Question and Answer Session with the Author

Q: Where did you come up with the idea of mixing fairy tales, fantasy themes, and pop songs into colonial American history?

A: I'm fundamentally a history geek with an uncontrollable imagination. As if there's a magic lamp in my room with dozens of genies keep popping out, swooping me off on magic carpet rides to strange new worlds. My insatiable curiosity drive me to read historical chronicles written by people in ancient or medieval times. Reading about people so similar to us but living in radically different worlds fascinates me. That same curiosity led me to read fairy tales and arthurian legends over and over. All the while I kept trying to figure out what those nursery rhymes 'really' meant.

As a former academic, my researcher instincts always forced me to look for the 'historical truth' behind a narrative. So when I'm reading a fantasy story, I favor hard magic systems and I crave worlds that are historically plausible.

Eventually, my brain paired these poems and people together, like a composer with synesthesia pairs musical tones with colors of the spectrum. It feels as though I've known the Tuscoraura elves for as long as I can remember. I never sat down to make any of it up. They were always there; I just needed to write it down.

Q: What is the difference between a Christian author and an author who is a Christian?

A: There are many ways in which authors can incorporate their Christian identity into a book. The first and most important is to live a life of grace in Christ. In philosophy there is a saying agere sequitur esse = who you are shows up in what you do. I believe authors who steep their life if faith, in prayer, in reading scripture, and in loving God and neighbor deserve the title 'Christian author' more than those who simply insert references to Christian buzzwords in their works. Christian celebrities whose lives are one scandal after another do more harm than good.

That said, there are many ways to be a Christian author. J.R.R. Tolkien saw himself as a Christian author, but the Christian elements are thematic - themes of pity, resisting temptation, "God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Cor 1:27)
C.S. Lewis, his friend, incorporated Christian elements into his allegorical plot - Edmund's betrayal and ransom by Aslan's sacrifice is allegorical of our own sin and redemption.
G.K. Chesterton uses Christian characters to make his mystery novels Christian.
Daniel Gibbs uses a Jewish main character but presents a futuristic world that is imbued with Christian values.
William Paul Young uses extensive dialogue with God to preach a Christian world view.

All in all, BE a prayerful, loving Christian and you will be a Christian author. Christian authors can use theme, plot, characters, setting, or dialogue to express this.

Q: You mentioned that the worldview expressed in ancient and medieval chronicles is so different. Can you give some examples?

A: Two jump to mind immediately.
The first is their concept of time. They lived in the 'now'. People died more often back then. There were no retirement plans. There were no savings accounts. People generally spent all their money every year.

Their concept of time was also liturgical. The hours of the days were not numbers but cycles of psalms and other scripture readings: Nones, Vespers, Compine, Matins. When you read authentic medieval chronicles, the chroniclers are always giving the date according to the closest feast day. They would say, "This happened three days after the feast of the Ascension." 'Candlemas Day' referred to the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. 'Whitsuntide' is the week following the feast of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in tongues of fire. Daily Life in Chaucer's England has an appendix explaining all this.

The other example is how much stock ancient and medieval persons gave to astrology and other forms of divining. Most modern people are wary of horoscopes or psychic readings because they lead to false expectations. Christians steer clear of divination in general because it tends to promote a spirituality that is not Christ-centered and thus it can become a form of idolatry.

However, ancient Romans would never fight a battle without sacrificing a chicken and having a haruspex read the signs in its entrails. Likewise, medieval nobles would consult astrologers when deciding to go on a long sea voyage or fight a battle.
Of course, there were exeptions.
Publius Claudius Pulcher tossed the chickens overboard when he didn't like their advice before the Battle of Drepanum during the First Punic War. Likewise, Bertrand du Guesclin's first wife was the famous astrologer Tiphaine de Raguenel. She read him his horoscope predicting a glorious future and he responded, "Trufferies, tout cela!" (That's all fuddy-duddy).

Q: Can you clarify for our readers what is a 'hard' magic system?

A: I believe Brandon Sanderson came up with the term. In Arthurian Legends, it is enough to call a character a sorcerer or a wizard or a magician and that enables them to cast an unlimited number of spells whose power is only limited by the imagination of the writer. That is a 'soft' magic system - no rules, definitions, or boundaries to the magic's scope. Role-playing games categorize these magic powers. A sorcerer can cast one well-defined set of spells, while a wizard has a different set of spells. Each magic user has a level to determine how powerful those spells are. The more the fantasy world defines and delimits the scope of magic, the 'harder' the magic system becomes.

In the Vinlander Chronicles, there are three hard magic systems:
1) Magiculture: The ability to make an object appear or disappear with a branch, stem, leaf or the sap of a magica tree.
2) Sorcery: The ability to push, pull, heat, or cool an element with its corresponding source stone - water, earth, wind, fire, and aether (electricity).
3) Miracles: The ability to bring about through prayer and fasting one of the miracles mentioned in the Bible.

Q: How can fantasy be 'unhistorical'? Isn't it all make-believe anyhow?

A: It's funny you mention 'make-believe'. One of the reasons I convinced myself I needed a pen name was that the world of Vinland had been in my mind and heart for more than twenty years before I got the chance to write it down. Whenever I'd talk about the people or places in my 'make-believe' world, I'd almost convince myself they were real. So, I decided to write from the perspective of someone from the world of Vinland, writing a real history. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about people calling me crazy. I'd just say, "Oh, that's my author's persona."

Anyway, there are certain tropes in modern fantasy that are so pervasive, that most fans of fantasy believe they are based in history. Whenever I try to correct those misconceptions, I get called a troll, especially when I point out that many tropes about fantasy weapons are 'unhistorical'.

Another 'unhistorical' fantasy trope is the valuation of coins. Medieval coinage was impossibly complicated. I can't blame fantasy authors for wanting somthing simple but the "10 coppers = 1 silver and 10 silvers = 1 gold" coinage system that most fantasy writers use is profoundly 'unhistorical'. First of all, coinage was usually reckoned in multiples of 4 (to make mental math easier). So grouping coins by multiples of 10 (to make decimals easier) makes no sense at all from a historical perspective.
For example, 1 farthing = 1/4 of a penny
1 groat = 4 pence
1 shilling = 12 pence
1 florin = 80 pence
1 mark = 160 pence
1 pound = 240 pence

Also, coinage was rarer and thus more valuable. Just to put that into perspective, Florenz Nightingale and the Sword of Layban is set in AD 1284. At that time, one sterling silver penny from England had roughly the buying power of $10 today. I almost choked when I read one author said his main character tossed 3 gold coins out to pay for a flaggon with a pint of ale at a tavern! The only major gold coin in circulation at the time was the florin, which was worth 80 sterling silver pennies (pence). In AD 1284, ale generally sold for a penny a gallon (similar to paying $10 for a 12 pack of beer today). Anyway, that fantasy character paid $2,400 for a pint of ale when he could have gotten a quart for a farthing (1/4 of a penny or $2.50 today)!

Discussion Questions for Reading Groups.

Coming soon