Fiction Fans

Author Interview: No Heart for a Thief by James Lloyd Dulin

• Episode 196

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Your hosts are joined by James Lloyd Dulin to talk about the first book in his recently-completed Malitu Trilogy, No Heart for a Thief. They discuss dark plotlines (but not Dark Fantasy (tm) necessarily), dual stories, and traumatized characters. They also talk about writing plots that criticize colonization as a white person and retrospective character arcs. Your hosts also fail to avoid a double entendre in a question about simultaneous climaxes, but what else is new.

Find more from James:

https://www.jamesldulin.com/

https://x.com/JamesLDulin

https://www.tiktok.com/@jamesldulin


Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah, and I'm so pleased to welcome James Dolan onto the podcast today to talk about No Heart for a Thief, which is the first book in his MO two trilogy.

James:

Thank you so much for having me.

Sara:

It is our pleasure.

Lilly:

Immediate question, Molly Tu.

Sara:

Yeah, actually that is. Okay,

Lilly:

both wrong.

James:

Yeah, it's just a, a combination of MAL and API two for bad or corrupt spirits.

Sara:

that makes sense. And my tendency of seeing an A and going, awe let me down.

James:

Sorry about that.

Lilly:

Okay. But before we get into more book talk, what is something good that happened recently?

James:

I mean, I, just released my third book.

Lilly:

Congratulations.

Sara:

excellent. Congratulations.

Lilly:

And that finishes off this series. Is that correct?

James:

it does. Yeah. Only a Grave Will Do is the last book in the series. So that's all on book stuff. I mean, other than that it's hard. It's kind of been like the overwhelming thing. That I've had to focus on for the last few months. So that's, that's been a focus. Other than that, my kid just graduated from kindergarten and had his little cute graduation ceremony. They have graduation ceremonies for every year now, but it was very cute. So that was, that was a very nice moment.

Sara:

That sounds lovely.

Lilly:

And we send our Congratulations.

Sara:

Yes.

James:

you. I let him know

Sara:

My good thing is that I bought peaches at the market today. I like peaches. I'm happy that I bought them. That's it.

Lilly:

That's a good one.

James:

that's a good thing.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I, uh, have well. It's not my favorite new cat toy. It's my cat's favorite new cat toy that we've discovered. And it is an old drawstring from an old pair of sweatpants,

James:

I can see how that would be entertaining.

Lilly:

something about the, the cat ws that you can get the part that flies is too light. It doesn't like dangle, right? I don't know. They're not that interested. But a drawstring with like a knot tight at the end. Yes. Give that to them all day. It's very cute.

James:

Very fun. I love cats, but unfortunately I have a cat allergy and so I can't

Sara:

Oh no,

Lilly:

Heartbreaking.

James:

Yeah.

Lilly:

But they're pretty good in pictures too, so you don't totally miss out.

James:

very cute. On YouTube videos

Lilly:

What is everyone drinking tonight?

James:

It's not a fun answer. It's, it's some water with a crystal light packet in it. So nothing too fun.

Lilly:

That, Hey. Flavor is fun. That counts.

Sara:

Hydration is good.

Lilly:

Yeah. Water is a viable answer to that question anyway.

Sara:

Yes, always. I thought about having something thematic, like some kind of herbal tea, which I feel like they talk about a lot in the book. But that was a lot of effort and it's a little too warm for tea, so I just poured myself a glass of wine.

James:

I mean

Lilly:

Always a viable option as well.

James:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I will. One up you. Not only am I drinking herbal tea, I am using mint leaves from my garden, which I think Kayla would very much approve of.

James:

It is approved of. Yes. Yeah.

Lilly:

And we are actually a book podcast. So has anyone read anything good lately? other than of course the book we are about to talk about at length. Because my answer is no. That is all I've been reading lately.

Sara:

I actually did read something I read it's a short, selection of various, like little segments or tidbits from CS Lewis. And it was interesting I tend to like Tolkien more than I like Lewis. But I do wanna read more of Louis's writing, so I borrowed it from a friend. It's some kind of like little, you know, Barnes and Noble. Quotation book, essentially. They're just paragraphs, but yeah.

James:

It's nice. On audiobook. I just finished the Will of the Many by James Islington. Islington. I'm not sure which pronunciation. It was good. It. I don't know if I'll jump into the next book in the series too quickly. it was good, but it didn't draw me too much into to reading the next. And then physically I've been trying to work my way through some of the murder bot diaries.

Sara:

Oh, fun.

James:

Yeah.

Sara:

No.

Lilly:

I've only read the first two, but I liked them quite a bit.

Sara:

Have you been watching the Murderbot TV show?

James:

Yeah. That, that was the impetus for me starting.'cause I can't do the, the show or the, the movie first before I get into the books because I, it, it's hard to drive myself through the story when I'm reading it and I know what's coming next. So I gotta start the books first.

Sara:

That makes sense.

James:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I'm sorry. I just found a bug in my tea. I guess that's the downside to, uh, gardening.

James:

little protein.

Lilly:

Yeah, I, I removed him. It's too late for him, but he can go somewhere else. Alright.

Sara:

you don't have to drink him.

Lilly:

No. Okay. Just finished this book today. Loved it. It was a lot. There's a lot going on. It is, I'm not gonna say an emotional rollercoaster'cause that implies like up and down instead of just like screaming your head off the whole time.

Sara:

Yeah, there, yeah. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of emotions there. I don't know if it's a rollercoaster, but there are a lot of emotions.

James:

there's a little bit of trauma in the book. Uh, yeah. You could say that Kayla's a little bit depressed of a character sometimes.

Sara:

I, in his defense, he's been through it.

James:

He has been, he gets the Robin Hobb treatment of characters. You know, unfortunately a lot of things happened to Kayla over the course of the books that it's not so pleasant, you know? But I'm glad you made it through it.

Lilly:

yes. So before we get into specifics, genre definitions, uh, a hotly debated conversation across the internet, but how would you define the genre of this book and why?

James:

I always have a difficulty defining the genre of this book. I would say I usually use some combinations of the words, dark coming of age, epic, and fantasy. In some order. It's not a dark fantasy book in the classic definition of dark fantasy.'cause that would imply there's like horror creatures in it. There's elements of a horror story in it and there's not. But the tone of it is very dark. And I think There's a difference between communicating genre by definition, I think, and communicating genre by what people understand the meaning to be. Most readers don't say dark fantasy and mean there's a werewolf. They say dark fantasy to mean there's a dark tone to it. And so communicating to readers the way they speak is probably the easiest way I find, and, you know, it's a coming of age stories actually in two parts because we get to see both kalo and Tanan come of age in, in different times. And then there's an epic nature to it. Although it's a very intimate story. There's a lot of epic stuff going on around the story that kind of make the world kind of vast and lived in. So I, I think that's kind of where I land, but depending on the person I'm talking to, I'll switch it up a little bit.

Sara:

So you mentioned the two different kind of coming of age stories, right? Where we have Calo telling his story, and then we also have the present day with Tanan Taan. How, how? now I'm worried that I'm mispronouncing everything.

James:

it, and at the end of the day it's, you know, the words are in your head. It doesn't really matter if you say. The name the way that I intended to or not. cause you're the one

Lilly:

Yeah. Death of the author. That's what that means, right?

Sara:

that's a very kind way of absolving me of my guilt. Thank you. So in the book KLO is. Essentially telling his story to Tayan. It's kind of his first person perspective. And he stops telling his story when he gets emotional. But can you talk a little bit about how you decided where to like cut back and forth?

James:

I don't know that it was such a planned idea, especially in the first book because I was just kind of feeling it out, feeling where the tension came to a breaking point where it needed a little bit of a release valve. there's a couple of reasons that I jumped. It was either you know, I needed some time for the story to jump from one place in time to the next, so a few days have passed or something like that. And so a break between him telling his story and coming to the present day kind of helped with that time transition because you felt there was a gap. And then another time is when I will jump from past to present or present to past is when one part of the story comes to kind of an emotional head and there's a slight climax, and we want to give the reader a little bit of a break before they come back into the story.

Lilly:

And earlier you mentioned some of the dark elements in this book, which for the most part revolve around the themes of colonialism. in your author's note at the end of the book, you say that you wanted to write a fantasy novel that deals with colonialism, that decentered the whiteness despite being white yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about that motivation and if it affected your writing process?

James:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of conversation about. Who should write what stories and who has the right to take up space in different kinds of storytelling. And I think there's a lot of conversation to be had there about the history of I. Authors from empowered groups, really taking the stage and the space and, and taking stories away from, marginalized voices and, there's a lot to be said around how do we deal with that space, how do we make sure that other authors' voices are lifted, especially when they're talking about their own backgrounds, their own stories. So I had a lot of inner conversations and outer conversations with people about what it would mean to write a story that took on something as heavy as colonialism. And. The characters that are experiencing the colonialism in my book are all characters of color. And so there was a lot of thought put behind how am I approaching this? What kinds of topics am I gonna be getting into? Making sure to have sensitivity readers, making sure to be very honest and heartfelt about what I'm, what I'm talking about. You know, social justice, a very big part of my life, my interests, my causes that I gravitate towards. And I don't think I could authentically write a book that doesn't touch on those things in some way, shape, or form. But I didn't want to do what I think so many white writers do is they take. Colonial experiences and then they pace them on to white characters in their books because I think they think it's easier to not have to write characters of color and have any kind of pushback on that. So they think it's safer. But I think that's disingenuous and it's kind of stealing stories and putting them into to white bodies and centering whiteness again. And so I wanted to try to step away from that. I wanted this to be a character critique of both colonization and whiteness in this way. That is, it's talking about what does power look like over the course of history? How does this affect people's daily lives? How does this affect their ability to survive, their ability to know who they are? And so I wanted to get into all of that. But like I say in the author's note, I definitely am. I am capable of making mistakes in this area. I am trying my best to make sure that I'm, being careful and considerate with these characters, making them full human beings and giving them that space to really exist in this world. It's up to the reader whether I did a good job or not with that. But that was my intention and I'll always try to do better and listen more and, and figure out how to tell stories better. But I don't think my storytelling is ever gonna be void of critiques of power.

Lilly:

Well, my opinion. As someone who experiences life as a white person means jack, shit. But it did feel like you were very, very thoughtful and considerate. That even, even books that aren't, I think because it is about colonialism, you faced it head on in this book instead of going also that happened and it's totally bad over there.

James:

and I, I definitely didn't want to do that, and I, I also didn't want to make it too much of a metaphor.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

James:

I think sometimes books about colonialism are trying so much not to be about colonialism, that they make it background and they don't really dig into it at all. So I was trying not to do that and like you said, face it a little bit head on. yeah, it is what it is. We'll, we'll see how readers enjoy it. I think for the most part, it's been received really well. But I also, I think that it's important to make sure that if you're reading your first book on colonialism, it probably shouldn't be mine. You know, even if you're going to take the route and read it through fantasy, it probably shouldn't be mine or any other white authors, you should probably start reading few authors of color's, experiences, and viewpoints. But I also think. It is everybody's responsibility to challenge issues of power and dynamics. And this is part of me confronting some of that.

Lilly:

Yeah, and you did include a list. Of recommendations in the back, which I quite liked just as a concept.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean obviously like, like Lily said, I'm a white person. I can't be the judge of, Things. But from my personal perspective, I thought it was great to have this book confront some of these issues head on, and I really appreciated your author's note at the end and the inclusion of some authors of color that, that you liked and recommended to, to read. So.

Lilly:

something that struck me about the magic in this book, because colonialism, yes, but also fantasy.

James:

Yes.

Lilly:

they're, they're dancers. they dance to perform magic. Saying cast magic almost sounds too silly for what they're doing. But that means none of the, the magic is subtle, right? they all have to do things quite. Out there in order to make anything happen, which makes preventing magic users fairly straightforward. Right? You restrain them, they can't use it to get free, and I was wondering what other ways you kept the magic balanced, if you will.

James:

my goal with this magic system was not to do Avatar the last airbender. I didn't want it to be too large and epic in terms of the scale of the magic. I wanted it to feel like it wasn't made to be battle magic. Because, you know, people don't grow plants like kalo can in the middle of a battle. Like, it's not like I'm gonna attack you with a fern. But you do have like elements of some stories where they can make a tree vine whip and do all these things. I didn't want that level of magic to exist. I wanted it to be connected to what these elements could actually do. To a certain extent, you know, shadows can't crawl along the floor, but they can hide somebody, they can make it make something a little bit blurry. So I wanted the magic to be limited in a way. I wanted it to feel like it wasn't the tool to get out of everything. So in that way, I just wanted it to feel a little bit more grounded in something that was lived in the world, that it had a cultural touchstone to who these characters were that it made sense for the lives they lived when they weren't in, you know, fighting for their lives in colonization or fighting wars or battles, whatever it might be, that it would exist as a part of their lives in a daily, you know, lived experience.

Sara:

So if you were a dancer yourself, what kind of dancer would you want to be?

James:

I think that a water dancer probably would be the best or at least for me for a daily life. Like if I went outside and it was too hot, I could call Little Rain. I. I could stop the rain if I wanted to. You could control precipitation to an extent. That's kind of cool. But yeah, I think water dancers would be very cool. I think they're very powerful in some ways and they're probably not the most powerful of the dancers when we get into some of the magic, especially in the later books of what, what people can do in the different kinds of creative ways, they use the magic system. But I think water dancer would be really cool. Also, in my head, that sounds like the most calming and comforting part of the song that I wouldn't mind living with.

Sara:

I, think for me, definitely I'd want to, be able to hear the seed because I like growing things and now I'm wondering, so I have a tendency of under watering my plants and it gets hot here in California. So now I'm wondering how that interacts, like

Lilly:

They're all just screaming.

Sara:

well, no. No. And this is kind of like a, a, I'm kind of derailing the conversation. I'm sorry, but,

James:

No, go for it.

Sara:

but I'm wondering, like, okay, so water dancers obviously, like, yes, you can control rain, you can water your plants if you need to, but like if you deal with the earth and growing things, can you then like, quote unquote heal a plant if it's, you know, thirsty? Even though that's kind of a water thing.

James:

I mean, so in text they're able to. Basically speed along the growth of a plant speed along its

Sara:

Yeah. But if it's got a bad base, if it's not, not doing so hot to start with, you don't necessarily want to make it grow more and then need more, nutrients

James:

Yeah, I guess, I guess not. I. Mean pretty much the only thing people with the seed can do is spontaneously call a plant from the earth and speed along its timeline to the point where it can flower, it can bud, it can grow fruit. If it does, it can, they can grow it to the point where it's old and it decays. But I, I don't know if they can heal rot. I don't think that's been explored at all. In the magic.

Lilly:

Yeah. Something else that's not explored. Speaking of water dancing is can you water dance while you're underwater? Like how would that affect swimming?

James:

Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

Oh, okay. That was a face.

James:

is explored a little bit in the novella. I. That a water dancer in the novella is at one point in a body of water and able to kind of propel themselves along with the current. So yes, to a certain extent they can water dance when they're in the water. Yeah.

Lilly:

Awesome. the back of the book includes rules for how to play runes, which is a game that we see sprinkled throughout the novel, although I think it's all in Kayla's flashback sections. So how did you come up with the, is it based on another game? Did you invent the game?

James:

Yeah, I just I think I was reading the Farer trilogy at the time and I really liked the addition of, I don't even remember what the game was called, in, in Farer right now. They added this game element, and I liked that idea. I liked the invention of games in world, and so I, thought I'd put one together. It's kind of based off of, have you ever played Tigo?

Lilly:

I think

James:

Nope. so Tigo is a game that is a little bit like chess, but each of your characters are based off of. Somebody on a battlefield. So they're like, you have your Grenada, your bomber commander, your gunman, and they all can defeat certain other kinds of pieces, but they're all faced away from the other, the opponent. So you don't know who you're attacking until you attack, and then you, it's revealed. so you might attack and lose. You might attack and win, but now you know what that piece is. And so there's an element in there. And then I kind of just swapped out the divisive, you know, battle elements for the spirits and then changed a little bit about how they make it on the board. But it's, it's a version of Tigo, I guess.

Lilly:

Very cool.

Sara:

then it, it, sounds like the game kind of, even if you didn't have the rule set in mind or, or finalized initially, it seems kind of like the idea for having this game. Came and then you wove it into the plot and importance rather than the other way around.

James:

Yeah. So the idea came, uh, like, like I said, I was reading Farer and I was, I wanted to include this kind of element and I liked it as a device for, I. Building conversation around something. But also at one point, whether or not a certain marker is there, becomes part of the, culture around a certain outcast spirit. And so I liked the idea of kind of fitting another thing in there culturally of how these spirits f. Have allure to the people. They, they have a background to the people and an understanding within their own storytelling. And so, yeah, that's, kind of just woven in like that. It just, it was also, it's something for them to do besides sit around and eat when they're having conversations. So it builds that other aspect to it.

Sara:

So you did mention that the third book just came out, which is very exciting and that the trilogy is now complete. When you started the series, did you have a clear idea in mind for how you wanted it to continue and end? Or did that build as you wrote? Book two in book three?

James:

No, I, so when I was writing book one, I knew where I wanted to end. I knew like five key points that I wanted to hit along the way between book one and the conclusion. And then book one was completely discovery writing besides kind of those, key points that I knew I wanted to hit. And so that, that first draft was a mess of trying to get from one to the other, and a lot of revisions and a lot of editing. But no, I've, I have known the conclusion of this story for several years now, but it's, fun to finally be able to write it and share it with people. So far it's been pretty well received. We'll we'll see. I hope it's satisfactory to people'cause it's hard to write a satisfying ending to a large group.'cause everybody's looking for a little something different.

Sara:

Well, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Lilly:

What do you find harder in general, starting a series or continuing a series?

James:

Ending a series. So book one was difficult because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was just kind of playing around. I didn't know if I could finish a book. So it was all just me trying to get something on the page and then learning how to edit and learning kind of a lot of the rules of craft around writing. Book two was a lot easier for me because I, I felt like I had a little understanding of what I was doing. I. Knew a lot more of the plot points that I wanted to hit. So book two came to me fairly well, but I could still play around and grow new elements of the story, create new characters that I hadn't thought of and add them in. And then book three was a, a challenge because of the creative restraints. I had to be creative within the bounds of making sure I wrapped up so many individual storylines and elements from both book one and book two.'cause I, I didn't wanna leave them hanging, so I knew that I had to do so many things, especially in Kayla's backstory to make. The books feel like a cohesive whole. And so there was a lot of trying to creatively maneuver from one plot point to another and figure out how to make sure that they're all there in a satisfactory way. And so I think that was the hardest to figure out. You know, think I ended up landing. But you know, it was a little tricky there in the air when I was flipping around.

Lilly:

So. We have one final question before we get to the spoiler section of our conversation, but that's actually for Sarah. Sarah who should read this book.

Sara:

So you should read this book if you want a complete fantasy trilogy that both interrogates colonialism and also deals with the after effects of unintended consequences.'cause things quite, quite frequently go wrong and are our poor main characters that they suffer.

Lilly:

Read this book if you're ready for heartbreaks. Not quite the right word. I think that implies romance in a way that I don't mean, but definitely that, that kind of emotion.

Sara:

big, sad.

Lilly:

Big, sad. There we go. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Sara:

That's us! We really appreciate our patrons, because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Lilly:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Sara:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. Okay, so for our first spoiler question, I. I'm going to apologize. I've never apologized for sounding horny before, but I don't intend it. It is, it is an accident, but I could not come up with a way to phrase this that sounds less dirty. We spoke a little bit about dual plot lines in this book, and we wanted to know how you manage simultaneous climaxes to keep the tension going.

James:

Um, you know, it's kind of like when people say, no pun intended, when they obviously meant a pun. I felt like you had that planned.

Lilly:

I genuinely Looked for like three or four different ways to say it, and none of them were better.

Sara:

We, we did try.

Lilly:

I did.

James:

well, yeah. No, I appreciate it. There, there are simultaneous climaxes in all three books, so if that's something you're looking for they're there. Well, think my goal was to tell a story on both fronts. You know, the name of the wind was a definite inspiration for. Formatting the style of my storytelling, the framing device of having one character tell another character a story. But I also wanted to continue that outside story, in a much more active way than name of the wind does, at least in book one and two. And so I. I wanted to have more activity happening in the current timeline. with that being said, there had to be some kind of climax in the present story as well. And I, I just figured that they have to line up, they have to feel like this story is coming to a head, both in the past and the present. And so I just worked on making sure they, they lined up and they felt satisfying. You know, I, now it just all sounds dirty'cause I wanted to make the climaxes feel satisfying. Just,

Sara:

they had to line up.

James:

So, yeah. So one came immediately before the other. Um, now I don't know how to answer the question anymore.

Lilly:

What is it? Okay, you could have a climax in a book, and the word climax is fine, but as soon as there's plural, climaxes just always sounds dirty. I like, I can't, I don't know how to fix it.

James:

Yeah. The clam climax. I clam.

Lilly:

Yeah, CLIMA Act di.

James:

No, I, I, I think it came down to with Kayla's story, the story of the past. There had to be a good ending point because I wanted there to be a reason that he stopped the story. But then I couldn't just end with him sitting next to a fire going like, and that's the story for today, Taan. So I also wanted to help lead that current story along to the next part of the, you know, present day, story to continue in no safe haven. So it is a little bit of a cliffhanger for those who are a little uncomfortable with cliffhangers. It does end on a cliffhanger, unfortunately.

Lilly:

the series is completed so it doesn't count. I mean, yes, cliffhanger, but you don't have to wait 10 years to get the next book.

Sara:

It's easy to read what happens next.

James:

yes.

Sara:

So, CA's backstory is from his perspective, and he is very much an unreliable narrator in the sense that he has a very skewed perspective on events. he is so. Overcome by his guilt and grief. Can you talk to us a little bit about the hints that you left for the reader? That his version of cause and effect is affected by his grief and he's not necessarily, you know, seeing things entirely clearly.

James:

I mean, I think at, at times he's just over the top, takes responsibility for things that are out of his control and you can see are out of his control. Even in his version of telling things from an outside perspective, you can say you were 16 years old, that was not your fault. But I also think a lot of people, especially when they're of a young age, internalize things that are not their fault, as their fault. That's one of Kayla's central character flaws and also just defines who he is. He, he believes it's not about actually believing. He, takes responsibility for the world around him, whether he wants to or not. he assumes responsibility for it. It's what happens in the first chapter. I mean, he knows that he shouldn't get involved. He knows that he shouldn't impede. the soldiers that are trying to kill Tayan, but he gets involved anyway'cause he can't help himself. He can't help the, the need to try to save the world. And that fact just keeps on getting him into trouble. And then I, I think the other ways you see it are especially when people from his story start showing up in real life and. You know, this is the spoiler section. So when wall shows up, we get a little bit of an example of, okay, the story was real, but this person does not fit the person he was talking about. And what happened here. there's obviously more to the story than Kayla is telling. And so I think there are lots of hints along the way that his version of history is a little, is slightly skewed.

Lilly:

Absolutely. Throughout this book, we get different reactions to the, the colonialism, the invaders in some cases from active cooperation laying low and outright rebellion. Can you tell us a little bit about the different experiences we see, in the story in that regard?

James:

Yeah. So there's a lot of different reactions to colonization in the book, and I think that. I wanted to show Enneans in their full humanity and people react differently to different experiences. For instance, kalo at the beginning of the book when it's in, the present storyline tells Tayan that he basically regrets starting a rebellion, that he regrets the people he saved because they end up dying. He regrets freeing people who are enslaved because they ended up dying. And this is very different from his perspective in his backstory because in his backstory, he very much believes in trying to fight and trying to help people and getting involved. But by the time we meet him in the present day, he's so jaded, He believes he's caused so much damage that he can't handle the fact that he may be responsible for some deaths because of unintended consequences and regardless of what he was trying to do in the past, people ended up getting hurt because of his decisions. And so for him, that's just so hard to handle that he wishes that he never made those decisions in the first place. On the other hand is someone who has just felt their first real taste of trauma. She, for most of her life, has lived out in the forest in the middle of nowhere with her parents and her sister, and has in many ways avoided the consequences of colonialism. She's very much detached from community and things like that. So those consequences are there. But she hasn't felt the violence of it personally. And then we meet her right after she has found her whole family slaughtered. And so her immediate response is one of survivor's guilt that Max masks itself in revenge because she's feels so guilty about surviving and being the one that didn't get killed. She feels that she owes her family something in terms of repaying the blood that was spilled. And so that forces her down this road where she's almost acting out vengeance because she thinks she has to. And then it becomes the more she plays into the role, the more she actually feels that need for vengeance and, in many ways, she's kind of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy there. And then you have other people that you know, are labeled blood banners in the book because they cooperate with, the Gauss Empire. And this is partly taken from history. Like there are people who throughout different colonial regimes sided with the, the empire, the oppressor. In order to gain safety, gain power, just survive. And again, you see Caleb reacting very differently to that in the present versus the past. In the present, he feels for these people, he feels their lack of choices. He hates the choice they made, but also understands that they didn't have many choices in the past. He just hates them. He thinks they are. Just the, the worst of the worst. He thinks they're worst than the average go gauch soldier because the Gauch soldier was doing what they were commanded to by their own people. And blood banners are betraying their people. So in a very kid-like framing,'cause he is 16 and 17 in this book he's taking the easiest route of blame.

Sara:

It's also, I think, a lot easier for him to blame them than think about, know, how. How his choices have affected things like he, poor guy, he just needs therapy. I mean, he doesn't, only need therapy'cause there's a lot really bad going on, but I feel like he would benefit from therapy

James:

Yeah.

Sara:

two.

Lilly:

Yeah.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. and I, I, I don't think he can make the cognitive jump between, you know, at the end of the book and the, his past story. He is in a mission school where he is, along with a bunch of other children being force fed indoctrination, and he can't make the jump between these kids that don't have an opportunity to really fight back that are being. Forced into this mindset and the people that they become in terms of blood banners, he can't deal with that reality, that these are kids just like him, and then these people that will wear a gauch uniform to kill other and he can't connect the two. He is, it is just, it is too much for him at that point in his life.

Sara:

Yeah, and he even, I mean, he kind of touches on the fact that when he's in this, mission school, he's emulating someone he knew, but he's just. It's a, it's a front for him and he can't even think about, well, maybe it was a front for her too. Because it's so much easier to, just be angry than it is to, think about things. And when you're 16, I mean, I, I get it. Thought is hard.

Lilly:

Yeah,

James:

Yeah.

Lilly:

empathy.

James:

Yeah. Maybe that should be the tagline of the book. Thought is hard.

Sara:

So switching gears just a little bit and this isn't a question, this is more of just a statement, but I was really sad that about like Jonah's dissent into abuse, which is not klo, takes a lot of responsibility for it, and it's not his fault at all. Like this is one of those things where he is just taking on guilt that doesn't need to be assigned to him or blame that doesn't need to be assigned to him. But I was still sad for him.

James:

Yeah, Jonah has a very tragic story, just like so many of the characters. We get a little bit more of his backstory in future books as well. And so there's there's reasons why he kind of descends into this drug that he used to be addicted to. And. Finds himself in an abusive pattern with those he loves. And it's just, it's sad because we meet him and he's this safe haven. I didn't even mean to, to pull from my titles, but he's really this, person that Caleb can rely on. And unfortunately he loses that and he doesn't lose it to violence. He just loses it to Jon's inner demons and, and his inner moral and, and trauma.

Lilly:

Hurt people. Hurt people. This oversimplified saying, but not wrong. Were there any scenes that surprised you while you were writing this book?

James:

Now I have to think back like three, four years.

Lilly:

I know we ask the tough questions.

James:

Yes. Scenes that surprised me. Yeah. Wall wasn't originally a main character of the series. the first few drafts wall was not, named in the first couple of chapters of K LO's Story in terms of being, a part of the little school environment where he got called out for not paying attention or not pronouncing words correctly and gauch. Wasn't a big part of Kalos story in the plans for future books and. when somebody from the Lost Nation came to Conscript, Taan and Kalo. I hadn't planned on that being a character from Kayla's past. But then there just came an opportunity to introduce that especially the idea of somebody who works for the Lost Nation, not being. From the Lost Nation, being somebody from outside that is also constricting his own people. And Wall just happened to be there and I enjoyed the scenes where I wrote Wall. So I figured why not continue this? So I built him up a little bit more in that story to the point where in book two, he's definitely more prevalent throughout the story, both in the past and the present. I. And has two scenes that are in his POV in book two and then has a bunch of scenes in POV, in and only a grave will do so he ended up being so much bigger of a character than I ever thought he would be.

Lilly:

Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. I think we just have one final question for you, which is what would you like readers to take away from this book or series as a whole, if that's not too spoilery of a question?

James:

I think that's hard for me because I am somebody who believes that a book is a reader's interpretation. So I don't believe that I get to tell people what they should or should not take from an experience reading my books. Because at the end of the day, once a book is out there, I believe the author is just a very well-informed reader. When it comes to their book. They don't get to own interpretations. They don't get to tell people what is or is not right. Everybody's interpretation is the right way to, to experience a book. That being said, I hope that there's just a feeling of empathy and understanding for Kayla and Tayan and the experiences that they go through. I hope that there is a feeling that these are authentic characters that, feel like they're living and breathing and, have some agency and, and, perspective. I hope that there, are some thoughts about what does it mean to connect yourself to a culture and the historical difficulties we've had over. Most people and their relationships with their history and their culture and the things that have gotten in the way of the, the wars, the, the, the lost loved ones, colonization being a large one, enslavement and how those elements affect somebody's present day story, the story that they know about themselves, their ability to connect to their, their past, and their history. So, I mean, those are some of the elements that I, I hope are there. But again, people take what they're gonna take from it and I, I just hope they enjoy it. And if they don't enjoy it, at least buy the books and then, you know, that's fine enough.

Lilly:

Yes. And where can people buy these books?

James:

They can get signed copies on my website, james l dulin.com. They can get them on Amazon. EBooks are only on Amazon, but you can also get it through Kindle Unlimited because of that. And then you can get print versions, both paperback and hardcover on Amazon, Barnes and Noble bookshop.org. Pretty much most sites will connect to the company, it's called IngramSpark, and they they will fulfill those orders. So most online sites you can get a print version.

Sara:

And if people want to follow you to hear more about anything that you're working on or general updates, where can you be

James:

Okay, well the best place is to hop on my newsletter so you can get a update whenever I have one. It's at most monthly, so I'm not gonna spam your inbox. You can also follow me on TikTok or Twitter at. James lulilan. And then I'm also on Blue Sky under I think the same username. So I'm on those platforms. Mostly I'm on Instagram a little bit but yeah, you can always find me on my website. If you have any interesting questions or anything like that, you can always send me an email.

Sara:

Well, awesome. Thank you so much for coming on to talk to us. We really appreciated it.

James:

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com. Or leave a comment on YouTube.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:

Bye!