I love the main character. Dee is fantastic. A snarky and undervalued hero who has a sweet center and endless jokes. Some of the things he says, y'all. Just yes. Plus, he has a super fun six-year-old sidekick who can pop invisible and says the most outlandish things as if they're normal. And then, there's the love interest. It wasn't who I expected, but I love it.
Ms White easily keeps us on our toes, delivering great background and character information without feeling like she's telling us too much. Then, wham, someone dies. It's so much fun, and so tense.
So, let's dive into some background info. First is supplied by the author's website. Featured here are three of the provinces and their representatives in the Voyage of the Damned. If you want to see them all, visit her site! Also, she has some fun blog posts about her journey and writing fat characters. Be sure to check them out if you're intrested.
Here's an excerpt from the interview Ms White did with Goldsboro Books:
Ganymedes can definitely be classed as one of the most comedic protagonists in SFF - did writing those aspects of his personality come easily or did they require a lot of thought and care?
A bit of both! Dee’s voice came out very naturally, as soon as I decided he would be the main character his voice came loud and strong and that’s when I knew he was the right choice!
His sense of humour also came naturally as it’s very similar to mine, we share the same dry, sarcastic gallows humour. Sadly, even the puns.
However, I do think a lot of Dee’s humour comes as a result of the trauma he’s experienced. It is his way of dealing with it, he can either face all the horrible thoughts going on beneath or make jokes about it. He often chooses the latter!
Dee is someone who is constantly hiding who he is, distancing himself from people because he’s scared about them discovering his terrible secret. His humour is a form of masking, if he’s known as the class clown, the comedy relief, then nobody will be looking close enough to uncover what lies beneath.
This did require a lot of care. I was aware of the pitfalls of having a character who suffers from mental health issues also be constantly cracking jokes. I wanted to make sure that I was treating those issues seriously and not making light of them. But in my experience, it is not unusual for people fighting these hidden battles to be the life and soul of the party. I wanted to show with Dee that a person can be both.
Read the entire interview here.
Here's an excerpt from the interview Ms White did with Track of Worlds:
ToW: What can you tell us about Concordia, the setting for this story?
FW: Concordia is an empire comprising of twelve provinces, all named after various animals. The provinces have individual rulers, but they are united under, and answer to, the dragon emperor. These individual rulers are all blessed with magic, which is passed down to their heirs at random. The heir who inherits the Blessing is deemed to become the next ruler. The twelve passengers on this ship are all the heirs who have inherited the Blessings (apart from Dee, but he’s a rather unique case.)
Concordia is a place that prizes peace and unity above anything else, and on the surface all are deemed equal and united. Dig a little deeper however, and not all is as peaceful and harmonious as it seems… (Did I mention the gigantic magical wall that seals off Concordia from whatever lays beyond the Empire? Strange, that.)
ToW: How did you settle on the twelve animals that represent Concordia’s twelve provinces? Did you develop those at the same time as coming up with the setting’s mythology, or did one come first and the other develop out of that?
FW: The animals were developed in tandem with the characters and worldbuilding. With so many characters to keep track of I wanted to give the readers multiple ways to remember who is who, whether that’s by their names, animals or their various hair colours (every province has a different hair colour!)
I tried to relate the animals in some way to the heirs and the provinces themselves. For example the Spider Province heir, Nergüi, is known for spinning devious webs, while the Tiger Province heir, Leofric, has a tendency to snarl orders and likes being in charge.
I had the animals in mind before the mythology, but I knew they would feature in it, so I wanted to avoid going too typical or obvious with my choices. For example, the province known for its libraries and learning could have easily been Owl Province, but I went with Tortoise instead, which gives the same ‘vibes’ but felt more memorable and suited their nervous, skittish heir better.
Read the entire interview here.
Here's an excerpt from the interview Ms White did with Audible:
KO: There's definitely a strong voice here. And we will get to our hero in a minute, but I'm curious, there are so many players with the 12 heirs to the provinces, and they have very different backgrounds. And then, of course, there's the crimes to keep track of and the clues. How did you keep yourself organized while writing?
FW: Yeah, with great difficulty. It was, without a doubt, the hardest challenge was to keep it all organized. I got to a point where I realized that I needed to use spreadsheets. So I really like using spreadsheets after this. They kept me sane. I had loads of different spreadsheets for different things. Like, I had one that had all the 12 characters on it, so every chapter is one third of a day, and there's 12 days. So I'd map where they are and what they're doing. So that way, I've got an eye on all the characters, and it made sure that nobody was in a crime scene when someone was being murdered and there wasn't any confusion there. So, yeah, there was a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of planning.
KO: See, kids? Even if you take a creative pursuit, you're still going to need those Excel skills.
FW: [Laughs] You can't escape them.
Read or listen to the interview here.
Let me know if you're excited to start reading this book with us! If you didn't get the book with us, grab it from Amazon now!
Grab the newest MONTHLY Bite Me Box here.
]]>