0:00:01 > 0:00:11to fantasy writing.
0:00:21 > 0:00:26You've decided to cast away historical setting and get rid
0:00:26 > 0:00:29of real characters that we might know and gone into fantasy -
0:00:29 > 0:00:31if it's a word you're happy with.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33Why?
0:00:33 > 0:00:37I've always loved historical fiction.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40I've always read it and my entire career has been built around it,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43but I've also always read fantasy and the big difference,
0:00:43 > 0:00:48to some extent, is the freedom.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50In historical fiction, you have to check every single fact,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52otherwise somebody will e-mail you - a Roman re-enactor,
0:00:52 > 0:00:53something along those lines.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56But with fantasy it felt like I had a slightly...
0:00:56 > 0:01:03The reins were off.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06I didn't have to stop in the middle of a scene and think,
0:01:06 > 0:01:07"Did they have sidesaddle in this particular...?"
0:01:07 > 0:01:10"Hang on, she's a woman on a horse, would she have
0:01:10 > 0:01:11"been riding sidesaddle?"
0:01:11 > 0:01:13Which is my constant experience in historical fiction.
0:01:13 > 0:01:14You make it up.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16Well, exactly, you have that freedom.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18In historical fiction, you do feel the constraints
0:01:18 > 0:01:21because it has to be as accurate as possible, you have to find
0:01:21 > 0:01:22a story in the real history.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24Of course, you've got an army of readers and they've
0:01:24 > 0:01:26enjoyed ancient Rome, the Mongol Empire, the Wars
0:01:26 > 0:01:28of the Roses, and so on.
0:01:28 > 0:01:29They've trusted me.
0:01:29 > 0:01:30They've trusted you.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32And they've felt at home, they've enjoyed the setting.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35It's risky, you know, taking them into a city that doesn't exist.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37It is and it's almost like starting again.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39There's no way to sugar that pill.
0:01:39 > 0:01:40It is a completely different audience.
0:01:40 > 0:01:41Some people won't touch it.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43I've always thought that historical fiction and fantasy
0:01:43 > 0:01:46are the closest genres.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49There are certain elements - the thrill of a battle, for example,
0:01:49 > 0:01:50can be very similar.
0:01:50 > 0:01:51Of course.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53And it depends how you do it.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56I don't have any dragons in mind, although George RR Martin has done
0:01:56 > 0:01:57very well with them.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Well, there's a bit of magic in this book.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02It's not Harry Potter magic in the sense that lives
0:02:02 > 0:02:04aren't governed by it, but it's very much there.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06There's a kind of superstition that becomes real.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Yes.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12The point about it really is I wanted to have as few
0:02:12 > 0:02:18constraints as possible.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21An awful lot of stories, at their heart, are about characters
0:02:21 > 0:02:23making some discovery about themselves and I wanted
0:02:23 > 0:02:25to use magic to bring those discoveries about.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27I wanted characters to be able to move on and through various
0:02:27 > 0:02:30devices and then bring them all together at the end.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32We are talking about a city whose great era is passed.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35I mean, it's a bit like Venice with the Empire gone.
0:02:35 > 0:02:36Yes, they're worn out.
0:02:36 > 0:02:37It's all worn out.
0:02:37 > 0:02:38Tired.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40And there is an unhappy figure on the throne.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43This is a very familiar setting, in a way,
0:02:43 > 0:02:45for an historical novelist.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49A miserable young man and various families all struggling for power.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52To some extent, there's always that basis in reality.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54You can't simply have, I don't know, walls disappearing
0:02:54 > 0:02:55in the middle of a scene.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59You have to have it as real as possible and then add that extra
0:02:59 > 0:03:01element that I've always fantasised about myself, which is the ability
0:03:01 > 0:03:02to do something extraordinary.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05That's what makes a good story, I would hope.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07There's an interesting comparison between this book,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09which I think is the beginning of a trilogy, is that right?
0:03:09 > 0:03:11The Empire of Salt.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14Well, we'll see if you can control yourself and keep it as a trilogy.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17It will be the first trilogy I've ever done.
0:03:17 > 0:03:18It might end up being four.
0:03:18 > 0:03:19You are very prolific.
0:03:19 > 0:03:25Dunstan came out only two, three months ago, and that's
0:03:25 > 0:03:28an interesting book, because it's set, as it has been
0:03:28 > 0:03:31your wont up to now, in a particular historical period,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33in the England of what people misleadingly called the Dark Ages.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36It's told in the first person, which you've never done before.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38No.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40To some extent, I do like to challenge myself,
0:03:40 > 0:03:42but I came across Dunstan when I was reading Dickens's
0:03:42 > 0:03:46A Child's History Of Britain to my children, as I'm sure you do.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48He described Dunstan, who was a saint and Archbishop
0:03:48 > 0:03:51of Canterbury, as a complete rogue and involved in the selling
0:03:51 > 0:03:52into slavery of a queen.
0:03:52 > 0:03:53So...
0:03:53 > 0:03:54You thought, "Hang on."
0:03:54 > 0:03:56I thought this is a good character here.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59I thought if he's both a monster and a saint at the same time,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03then I've got another Genghis Khan, if you like, which is too strong.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05But I liked Genghis because he was hated by his enemies
0:04:05 > 0:04:07and loved by his own family.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09I look for that sort of humanising quality.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13I want them to be rich and varied and interesting, as he is.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15And, of course, it's a very interesting period
0:04:15 > 0:04:20in English history.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23It is, it's fascinating, because its book ended by Athelstan,
0:04:23 > 0:04:25the first King of England, who also was King of Scotland.
0:04:25 > 0:04:26Yes.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Yes, Constantine came down.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31He had coins made with "Rex totius Britanniae", and a fair claim
0:04:31 > 0:04:33to being an actual King of Britain.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35But, of course, that only lasted as long as his short
0:04:35 > 0:04:37reign, which is 14 years.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39It's 910-988, something like that.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42400 years after the Romans had been their for half a millennium.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44And, of course, you've written about Caesar and Augustus
0:04:44 > 0:04:49and the rest of them and this is the beginning,
0:04:49 > 0:04:50really, after a gap, of what happened after
0:04:51 > 0:04:53the Romans had gone.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57Yes, to some extent this is the run-up, of course, to 1066.
0:04:57 > 0:04:59These are the kings that people probably don't know,
0:04:59 > 0:05:02but they are the only ones with great stories.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05And the nice thing about Dunstan is his life crossed seven kings,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08so he went from Athelstan at the beginning to Ethelred
0:05:08 > 0:05:10the Unready and, through those seven kings, we have the beginning
0:05:10 > 0:05:11of the modern world.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13And you've told the story through Dunstan's voice.
0:05:13 > 0:05:14Yes.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18A wonderful opening line, I hope I've got it right -
0:05:18 > 0:05:22what is an opening line but a door being opened by an unseen hand?
0:05:22 > 0:05:23Something like that, sorry if I've got...
0:05:23 > 0:05:25But opening lines are important.
0:05:25 > 0:05:26That's a good one.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29It is, but that's the beginning of the prologue.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32The beginning of the first chapter is "I think I could have hung
0:05:32 > 0:05:34there all day if they hadn't broken my hands."
0:05:34 > 0:05:35Which I...
0:05:35 > 0:05:38You see, for me, I do like that a little more.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41The whimsical quality of writing in the first person meant that I had
0:05:41 > 0:05:42this old man's voice.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45And as I was saying earlier, I had to cut some of that out,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47because you couldn't be too rambling.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49What's the difficulty of writing in an old man's voice?
0:05:49 > 0:05:50You're not an old man.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52No, but I've known a few.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55My father was 90 when he died and I'm familiar with the way
0:05:55 > 0:05:57they tell stories, as I heard them so many times.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00The trouble with that is an old man will tell the same
0:06:00 > 0:06:01story more than once.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04I was playing with the fact could I actually do that in a text?
0:06:04 > 0:06:06And the answer is no, honestly, you can't.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09If you're writing about a young man, described by the old man,
0:06:09 > 0:06:13you have to do the young man's voice, you have to to cut out some
0:06:13 > 0:06:14of the querulousness of the old man.
0:06:14 > 0:06:15Yes.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Just to keep it tight and fast moving, because I do
0:06:18 > 0:06:20like the reader to turn the pages.
0:06:20 > 0:06:21Because books aren't a representation of reality,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23how an old man would speak.
0:06:23 > 0:06:24No, there's always a simplification.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27Books are telling you a story about what an old man might do.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30Yes, I think someone once said that the simplest real human
0:06:30 > 0:06:32being was 1,000 times more complex than the most complex
0:06:32 > 0:06:33Shakespearean character.
0:06:33 > 0:06:34That is true.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Real people are very, very complex, indeed,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40and all you can ever do with a novel is to try and focus a single facet
0:06:40 > 0:06:43and try and make them as real as possible.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47Talking about storytelling, I'm interested in something
0:06:47 > 0:06:50about your mother, who, I think, was of Irish descent
0:06:50 > 0:06:54and came from a tradition of the telling of tales,
0:06:54 > 0:06:59which is a very powerful bit of the culture.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02Her grandfather was a seanchai, an Irish storyteller,
0:07:02 > 0:07:06who used to go from fireside to fireside and be rewarded
0:07:06 > 0:07:09with a meal and a glass of ale if he tells a story.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11It was a community purpose, this business of storytelling.
0:07:11 > 0:07:12Oh, yes, it kept history alive.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14Before it was written down...
0:07:14 > 0:07:17When I went to Mongolia, they talked about the fact
0:07:17 > 0:07:20that they knew they were the distant ancestors of the North
0:07:20 > 0:07:22American Native American, because they had been
0:07:22 > 0:07:24there 15,000 years ago,
0:07:24 > 0:07:26and they had an oral tradition which went back much,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29much further than anything written down and that's where these
0:07:29 > 0:07:29stories come from.
0:07:29 > 0:07:34You were a teacher.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38If you were trying to explain to children who are a bit
0:07:38 > 0:07:42leery about history, or indeed novels, but particularly history,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45why it is that it's fascinating by saying, you know,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49how do we explain this, what happened, how do we know?
0:07:49 > 0:07:52My mother always said that, for her, history was a series of stories
0:07:52 > 0:07:53about people, with dates.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55To me, that's the absolute heart of it.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59People are interested in people.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01We are fascinated by extraordinary moments of courage and betrayal
0:08:01 > 0:08:05and love and despair, and history is absolutely
0:08:05 > 0:08:07chock full of those, because it's the story of millions
0:08:07 > 0:08:10of different people.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13It's an absolute treasure trove and always has been.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15And in this case, whether it's Darien, a fantasy,
0:08:15 > 0:08:19or whether it's Dunstan, based on, you know, a real man
0:08:19 > 0:08:21and a real historical period, the point about storytelling
0:08:21 > 0:08:28and where it takes us is the same.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31Yes, I mean, at the end of the day, its characters.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33I think Kurt Vonnegut says there's this guy, right,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36and he's a pretty decent kind of guy and then something
0:08:36 > 0:08:37awful happens to him.
0:08:37 > 0:08:38That's the absolute essence of all fiction,
0:08:38 > 0:08:40whether its history or heroic fantasy.
0:08:40 > 0:08:41Conn Iggulden, now CF Iggulden with Darien,
0:08:41 > 0:08:42thank you very much.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Thank you.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Time for a look at the weather.