Martin Frowd is the epic fantasy novelist behind the Karnos Chronicles series. Following the release of book five, Streets of Shadow, in the series, What We Reading sat down with Martin to talk about everything from spending fifteen years building its worlds and characters, the influence of Tolkien, Jordan and Kennealy-Morrison on his writing, and how Amazon has allowed him to get his books published!
Thanks for speaking with us, Martin! First off, tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the world of writing.
Thanks James for having me! I feel like I’ve been writing all my life. I’ve had an interest in storytelling, particularly in the fantasy genre, since I was a child. I spent most of my teens writing and rewriting earlier iterations of my Karnos Chronicles series, with several unsuccessful submissions to traditional publishers when I was 16-19. Fortunately unsuccessful, in hindsight, since teenage me was a much less polished writer.
I took a hiatus from writing the series for a number of years after university, channelling my creative urges more into running tabletop fantasy roleplaying campaigns and online game development in my spare time (I was an administrator and world designer on a succession of Multi-User Dungeon games or MUDs for over a decade, back when text based games still ruled the internet), but never stopped tinkering with designing my own world throughout that time. With the growing rise of indie authors publishing through Amazon, I decided aged 40 to give the actual writing another try once I had a well-developed world to use as a backdrop, and eventually published my first book, Shadow Born, in 2018 aged 44. Book 2 followed hard on its heels in 2019 because I’d written so much that I ended up splitting the first book in two.
Then along came Covid-19 and the world of work changed. Suddenly I was at home full-time rather than commuting from Kent into London every day (I’m an NHS briefings manager by day, so a lot of my day job is writing too, albeit nonfiction) and had an extra 3-4 hours each weekday at home where I would have been travelling before, so I was able to put some of that time to use for writing. I’ve never returned to being office-based since. Book 3 followed in 2020, book 4 in 2022 and book 5 earlier this year. I’m currently writing book 6 and have the series loosely planned out as eighteen books, although that may grow.
Talk to us about The Karnos Chronicles. What is it all about, and where does your inspiration come from?
The Karnos Chronicles as a whole is intended to be a multi-generational epic fantasy series, with major time-skips of about 15-20 years currently envisaged after book 12 and book 15 of 18 and smaller time-skips from a week to a couple of years each between other volumes. Although that may change as what was originally supposed to be book 1 ended up spanning the first three books!
The first generation focuses primarily on the character of Zarynn, who starts off as a young boy in a brutal nomadic tribal society. Shadow Born opens with him about to be sacrificed by the men of his own tribe to their evil god for the dual crimes of having unsanctioned magic and worshipping another god, one of good. Flashbacks reveal that his parents had also secretly worshipped that god and his magic first revealed itself when they were exposed and murdered by their own tribesfolk. But instead, he’s rescued by a mysterious foreigner with magic of his own – a necromancer, from a school for magic-users in a far land across the sea. The first three books (Shadow Born, Skull in Shadow, and Shadow’s Test, all published) chronicle Zarynn’s long and harrowing journey, much of it under pursuit, from his homeland to his new school, interwoven with him learning more about the true nature of the world and subplots involving supporting characters. Books 4 through 7, as of the current series plan (Shadow’s Trial and Streets of Shadow published, Shadow and Fang currently in draft, Shadow’s Curse still to be written), span his remaining childhood years, his training as a mage among the various culture shocks of a radically different society, and assorted adventures, all against the backdrop of a curse on the magical school that he inadvertently woke on arrival and that only he can thwart.
Books 8 through 12 will focus on Zarynn as a young adult to adult, growing ever more powerful in his magic, and how the choices he makes, or is forced to make, shape him ultimately into a villain. He’s never the only viewpoint character, however, and viewpoint characters include his friends and foes, so as to make the antagonists more fully fleshed out. This of course means that the reader is sometimes privy to new information before Zarynn and friends are.
Books 13 through 15, as currently planned, will feature Zarynn as a shadowy antagonist to a new generation of heroes, some with ties to characters from the first-generation books, who thwart his wicked plans for a time but fail to defeat him completely.
Books 16 to 18, as currently planned, will feature Zarynn openly establishing himself as a dark lord in the traditional fantasy sense, and centre around another new generation of heroes, including children of the second-generation protagonists, who do finally defeat him.
Taken together, the whole first generation is inspired by the Star Wars prequel films, with Zarynn’s rise and eventual fall into evil a kind of fantasy retelling of the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, starting off with small and localised challenges and gradually taking on a multinational and ultimately global scope. This arc as a result will gradually become darker in tone as Zarynn grows older, although some dark elements are present from the start. The very first book, Shadow Born, technically doesn’t include any characters that could really be considered “good”, with most of the adults, protagonists and antagonists alike, being varying flavours of evil or at best “neutral” in gaming terms.
The second generation concept so far is largely one of competing groups plotting against each other and fighting in the shadows of society, with neither side eager to attract the notice of the authorities or of certain powerful individuals. In some respects more like an arc of spy or heist thriller activity against a fantasy world backdrop.
The third generation concept, after Zarynn establishes himself openly as a traditional dark lord type, is more influenced by the likes of Tolkien, Robert Jordan and similar epic fantasy writers with a quest to thwart him once and for all against a backdrop of armies at war.
The aim is that each book is reasonably self-contained, telling a coherent story while also being part of a wider narrative, particularly as the series unfolds, the world presented to the reader becomes more expansive and the stakes greater. By starting with a main character from a strange and barbaric land, I can effectively introduce the reader gradually to new places, people, and things through the lens of his learning and sometimes culture shock, which is harder to do when all the viewpoint characters are native to the area and culture and much more seems normal and unremarkable to them.
My worldbuilding is influenced primarily by Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and Raymond Feist, with nods to other authors. I particularly like Jordan’s concept of misremembered or garbled history and use that here and there to slip in the odd homage to writers and artists who have inspired me and references to real-world events. Jordan of course did because his Wheel of Time world was Earth in the far future after multiple catastrophes. My world is a faraway planet, but in our far future: humans first arrived there ten thousand years prior to the period of the books as refugees, fleeing a demon invasion on twenty-third century Earth, and meeting elves, dwarves, and other races already established on their new world. Thus their remaining knowledge of the old homeworld is limited and fragmented, where it isn’t plain wrong. And they have no idea what may have become of Earth since. There are also some surviving pieces of old Earth technology scattered around, some of which are now erroneously believed to be magic (and some of which have been altered with magic). Therefore some volumes of the series have more science fantasy elements than others.
The character building owes more to Mercedes Lackey and Lilith Saintcrow, with balanced amounts of snark and angst. Even while the necromancer’s ship is still waiting for his return in Shadow Born, or fleeing back across the sea with Zarynn onboard in Skull in Shadow and Shadow’s Test, there are social and romantic subplots and plenty of cutting one-liners.
My human cultures have their differences but also some similarities, with each continent initially settled by refugees from different regions on Earth because they came through different portals. So they all started with specific twenty-third-century Earth values but have gone through the wringer of ten thousand years of wars and other societal changes since their arrival. Almost all except the barbarian tribes of Zarynn’s homeland accept or embrace LGBTQ+ people and relationships to a greater or lesser extent, but racial prejudices have been harder to fully eradicate (including some cases of fantastic racism against nonhumans or against human skin colours not found on Earth) and class systems of one kind or another exist in most places, as tend to be typical in medieval-inspired fantasy. Several key characters, including viewpoint characters, are LGBTQ+ and for the most part it isn’t seen as anything strange let alone offensive. That’s in part due to my having multiple LGBTQ+ family members and friends. As far as I’m concerned love is love, regardless of the genders involved, and I welcome the opportunity to use my writing to depict a world that reflects that.
What is the number one goal you want your work to have with readers?
Most of all I want my readers to enjoy my books, go away and tell all their friends to buy and read them too. If they identify with particular characters or situations that’s fine, but it’s not essential, especially in scenes where all the characters involved are different flavours of evil.
I try not to be overly preachy in my writing (except in dialogue, and then only where it’s appropriate to the character) but if my work makes readers think about LGBTQ+ people and how they’re just people like everyone else, or compare examples of fantastic racism with real-world racism and realise both are wrong, that’s a bonus. Since it isn’t anything weird or taboo in-universe, my LGBTQ+ characters are presented as characters first and foremost who happen to be LBGTQ+, rather than their orientation or gender identity being the most important thing about them.
What do you think makes you stand out as an author?
Perseverance. Firstly having the dedication to spend fifteen years developing the worldbuilding before writing a single page of new plot, without giving up. Secondly not resting on my laurels after Shadow Born was published but continuing to rework the second half of the original draft into a separate volume which became Skull in Shadow. Then when the latter had gone through multiple drafts and went off to my beta readers, moving straight on to starting to write book 3 while waiting for comments on book 2, rather than sitting idle for months. That discipline has really helped me.
Also having all that worldbuilding done, so the backdrop, timeline, languages, maps, etc are all already there and consistent. I want the reader to feel that the world is fully fleshed out even when they don’t see all of it immediately. To get the hint that, as with Tolkien, there’s more there to discover. Or as in Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory, the reader may only see a small part but can deduce from its existence that there must be much more below the surface, to gradually uncover.
What would you say has been your biggest success so far?
I’ve been lucky to have the support of my wife (my alpha reader, through whom everything goes first), a panel of fellow indie authors who serve as my beta readers, a handful of Facebook groups of like-minded authors, and through Twitter, access to and even sometimes support from established authors who remember what it was like to be new. Being indie, I don’t have a publisher’s marketing department behind me, so word-of-mouth recommendations of my books are always great and I’m always glad of them.
Through the Amazon dashboard, I can track where my books are selling. Unsurprisingly, since they’re written in English, they sell best in the English-speaking markets – UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. But I discovered last week that I’d made a few random sales in Germany and Spain, even though the books aren’t available in other languages. So I particularly hope my new readers in non-Anglophone countries enjoy what they’ve bought and will in turn recommend my books to others.
If you could go back in time to one book you read for the first time, what would it be and why?
I’ll have to cheat here and pick two books.
Firstly, Lord of the Rings so that I could marvel once again, aged 8, at the thoroughness of the worldbuilding (although I don’t think aged 8 I knew it had a name yet) and the coherent storyline with fresh eyes, and not be jaded by the adult realisation that, while a supreme example of worldbuilding and plot-driven story, it’s severely lacking in character development for anyone except the four hobbits compared to more modern fantasy works. (The films treat the hobbits as badly as everyone else because they omit the Scouring of the Shire where the returning hobbits have to demonstrate the skills and experiences they’ve gained during the Ring quest and the war in order to reclaim their land and people without outside help).
Secondly, Blackmantle by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison who sadly passed away in 2021. Part of her Keltiad science-fantasy series (“Celts in space”), seventh book published but second in in-universe chronology. The core of the book is the relationship and marriage between the author-insert title character, Athyn Blackmantle, and her love interest Morric, inspired by Jim Morrison (of The Doors), with whom the author had had a real-world relationship, albeit against a science-fantasy interplanetary wartime backdrop. When Morric meets an untimely death, Athyn travels into the Celtic underworld at risk of her own life to win his release and return to life. A sort of gender-flipped Orpheus story (but with a successful conclusion) but in the Celtic rather than Greek underworld, and with the world of the living being a far-future interplanetary society. When this book was released in 1997 I was already a huge fan of the Keltiad series and had recently suffered several bereavements myself (two grandparents, my first girlfriend due to leukaemia, and my best friend due to violence in pre-ceasefire Northern Ireland). I was profoundly affected by Athyn’s voyage into the underworld to bring back the dead, which I couldn’t do myself, and the beautiful prose in which the tale is written. I re-read the whole Keltiad series at least once a year and this book always moves me.
What’s one tip you would give your younger self if you had the opportunity?
Never stop writing. It’s good practice. Each draft is better than the previous one. And eventually, this company called Amazon will come along and enable authors to publish their own books directly without cost, yes, really, so be ready when it does.
And finally, what do you hope the future holds for you and your writing?
At a rate of roughly one book a year now, I’m pretty confident that I’ll finish writing the series before I die, which used to be a concern pre-Covid. So I hope people enjoy my writing. Maybe that it inspires others to write too because it’s never too late to start. And of course, because I’m human and we live in a capitalist society, I’d love to one day make enough money from sales of my books, or even TV or film adaptations – much slimmer chance but potentially fat rewards – that I could give up the day job. And have even more time to write. For most of my adult characters, I already have a suitable actor in mind. I can dream.
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Check out our interview with Joe Pranaitis
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
