Prepare to venture into the dark and morally intricate universe of Grimdark literature with us and our esteemed guests—Holly Tinsley, Susana Imaginario, Jozua, and Jose. This week's episode promises to unravel the complex tapestry of a genre that defies easy categorization, through a discourse ripe with personal interpretations and a shared appreciation for fantasy's brooding alleyways. From the allure of morally grey characters to the intricate balance of hope and despair, we explore the essence of Grimdark and its influence on our literary preferences.
Our dialogue meanders through the murky waters of defining Grimdark, using touchstones like Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" series as a beacon while paying homage to George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." We examine the shifting sands of book marketing trends, the interplay between page count and storytelling, and the curious blend of genres that challenge traditional classifications. Laugh along with us as we candidly address the quirks of genre conventions and consider where Grimdark fits in the broader spectrum of fantasy and literature.
By episode's end, you'll have journeyed with us through a realm where the lines between light and darkness blur, where characters evolve beyond mere heroes and villains, and where the impact of Grimdark on our reading habits is both celebrated and scrutinized. Whether you're a Grimdark connoisseur or simply curious about its shadowy corridors, this conversation promises humor, insight, and perhaps a new perspective on the darker side of fantasy literature. Join us for an enlightening expedition into the heart of Grimdark, and maybe even discover your next brooding read.
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Prepare to venture into the dark and morally intricate universe of Grimdark literature with us and our esteemed guests—Holly Tinsley, Susana Imaginario, Jozua, and Jose. This week's episode promises to unravel the complex tapestry of a genre that defies easy categorization, through a discourse ripe with personal interpretations and a shared appreciation for fantasy's brooding alleyways. From the allure of morally grey characters to the intricate balance of hope and despair, we explore the essence of Grimdark and its influence on our literary preferences.
Our dialogue meanders through the murky waters of defining Grimdark, using touchstones like Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" series as a beacon while paying homage to George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." We examine the shifting sands of book marketing trends, the interplay between page count and storytelling, and the curious blend of genres that challenge traditional classifications. Laugh along with us as we candidly address the quirks of genre conventions and consider where Grimdark fits in the broader spectrum of fantasy and literature.
By episode's end, you'll have journeyed with us through a realm where the lines between light and darkness blur, where characters evolve beyond mere heroes and villains, and where the impact of Grimdark on our reading habits is both celebrated and scrutinized. Whether you're a Grimdark connoisseur or simply curious about its shadowy corridors, this conversation promises humor, insight, and perhaps a new perspective on the darker side of fantasy literature. Join us for an enlightening expedition into the heart of Grimdark, and maybe even discover your next brooding read.
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Logo by The GlimmerTwin Art House
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Hello friends and welcome to the Friday conversation. We are here, it's episode 102, and we're discussing one of my favorite topics. That's some of my favorite people. I mean, how can you go wrong? So we will be talking Grimdark today, and it's always a good time because we I don't think anyone could ever really agree what Grimdark is, and that's why it's fun to talk about. No one's ever wrong. You can't say whatever you want. It doesn't matter. So we'll go down the line and everybody can introduce themselves. Holly, will you start us off?
Speaker 2:I love going first. I'm Holly Tinsley, hl Tinsley. I write books that are allegedly Grimdark, which is why I'm here to see if that is a correct analysis or not, and I'm looking forward to finally getting the answer to what Grimdark actually is.
Speaker 1:Maybe all the secrets will be revealed today and the debate will cease to exist. And Joshua.
Speaker 3:I'm Joshua, I'm a Grimdark fanatic and I'm a member of the Pace Chewing Forum Nice.
Speaker 1:Glad you could join us. And Susanna, I'm Susanna Imaginario.
Speaker 5:I'm a writer and I have a YouTube channel called Good to meet you and Jose. Yeah, I am Jose.
Speaker 4:I am a reader and I also run the Hostess Amazing Worlds YouTube channel and I'm regularly also in the Pace Chewing Forum.
Speaker 1:And this episode won't be live until next Friday. We record a week early, but I just want to say you're killing it with all the interviews. I'm like, wow, doing a great job over there, lots of great stuff.
Speaker 4:I honest to goodness don't know what I have done. It's all serendipity and it really is. And I have to say my wonderful co-host over there, because last one could have gone terribly, terribly wrong and Susanna was there to save the day and I'm hoping she'll be there as well in a couple of weeks time when we have a double World Fantasy Award winner.
Speaker 1:Keep it up and very exciting. So we're going to start off with what Grimdark means to us and, like we discussed, there's no right or wrong answer. Everyone has a different opinion and that's why it's fun to talk about. So who wants to go first?
Speaker 4:Can I propose Holly?
Speaker 3:She likes to go first. I heard so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought so.
Speaker 2:Somehow I felt like I was going to get picked on here. I kind of saw this coming. The answer is I don't know and I write Grimdark, so I feel like I should have an answer to this. I think when it comes to Grimdark, the best way I can describe how I feel about it is that it's a flavor as opposed to a genre. So Grimdark I think most people when they talk about it talk they'll say Grimdark, like they would say mystery or fantasy. They kind of segment it on its own, whereas I think that Grimdark is an additional flavor added into a number of different genres. Obviously there are some that it works better for. So it plays very well into the fantasy genre. I can't think of any kind of Grimdark cozy chocolate shop stories. I don't think that would work. But I think it's a layer, it's an element that is layered over a genre that already exists.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's nice. Who wants?
Speaker 1:to go next.
Speaker 3:Zero preparations, but I'm so sorry, I'm going to get at them in it.
Speaker 2:I hate to be next. Praise the lineup Nobody. So I'll go, go ahead, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you.
Speaker 1:I'll see you.
Speaker 5:I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you, I'll see you. No, go, go, no, go go. Oh, grimdark. Well, I was first introduced to Grimdark years and years ago by my husband, because he loves 40K and I don't play the game, but he made me read a few stuff and this is so that that was my idea of Grimdark. And then, shortly after, I read Jobricambis novels which also marked as Grimdark, which I thought was much better, and then that that has been my idea of Grimdark and these days everything is Grimdark. So I don't know if the definition evolved or I just. Well, I guess Grimdark is. Whatever people think, it's Grimdark for them.
Speaker 1:And that's fine. Some pretty hard line answers so far. I like it.
Speaker 3:All right, Steve, you were prepared so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think I have some really unpopular opinions about what is and isn't Grimdark, or what is a good place to start, but we'll get into that later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have a couple of things written down. So first, I think one of the things is one of the major things about Grimdark that I like is that there's consequences. So when somebody dies they're dead. There's no, usually no magical thing that brings them back. When someone makes a bad decision, they pay for it, or someone else pays for it that they didn't intend to pay for. So there's always some kind of whatever someone makes a mistake, there's a consequence for that mistake. And the decisions that are made have more weight to me because if it doesn't work out, then someone will pay for it.
Speaker 1:And I hate I know some people hate this term but morally gray characters. I think they see more like people than the typical hero villain. Everyone's kind of just trying to survive, so the lines are blurred with who's who's right and who's wrong. You can also find yourself conflicted on who the villain may be and or who the hero is. The heroes do awful things because they might have to to survive or to get to their goal.
Speaker 1:Another one is typically, I think, for me anyway, I think lower fantasy is kind of go hand in hand with Grimdark. I think if you have kind of a high fantasy. It kind of takes away that element of the kind of grittiness that I like to see. But I think one of the things that kind of brings me back to the genre is that we've seen someone overcome the odds and seen someone pick themselves up and achieve their goals or to survive when everything is stacked against them.
Speaker 1:I think it's nice to see someone overcome and to succeed or to at least somewhat achieve their goals, even when everything looks very dark, and they find a way to persevere. I think that's something that's a little bit. It can be hopeful in a way. I don't think Grimdark has to be hopeless and I don't think it has to be nihilistic. I don't think Grimdark has to be nihilistic. I think some people and again there's no right or wrong answer just for me, but I think so if something's not nihilistic, I don't necessarily think it's not Grimdark, at least for me, but nuts and bolts. That's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3:All right, that is an amazing answer.
Speaker 4:I'll go next. I think I agree to a large extent with what Steve said about its low fantasy. I think, because I think Grimdark is a bit of a twist on the traditional fantasy genre, which was very much good versus evil, and good prevails and this hopeful thing. I agree on the low fantasy. I agree on the morally grey characters. There's never a clear character to root for because there's neither good nor bad and maybe someone you root for then does something really nasty and horrible. But I think I disagree with you, steve.
Speaker 4:I think Grimdark has to be nihilistic. It is a not hope or a little hope sort of genre, because if we remove that nihilism away, I think you could call many books Grimdark which are not just because horrible things happen to characters and there are consequences. That's not enough, because then you could argue that realm of the other links is Grimdark because it doesn't shy away from depicting some really horrible and brutal stuff that happens to characters, and I think everyone will bulk on the idea that Robin Hobb is a Grimdark author. So I think there is that kind of if not nihilistic, cynical and I think for me the epitome. Well, I haven't read a lot of Grimdark but I think if you want to get a flavour for it, have a crumby first low trilogy is the one of I'm sure we'll unpick that later and quite possibly Holly Tinsley's Vanga Chronicles is looking pretty grim and dark after the first book.
Speaker 3:I need to look into that because I didn't know. Alright, then I'm lost Great position to be in. I agree with parts of what everyone said because, like Steve said, there is no right or wrong answer. It's a combination of all those factors and for me it's the basics of what is it setting, circumstance and subjects. Like Jose said about nihilism or cynicism, that is one of the settings that is needed for me to find it grim for characters to be in or just downright awful, and then the subject could be dark, like gore or rape or everything that is so bad that a person really changes in a bad way because of it or struggles to deal with it in a bad way.
Speaker 3:And I love this sub genre. For me it's a sub genre the most because it puts people or characters in the most horrendous circumstances and you watch it play out psychologically, what happens to them. Their choices become more extreme the more extreme the circumstances are, which is very interesting to read about. What would you do in that circumstance? It brings out more of a feeling, positive or negative. For me, that makes it more enjoyable to read and more exciting to read, because I'm more attracted to how deep a character goes, the core of him. Will he break under these circumstances or does he triumph? Like Steve said, can he evolve? Can he get out of this? And yeah, everything, grimdark just screams at me like you haven't seen anything yet, because every new series I read in that sub genre it's like oh my god, I didn't think of this. It's so wild, how extreme. Or the other way it goes sometimes.
Speaker 3:Of course, abercrombie's work is the one that everybody says oh, you need to read this if you want to get in grimdark. I love his work, but I disagree. If you want to just see what it's all about, I would say I think they were mentioned. Of course they were mentioned. The prince of nothing and the manifest delusions are the two I'm going to go with to say to people like you want a taste of grimdark and see that it's for you. If you don't like these books, then it's not for you. They're just so extreme on some level that they find that line and just wave at it as it passes by, like okay, this is too much for some people, which makes it the most grim dark for me.
Speaker 1:I hear the term dark fantasy a lot and I wonder what everyone thinks is dark fantasy? Grim, dark.
Speaker 3:It is the same thing for everyone because I want the difference to go with the dark stuff. So grim is the circumstances, but dark is horror, more, more like like I don't know. Yeah, gore, seriously. Why can't I think of anything? Anything horror. There we go. That's for me.
Speaker 4:I would agree with you for that. I think just dark just means vampires were wolves. You know that sort of more gothic setting for any D&D players out there, with talking raven loft as opposed to forgotten realms. Yes, I can see there are some non D&D players in the room.
Speaker 1:There's a couple, yeah, there's a couple. Hall has been known to play D&D from time to time.
Speaker 2:Just occasionally. Yeah, not doesn't mean I know anything about it, but I do play.
Speaker 1:The. You know Joshua touched on first life. I think I don't. I don't think first law is. I think it's a gateway drug into the sub genre. I think it's a way to kind of dip your toes in. But if I don't think it's a good representation of what is really, how can I say this? I think it's a good way to kind of dip your toes. I don't think it's a good. For me. It doesn't represent what the sub genre embodies, like it's a, it's a taste of it, it's a. It's more, which is good, it's more accessible. It's like it's like a for me. When I kind of saw it as like a Tarantino version of of fantasy, because the characters all have like these personality, like these quirky process, it's funny, it's it's easy to get into manifest delusions.
Speaker 3:Those characters are sometimes funny, really funny, but it's it's much harder. The world, the setting, everything is is up to 11. And, like you say, dip your toes in more like first law is like coke Light. So it's a light, grim, dark fantasy, I think. What? No no, no, no. I saw Jose going like no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4:I was saying I was just musing on the light, dark sort of you know.
Speaker 5:Oh sorry.
Speaker 4:No, no, no. So there's this dark, grim, dark, and light, grim, yes, shades.
Speaker 5:There's shades of green. Well, I've never read manifest delusions so I can't compare. Sadly For me. Like I said, I started with Warhammer and so I started with the idea that grim, dark was this scenario or this type of world that never evolves. It's just fighting, fighting, fighting. Nothing ever gets resolved, it's all pointless. And then when I read for the first law, which is completely different, it's not the role so much, it's not about the fighting, that's what I mean. It's more the psychology behind it, the, the mindset of the characters and how they direct. In this world where there's no escape, there's always something bigger than themselves, working in the, in the background, all they can achieve is this looks like a victory, but it's kind of not. It's that feeling of hopelessness. It's not so much about the gore or how many battles or torture scenes, it's about that sense of hopelessness and, like Jose said, the cynicism of usually the main characters as they they, you know leave try to survive in that world. So it's much more psychological.
Speaker 4:We have used the word hopeless, but I'm not entirely sure, and again, I just referring to first law. But the characters are necessarily hopeless, I think they're. They're just hopelessness, what's the word? I think they're more like I don't know what I'm trying to say they accept the world for what it is, so they don't have a hope to make it better, or all they aspire to do is to make the most for themselves.
Speaker 3:They're not trying to to change the world for the better but you as a reader, you as a reader, can feel that hopelessness. I found the word perfectly for the Prince of Nothing series. If you want to feel hopeless and feel like everything is bad, read that series, even though, like you said, jose, it's like, oh, the characters make the best of it for themselves. You, as a reader, are reading it and feeling like I don't understand how they live in this place. I don't understand how they survive.
Speaker 4:So when we, when we talk about hopelessness is what we perceive as the reader, not what the characters live and how they approach the world. Right yeah, so, Holly how did you, how did you find out that you were writing Grimdark?
Speaker 2:So I think I kind of had a similar experience to a lot of the other Grimdark authors that I've spoken to since. In that the the funny thing is going back to what Steve was saying about the difference between dark fantasy and Grimdark is it's generally not the writers that put these subgenre labels on certainly not at first, maybe more so now it's become a more marketable term. But certainly when I kind of first started writing, it was the readers that were defining it, rather than me deliberately trying to write something Grimdark. So I think that's why people struggle to find an answer to what it actually is, because it's it's translated and interpreted by the person reading the story.
Speaker 2:So all these kind of conversations and arguments about nihilism and hope really stem from the fact that that is going to be different for everybody based on their perspective. So you know, I've read Grimdark books where people said it well, god, you know there's no hope in this and it's just, it's just nihilism and it's just pure depression and misery and grimness. And you know you'll go to the next review for that book and so on. I say there was so much hope in this and like I really felt, you know, uplifted, seeing these characters survive and triumph against these terrible trauma and, you know, face hopelessness. So a lot of it really comes down to what your interpretation of those things are, rather than the writers interpretation.
Speaker 1:And speed of marketing. I do wonder now. I think maybe five years ago I think Grimdark was a more marketable term. I think maybe some people would use that, like some people may have used it, but I don't know that it's. I kind of see that the cozy fantasy is kind of making a comeback, and it's not for me, but I do think that the cozy, your stuff is maybe appealing more to some people and I don't know that it's like you said, I don't know people set out to write. It just kind of happens that way. But I'm sure some people use it as a marketable term but I'm not sure that it's as it's as as marketable as it says, as marketable as it was, I don't know, five years ago or three or four years ago.
Speaker 2:So I actually do have a bit of an opinion on that, and I'm glad that you brought it up because I wanted to mention it earlier, because one of the things that Susanna said at the start of this was about Grimdark being everywhere, which I think is absolutely true.
Speaker 2:And you know, you, just every other book that comes out, certainly in the past kind of maybe five years, has been, you know, probably a Grimdark book.
Speaker 2:But I think part of that assumption the fact that there was really no marketing term for these types of books before that, aside from to call them fantasy or dark fantasy and I think what happened is there was already so many books in existence that fit suddenly within this subgenre of Grimdark. So, prime example at the moment I have my beautiful book here, which I know other people won't see, but I'm going to show you anyway because it's so beautiful, and so that's Limitra Abla by Victor Hugo, which I would arguably say is a Grimdark book. But obviously when it was released it would never have had that kind of tag to it because it didn't exist. So I think when it suddenly came about, it wasn't just a case of new authors or new books being called Grimdark All of a sudden there was just masses of preexisting books that suddenly started falling within this new subgenre. So I think that almost felt like it was a mass influx into the market, which probably propelled a little bit by that.
Speaker 3:Sure, but it's easier to find those books now that interest me because of that term. Like Lemiz, I haven't read it. I know the story and I'm like, depending on how gory or whatever it gets, it could be a Grimdark novel then for me, and that would make it more interesting for me to read.
Speaker 4:So are we saying? That Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World are Grimdark. Now I could see it. 1984 for sure, right, great question?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tough one. Do you need fantasy elements to be Grimdark?
Speaker 3:So now we're talking about Grimdark fantasy. I think Like the first law in Malazan Song of Ice and Fire.
Speaker 4:But then you could go in in different. I'm going to hold Steve Ronson to this earlier point when he said it's low fantasy. So we don't need the fantasy? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I'm just being facetious. That's why Lemiz could have been a Grimdark novel. That isn't fantasy Interesting. So could you imagine like a Grimdark biography or something.
Speaker 1:Aren't all biographies. Grimdark Is history. Grimdark History is.
Speaker 3:Grimdark.
Speaker 4:Some characters are pretty Grimdark, isn't it? Certain German dictators and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had the Dark Ages, and those times were Grimd.
Speaker 1:The Crusades.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but just because something is Grimdark.
Speaker 4:Doesn't make a Grimdark sound like that. Explain that.
Speaker 1:That's exactly how it is right.
Speaker 5:I'm still trying to get a home 1984 as Grimdark. I don't think it fits. But I see your point but I'm like, no, it doesn't fit. But why doesn't it fit?
Speaker 3:It definitely has to do with the marketing value of the word itself. It helps, like YA is marketing to an audience. If you see, ya, that's gonna be for me, because YA, I love, ya, I love Grimdark.
Speaker 1:Can YA be Grimdark?
Speaker 3:That is another tough one, because the first time someone mentioned the Ashen Sand series to me. I was like so it's YA, because it's a coming-of-age story.
Speaker 2:When.
Speaker 1:I read it. It was definitely not YA, but the first page, you know it's not YA.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that made me happy. That made me happy like it's not YA, because I don't like YA. But if it could I don't know what the lines are there that it should be Grimdark YA. What is the worst thing that could happen in something like that? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It could happen off the page or off screen. I guess you could say I mean it could be alluded to that, certain things happen and not, you know, get in. But I think YA could be Grimdark.
Speaker 4:There's something morally wrong about YA being Grimdark.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 4:It's like having it's like PG Rayter horror movies. I don't know. There's something oxymoronic about the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Then they shouldn't be reading history books, like you said. I mean, like what happened in the camps and stuff. Most of those history books have pictures in them. I mean that is brutal and it really happened.
Speaker 4:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I felt like, sorry, just talk to everyone. Okay, just because this is something I'm going to get really passionate about now and it's also going to give you a glimpse into potentially you know what I was like as a child and why I've turned out the way I have. But my favorite book when I was a child so this is probably around 12, 13, I would say is a book called the Alkalines Cat by Robin Jarvis, and again, I would argue that this is a children's Grimdark book. It's a brilliant book.
Speaker 2:I've still got a copy now but it literally starts with the protagonist's entire family dying of smallpox. So this is how it starts. The protagonist then moves to London to meet their new guardian, who is almost immediately murdered by Thugs and Ruffians, and this story has got so much death and so much misery within its pages. You know, it's set against the backdrop of London during the bubonic plague. No one is safe. There are characters that get killed and this is something that I read.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's quite a young teenager and it was amazing to have a book for me at that age that spoke with that level of truth and that level of authenticity about the world. And you know I'm not saying that this is something that every child wants in their life, but I would assume that there's probably other children who are like me that really, at that age, had a real need for a book that spoke truth to them and didn't cushion the sharper edges of the world. So I totally appreciate that. You know, you may not want to give this book to your kids, I totally understand that, but I just wanna just wanted to say how much it meant to me and just yeah, that's my little hill. No, no, no, no, you're right.
Speaker 3:I think you're correct about that. Some, a lot of kids need that non-cushioning part and we're safe because most kids don't like to read. So I think it's pretty fine. Has anybody read Watership Down? I mean, if you want to grim dark, but then with animals it is, it's pretty brutal with the guts and everything I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm still traumatized by that. I can't talk about that at all.
Speaker 4:I watched the movie as a kid, not quite knowing where it was, and the movie as a kid. I was moderately traumatized by how it ended. And then I read the book as an adult and then I made a connection with the movie and yeah, yeah, there's something there.
Speaker 5:It's. I'm here thinking it's interesting what the things that you read as a child then, how it relates to what you find grim and dark as an adult. My favorite book as a child was the Tin Fast, the steadfast tin soldier, one of Grim's fairytales, and it's very dark, but again it's. I wouldn't recommend it to kids at all. And later on in my teens was Wethering Heights, which I wouldn't consider grim, dark, but it still has that very dark atmosphere, that sense of hopelessness, the characters completely unlikable, and that is the sort of thing that I find great.
Speaker 3:Great example, the brothers great example.
Speaker 5:That sort of psychology. Yeah, those were fairytales, like proper fairytales.
Speaker 1:Now to add those books to my reading list.
Speaker 3:But it is interesting what you said about what is dark or grim. Dark for you because of what you got to read or see as a child, because a lot of people get desensitized to a lot of stuff, maybe at an early age. And then what is horror for you is like, oh, he touches his eye and the other one is like doesn't he take a spoon? And go like I mean that's yeah where you grow up. But I mean there is very interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ice cream scoop.
Speaker 4:Yeah, see, yeah.
Speaker 1:But aren't a lot of, at least even like the older Disney movies, I mean like Bambi, that's not, I mean and it happens off screen.
Speaker 3:Like you said that it goes off screen, YA, grim dark, it could happen.
Speaker 4:Dumbo when he gets drunk the night, the night Merceene in Dumbo, when he gets drunk, creep me out as a child big time. Yeah, Very trippy, very trippy.
Speaker 1:Pinocchio. I think it's pretty dark. I think it's the.
Speaker 2:It's coming back to that thing that Susanna said, though, as well about it's because all those films are based on much more watered down versions of original fairy tales, and when you look at the original fairy tales, I mean they are dark, and then you've got things as well, like the one that I thought of just now is the little match girl. I mean that's dark.
Speaker 4:Those fairy tales. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they were written with a clear moralising intention. It was like a clear warning to kids, isn't it?
Speaker 4:So they were written for the pleasure of, you know, writing something that run counter to tradition or wanting to, you know, turn a genre on its head or, you know, subvert expectations or anything like that. They had a very clear aim, whereas I think now maybe and, like I said, I haven't read much Gwimdark maybe some authors are just writing for shock value, are they? Is that a thing? Yeah, mm-hmm, absolutely I think some do.
Speaker 1:I think like something like Splatterpunk is the intention is to shock, is to appal, is to really, you know, to be as extreme as possible. It's not so much about the story, it's about the violence and gore and the just. It's like an extreme horror movie that sets out to just be disturbing, to be offensive, I guess, for some people. But I think there could be elements of that, but I don't know that Gwimdark as a whole is that the intention is to shock. I don't know. I mean, there are books out there that maybe there are some people who do that, like I'm not not that that never happens, but I don't know. That that's the Splatterpunk is to shock you, is to discuss to you.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that Gwimdark is. I think Gwimdark's more sets out to if it sets out to just, it's more of a like we discussed or like more, like a psychological or emotional type of to appeal to you in that way as a sad or to kill off a character that you care about or to see someone suffer or a character you come to attach yourself to. So I guess there's elements, but I think something like Splatterpunk is to. That's the intention of the, that's the whole genre is to be just as disturbing as possible.
Speaker 3:But it's true, jose, there are some that. So I love Manifest delusions of Michael R Fletcher. It's amazing, I think everybody should have tried it if you want to try Gwimdark. But he has another series like the Obsidian Path, with the first book, blackstone Heart, and when I just read it and I think this one was before the other books and it felt like he was really trying to go for shock value instead of go for a story like like in the Manifest delusions, like how far can I take this? And there's another one that I felt that way with the Empires of Dust. The first book was more for shock value, in my opinion, than the second book. And the third book starts. It starts to have a cohesive story and more character development. The first book is like she's going all over the place just to show you stuff and it felt wrong. So I think there are definitely some writers that go for that. I'm just gonna write Gwimdark for Gwimdark, because it's fashionable.
Speaker 1:The last book in the Empires of Dust series. That still gets me. There is. I won't spoil, but there's some things that happened. It really got to me. All right see, yeah, so it got to me. You know it's like wow, ha ha ha hardcore.
Speaker 1:Steve, it's like that was like yeah, and Sarah Trorn, right. Some like Sarah Fina's Lament like there's a death in that book. That really got to me too. But that speaks to the crafting, the story and the characters in a way that makes you care about them and when they get taken, when they get killed in a horrible way, it has an emotional reaction.
Speaker 3:I didn't have that in the first book, as in it didn't feel like that at all. The first book was a mishmash of things. She was trying to be as dark as possible. That's what I feel like.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 5:Well, I guess, the same way that you can have a romance plot in any other genre, pretty much you can have a green dark or green dark elements in, even in high fantasy or YA. It doesn't mean that the whole book is green dark just because it has green dark elements.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so what's the? I guess I know the answer, but just putting out there to have the conversation. What's the appeal of reading green, dark, like? What makes you, steve, enjoy it more than possibly any other genre within fantasy?
Speaker 1:Seeing the characters overcome and persevere, even if they don't survive, even if their legacy is changed, even in a small way, even if it's not changing the world, they may not save the world, they may not save a group of people. Even if they save one person or even if they just tip the scales just a little bit, they do the little part. I think, just seeing them overcome and even if it's a small difference because I think that's kind of what we not very many of us can really change the world if we set out to, we can change one person, the path of one person, or the nudge things over just a little bit, I think it's kind of I don't know, I think it's like. I think for me it's almost encouraging. But that is that element of hope that you can make a difference, even in a small way, even against the worst situation, you can find a way to overcome.
Speaker 3:You're such a positive Green Dark reader, it's weird. No, I understand you completely.
Speaker 5:I just like it because, yeah, but usually there's more interesting characters. I don't know, I think I can relate to characters a lot better. One of the things I don't read a lot of high fantasy anymore because I just I find very hard to relate to the characters. They are all so morally driven, so righteous or just so evil for the sake of being evil. I really like characters that are utterly flawed, the characters that you probably shouldn't like. I'm always kind of looking for the villain, sometimes just because they are more interesting, and that is an aspect that I like about Green Dark is that everyone is kind of a villain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, could be kind of a villain yeah. It's like Steve said, but then for me it's all over the place. It could be evil, it could be good. It's just their reactions in those circumstances, their decision making, their thought process, everything about that character that makes it function and tick in that world, that is interesting, or more interesting than any other genre Kosei or Holly oh you, yeah, whatever you like.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of the best way to explain it, because I know what I get out of Green Dark, and I think it's to do with the way I look at difficult or dark or scary subjects. If there's something that is a horrible thing or a scary thing, I like to be able to take it out of one of the situations, put it down for doing it and look at it in a very factual, logical way. That's how I overcome my own fears and my own life, and I think Green Dark somehow does that for me via books, because what it does is it looks at the what and the how and the why. So we know this character is a villain. We know this character has, you know, just murdered 500 townsfolk.
Speaker 2:What I'm interested in is the how did they get to that place in their life? What has driven them to be in this situation? Why is their perception of the world different to mine? So I feel like Green Dark can be quite analytical in that sense and again it goes back to the whole idea of it being psychologically based is it almost takes the magic out of it, and by that I don't mean the physical magic in the book. It makes it more real, and that's the best I can explain it. It's a really hard thing to put into words.
Speaker 3:But you did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Paul say you can answer your own question you have your own question, jesus, I think for me it's like watching movies. You know, sometimes you're in the mood for a thriller, sometimes you're in the mood for a comedy, sometimes you're in the mood for a horror, and to me, green Dark is the horror of fantasy. So it's not my default. Every now and then I like to watch a horror movie. I like to read a more Green Dark book, but it's not my main thing. I prefer slightly more traditional classic fantasy. That's how I say it. It's like choosing from a menu.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious so classic fantasy, what has your faith in classic fantasy been shaken by your recent adventures into certain series?
Speaker 4:No, not at all. But my experience with classic fantasy we were talking before about what you read as a child and for me, dangerous and Dragons and classic, epic high fantasy has such a huge impact on me as a teenager that it just it was my life for many, many years and it's what made me find a group of people that I could fit in and be comfortable with. So now, you know, I still think Lord of the Rings is the best book ever written. I still. You know, I have reread Dragonlands five times. I still read Forgotten Realms. I yeah, it's we should talk about that.
Speaker 3:We should talk about that because with a therapist, or here I have. I have a huge Forgotten Realms collection and Dragonlands. We should talk about that with a therapist, you and me in a room fair enough fair enough. I'm down for that anytime anytime, but if you do that and then there's something wrong with you. It's true, it's true yeah, I'm surprised.
Speaker 4:Your will of time experience didn't shake your oh, we don't have to go there, we always have to go there.
Speaker 1:We always have to go there, we always have to go there just I love hearing your rant about it. It's just so much fun but will of time.
Speaker 4:It's not fantasy yeah the last book.
Speaker 5:The last book gets really grimdark, are you telling me will?
Speaker 3:will of time is the last book the last book.
Speaker 5:I remember getting to a point where I just had to put it down, because every time I was reading it at the festival, kind of between gigs, and every time I'll go to the tent to read another chapter. Someone died horribly, I don't remember that clearly and I went and watch another gig, came back, okay, this person dying again, okay all my favorite characters are dying.
Speaker 3:You're like Joanne put it in the fridge like it does with little women pretty someone died, put it in the fridge or the freezer no, I wouldn't call it grimdark.
Speaker 5:I'm joking, but it gets pretty dark that's what I'm saying go punch something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, remember is yeah he punched the hole in the wall, probably. Yeah, we didn't say anything bad about you, no worries, I believe you, okay, okay, but it's uh, yeah, okay, let's go ahead.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry let's, no, no, let's reverse that question on to you guys. So has your reading of grimdark spoiled in inverted commas, your appreciation for more traditional books, severe head nodding from Steve gone, not even close.
Speaker 3:Lord of the Rings is still amazing. I read what is the? The relaxing fantasy book, again the coffee shop one. What is it?
Speaker 1:oh, legend lotte's legend's a lot.
Speaker 3:It was, it was a fine book. I mean, I liked it, it, it, it. It makes other books maybe less thrilling, but it doesn't detract from if. If it's it's good, it's a good book. It's it's written badly, whatever, it doesn't detract at all for me. For me, go for Steve. Apparently.
Speaker 5:Steve.
Speaker 1:I I can't go back to traditional fantasy now, not, I've been reading so many, but you've gone vegan I should. Yeah, I've gone, carnivore I think yeah, yeah, yeah but I can't.
Speaker 1:From time to time, if I it's, if it's the right book, I can. But generally speaking, when I go back to more classic, traditional fantasy, I just think it's it's kind of boring, like it's. It's kind of like watching a marvel movie, you know, and there's some comfort in having knowing what's going to happen, the hero is going to prevail, the day will be saved, everyone will be happy and that's fine. Sometimes, like I get, I get it's nice to have that, that it's nice to go in and not have to go into dark places or or to have a care to you care, care about dying, not come back. But it just it's just boring. You know there's it. You can kind of slap a certain beats that you can kind of you know what's coming next, like, or at least a variation of it, and there's certain things that happen and you just kind of can tell where things are going to go, and sometimes that's okay like, sometimes that's fun, like yeah, it's like coming back to your favorite meal, you know, yeah, I don't see the point anymore.
Speaker 3:I've got that with video games. If people say to me oh man, this, this game, this story is amazing, let's, let's say god of war or the last of us, I would slap someone seriously in the face with that game if I have to, because no, it's, it's point a to point b and everything in between is, oh, character, it's boring from point a to point b and it's pretty to look at. I gave them that and I think that's because of grim dark.
Speaker 5:I think it made me. I think it made me a bit more picky. Yes, I still enjoy, you know, a lot of the rings, and more light or just dark fantasy doesn't need to be, but I'm I really prefer a book that is character driven and for that it needs to have good characters. And, like I said, for me good characters have to be morally gray and flawed and a bit selfish and cynical, and that's usually found in grim, dark novels.
Speaker 3:So so it's not agree you don't believe yourself necessarily.
Speaker 4:You do not even believe yourself who are you?
Speaker 1:what happened because? Because, what have you done?
Speaker 5:this is Anna because this world this world, but I don't always call it grim darkness, yeah, but you know, this world doesn't feature in my top five, for example.
Speaker 5:Okay, that explains it all it's no, I read a lot and, like my, my tastes are quite and, and recently, with all these discussions, I've been reading stuff that I would never yeah, never. I don't even think about it. But I always come back when I go for a, for a comforting read, like, for example, and I'm filling down, a couple months back I hadn't ever read best surf cold, because you know it makes me feel good. What does that say? I don't know. I find it very cathartic is that one word?
Speaker 3:is that a chromed book?
Speaker 5:the what the worst if I'm honest of all the books.
Speaker 3:I read the entire thing. That is the one I was like, point A to point B. That was the most boring book he wrote in the entire series and that's why it's getting adapted to movie or series. What is it?
Speaker 5:ouch, because it's the best.
Speaker 3:It was the most basic one that way they were like oh, this is easy to copy paste even.
Speaker 4:Susanna can be right every now and then yeah, just like a broken clock right and you, holly, did writing reading grim, dark. Change your taste, or were you always on the green and dark?
Speaker 2:I mean I think we established earlier on that I started reading grim dark when I was 12, so I I can't really. I've never been a fan of epic or high fancy. It's just not my genre. At the risk of being kicked out of this stream, I've never I've never read the board of the rings, I will admit it.
Speaker 1:I haven't either.
Speaker 2:I just it's I could. I understand the appeal of it to other people, I understand the success of it, but I always enjoyed more low fantasy, so I always lean more towards the historical fantasy. So people like Stephen Pressfield, bernard Cornwell and I know that's a little bit ambiguous when you look at history, but stuff like that I think always appeal to my kind of desire for more realism. So, yeah, not a high fantasy person I'm afraid, says the dungeon master.
Speaker 2:I mean, yes, where is that? But I think that's to be fair. D&d came later in life, so, yeah, that's my, my, my fantasy outlet is through Dungeons and Dragons but having said that about the you like the history aspect, have you read Prince of Nothing? I haven't. Actually, it's one of the ones on the list that I haven't read.
Speaker 3:It is difficult for a lot of people because he's he's the way he writes. It can be whole over the place. So it's either you love it or you really hate it. But it is more in line with what you like about books because it's it feels like an alternative version of the the crusades.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, that sounds like it would be up my straight definitely.
Speaker 1:Susanna was not a fan.
Speaker 3:I understand.
Speaker 5:No, I want to know the story. I'm gonna have to wait for the adaptation because the prose doesn't work for me at all. I've tried again in the meantime, and even the audiobook. I lose track of what what's being said because it just goes all over the place. So much I can't. I can't focus, I'm understandable. Sorry, I didn't read it. It's okay, I'll wait for the video. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I was gonna say hello, you're not alone at the risk of being kicked off too. I haven't read a lot of the rings either, so let's do this.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was gonna say something really stupid. We're talking about a lot of the rings.
Speaker 3:Has everybody read A Song of Ice and Fire in this group? Okay?
Speaker 5:yes, what is your?
Speaker 3:stance on being grim, dark or not, because that is interesting from yeah, I thought so.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm surprised. Yeah, yeah, we thought we needed her.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So three people are going like no, no, this is, this is definitely not grim dark. Why Any of the three?
Speaker 4:No, it's very grim and very dark, but it's not that this is where you have a crumbly change my mind.
Speaker 4:So I think for for me, a Song of Ice and Fire was sort of the more, if you want, more mature, slightly darker series that I the first series like that that I read and I think, for someone that came from a very traditional background that moment when Ned Stark gets his head chopped off to the very last line before the guillotine falls or the axe falls and the chop off his head, I'm waiting for him to get rescued, to somehow get out of it, because this doesn't happen in fantasy.
Speaker 4:Your main protagonist doesn't die. In the first book and I think it was a sword, and when the sword fell off I was like fuck, like this is a game changer and yeah, I think on first impressions you could think that the characters are morally gray, but they they're not. I think they all have a code and I think you can understand the motivations and I think it's still that are good and bad, like traditional goodies and bodies that Jamie Lannister there's a difference, sorry, there's a difference between being, you know, what we call a morally gray character and just being human or just a well-rounded character.
Speaker 5:Now, no one's perfect. I know it creates very believable characters because they are all imperfect. You know, they have their ideals, their codes, but they are all. They're not very human. You can relate to them, even if you don't agree you. You, you can't relate to them, that's.
Speaker 3:I do relate.
Speaker 4:I drink and I know things I do relate and I think though even though we never see the end of the series. The good guys will still win. You know they will defeat the white walkers. They will ever throw Queen Cersei and you will still have some sort of catharsis at the end where the good guys win. There are a little bit casualties along the way, but you know we talked in the past in other conversations you got his camera, he's in focus no, my camera's out of focus sorry, no, no, we.
Speaker 4:I said we talked in other conversations that you know Jamie Lannister goes in this redemption arc and you know, I think that some of the goodies are starting the wrong side, but the eventual, I think. You know, if you stop to think about it, I saw go buy some fires.
Speaker 3:It's not great that all right, then Holly's the last person there.
Speaker 2:I'm actually I'm in a good position now because they just sent me a really nicely now for this answer. So I think the point you made there about winning is really important, because I think you know, as was said it's it's not a grim dark, it's a book that is grim and dark, and I think what made it lack that grim dot element is that the, when you look at the losers and the winners in song wise and fire is I've tried to think how I can explain this for an or j podcast you've got the winners here and the losers here. There is a much larger gap between where the losers end up and where the winners end up. There is higher stakes for one of the better word, whereas I think with most grim docs, you find that that gap between your losers and your winners is very small indeed, and I think that for me, is the main difference.
Speaker 1:I'm shocked. Honestly, I'm so surprised you guys don't think I think it's. I mean the character deaths and I guess the question is does the end it needs? So if we assume that the good guy, the good, the good side will win, does that make it not grim, dark, the? Do you need a because of all the character deaths and all the, all the things that happen is? Isn't that embody all we've been talking?
Speaker 4:about, because I think that's just history that's just life.
Speaker 4:Morally. They got morally high ambitions. You know john snow is an idealist tyrian still wants the best for the people and he tries. He does try to change the world in the ways that he can. You know there are some clearly evil people, like from the iron is it the iron islands? The um is. That I've read a many years ago but I think there are still some you know good and you can see also in god, mother of dragons, whatever her name was. I forget now that her ambitions to be queen are sort of justified then that she's been robbed of her birthright and I think it is not as cynical and it's not as nihilistic, as you know the slap in the face that is by us in the first one first of all, the white walkers.
Speaker 3:Losing is a bad ending. I mean, come on, nobody agrees. Excellent, but I understand the the whole not being a grim, dark because the the overall world. So there are situations and places that are that are grim and and it's hard to live in, and especially in high society. It's it's a doggy dog, but there are parts that it's like they're just farmers and a farm and the world is just normal, like in history books. Normal people are having their daily lives. There isn't, there aren't any stakes for them, because it's just just hope that no noble passes your street and and claims everything you own and that that's it. So the, the circumstances aren't that grim unless you focus on those parts like everything beyond the wall is very bad for you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, those are grim circumstances, that's true no, you were talking earlier how history is quite grim, dark and well, history has dark periods. You were talking about crusades and the holocaust and you know that, yeah, horrible dark periods but they passed. You know that's the same. The world keeps changing. You know there are good times, bad times, wars, peace, always. It's always changing to be a proper grim, dark environments. Nothing really changes. You're always stuck in.
Speaker 4:That world is backed in a corner trying to defend themselves going to achieve something yeah, no, I make sense.
Speaker 1:Um, no, I can. I can see we're thinking back on us talking about some farther our characters who are I don't know if you would say morally I think they're. The lines are pretty defined on motivations and kind of the good versus evil almost, and then you have the white walkers, who you know. But I think it'd be great if the white walkers want and we just kind of start over again yeah, kind of reset everything yeah, it'd be cool well I guess, we'll never find out, we'll wait mr
Speaker 2:martin if you're listening.
Speaker 5:Please do this like a little digression um steve you.
Speaker 1:You never read the books and every point all the way to dance dragons.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, especially in dance and dragons the last one you get to see a lot more of essos of. You know what's going on outside westeros and I find that world a lot more grim, dark, than westeros. They've their society with slavery, with the, the horrible fights, and they're in there. Life has no value in that, in that, in that world pretty much, or it's very low value. I find that that it's while in westeros yes, it's, it's the battle against the white walkers which are these, you know these absolute evil, death itself. Almost no um in the east. They're, they're fighting against life. You know the no one is actually living, they're just surviving. It's, it's such a system and it's so ingrained in their culture, even in the different cities, that that's why, when the inaries is going around trying to liberate the slaves, the moment she leaves, everything reverts to how it was before. You know that it it's very hard to change. So I find that part is it's a lot more grim, dark than the actual.
Speaker 3:There are grim dark parts which are just beginning to see it's just like I said before the parts of the world are like fine, and other parts Cream, dark. The other one you put in there, malazan, malazan.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't tell Erickson that I know he is. Yeah, he is not. He's not a fan of from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's the same thing as as Martin's work Parts are are really like dark and green setting and everything, so the green dark can apply on situations, but then there are parts that aren't as bad.
Speaker 1:I think, like Dead House Gates is pretty dark.
Speaker 3:You have to check. I think Susanna hasn't read.
Speaker 1:No, I don't Spoiler free.
Speaker 5:I only got the first one.
Speaker 1:No spoilers, just. But I think the second bug is pretty, pretty dark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. But again going back to that, you know spoilers Never mind, yeah, but People have very strong opinions on that, on that one. Well, that's it on every book in that series.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I really dislike me too.
Speaker 5:Gardens of the Moon? I don't know, not because it was, it was dark, I just thought it was a hodgepodge. So I started with stupid, so I have to try again.
Speaker 1:It really just drops you in the middle of everything. It's like, almost like you, you start a movie in the middle of the movie instead of starting at the beginning, and it kind of yeah, it's, it's a thing, it's like it's a lot, it could be a lot. There's a there's like 80 characters, I think, in book two some of that from a character list. I was like 80 characters in it.
Speaker 3:I stopped counting. Every time I go to that page, you have all the characters in the beginning of the book. I'm like, yeah, I know, I'm just going to read the book and see what happens. I don't know. Holly or Jose, have you read anything?
Speaker 4:Well, I remain. I remain blissfully and completely ignorant of Malacen, and that may be a project for 2025. But at the moment, I'm enjoying Millennium's Rule, which is a more traditional, almost YA fantasy, and it's very cozy and I love it very much, so we'll, we'll get there eventually, you don't have to.
Speaker 3:I've heard a load of rings.
Speaker 1:You're fine. Yeah, I'm happy.
Speaker 4:I think there's a certain amount of, there's a certain amount of peer pressure in in the community to read certain series and if you don't, you're not qualified like, you're not good enough, I don't know. And I think my last thing is definitely the one where the if you read a urine, you haven't read it, you're out.
Speaker 2:You know, I think I'm just going to completely throw myself at the mercy of the readership now and I'm just like pretty much guarantee any major series that someone says you have to read, I haven't read. So I haven't read a lot of the rings, I haven't read any of the Malacen, and I think the problem is is that all these books tend to be like the really chunky huge books that I can't do. That's my sweet spot, for books is around 300 to 350 pages, so anything beyond that I already know that I'm going to really struggle with.
Speaker 3:I've gotten around and I'm trying to read it Every hundred pages, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 4:I will be right, holly, because all the books will be mentioned in that. I haven't read, you know, all the series you've been talking about Prince of Nothing, whatever, the Empire of Sun, whatever. I've been checking them on Amazon as we were talking and it's like fuck, another trilogy, what? For another 600 pages. And it's like no, please, like no. Why does fantasy need to be paid by the page? Seemingly Ask yes.
Speaker 3:Ask Robin Hobb Because of all the world building, Building yeah it's a lot.
Speaker 4:It's a lot and it's like no, it's sort of putting. Every time, you know if you want to get a taste for something, you have to embark on a 1500 page minimum read. And for those of us who actually have jobs and families and other things to do in our lives, you know it'll take me almost a month to read something like you know I've got there. What was it? Yeah, the Dragonbone chair 800 pages. I really need to wait almost for the for our period of holidays to get started, because otherwise it'll take forever to read.
Speaker 5:And what's wrong with that? Like I've been reading the Squire Gods for almost two weeks now and I'm you know it's still at 70 percent. I am a slow leader but I'm reading like a couple of hours a day because I'm loving it so much and it's great to go in this journey Two hours a day.
Speaker 4:I give 20 minutes a day.
Speaker 5:What's wrong? Ok, that's fine. Well, I don't sleep much, so there's that. No, you see.
Speaker 4:It's.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 4:Hey, exactly.
Speaker 5:The perks of not having kids.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say something, probably on pop, maybe or not with this group, but I'm going to say something pretty unpopular. But I think a lot of the, a lot of the people who say you have to read certain things to be qualified to speak on other books or to have a perspective that matters, I think a lot of the So-called influencers or the, the book, whatever the authority, I think a lot of those people don't actually read those stories. I don't think they spend the time to really read them. I think a lot of them are full of shit and I don't, I don't think it actually happens.
Speaker 1:I agree, they just claim that they they say that they do because that's what's expected. And oh, they've read it, so they know what they're talking about. I think it's all bullshit, sorry.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I I agree that there's a lot of that out there. The only person that I I think it's not like that is Paramita, and I thought she was one of those when I first joined the forum. Sorry, paramita, if you listen to this. But then I start talking to her and I realize oh, she, actually she reads it because she knows the story and the character so well.
Speaker 5:So since then I've revised my opinion. They may be there's other parameters out there, but the vast majority I mean it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. I don't think it's possible. And just the way that they talk about the books, it's always. This is the best thing I've ever read. This is the best thing I read. This is amazing. Is it really? I mean really, yeah, but they still. They tend to have A lot of followers, and then people who you know listen to their opinions and I'm like, why please think?
Speaker 4:for yourself. Can we actually? Can we name, and shame or anti-crestive, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think 75 percent of them. I think, well, there's a certain, yeah, there's the, the. I think. I think there's some people who actually sit down and take the time. But I think these books take time because you're going to read a fan, it, it, it takes part of me, doesn't? She's incredible, but she's very rare. Like it's her only hobby, there's not anything. She does.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think some people who claim to have read like a 900 page book in an afternoon If you'd like flip through it, maybe, but if you actually take the time to read it because there are authors there's three authors here that we're talking to today. Jose, you're an author it it takes time because you, you take all that time to craft the story, to craft the world. You put so much time and effort into it.
Speaker 1:I think it's a little bit insulting to have someone say, oh, I read it in an afternoon, but what did you get out of it? Though? Really, like what did? You didn't swim in it, like you just skimmed it at most, but it's kind of sad. Like someone took so much time to craft the story, to put in all the work, and there's all this work that goes into it that we don't see as readers. But the authors have this big iceberg below the surface that they've they've put together and for someone just to just to skim through it because they want to say they did it Like it's kind of sad that I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's kind of depressing, like enjoy it Like someone values the life into it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Funny you mentioned that because when we were talking to Christopher Roque last week didn't say, susanna, all the Easter eggs and all the references he threw, he throws in the books that we didn't, we didn't pick up. And then he was talking about, you know, misquoting Shakespeare or you know references to Star Wars.
Speaker 5:So I pick those up. Yeah, yeah, I miss that. I miss the Star Wars one. I have to go because I've only watched the prequels like once or twice when they came on I missed the Star Wars references, but I get the Shakespeare's, I get the, especially the, the mythological ones. I there's such a delight.
Speaker 3:He really knows how to play the mythology Homilists. Yeah, as is Holly's books and Susanna's books.
Speaker 5:It's the best thing I've read in in years.
Speaker 3:By the way, coming back to when I interrupted, holly, I'm sorry, with 300 page books, blissful ignorance is amazing. I mean, you are able to write a book that is grimdark without without even knowing the about the genre, and just writing a book out of your own fantasy, without that back knowledge of other books, which I tend to like more. Because if, if I would write something I have read so many things I would be like, oh, but that's a reference to this, oh, that's a reference to that, and I would constantly be stuck with what I'm writing, because everything I write feels like plagiarism of other books I've read.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's it's the feeling I would get, and Holly is in a unique situation, for this Like you can just write and.
Speaker 4:If you can watch my interview with Holly, because the more she was talking, the more and more amazed I was. And you know I'll say this You're fancy with her here without her in front of me. I you know she is amazing and the way she went about writing her book and the way it's written, it's just incredible. I mean, hats off, all respect. It's amazing stuff and I'm really looking forward to picking book to this year. Yeah, let's stop embarrassing myself now.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I mean and that's that, that's what I got from just this conversation I was like, OK, if you come from that, it's amazing that you wrote two books. I mean I'm looking forward to thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that Don't quite know what to say now.
Speaker 3:You could continue your thought if you, if you still have it, the 300 pages, that is your absolute limits, and why?
Speaker 2:I mean, I do have a problem with like attention and focus, so I struggle to to read anyway. So for me, reading has to be sort of a discipline and it's something I'm really working on this year. So I've actually finished one book this year and I'm on to my second one. So last year I read four and a half books in total fiction books, nonfiction books. I read a lot more. So, yeah, so for me the attention is a difficulty, but also at the risk, again, of an unpopular opinion, like I appreciate how much other people love world building and all those things that are woven into those, you know, big, long books, but for me I'm like if you can't tell me the story that you want to tell me in 300 pages, then my attention is going to wander. So I need writing that is really short and sharp, like I'm a fan of like a very kind of staccato style of writing. But it's just personal taste, you know. It's it's just the stuff that I kind of get into.
Speaker 2:One thing I did want to say, though, just to jump back to a point Steve made about people, you know, mentioning these books that everyone is supposed to have read, and it's kind of the in thing to talk about them.
Speaker 2:There's a really good example of that within the grim dark genre, and that is for the, maybe the first two or three years that grim dark became a thing. Every new author that came out, myself included, was either compared to or called the new Joe Abercrombie. Now I will stand up and I will say there is not a chance in any level of heaven, heaven, hell or earth that I am anything like comparable to Joe Abercrombie. His style is so completely unique and his style of writing was so new and sorry, I apologize, my cat so different that you can't possibly tell me that, of the five thousand grim dark books that got released afterwards, they were all a variation of Joe Abercrombie. What happened was Joe Abercrombie became a huge sensation and it was suddenly was the book to read, so, of course, and then everyone started getting tagged in as comparable to this one book. So, yeah, I think that is kind of a really good example of what you're talking about, steve, where one series or one book suddenly becomes like the, the go to for that genre.
Speaker 4:But, go, steve, sorry.
Speaker 1:I was just saying it reminds me of everything that was the new game of Thrones.
Speaker 3:Like everything is the game of Thrones and whatever you know it's, it's like not everything has to be.
Speaker 1:But I think I guess it's again. It's like a marketing thing to say, oh it's a new, like some people said, like oh, it's the game of Thrones in this, in this setting. It's like not everything has to be that.
Speaker 2:I mean I'd be looking at. Sorry, I was just saying you know I'd sit there and I'd look at these reviews and I go. Well, you know, you know, either you haven't read Joe Bacromby or you haven't read my book. You can't have possibly read by who is.
Speaker 4:No, I was. I was going to say that I'm guessing that no author is going to admit that they are chasing a trend and because Grimdark became a thing, that they chose to write in that style. And I I would like to think that authors that that no one does, that no one decides to change their writing style or to write a particular book because a particular genre is hot at a particular point in time.
Speaker 5:Well, yes, they do.
Speaker 4:That's why I don't agree they try to think highly of people and be positive.
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny you mentioned that I am. Yeah, Sorry, Susan.
Speaker 5:I got that. There are.
Speaker 1:I know I was just saying that at least one well known Grimdark Grimdark author that writes romance, semi erotica on the side and they've claimed they make a lot more money writing that genre and they pump out the books and they make a lot more money. That's a lot less time spent writing, so they no more power to them if it works, I mean. But you know, their love isn't that, their love is fantasy, it's not erotica, but they make a lot more money doing it. So it's like, hey, you know, whatever works, someone's reading it.
Speaker 4:So I quite like how, when you were talking about erotica, you managed to get the expression pump out in there. That's musterfully done, steve.
Speaker 1:Oh no, oh no, that was bad.
Speaker 4:No, but I get that because the erotica genre is of the romance Is the biggest selling genre ever in the history of books. For whatever the reason.
Speaker 3:So yeah, gas station books, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, airport books.
Speaker 5:I wonder what. I'm sure there is such a saying as Grimdark erotica. I'm trying really now. Figure it out Well there, I'm sure, if there's dinosaur erotica there has been. Grimdark erotica, and I was just curious to see.
Speaker 4:Oh, my wife, my wife, my wife is a big fan of where we're at, and now I'm ashamed to admit, so yeah she's.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I am. I am trying something along those lines under a pen name. It should be out sometime next year. It's kind of I will try because I need to to finance my I'm regular, I'm regular books. Yeah, it's going to be my schedule, but I don't know it's called Smut now.
Speaker 3:It went from erotica to Smut.
Speaker 4:So you're gonna be pumping out this mat, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:We went from grim, dark to smart. Great conversation, steve. Yeah, as always. Sorry, sorry.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker 1:I'd be curious to hear how that works out, though, because I know, like other authors, you know they do that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, ask me in the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do have a question for you though, and you may not have the answer, but just out of curiosity, when you, when you, when that book is ready, how do you plan to promote it, if at all, or are you just gonna kind of put it out there and see what happens?
Speaker 5:Not, not at all. Yeah, just put it on kingdom and limited, then and see what happens.
Speaker 1:I do wonder how much. I do wonder how much that matters. You know I have no experience about it. Do wonder how much if certain genres require more of a social media presence and certain certain genres don't, or if you just kind of put it out there and play for some Amazon ads, if that makes a difference or if that offsets the time spent on social media, or I don't know. I'm curious to hear how that works out.
Speaker 4:If I was to give you any advice. I'm far better from me to tell anyone what to do. Have a chat with Holly Tinsley, the woman with the plan.
Speaker 2:No, because are you referring to like my crazy, like boards with like notes and bits of string and things?
Speaker 4:I was just about to blow smoke up Holly's behind again to say that in my conversation with her, apart from writing a cracking book, she devoted a lot of time to figuring out where it would fair, how to promote her, who to approach. And I think, I think, no, it's obvious that part of her success is both being able to swap from her writer's hat to her marketing hat and that she clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how to get the book out there. But obviously she can do a much better job than me telling that story.
Speaker 5:I think no, to be fair, I did not have a plan for my first book. My plan was to release a good book. I was so because English is not my main, my first language. I was so wrapped up in the fact that I wanted to publish a book that was well written that I know I will get the story across. I didn't realize how important marketing was. I just thought, you know, if I wrote a good book it would kind of sell, because that was so. Everything else came after that. I did learn how to go out and talk to reviewers or to market myself in the subsequent books. But yeah, that was something I failed miserably at the beginning, but it wasn't my concern. I was speaking my battles. I had no idea, I didn't think, and it still pains me to date the fact that I have to promote myself. I just want to promote my work. But that's not how it works.
Speaker 3:I think Holly had an easier time because her books are definitely, I mean, Grimdark. It's so easy.
Speaker 5:It promotes itself I joke and say I should have said it was Grimdark mythology that would get me up there, but missed opportunities. I had no idea, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Holly yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think for me I did have a significant advantage in the fact that I walked into doing this with this not a vast amount, but at least enough knowledge of marketing and experience of promotion, marketing, networking from my general background and my life and career anyway. I was also very lucky in that, unlike a lot of authors, I had a huge amount of time to dedicate to what I was doing. So when I say about having the crazy board with the bits of string and the post-it notes, that's not an exaggeration. There were times when I would have post-it notes of every chapter on the floor and I would have reviewers' names on lists and it was just. It became a job for me. But for someone who's got, say, young children or they've got a full-time job that they've got to pin down and be able to focus on as well, that's not always a possibility. So I completely understand why a lot of authors do go through experience where they have to launch their book and then go through the process of learning how to promote and what social media works for them. And the thing about marketing is that there's no right or wrong answer. So what worked for me won't necessarily work for someone else.
Speaker 2:I get a lot of traction off social media and I think what a lot of people look for, especially in authors, is that they want to see them being active. So I think there are lots of people who buy into personalities and I think there are lots of people who promote purely to their books and I think there are people who kind of fall in between, where last year I kind of stepped away from social media for a bit and I really saw a difference in not only my book sales but just in general on social media. I kind of felt like I fell out of the whole writer scene for a little while and when I kind of came back into it I started getting those engagements more, I started interacting with people more and suddenly kind of conversations would start up again about do you want to come and talk to us? Or oh, I've read your book last week and I think if that's presence works for you, then that's probably the most powerful marketing tool that you can use. I feel like I'm waffling now.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. It sounds all logic. It's just the thing I think about, the first thing I think about. Then everything you explain is like that is definitely a plan, just add 50% luck or something to it. I don't know what the percentage of luck is that you need in any occupation that you want to have some visibility in this world.
Speaker 5:It's huge. You need a lot of luck. It's just talking to the right person at the right time or just writing the right tweet. But another thing is it doesn't matter how popular you get at some point, the moment you stop interacting, engaging people forget you very quickly, it's constant, it's ongoing and it's so time consuming it works.
Speaker 3:Unless you get to that rock star. I did not sign up for this, that level that everybody wants you, but you don't talk to anybody.
Speaker 5:Yeah, if you manage to develop that mystique that some people do it very well.
Speaker 4:To somehow more or less not really bring it back on topic. You talk about staying relevant. You got the trifecta of the three authors that are massively delayed in the book series George Martin, patrick Rothfuss, scott Lynch. Obviously, martin has stayed very relevant because of the TV show and everything else. Somehow Patrick Rothfuss has managed to stay relevant and everyone still talks about that last book, for whatever the reason, but Scott Lynch seems to have disappeared. No one really.
Speaker 4:He had a burnout right he has some personal issues that are well documented on the internet. I don't really want to talk about it here. Yeah, I don't know he had some issues with someone, but I think book four is coming next year. Finally, but no one is talking about, it. So why is someone like Patrick Rothfuss stayed relevant?
Speaker 3:That's someone like Scott Lynch, totally Rothfuss is still active on social media, including YouTube and X. I think, yeah, he keeps on.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's one of those cases where he is very charismatic and he was everywhere, not just writing community, gaming, community, and it just has. It can be very engaging when he talks. Yeah, it had that charisma that went along with the books in you how to play the game, and I'm using the past tense because it seemed to have lost it in recent years. That's the saying People adore you when you get to that level of fame, but they very quickly they forget or they can turn against you.
Speaker 3:So it's that's what he got with the.
Speaker 5:Dangerous. And in the case of Scott Lynch, I mean now everyone knows his personal troubles I mean it shouldn't be the price to get your book out there. You shouldn't have to expose your personal life. It's very tricky and I know what I know today and I say this a lot, but it's gone now. I would have published under the pen name and never show my face online, or it would like. In these conversations I still like to engage. It's not showing the face online, but I would keep the author separated from the books. I think they would be more successful. In my case, I think that the fact that I'm a woman, that I have an accent, that and sometimes blunder you know my English is not perfect it doesn't help.
Speaker 4:I think your problem, susana, is that your name is your real name. Because this is such a cracking pen name.
Speaker 5:I thought it was the best thing I had to work on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, you should just go and say no, my name is Maria Rodriguez, or something like that.
Speaker 3:Even that is still a good pen name.
Speaker 1:I think it's.
Speaker 1:It's tricky because you invest all this time into platforms, that you build a following, and the platform will fall off and then people leave it and they go to the next platform and it's kind of like you have to start all over again. And also, if I was an author, I'd be terrified to go viral, because if you go viral on like TikTok or something, and you see a big spike, that drop is inevitable and the next person will go viral and everyone will flock to that book. And I know of one author who went viral and they were really successful as they pumped out the next book and then it was kind of crickets because they moved on to something else. So it's a tricky thing where it's you want to build a following, but at a good I don't know. I don't know how the answer is, or it's the waiting game like Johnny did, johnny Wirtz.
Speaker 3:I mean we didn't have all that internet and stuff like that way back when the books came out. But I heard about her books like way back in the day. I got one and two then and then years later suddenly she like explodes onto the scene and everybody needs those books and those books are selling like hotcakes it's. You can get lucky later. It's a game.
Speaker 5:No, I think she worked really hard to be where she is now. Definitely that's decades of work.
Speaker 1:She says the same thing that she would have written under her pen name too, if she could go back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm not saying that the books are bad, that the luck and stuff. It's just because there wasn't anything before that she was known, but in smaller circles than now.
Speaker 4:I suppose that's an interesting conversation for another day, because, susanna, you're talking about writing as a woman in fantasy, but I suppose I'm not trying to do like an aggravation comparison. But that's going to be easier than writing under a male pen name in the romance genre, isn't it? You would never be published as a male writer of romance. I don't think there's ever been one. That is interesting. But, like I said, that's a completely different conversation. I think we left the Green Duck thing about 20 minutes ago. Yeah, I was like people should come back to do book art.
Speaker 3:It's about digressing into romance.
Speaker 4:It's a classic conversation.
Speaker 1:Diggression.
Speaker 3:Excellent yeah classic.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I will have a look if there's such thing as Green Duck.
Speaker 1:I did look it up. I can find it. Funny enough.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Steve is already ahead.
Speaker 1:Apparently it's the Barrow Somebody recommended the Steel Remains Also Heresy Within by Rob Jhaiz.
Speaker 4:Barrow Quick question. Steve, Are the male nipples in the covers of these books you're looking at?
Speaker 1:Because that's the big giveaway. I can do a quick search.
Speaker 4:That's the big giveaway.
Speaker 1:Somebody's recommended Beyond Redemption. I don't know. This doesn't sound like a very good.
Speaker 4:I'm hoping this fucks up your algorithm and now all the recommendations you get are weird Weird, I guess.
Speaker 1:What I also wanted to get from everyone was their kind of suggestions. If someone came to you and said I want to read Grimdark, what would you suggest to them?
Speaker 3:I think I'm going to go first because, I said it earlier, manifest delusions and Prince of Nothing.
Speaker 1:You're going right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going all the way.
Speaker 1:Let's go hard. That hasn't been subtle, no, no.
Speaker 4:I kind of positively answered that question. I haven't read enough, so whatever it is. I stung behind it, that's good, that's fine.
Speaker 2:I would say if you're suggesting Grimdark for people as an introduction to the genre, people will fall into one of two camps Either they'll fall into the Abercrombie camp or they'll fall into the Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns camp. For me those are the two kind of intro books that I think gives people a good idea of the genre.
Speaker 3:Not bad, but it could have been a plug for you. I mean my books. You should have said my books.
Speaker 2:This program is so dark.
Speaker 3:So it was right there.
Speaker 2:I know, see, I'm terrible at marketing. I don't know what people are talking about.
Speaker 3:Steve.
Speaker 1:I haven't read any Mark Lawrence. Actually, that's something we can talk about, yeah.
Speaker 5:I kind of forgot about it. I guess it qualifies. Yeah, it's funny, prince of Thorns is almost what I would call a dark YA.
Speaker 3:I have all these books in hardcover. Haven't read a single one.
Speaker 4:I was confused. Prince of nothing, prince of Thorns, the titles of Helper or Lawrence, yeah, like that, being intellectually challenged like me, it doesn't help either. But so again another trilogy. Who knows, what would you recommend first, just with Prince of Thorns or Prince of Nothing.
Speaker 3:That's easy, prince of Nothing, because that's the one I read. I own the other one. I'll tell you what, though?
Speaker 4:There was a time before so six years ago, before I left the UK where Prince of Thorns was in every high street bookstore WH Smith. Anywhere you went that sold books, Prince of Thorns was there on the shelves, where you wouldn't necessarily find any of the grim, dark stuff. So there must be something to it, maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I bought them because they were cheap.
Speaker 4:Ever the deserted river.
Speaker 3:I did the same for Empires of Dust, I think. I paid three pounds per book. I did the same for War for the Rose Thorn. I mean, if I can find a cheap, I will buy it. Yes, I like to have a library like look around and go like, oh, I'm going to read this today. I mean, who doesn't? No, no, nobody.
Speaker 1:They keep me warm at night. Yeah, yes, no, I think if it's someone who isn't too like a new reader, who hasn't read a whole lot, I think I'd probably recommend First Law to them, just because it's accessible, it's easy to get into, they can dip their toes in. But Prince of Nothing might be kind of tough. I think it depends on the reader. I think it's certain people just won't get into it, even though I like it. I think it's very kid or mess.
Speaker 4:I think just to spite Joshua, but Bess of Cold because he's a standalone and for me it was the better out of all the standalone and you don't have to invest the time that it takes to read a trilogy. I think Bess of Cold might be the easiest one to get into.
Speaker 3:of the standalone, it's the easiest one.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I think for me and I've wrote very little, but if I was to recommend, you know it's just a book, so yeah, what are?
Speaker 3:the other two is red country and heroes heroes, heroes to are more tied to the first trilogy, as in well established characters there's also in best serve call, but it's the story in itself. Is is easier to follow, like you can read that book and never read another ever Cromby book, ever again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, we, as in typical fashion we always get so tracked a little bit, but we think we did pretty good. I mean, we got such a for about 20 people don't know what is.
Speaker 3:by now we waste their time again.
Speaker 1:Well, if they, if they do have their own definition, it's probably different than all of ours, that's wrong. Yeah, that's why it's fun. That's why it's it's fun to talk about, because there's no right or wrong answer. Everyone has their own definition.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the same for for dark fantasy or what is considered, you know, something that is romantic or no. If everyone is going to pick those elements or those characters the their favorite tropes, that, yeah, what is dark for me is not the same. That's all right. Well, cool, yeah, we're, it's the time flew by, as usual, it's almost two hours, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm glad we finally got a chance to talk about that part of me that didn't visit because I know she's wanted to talk room dark with us. But maybe next time. But in the meantime, holly, working people find you and your books, be sure, and plug your books. Okay, I will do some actual marketing now, and so if you want to find me best, places on Twitter, which is where I spent far too much of my time.
Speaker 2:It's at Holly tinsley and the Ian tinsley is a three. My books are on and I'm going to send you the van gov chronicles, which is women of action shadow, the hand that cast the bone. The third book is currently in the works and I have a book coming out on the 22nd of March this year called the Hallows, which is a standalone in a completely new world, which I am very excited to get out.
Speaker 2:It's on my Kindle waiting for me to be read, and Josh the nurse, the nurse, the nurse, the nurse the nurse, the nurse, the nurse, the nurse, the nurse.
Speaker 1:No and Joshua.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can find me on the page chewing forums Ta-da.
Speaker 1:And Susanna, tell us about you and your books.
Speaker 5:So my books, my series is the timelessness, and they can be found everywhere Amazon, cobalt, Apple available on a book, paperback and audiobook, which I recommend is my favorite version. The first book is called Weird Gods. You can't miss it. And I have a new book in the same universe coming out in March called Ooblie. It's a standalone novel and, yeah, go check it out. It's now available for pre-order on Amazon.
Speaker 1:I have pre-order ready for that too. I'm ready to go, and what's that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, my best place to find me is my YouTube channel, josé's Amazing Worlds, and also the page chewing forums.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank all of you for hanging out with me today. It's been fun. I'll do it again soon.
Speaker 5:I love this Friday evenings. Thanks for making it.
Speaker 1:So I hope everyone has a great weekend and we'll talk very soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you Bye you, you, you, you, you, you you.