Review - Interview - "Name of Guest Post"
Interview
Ciara Ballintyne
What
is your draw to dragons and why is there none in the story?
It’s very difficult to pin down what draws me to
dragons. Typically, they were always depicted as evil monsters, but in more
recent times that has changed, and I guess some of my earliest exposures to
dragons were in the Dragonlance books, where there is an equal mix of good and
evil dragons. And the good dragons are so amazing, beautiful, powerful,
magical…
My next exposure would have been Anne McCaffrey’s
dragons, and they, too, are good, partnered with humans to fight off a mindless
menace. I so wanted to be Weyrwoman to a queen dragon!
Dragons are the ultimate symbol of power. To anyone
who asks me ‘why would you want to be a dragon?’ I reply ‘why wouldn’t you want
to be a dragon?’ You don’t mess with a dragon, and they have the added bonus of
beauty, magic and hell, they can fly.
As to why there aren’t any in the story… as much as
I love dragons, they have fallen out of favour in fantasy fiction lately. For a
while the advice was if you wanted a publishing contract, don’t use dragons
(before self-publishing took off obviously).
Also, dragons don’t lend themselves to every story.
I never aim to write a story around dragons (or anything else except a specific
character), and what creatures I introduce into a story will need to fit in
that story. There simply wasn’t any plot need in Confronting the Demon
for dragons.
That said, dragons do make an appearance in many of
my other (unpublished) books. An early work was all about dragons, and the main
characters were dragons with the ability to change shape. I may or may nor
revisit that story. There is a dragon that makes an appearance in my Nemesis
Trilogy (WIP), and dragons are a feature of the worlds in both the Brother
Wars (WIP – working title) and In the Company of the Dead.
So if you love dragons, stick with me. They are
here. Confronting the Demon is just about, well, demons!
When
did you start writing?
1992, when I was eleven. We were doing a creative
writing assignment in class when it suddenly occurred to me I could actually do
this.
What
is your favorite color and why?
Red. Why? It looks good on me.
Okay, okay, okay… because it’s a strong, bold
colour. Red is for people who aren’t afraid to take on the world, put up a
fight, or stand their ground. Red is loud, passionate and demands to be
seen.
And it looks good on me.
While
you were in college. What was your favorite subject and why?
That’s a good question… I think I’m going to say
Jurisprudence, which is the study of the theory of law. It kind of sounds
boring, but it’s all philosophy and social legal theory. So we studied
post-modernism and Marxism and other issues. We sat around having intellectual
debates and not doing much real work.
We looked at ethics in context, using the question
is slavery unethical? The entire class said no, but the real answer is… it
depends on context. In Ancient Greece, it was terribly unethical to release a
slave if he had no means to support himself – it was the equivalent of letting
a domesticated bird loose to starve.
It’s a useful exercise for writers who use alternate
cultures than their own, and particularly useful for writers of fantasy who
create their own cultures. I think it’s also a good lesson for readers, to
remind them that when reading you can’t judge a character’s actions by your own
cultural norms – they have to be assessed in the context of the world in which
the story takes place. Another example is incest, which as far as I know
illegal and culturally unacceptable in all of the Western world, but in Ancient
Egypt it was a matter of course for the pharaohs, who often married their
sisters.
One of the key reasons I chose jurisprudence as an
elective was because Australian High Court Justice, the Hon Michael Kirby AC
CMG, had lamented the fact that tax law, and not jurisprudence, was a core
subject in many law degrees – as was the case in mine.
Where
else have you been published and what are your plans for continuing this story?
A Magical Melody,
which is the bonus story that appears at the end of Confronting the Demon,
was originally published in the anthology Spells:
Ten Tales of Magic by Rayne Hall. Apart from that, only a handful of legal
articles in insurance journals.
I hadn’t originally intended any further
installments in Confronting the Demon, but a significant number of the
reviewers have hoped to see more, and I have plans now for another three
novellas.
Why
did you choose to write a novella and what do you think the benefits of a
novella are compared to full length novels?
I don’t know that I chose the novella so much as it chose
me… I had a short story that wasn’t working, and I decided the reason was
because I was trying to make it too short. So I took a step back, plotted it
out properly, and this was the length it came out at. So I guess, in one sense,
I wrote a novella because I tried to write a short story, and this was as short
as I could make it!
I’m not a fan of novellas much myself – I read epic fantasy
so I am well prepared for (end enjoy) thick, fat multi-book epics. But the
biggest advantage would have to be time – to write, and read. I wrote and
published Confronting the Demon in the same amount of time it’s likely
to take for me to write the first draft of In the Company of the Dead. It’s equally quick to read. Some readers
have said it’s too short, while others have found it a refreshing change. Now
that I’ve decided to write a series of them, they will be a nice break to write
between full-length novels.
The gates to hell are thrown wide when Alloran is betrayed by his best friend, Ladanyon, and framed for forbidden magic. He is hunted by the guards and the wizards both, tormented by the gruesome murder of his friends and loved ones, and crippled by fear for the living.
Now Alloran must face his demons, or damn the woman he loves.
Also featuring bonus short story 'A Magical Melody'
Genre - High Fantasy (17+)
Length - 110 pages
Published - September 24th
What early readers are saying about the novella
“Ballintyne gives wonderful descriptions and I found myself becoming lost in the magic of her words in a picturesque world with every turned page” Bella Doerres
“The power-packed action will leave you breathless and the eerie suspense will make you chomp on your own nails, beware!” Satarupa
“With imagination and detail that paints a full scene for the mind’s eye, Ciara takes us on a short but exciting journey into a world of magic, love and demons from hell.“ Miranda Wood of DustyKatt’s Stuff Reviews
“I actually enjoyed a good fantasy novel that didn’t take days and days to read, but still offered the opportunity to get caught up in its world and story.” - Tracy Riva Global eBook Awards Judge
"This story wasn't quite what I expected; it was better! The first pages surprised me, reminding strongly of THE WAY OF SHADOWS by Brent Weeks (the scenes, setting and story feel). I was immediately drawn in." - Dr. S. Drecker
"I will be recommending this to all my paranormal addicts." - Leanne Herrera
Ciara Ballintyne was born in 1981 in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, one masochistic cat, and one cat with a god complex.
She holds degrees in law and accounting, and has been a practicing financial services lawyer since 2004. She is both an idealist and a cynic.
She started reading epic fantasy at the age of nine, when she kidnapped Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings from her father. Another two years passed before she began her first attempts at the craft of writing. Confronting the Demon is her debut book.
She enjoys horse-riding, and speculation about taking over the world. If she could choose to be anything it would be a dragon, but instead she shares more in common with Dr. Gregory House of House. M.D.
Alloran stared at the alley mouth, mallet hanging slack in one hand and chisel in the other. This wasn’t yesterday’s alley. It was a different one, but it felt the same. Like seventh-circle demon. Like hellcat, now that he recognised the feel of one. Gooseflesh covered his bare arms. Did a shadow move in the darkness? A cat? Something else, something bigger than a cat? Surely, there couldn’t be… Ladanyon wouldn’t….
Yes. He would. The man he’d once known, the man who’d been his best friend for nearly a century, wouldn’t. But the man he’d become, after summoning a few demons–he would. His footsteps dragging, Alloran ventured deeper into the alley.
Once he looked, the body, hidden beneath a thin blanket of rotting food and assorted garbage, wasn’t hard to find. It was a man this time. He nudged food scraps off the corpse’s face.
The victim had jade eyes, a nose too big for a bearded face, and almost invisible blond brows. The details hit him with the force of a hammer blow. A wizard. A mentor. A man he’d known all his life.
His knees hit the ground and his bones turned to water from the shock. The wizard, Mandron, lay close enough to touch with his belly sliced open by teeth sharper than any blade and his entrails gnawed on. The rest of him left to rot. Sweat dripped down Alloran’s face. Another victim of a hellcat. Another victim of Ladanyon. What was the chance that Ladanyon coincidentally killed two people he knew and accidentally left them somewhere he would find them?
None. Every part of this had been planned, right down to the finest detail. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Ladanyon knew too much. He must be watching, watching and playing, as a cat does with its food. Alloran’s gaze darted up and down the alley as if Ladanyon would pop out of an alley or appear on a rooftop.
Nothing stirred.
The corpse’s fist held a rolled-up piece of paper. With trembling fingers, he pulled the note loose and unrolled it.
How do I surpass you? Let us examine the matter…. I have mastered the minions of hell and enslaved them to my will.
The paper fell from his numb fingers and fluttered away.
Jealousy? Was that all? Thirty years had passed since Alloran gave up research. Ladanyon had nothing to prove, given he made every discovery worth mentioning since then.
Alloran wiped sweaty palms on the coarse fabric of his pants, his hands coming away filthy from the dust embedded in the cloth. The bodies would just keep stacking up–until Ladanyon ran out of things he had mastered better than Alloran. He backed out of the alley.
‘Where’d you run off to yesterday?’
Alloran jumped and spun around, bringing the mallet up reflexively as his stomach sunk. The sight of Dek, even with his arms folded and a scowl plastered across his square features, elicited a sigh of relief.
‘What’s the matter with you, man? Yer white as a sheet.’
Alloran affected a frown. ‘Don’t like dead bodies. Don’t like violence. Got the heeby-jeebies. Supposin’ they come back?’
That was true enough, as far as it went. Everyone thought he’d Choose martial magic when he came of age if only because of his height and the breadth of his shoulders, but he’d never been interested. What he wanted to know was “why” and “how”. Why and how for everything. It was a pursuit more dangerous than martial magic as it turned out. He licked his lips and tried not to look at the alley. This was what too much curiosity brought.
Dek was staring at the alley, squinting in the sunlight. Alloran slapped him on the back before the mason could connect the alley and his partner’s nerves.
‘We got work to do, aye?’ He gently tried to steer Dek towards the statue. ‘Where ’ave you been all mornin’ anyway?’
Dek turned away from the alley. ‘Answerin’ questions for the hell-damned city guards, which is where you woulda been if you hadn’t run off faster ’an a deer.’
‘Didn’t know nothin’. Don’t wanna know about no bodies or talk to no guards.’ Turning his back on the alley and its gruesome contents, he strode back towards the statue and hauled himself up on to the scaffolding. His arms were cold despite the heat of the summer afternoon, and he rubbed them. ‘Top’s all done, I reckon’. We’ll be needing to break all this down and get started on the bottom half.’
Alloran slapped the rough timber with a gloved hand, trying to shunt the corpse and its message from his mind. Eyes that weren’t there bored into his back. At least, he hoped they weren’t there. To be sure, he glanced over his shoulder, scouring the edges of the square for movement.
Dek clapped a hand to Alloran’s shoulder, causing him to flinch and fumble his mallet. ‘Hey, you got a parcel, did you know?’
‘A parcel?’ Alloran lost his battle with the mallet, jerking his foot out of the way just in time. ‘From who?’
Dek shrugged. ‘How should I know? Came in the regular delivery. Down there.’
Alloran’s gaze followed Dek’s nod. A crate sat at the foot of the statue. He’d been so pre-occupied with the alley, the corpse, and Ladanyon that he didn’t even notice. Stomach twisted in knots, he swung down from the scaffolding.
The crate was nailed shut. His breath whistling through gritted teeth, he seized a claw hammer and wrenched the nails out.
He removed the lid. A scream clawed its way up his throat and choked off into a whimper. The topaz eyes of a sorceress stared at him from a face locked in death. The pain of the crate lid falling on his toes was a distant thing.
Ismyn. Nearly eighty years ago, she was his first lover. He stepped back and stumbled, landing on his arse in the dust. Dek yelled from somewhere nearby, but the words were meaningless.
Recently dead. Her complexion was still the colour of clotted cream, and death hadn’t filmed her fixed gaze. Straw filled the bottom of the box, absorbing blood from the stump of her neck, and more blood matted the ends of her red hair. Another scroll poked from rosebud lips.
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