 Hi everyone, my name is Mihir Wanshu and I'm part of Fantasy Book Critic and this is part two of the podcast that we had with Philip, you know, last week, so to speak, on the Fantasy Book Critic video interview series. Well, today we're going to do part two of this fascinating discussion that we had about the war tunnel series by Rob Jay Hayes and joining us today is none other than Rob Jay Hayes. A quick update for everybody, this, as you saw or heard in the last week's episode, this, that discussion which we had was not, had zero spoilers. We didn't spoil anything about the books, but this episode will be the exact opposite of that. We will be talking about in depth about the characters, what Rob's thoughts were, why he decided to do things certain way, why certain characters popped up so late in the books, and it is, like we said, Chaka Block full of spoilers. So if you haven't read the books, please, please, please skip this. Go ahead and watch the last week's episode and, you know, enjoy this for everybody else. And read the books, if you haven't read them, read the books, and come back and watch this. Yes, read by and, you know, then enjoy this episode. So it's not going to take you long to read the books at all. They're just five of them. So, you know, a few minutes work, right? It's already about 800,000 words, you're fine. Yeah, nothing like Malazan, right? Nothing like Malazan. So, you know, everybody's fine. Alright, Philip, why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about yourself first, and then we'll get jump on. Yeah, hello, everyone. If we've done everything right, this is on my channel. So I'm Philip Magnus and I talk about books and video games and everything that takes my fancy. And Rob Hayes is one of my absolute favorite fantasy authors. Indie publish doesn't matter. He's one of the best out there. And I have been going crazy talking about his books over the last couple of weeks. And so I thought it would be really fun if we actually brought him in and had a bit of a chat about what is one of the most fun dark fantasy series out there, The War Eternal. So, Rob, please, first off, where did the inspiration for The War Eternal come from? Oh, God, everywhere, everywhere, all the places in the world. No. So I kind of like, I had this idea originally. I wanted to have a world built around this magic system of these of these sources that people can swallow and they, you know, they sit inside the stomach and that's where the sort of like the magic comes from. I, you know, it's the type of magic that I'm just not done before where it is literally based on a source in this situation. Hey, we can do spoilers. In this situation, the crystallized coffins of gods. So I wanted to base a magic system around them. And I also wanted to do this, this story that was set entirely underground because it was a setting I'd never done before. I'd only read one book that did it before and that was The Fade by Chris Wooding. I thought I wanted to, I wanted to just give this setting a go. And then as I was sort of like gearing up to it, I just, I think I may have been inspired a little bit by Dark Crystal. I don't know if you guys have ever watched that, but in Dark Crystal there's the Skexies and the the Ancients. And the amazing puppetry of, I've forgotten his name, it's Jim Henson. Jim Henson, thank you. But the thing about the Skexies and the the Ancients is they were originally one being, each of them was originally one being and then they were separated into their into two and, and they're sort of linked when one of them dies, and I just thought that was a really cool sort of like mechanic essentially concept. So I sort of like I wanted wanted to do something with that as well. And then just sort of like I just thought, ah, as I usually do I'll start writing it. So I did. And bits and pieces just kept falling into place here and there. And it's really hard for me to talk about where inspiration comes from for a lot of things because sometimes I get inspired about a like a specific point, but it's not like I sort of build the world beforehand over on one big inspiration. It's usually because I'm such a pants are sort of like, as I'm as I'm writing it, I'm like, oh, that sounds cool. I'll pull that idea in that one. And then, you know, I get towards book five of a series and I'm like, oh, shit, how do I tie this all together. So was the tying together of all these elements and that connects to another question I have prepared was the tying together of all of these elements. Challenging very challenging indeed. Yeah. Yeah. The only way that I wrote book one is I just kept adding things that I thought were cool. And quite often because of the way it's told of Eskia telling it from the future, talking about her past. A lot of times, I should be like, yeah, that sounds cool. I'll have her say that she did this and then she did this and then she did this and then it gets towards the later end of her life and I'm like, oh shit, she hasn't done half the things that I said she was going to do. You absolutely managed to tie it together very well as if you actually had a plant all of it all along. And I believe that deserves all the props, honestly. Thank you. Honestly, it's a weird thing where my brain works like serialists. She loves puzzles. My brain loves puzzles, apparently, because I love just adding things and then at some point my brain sort of starts making the links between them and suddenly it's like, oh wait, that's almost perfect. I wrote it with this connection in mind, whereas I didn't. I just made the connections afterwards. I suppose if you've got a blank page full of dots and you connect them all into a rabbit, you're like, oh look, it was a rabbit all along. No, it works perfectly well. And I enjoy the fact that your brain works the same as serialists because while I was reading about her, that definitely became the character I got invested in the most and the one I related to the most. I don't know about you, Mihair, which one was the character you felt was speaking to you most directly? Oh, that's a good question. Well, the funny thing is I didn't meet, like, I was, Eskai at first was it like in book one, I did not like Eskai and Rob knows this. Like, you know, in book one was very hard for me because I just could not relate to Eskai at all. And I was like, this world is intriguing, but she's too abrasive. Like, you know, there's no, like, there's very little, I mean, I understood why her anger was there, but it's very little to, for me to like, you know, connect to her. You know, from book to onwards, it began better. But yeah, my favorites were also both Kento and Cyrillic from book four. For book four is my favorite of the series. I like, I love Cyrillic. I feel like Rob, you could write a, you like a, you could write a whole different book from both Kento's and Cyrillic's perspectives about the way they see the world and the way they view Eskai just because they're so magnetic characters and we don't really get to see their viewpoint. So that was for me. But Rob, I just, yeah, sorry, go on. Apologies, but that reminded me that I promise to myself that I would petition Rob to write at some point a book series or at least a book from the point of view of Cyrillic. So Rob, consider yourself petitioned. Ah, well, I don't know, we'll see. I mean, the, I'm done with the war, to be honest. Are you? I started writing that in 2016. So it was a good six year project. And I have no intention of revisiting that world. But you never know, Cyrillif, she's playing with portals. That is very true. And the reason that she's playing with portals were it made me curious about whether she might be popping up into some other world in the future. And the whole way that the war is in all ends. It does not exactly end on a very, you know, closed notes. So it does have that element of a series that can spawn another series, if you will, if you ever had the ideas. And obviously, you don't have any at this point, but it would be cool if one day you return to it. If I ever return to the war, eternal, which as I say, I have no plans, it would have to be something like long in the future where things have obviously changed a lot with, I mean, at the end of, of death being in your heart, it's literally how the underworlds there and Escar is in fact death. Had a quick question about the length of this world, because you mentioned like, you know, when you're reading this book, we realize that there's lot, there's been a lot of cataclysms because of the yin out is the jinn and the ran keep on fighting with each other. But how truly old is the world, because the soul was already there before the jinn and the ran, you know, where put there are like, or in prison in them in the world, in the moons by the maker. So what is it true. like what is it to origins to the world or how old is this world truly for waiters? Very old. I don't give things like a world like that a specific age because that would tie into sort of like a bit of a creation myth where there would have to be a god that created it or you'd have to be like okay well then there's the big bang and then it was like millions and millions and millions and billions and billions and years and I don't know. I'm no physicist so I can't deal in timescales that massive so I don't have a specific answer for that I'm afraid it's the world is old it was there before the Randon the Jin were ever put there and that's about as much as it's really relevant. So it was a primitive one though right from what I read from the books it was a primitive one and there were multiple creatures or there are multiple races so to speak but it was still a primitive one just with forest and lakes and oceans and everything but it's the presence of the Randon the Jin which kind of accelerated the evolution so as to speak because they kind of are the ones who created the humans of this world as their underthings. Terran is their yes yes sorry sorry yeah yeah um yeah uh so the the worst sentient races uh already on the world the uh Mer and the Ghan were already sentient so they were never changed by the Rand but uh sometime during the the first war of the the Rand the the Jin the Rand started changing the the sort of like semi-sentient races so the Damned became the Terrans the Ferals as that's that's all they're known as became the part and I cannot actually remember off the top of my head what the Taran were before they were changed but it doesn't matter because the Taran went on a big old murdering spree once they gained sentience and wiped out all of their ancestors anyway which you have to respect yeah yeah I mean to be honest they're they're quite violent the Taran too so and and absolutely deadly just thinking back on that final epic battle in the fifth book yes but I'm very curious let's talk about characters and relationships for a little bit may have do you have any questions on that front oh yeah I do uh how hard was it for you Rob like you know when you're writing these books and especially because Cyrillith and Kento are you know they're said to debut so late how hard is it to hold on to them or how hard is it like to not give us their inputs or even give like a mention of them besides the sneak snippets of like Kento is probably dead and Cyrillith is the is the girl who changed everything or who ruined the world how hard was it in that regards um it wasn't really because uh the way that I wrote the books I wrote them in a trilogy and then a duology so well I was writing the trilogy uh they were never anything more than sort of like children in my my head they were sort of babies um they never had specific characters or anything like that apart from the odd bit of hey yeah Cyrillith broke the world um so it wasn't until I started writing sins of the mother that I started actually building them as proper characters I already had obviously had a few um signposts along the way uh that would dictate where I was going with their characters um but there wasn't a lot there before I started writing sins of the mother so it wasn't too too hard holding back um um really so the one of the the fun ones was sort of the the death of Kento in in book two that was the one where I I wanted to when I was writing book two I was like okay I want it to very much feel like Eskia believes that Kento is dead um but the uh the way it's written the the audience the reader would be very much like but is she though? You know as uh speaking for myself there was the definite expectation that Kento would be coming back after those first three books and in a big way so when in book four a character speaks out hello mother I think basically was her uh first entrance into the series the entrance proper that is outside of you know screaming with your first breath that moment was for me immediately yes he's finally gone there interestingly that's the one and only time Kento calls Eskia mother um and I I did consider changing it because she literally never calls her mother because she doesn't think for her mother but at the same time it was like but it was too good to take out no and it feels it's that nice little twist um red herring as well because obviously the the chapter ends with hello mother and you're like but wait is it Cyrilov who is it? It works really great because I think it has this very very strong ironic sub tone that it just the line is powerful it's good stuff and the build up as well right because there's a build up of like we're thinking that it's going to be Cyrillot it's going to be Cyrillot you know all the talk is obviously all about Cyrillot 19 chapters if I'm not wrong it leads up to that line and then you you know we suddenly get Kento uh Philip may I ask a question if that's okay by all means Rob you never really let us know how Kento and Cyrillot really felt about Esca and obviously their emotions are going to be very complicated Cyrillot has the advantage that she knew Esca all her life but of course what the brief 12-13 years when Esca just oh 20 years or so when Esca just up and left Kento on the other hand never really knew Esca but she somehow in the book I remember she mentioned that she has memories of her and then of course the year she was filled in with the Rand you know because she truly thinks of the Rand as her mother in your view and because we're never really given their POVs we we get a we get a sense of what they feel but we never truly understand how or what their emotions are towards Esca could you care to reveal about what they as the writer that what did you think or how they felt about her you know knowing how complicated Esca is and how everyone feels about Esca like not even like Tamura or Hart have like a clear opinion about her um it's yeah it's it's kind of a hard one to uh turn it up because it's because the the story was always through Esca's point of view I never I never really tried putting myself in the head of the other characters like I would if I was writing from their point of view like if I when I was writing like the the ties that bind you know I was even a book one I was like I was constantly putting myself okay who's who's head am I in this time I'm in Blackthorn's head or I'm in Jesit's head or whatever um whereas with this one it was all very much just focused on Esca's point of view um especially because she's the type of person who kind of doesn't really it's not that she believes that the world revolves around her but she will make the world revolve around her um it's like yeah when Cyrilov calls her out for you know you make everything about you that that is exactly what Esca does um she inserts herself into every situation so how Cyrilov and Kento really sort of like feel about her well I mean Kento yeah there's there's sort of like it's the weird situation where Kento sees the the Rand Mesla as her mother um but she thought she recognizes that Esca was her birth mother and it's that I guess a desire to get to know her um even as she doesn't want to be her child as as sort of like as such but it's it's the still a desire to get to know her to know where she came from basically um and uh as as for Cyrilov uh Cyrilov loves Esca as a mother um because she is uh it's just um you know Cyrilov is a very complicated child and woman later in her life um and she doesn't really know how to express herself and a part of that is due to her upbringing with with Esca um but yeah no it's it was very much uh there there is a lot of love both between Esca and Cyrilov and Cyrilov and Esca um because they are the more than Kento was certainly Cyrilov is Esca's daughter they are very similar in a lot of ways um so yeah I hope that's uh at least not a fancy for you yeah I think one of the most um powerful moments in the book and one of those defining moments both when it comes to the relationship between Esca and Cyrilov and Esca and Kento is in book four when we see Esca choose to help Cyrilov over Kento and to me the fact that she chooses one daughter over the other and she chooses the daughter she kept over the daughter she actually abandoned it complicates in the most delicious ways that uh the relationship that three-way uh mother-daughter triangle if you will it is truly amazing but mind first also goes towards one of the other key relationships in Esca's life and that is the relationship between her and Joseph I think it's one of the defining relationships of these books even as Joseph he kind of falls to the wayside a little or rather to the background as the books continue as the first book starts off it seems like a very one or one directional relationship with Esca gaining a lot from Joseph and little giving little back but as the relationship shifts throughout the books we reach a culmination of that relationship if you will which complicates things to the point when I'd say it dissenters the relationship it shows that what we took for granted the way things between Joseph and Esca were was very very complex very much more complex than we thought with the relation of the queen of ice and fire that it wasn't her who put the uh emotional command for Esca to kill herself did you have that as an idea from the get go or was that a twist you came up with all the way into book five um it was I can't remember exactly where that that sort of twist came about but it was uh it wasn't there for the get go for this in fact okay so um when I when I first wrote it uh book one and when I was moving into book two here knows this because he read the original version of book two which is terrible um Joseph didn't come back he was dead he said dead um and it wasn't until I realized that I'd gone so wrong with book two and needed to rewrite it completely um that I changed a lot of the things that were going on and suddenly things started making more sense in my head and fitting into place better and one of those was bringing Joseph back basically making him not dead um and from there on his part in the story started growing a bit bigger and paralleling um Esca's in many ways and intersecting again um so I can't remember exactly where it was but the it wasn't it wasn't a revelation that only occurred in book five because you can see sort of like the seeds that I'd actually planted in book one because because the way that I wrote the books I wrote the first three books before I released them any of them so it gave me the opportunity to go back and add things into book one that weren't originally going to be there once I had sort of like finished book three and one of those things is uh where you sort of like towards the end of book one you see that Esca can't actually decide whether or not her her love for Joseph is real or if it's something that he planted in her um after she tried to kill herself um that first time after and you know then you sort of like as you come to book five you realize I wait so the the seeds were already planted there Joseph was actually the one who put that sort of like that the call of the void that emotional command to kill herself and then changed his mind at some point um pulled her back from the edge and then you know essentially made did he make her then love him um you know obviously not romantic love uh but you know that that sort of love for him did that conform him so there's a lot of that emotional manipulation um which is it's part of the the complexity of the relationship and why Esca just why she's just fucked up as she is to be honest getting a lot of her character can be you know traced back to those early formative experiences if you and I'm not going to ask you if uh you know either way what the sequence of events is there in terms of whether the love is real or not but I'm going to ask you do you know for yourself how things stand? Does it matter? It's like it's it's it's literally a question that that doesn't matter the what matters is the doubt is there um and you know that's as far as Esca is concerned that doubt is why she could never fully trust Joseph even though she loves him she can't stop herself from loving him um but then she there'll always be that that suspicion that doubt um which is a a poison to the relationship basically. Which I think you uh managed to parallel very well with the relationship and book for the the kind of love or at least lust she feels for uh the merchant whose name I'm misplacing right now but he too Janice thank you he too manages to manipulate her true emotional magic in what is uh it's something that you know as a reader isn't mushing together well with her character and you're just waiting for her to realize what the hell is going on so it's very well executed there. Thank you um yeah that was uh I have to thank my alpha readers for that uh that was originally went a very different sort of way but my alpha readers were just like no this isn't generally quite right um and it wasn't until uh here and uh my sister Rian and my other alpha readers actually sort of like pointed it out to me that that wasn't quite generally right that I stopped and looked back at it and went oh I'd already actually put the seeds in it to um to to work the way that it does now that that that makes sense that's really like aha I just sort of hadn't pulled the trigger on it for some reason. Yeah well so thank you to me here and the other alpha readers. It was uh you know it's the others I was just happy with that that scene didn't work quite as well but yeah I was just happy with this book too much like I didn't I didn't have any complaints with this book you know Rob will know that I will otherwise have lots of things to tell him but Rob I do have a quick side question as well you know the theology the original trilogy only focuses on Esca and you know her battles but the theology you know kind of brings forth three incredibly complex women characters you know the first are the two daughters in book four still the stilleth and kento but in book five we finally meet Lesseray and throughout the series Esca bad mouths Lesseray like no end like for her every bad thing in her life which has happened is through Lesseray's fault like Lesseray is the worst person and of course Esca just hates her and hates her and says that she hated me from the start of course you know knowing Esca up until then we kind of realized that that might not be the case and when we meet Lesseray we see that she's an incredibly complex and fascinating woman and she has a backstory because she kind of implies a little bit of it like that she kind of hated from the iron legion because of a certain thing which had happened to her like you know her half of her face the powers that were granted to her had kind of ruined her face as well did you have a backstory like you obviously you didn't plan to show her backstory but did you have a backstory formulated in your mind about Lesseray or was it just that like you said you know because you're planted the seeds that you had to come up with something to kind of make make sense of what her conflict with was going to be fine sorry Rob but just because this fits very well with the question did you at any point feel tempted to actually add Lesseray earlier on in the series? So I was never tempted to add Lesseray earlier I always knew she was going to be a big part of the finale of the entire series but I you know she was certainly never at any point going to be in the first three books she was only ever going to be in the the follow-up two books and as I was writing since the mother I realised that she just she didn't fit in it basically so there was the possibility that I might have added her in a little bit earlier her part was always going to be mostly in desperate heart but there was the possibility she might turn up in since the mother but she just didn't fit in the the narrative because it's a very it's a very sort of tight fast-paced race through the world basically and it just wouldn't she wouldn't fit in at all but I did have ideas for her her backstory from the point of where where her and Eskia's stories divulge basically it wasn't something that I'd put too much thought into but I sort of like had the the idea that okay I wanted her to be the sort of like yes she was the queen of ice and fire how did she get there and you know there was there was a lot of parallels as well with the iron legion you know that he experimented on all of the children so he experimented on her that's part of why she's the the queen of ice and fire because hey pyromancy but I've never gone into too much detail on any of it I left it up in the air most of the details up in the air for a good reason because of the way that I was writing the entire series the more stuff I left up in the air the easier it was to then pull the pieces together into something that made sense towards the end whereas if I'd gone into too much detail of them I might find that you know suddenly I had a square peg trying to fit into a round hole and it just wouldn't work um so yeah little little bits here and there of where what I wanted her story to be like and you know some of the things should have gone through but nothing nothing set in stone as it were that kind of works because you know it just builds up the intrigue and in our minds how like especially for me I know I've talked to you about this like Leslie was this really fascinating character and I want to always want to know more about her like what was her life story what was her story why was she you know supposedly hating Esca so much or how was conflict with her and of course how did she escape the Iron Legion because Iron Legion in fact in book three mentions that he has she's the one who got away from him like he's never been able to trace her so that kind of proves that she was more than capable of you know that Esca and Yosef combined because they could never truly escape his reach but she was the one who was smart enough and magically powerful enough to escape his reach build her home empire and stay the hell away from him so that way you know she could do what she wanted well you know she escaped by murdering an entire squad full of soldiers and running away got to appreciate a woman who can do that yeah yeah exactly she left the war before it ended so that's part of how she escaped but how she kept ahead of the Iron Legion and managed to build an empire or a kingdom well that's that's another story that's not going to tell not only did she build an empire she built it on a continent full of monsters giant monsters it does feel very um there's a series of games called monster hunter you're probably familiar but uh it does feel like i was reading something set up in that universe almost reading uh when when Esca ended up on that continent of uh well isan fire yes yes the continent of Rolf yes i i am a fan of monster hunter games i'm currently playing monster hunter rise on the xbox uh with a friend of mine in fact jump on a couple of times a week and go hunt some big monsters they are very fun games but speaking of monsters that is a masterclass in segues what were the most rewarding antagonistic relationships you got to write for the war at the end of the series um yeah i'm taking it a stick relationship so well uh you know i actually really enjoyed um kobi and uh and esca um there was there was something a lot of fun um about writing kobi's storyline back in uh the first three books with the fact that they kind of they they were both they both very much loved silver um and in many ways they both kind of blamed the other one as well as each other for for silver's death um so there was a lot of there was a lot of tension between them and you know there was there was obviously there was never going to be any sort of real reconciliation um and yet they had to sort of come together and rely on each other towards the end um so i really enjoyed writing that relationship between them um and i would say the iron legion as well but to be honest uh one of the things about the iron legion was it wasn't his relationship with anybody else that was fun to write it was just the iron legion um it was a massive tool um but something very horrific about him because despite the fact that this world has gods and monsters and nightmares he being at once human and also so removed from humanity in just about every way outside of his you know his desire to actually live forever as a as a young man it it awakens in you a sort of primal fear of what fucked up things humans can do to each other but yeah um especially i it's one of the things i wanted to do with him actually i wanted him to be this sort of like powerful figure that even gods were scared of um and uh and yet he truly believed in what he was doing um and it might not be he was doing it for good reasons but he truly believed it um and it's that sort of that sort of zealous passion which can make uh characters uh quite terrifying there is a lot of john ironicus from bouldersgate 2 uh iron legion um because it that was one of the things i'd love bouldersgate 2 back in the day uh it's going to be what 25 30 years old or something by this point yes absolutely and i don't know if you're as excited about bouldersgate 3 as i am i've been playing the early access edition of that game since it came out i have i think nearly 100 hours in it already and that's just the first act it's a lot of fun something to look forward to in august that's that's impressive i mean it does still pale in comparison to the bouldersgate 2 hours i must have racked up i own that game in something like seven different formats it's ridiculous but um i am excited for bouldersgate 3 i'm looking forward to playing that but yeah no it was it was always john ironicus from uh from bouldersgate 2 there's something just terrifying about that character and i loved him from the very beginning because it's the fact that he's just willing to torture people to to experiment on them to change them and yeah he's also just ridiculously powerful for no particular reason he just is um yeah so yeah there's definitely a lot of a lot of john ironicus you know getting back to the sort of like inspirations where does it all come from yeah a lot of john ironicus in in the iron legion absolutely and he is definitely one of the most memorable antagonists of the series the other character far less human as as far from human as you could have probably placed him is well the one they call the maker and um he began as this eye in the sky in in a rift looking down when did he become something more to you when did you know that he would be an antagonistic presence in the series did you just have the eye there for a bit in terms of you know cool things i can have in a book or was it always going to be uh fucked up eldritch monstrosity from worlds beyond um yeah so in book one it was very much just eye in the sky hey that sounds cool uh it wasn't until book two where i started putting pulling together the pieces and realized that okay so where do the randon the gin actually come from um you know why they you know that oh yeah they're in the moons why or they were in the moons why were they trapped in the moons who put them there and everything and that's when the pieces started to come together and i realized that oh i already had this giant eye in the sky that i put there i could start using that so it was it was somewhere in book two that i realized okay so the maker is going to be uh a presence at some point within the books and i already knew that at that point it wasn't going to be book three because i already had my um sort of like end game for book three so it was going to have to be the big part or one of the big parts in book four or five um so yeah i realized in book two that it was going to be this sort of eldritch you know eldritch style terror type thing from from the void basically from beyond but yeah uh in book one it was just something cool i could put in there is the eldritch thing sorry uh is the maker the only one of its kind i know it's heavily implied that it's the only one of its kind in in in this in its own universe rob but is it truly the only one of its kind or are there something more like it out there in different parallel universes there are no parallel universes there are realms there are realms that's true because s of cirulet mentions quite a few of them in book four like the one she sees um which are references to your other world if i'm not wrong there is one world yes because there's one which is mentioned which i clearly remember is where they where she says that i saw a world where they worship the stars which i believe was a reference to the mortal techniques because they always you know worship the stars there's one world that is mentioned where did there's a dead rise which i think is a reference to the first earth saga and then there's a there's a world which is mentioned which you haven't published yet but i have read that so which is why i'm not commenting on it because it's not something which readers and viewers will know about but that was that was a clear reference to that uh i don't know if you caught that fill up like there's those these worlds which she mentions i am absolutely clueless there's like a there's like a way i don't know what mehira is talking about he's just this is what comes when i read too much of his books but there's that there's like a there's a clear couple of lines in you know incidences of mother which i remember like cirulet talks about like you know that when she portals through she looks at other worlds because she kind of that's how she develops history and there's if you and i don't remember which chapter it is but there's like a clear reference to a world which she says like you know where the people worship the stars and there's a clear reference to a world where she said that you know there's a the world where the dead are rising because there's been so much bloodshed which in my theory is a reference to robb's first six books the first earth saga because there's like the you know they everybody just kills her in those books and in the mortal techniques worlds where uh people worship the stars but technically not the god i mean they worship the gods but they also worship the stars and so that's that's just my theory out there about that it's very weird this channel is not viable for any of me here's uh you know i am neither confirming nor denying me his suspicions so there we go perfectly fair yeah me here do you have any questions about the antagonists am i missing out on uh any interesting ones you can bring up uh about the characters yes there is one more thing and i don't know rob your feel feel free to to to to decline it because i know this is something which is dear god he he's a cruel person i'll say this sir let's father because we know who kento's father is you know they they are a parent but sir let's father rob they call two different names real in some aspects and win and they're mentioned to be having extra teeth now uh this is again a something from his first series in his first series the first earth there is a different sort of beings who live called the drew and rob please correct me if a pronunciation is wrong they're said to have extra teeth when they smile they look they look like humans except when they smile because when they smile there there's a vast amount of teeth and that term real or when there's also a character called real win in the first earth world who is supposedly so powerful and being locked away this is just me reading too much of the first first book so apologies to all the rob any comments on that and you're feel free to say i'm crazy i have no comment okay that's right that's very fair well um what should we move on to next me here maybe the world and uh we set characters like just the world building in the magic system if that's okay because then a rob you had mentioned like the crystal uh dead bodies crystallized dead bodies so i was just i was just had a quick question about that is that okay philip by the way by all means when you start out like you know this kind of seems like a cool concept similar to you know what has come before in mist born you know because again the same thing like where they ingest those metals and they give them the powers you did one step you you went one step weirder when you made these the things that they ingest which we don't know until like in a book book two or book three that they're actually dead the dead bodies or the remnants of the dead bodies of these gods when did that click into your head and does that does that mean that these i don't know if in cannibals is the right word but like what would be the word like you know when you ingest flesh of other beings sentient beings if there's even a word for that um i don't know if there's a word for it because that i mean they are they are sort of like sentient beings but they're they're not really related to the cannibals um and um it's kind of a weird thing because the the the the the jinn don't have bodies as such they have their bodies in their own manifestation of them it's just saying with the rand when they die they leave behind this essentially little crystals which are essentially crystallized magic um so i i don't know i i don't know if there would be a specific word for um that sort of like ingestion but uh yeah it was again i think it was it started to to really come into my mind in books sort of like to onwards what they were going to be um in book one it was very much sort of like as i say uh just just creation just adding things here and there i knew i wanted the magic system to be in terms of i wanted the my sorcerers to um be attuned to different types of magic different schools of magic and each of these schools came with one of these sources and only this little crystal uh things that they could swallow which gave them access to their powers um but it wasn't until book two and i'm trying to remember where i put all the revelations basically it was it was around book two where everything started to really click into place the world started to pull all the bits that i'd already put out there started to pull together um i think it was book two where they where eskid discovers that they were they're the the corpses of the gods basically the crystal it definitely is um and i think it's book three where she discovers that the moons were the jails or the random and then there's more revelations in book five four and five but yeah it it was just the again it was one of those where everything started falling into place in book two but it just happened in steps it was like as i was writing book two oh yeah this this this all just clicked and it all pulled together perfectly and then as i was writing book three there were more revelations that i was like aha yeah that just makes sense and and it kept happening throughout the entire series it's such a weird way of writing it um in that i honestly had no idea what i was doing for half of the book until i was doing it um and then i just but it always felt like that was how it was supposed to be even in my mind like when the when the ideas of it just sort of like came together and it was just like of course that makes sense i've already set everything up for it um and it just kept happening um which so part of the the reason eskia keeps coming across these these revelations as the books go on it's because i was too well as a reader it felt really great because you just were like this seems so planned and you know it's like the revelations are also like you know each book kind of reveals like a certain aspect and fascinating aspect of also it felt like this was like you had really planned this series of like now okay book one is going to be a revelation of this book two it's going to be this book three this book four is that and so it worked out perfectly but it's even more funny that you know your mind did the job for you without you knowing it yeah i had no idea i just punched it it's a very natural progression of the way the magical system develops very very much so i have a question as well in terms of a very specific question about eskia's arkmansey and her necromancy every time her arkmansey gets supercharged she basically taps into the memories of the jinn or rand that she whose course she has sworn i think it's usually the jinn because they are um connected with arkmansey correct but is that is that a byproduct of her only of her arkmansey her abilities with uh lightning or is that out as much to her uh necromanic proficiency um the absorbing the memories is that's actually um due to her necromancy the the arkmansey is basically the uh the delivery method for a lot of the times but it's the same way that when she uses her necromancy to unravel a ghost she absorbs some of the memories of that that ghost um and with with arkmansey she sometimes absorbs uh memories of the the the jinn who's who you know that's who the source that's generating the lightning the arkmansey came from or sometimes from the person um essentially shooting the sorcerer using the arkmansey source to to fire lightning at her um like in the big fight in the fifth book when hundreds upon hundreds basically of sorceries shots lightning into her or at least dozens it was a beautiful moment i think it's sort of like 17 is the exact number so 17 different sorcerers shooting her but then there's an ark an ark um but they've got arkbiter shooting her as well uh it's very much a sort of like yeah i'm going super saying here yeah it is a very elegant method of you know delivering uh plot relevant information and just narrative tidbits of what is a rare occasion away from escura's point of view yeah there's part of it is that i wanted to i wanted to deliver some of the information of um almost like info dumping i guess but uh of of the jinn and the way that you know the the other world was built or created and everything so each of the memories of the jinn that she absorbs um they're very specific memories that relate to things like okay this is how uh the other world was created or uh that i think was a timely one um which was about the the final battle between uh the random the jinn where they tore open the the the realm um to to reveal the maker basically um so the maker could find them so each one of those is very tailored to what is happening in the story at the time whereas most of the memories that she absorbs from the the people the other sorcerers uh those are very much ways to um sort of expand upon the world a little bit and make it feel a little more human because one of the one of the best ways to sort of make a world feel much more real is to have you know sort of like little irrelevant details about characters um because it just makes those characters feel more alive um so it's one of the things that i wanted to do with those with that sort of like mechanic where she's absorbing memories is to have none of those memories mean anything they're just their memories of other people that she's now taking on to herself essentially um especially as a lot of those memories are probably part of why she changes as much as she does throughout the series as she's absorbing other memories and it also explains um book three where she's just has random memories of joseph i thought it was a widely successful strategies far as you know info dumping uh goes because it at no point does it feel like info dumping it just makes the world feel deeper the character is more meaningful and in that way i think it phenomenal work really thank you that's exactly what i was going for absolutely now me here do you have any other questions i do uh one of drop in one of the well you know in our in our past but discussion you know both philip and me were kind of curious about this like you know the parents kind of mimics the humans of her world and knowing the human psychology of looking for gods you know we were both surprised that there was not really an organized religion in this world now there are cults philip rightfully pointed out that there are cults in this world and of course joseph also starts a cult and it kind of becomes a big successful one but from your authorial viewpoint what was the main reason for there not being any organized religion in this world because they they talk about the the written to them the jinn and the ran but they're and esca hates them as gods and she calls them scots but there they are gods but there's no organized religion around them or anything else besides again the maker cult which is only the desert but what was what was the the the reasoning behind that in this world um in my mind i find it very hard to sort of um i find it very hard to understand that there would in fact be an organized religion around gods if the gods were real and walking around with us um the reason that organized religion exists is because you know these these gods are these nebulous figures that we can never know um whereas you know if the gods are walking around of us that's no longer really a religion that's more of a cult of personality um so i i just yeah it it's basically that that's a symptom of my own um understanding of religion and the like and i i honestly don't think that if if you know gods were real and they were wandering around of a city if Thor was was you know wandering around outside like look at the marvel films it wouldn't be a uh a religious sort of like thing where you like praying and worshiping to him it would just be a cult personality we're like hey that's Thor um so i understand what you're saying yeah there's no place for fate when you can reach out and touch god yeah exactly um so yeah because the gods are there there's no organized religion around them it's just yeah people do kind of worship them i guess but the worship is a very different thing it's more just following them around doing what they're told and the gods are capricious in this case that they truly do not care about anybody else's existence or their wills or even their prayers so as to speak besides the nebulous maker who the people just pray but they don't they don't know if that being is ever answering them not caring about them or basically indifferent to them yeah i mean the the cult that worships the maker is is literally the worshipping of an apocalypse um yeah because it's it's the taran basically and um a slight i mean the the the cult that Cyril of kind of half starts around the maker is purely to her own gain um that's just complete lies that she's just formulating oh yeah they'll wash away the there's the sinful or whatever and you'll be in charge afterwards she doesn't believe any of that she's just doing it um telling people what they want to hear so that you know they'll do what she wants them to um but the taran they they have uh yeah they have a bit of a sort of like organized religion if you will but it's a cult and it's fully based around this idea of yeah we we open up the the realm bring the maker into the world and it it scourges everything away mere acceptance because we're chasin i like that you leave some ambiguities this is just me being weird about this because i'm i'm i'm i like world building to a to a to a really fascinating degree rob in your mind did you know how many gin and rand because they're always supposed to be an equal number they never are like when one gin dies one rand disappears or advice or so so when the maker deposited them into the moon in your mind there was a specific number of how many gin and rand arrived or is that just me thinking too much thousands of each oh wow okay so there was there was a lot of them when it when they uh when they were first there but uh they they killed each other off at quite a rate and thereby causing newer and newer cataclysms because when they die they did and that's why there are there there are so many sources just lying around in the oasis because they're littered with the dead bodies of the gods literally yes exactly um and that's why there's there's so many things like the world is full of ruins and the like because battles between the rand of the gin have just laid waste to half the half of a virus so who yes there were originally sort of thousands of each probably less than 10 thousand but more than 1000 so ooh big range interesting factoid for all those people who are fans of the series because you you know this world kind of reminded me a lot of the broken earth uh you know books by nk jemison innocence like you know because in her in in that series it's also the same thing like you know their cataclysms or cataclysms cause the world to kind of get like you know the the history of the world is kind of hidden with me beneath and your fourth book since the mother there's like a fascinating point when you know that lake and I'm forgetting what the lake is called it kind of has basically been drained away and as they are walking the mud they go towards the ruins and they're surprised to find that this city is bigger like the city underneath the lake is bigger than what they could have imagined and it's bigger than the biggest city that they have right now and it's just incredibly complex so there must be so much more to the world and of course the city that has come you know excavates so as to speak with her magically like it also has these more and more cataclysms beneath it and so both Philip and me also felt that there's so much history in this world that you know you could probably write a prequel series if you wanted and you know that had nothing to do with any of these characters but just these you know another random set of characters it could be an epic fantasy world or it could be like an epic fantasy series or even like a darker fantasy series would you ever maybe in the future when you have some time? No, as I say as far as I'm concerned I'm done with the world of the war of turtle now and I think it'd be really weird going back to this world and not writing Esca. Like after spending five books in Esca's head and the entire of this world has always been in Esca's head I think the idea of going back to this world and not having it be focused around Esca would just be all really weird to me but no I definitely wanted to give a sense of history both ancient and you know recent to the world with things like yeah the lake lawn this this city beneath the lake it was once a a thriving metropolis of a city that was essentially destroyed by this the war eternal the war between the randomers in you know it's the idea that yeah there'd have been people living in the city and then one day a bunch of gods decided to fight right above them and it just wrecked the city pushed it down into the earth and then a lake just drowned it on and the the idea was that there were many instances of that sort of thing happening all over the world so after the humans and the part and the taran were essentially created by the rand after they were uplifted into the new species there'd have been a sort of period where kind of like a golden age where you know there were new cities being built with the help of the gods and all of that but um and then it wasn't until well that that would sort of like have gone for a while but then obviously the randomers in started fighting and suddenly yeah these these cities that suddenly grown up and that were thriving that were peaceful suddenly being flattened or just destroyed or just ripped out of existence or whatever so that leaves a lot of a lot of ruins around the world and I think Esca says it in in book one that you know the world is literally full of ruins and it's all due to the water and that's also what causes such a gap in their history and they don't really truly know the history of their world because whenever there is like for history to be there civilization has to prosper for people to record history and maybe there was being done but every time such a cataclysm would occur it would wipe out the knowledge and then of course that's why these people in the world of where it's a human so to speak they have such a fragmented knowledge you know their own world and parts of the world different different cities so to speak have different maybe more because even the I mean the the warriors from the desert they mentioned like you know there there's suddenly when the desert sands shift they'll find like cities or stuff beneath so even they have like this fragmented knowledge but again nobody has thought of to pool the knowledge or at least find out what happened or they're just too busy dying or surviving so to speak. Yeah as far as most of the the people in the world are concerned they're only really concerned with the very recent history so the people on on on Asia their history only really extends back to the where there was the hundreds kingdoms that became 10 that became two that became one that became 100 again that's pretty much as far as their history is really concerned and everything else is just ancient to them. You're fine sorry for the I've got to say that cool. I know tangents are what this channel runs on but now I'm thinking perhaps we have held on to Rob for long enough so maybe one or two last questions among each of us. Me here yeah does that sound good so if you'd like take the first one and I will wrap it up. Perfect Rob you know you have mentioned so many things in this world but you know there's pretty there's pretty much things that you probably had to cut out you know what were some interesting not facto it's what facets of this world which did not you know which appeared in your brain but did not fit in the stories you had to just leave it out and of course nobody knows except you. Yeah I mean there were originally more more of the Lords of Severi I think I had nine in mind to begin with but because I've not really done anything with them too much before it came to death's beating heart I sort of like I decided to cut that down so I was going to have a couple of like titans striding through the world type thing as well but yeah it just got to the point where it's like I don't think I can really legitimately fit them into the world so if I did it would literally be oh yeah and then there was Dave oh yeah and Norbert Moone has already killed him so we don't need to worry about Dave so yeah there was there was definitely that where it was like yeah it was there was definitely going to be more Lords of Severi but I couldn't really fit them in and then there's just there's other little things especially with creating the second world with the other world as well as Severi Severi and Averis there was there were other monsters that I was originally going to sort of like have in like I was going to do more with the ghasts just sort of the ghostly type apparition type ones and the you know ghasts and geists and all these different types of monsters and I just couldn't find time for a lot of them or couldn't find space for a lot of them in the books especially where it came to okay I'm gonna have this big battle in in in death's beating heart I really needed most of the monsters to be the more physical type that could be fought rather than having you know a bunch of horrors flying about that nobody could do anything about because they're just incorporeal nightmares pretty cool stuff thank you for that yeah so you've mentioned how difficult the second book was to write for you but and how you needed to basically rewrite big chunks of it but what was the most fun not only in terms of the novels but perhaps even a favorite scene that was just pure and adulterated fun for you to sit down and get out of the way I mean there was quite a few I really enjoyed the really pulse pounding scene so I loved writing the final battle in in death's beating heart which ends up being like over 20 000 words of just like okay mayhem that was quite good I really enjoyed writing Esca's escape from Jontoro in from Cold Ash's Risen I think in in those sorts of scenes where it's very very immediate very sort of the pace of it is just rushing along and it's all very much in her head I found myself really able just to get into Esca's head and it would just flow so I always enjoyed writing those scenes massively so there was yeah the escape in from Cold Ash's Risen the moonfall in sins of the mother the the massive final battle in death's beating heart those those scenes where they became so focused in in Esca's head for me that I just inhabited her brain for a bit they were they're almost always my most fun to write because I'll sort of like I'll come to after like an evening of afternoon of writing be like oh god what time is it it absolutely shows I think because for me too as a reader those scenes were just pure shots of adrenaline yeah they were certainly meant to me there was also the fight against silver and the lessons never learned actually that was a weird one because that was okay so the way that it was originally going to be that that scene was actually going to be in book three because there was originally going to be four books and then of the original but then the original trilogy was going to be four books but then I cut basically a book out so that that was going to be like a big pivotal scene in book three but then I had to sort of like move that into book two so I had I had this idea for that scene in my head from somewhere towards the end of book one and then I wrote book two and it wasn't in the first version of book two I scrapped book two completely because it was terrible and then had to rewrite book two and then it was by the time I got to that scene I was like okay I finally get to write this scene where Eskia and Silver face off and you know Eskia essentially kills the love of her life which is obviously a major scene for Eskia it changes her completely so yeah that that was that was a scene that I wouldn't say it was exactly fun to write or anything but it was it was one that I'd had in my head for so long I was happy to finally get it on the page it definitely resonated emotionally in a very deep way as did several of the other scenes that you've mentioned but yeah being in Eskia's head for all of those you really empathize with her throughout and I think well it's a pleasure too really thank you I'm very glad uh very glad you guys both love the book so much to be honest yeah thank you very much for what has been a lovely conversation when it comes to the war eternal I personally could probably stay up for another few hours and just ask you anything off the top of my head I know that I'm already coming up with new and new questions but before we wrap up I actually wanted to ask you just two general things in the first is well a big part of being a writer is being a careful reader so what are you reading right now I'm currently reading uh the sapphire altar um which is the uh uh book two in um David Dalglish's latest season season series uh vagrant gods vagrant gods that's it I can never remember what the series is called um and uh I've also recently just got uh shadow casket which is book two in the dark warfare legacy by Chris Wooding which I'm chomping at the bit to start uh reading um and I am listening I'm listening I'm listening to book two of something as well I but I'm all about my book twos I'm listening to uh the great is it the great hunt the wild on uh book two of the wheel of time ah I think I've read your impressions of the first on twitter somewhat run just needs a fucking bitch slap that kid is so annoying like oh I've not hate the character since so much since cough see I think I think that might have to do with the fact that when I read the will of time I was 12 and so I related very hard to rant but I imagined that reading it uh in your 20s in your 30s it's uh it's a different experience than it's yeah yeah I just I hate it where there's so many things actually I hate about run but the main one at the moment is the number of times you're like I don't want this power it's like oh shut up you're the most powerful character in the world just get over it yeah it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better I know I know I've I've like I've consoled myself with the fact that I'm going to be listening to these books very staggered uh you know uh I listened to the first one like what a year and a half ago and now I'm listening to the second one and hopefully it'll be another year and a half before I get on the books very yeah is is michael cremer the editor rub or no I'm listening to the new ones with rosamund pike oh gotcha the elaine no moraine moraine sorry thank you yeah she she plays that in the series um I don't know if she's or they're planning to have her re-narrate all of them but uh those are the ones that I'm listening to mostly because I did actually check out the sample for uh the michael cremer uh and cake reading ones and they just the quality of them didn't seem up to their their usual standard especially because they're they're like very old they were recorded in the 90s so it's I've listened to several of them and they're very good readings but yeah the quality is purely you can feel its age I mean I I love them both as narrators I because I I listened to them with the brandon sanderson book so I was more than happy to listen to them but yeah the quality yeah absolutely get that and my other question is what are you working on at the moment what's next from you uh well my next release is going to be uh spire climbers which is uh book two of my titan hopper series that's which I still haven't read naughty uh no uh that that's that's coming in I think April I haven't decided fully yet but it might be April might be May that's my next release and what I'm working on at the moment is the age of the godita trilogy and its prequel series the annals of the godita trilogy I'm working on them both at the same time which is my next big chunky epic fantasy which is going to be releasing the first book's going to be releasing next year and it's sort of based in a world where uh hey apparently I have a thing as well people eating magic because people get magic uh by by eating angels um so yum yum angels to steal their immortality and and and their their their divinity basically I mean I know I would be doing it if there were an angels around so I can hardly blame them yeah uh mirror do you have any last thoughts questions no I was just gonna say uh I was I was gonna ask me you know what is what is he writing about so that just answers my question and also uh since you mentioned spire climbers yeah I believe your first book titan hoppers is in the semi-finals of the spsfc so kudos on that and all the very best congratulations I don't know when they're going to be announcing the finals but I'll keep my fingers crossed for that spsfc for those who don't know is this is like the science fiction version of the sp spfbo so or spaceball or I don't know what they call it but uh all the best to all the semi-finals but Rob I'm hoping to see what happens with titan hoppers I hope it gets into the finals because then I will be the only uh author to have a final book in the finals for both spfbo and spsfc which will be a nice little feather in my cap oh yeah that would be really cool so well fingers crossed uh hoping that does happen all right yeah and uh thank you everyone who watched up to this point uh thank you Rob for joining us thank you here for organizing this and I hope we can come back together at some point and chat about one of your many other works uh I know I will be excited to do it well there are quite a few and they're getting there are more and more of them as the years go on so I think I'm up to 18 books now across six different series that's that's solid that's massive love that love this for you very very thank you for having me on oh no thank you so much again it was a pleasure yes and uh yeah uh we'll see you next time and I'm Philip Magnus and uh yeah like share this video or maybe just go read one of Rob's books awesome bye everyone bye