babua, however, has no concept of money and a completely different outlook when it comes to how its society is structured (and, in turn, how it should interact with the rest of the world). 

What three words describe the next book?

Sombre, bittersweet and spiriting.

What else can we look forward to from you in the future and where can we find out more? 

I have written the first book of another fantasy series that I am currently querying. It is based on a world that is tidally locked to its sun and its people live in the twilight belt where it is constantly twilight. They are also prey to a mysterious race of creatures that emerge from a mysterious glowing forest that surrounds their city.

 It is called Children of the Gloom and it is the most ambitious project I have ever started and required an extraordinary amount of worldbuilding.

What great books have you read recently?

I am currently reading The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson, which I am enjoying very much. Some other books that I have read recently that deserve a should out include; In Solitude’s Shadow by David Green, The Jasmin Throne by Tasha Suri, Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Ashes of the Ancestors by Andrew Knighton.