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The Phoenix King with Aparna Verna
73 Plays8 days ago
We're back! For our newest episode Pete and Dan are joined by Aparna Verna, the author of the breakout fantasy novel The Phoenix King, published by Orbit. Originally Aparna was invited onto the show to talk about Neil Gaiman's 1996 hit novel and TV show Neverwhere, but in light of the recent allegations against Gaiman, we've decided not to release that episode, though we may do so in the future as events play out.
In this interview we talk to Aparna about how the Phoenix King came to be, about its evolution, its fusion of western fantasy structures and Indian mythological frameworks, and it crosses romance, adventure and fantasy to create a new angle on centuries-old storytelling conventions. We talk about Aparna's excellent social media game, one of the contributing factors to her book's success, and her successful leveraging of crowdfunding to self-publish the original novel on which The Phoenix King is based.
Aparna Verma was born in Rajasthan, India, and grew up in the United States. She graduated from Stanford University with Honors in the Arts and a B.A. in English. In 2021, she self-published The Boy with Fire, which quickly went viral on TikTok, and was later republished by Orbit Books as The Phoenix King in 2023.
When she is not writing, Aparna likes to lift heavy (arm days are her favorite), dance to Bollywood music, and find cozy cafes to read myths from ancient worlds. You can connect with Aparna on TikTok at @aparnawrites, and Twitter and Instagram at @spirited_gal.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Withdrawal Explanation
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, this is Dan from Kronscast. Bean, Pete and I are waking things up after a long layoff and we were supposed to kick off a new run of episodes with an interview with the award-winning author Aparna Varna about Neil Gaiman's 1996 book Neverwhere. However, given the serious allegations surrounding Gaiman, we've taken the group decision to pull the episode. I should add that while numerous allegations are surrounding Gaiman at the moment, no charges have yet been brought So depending on how everything plays out, we may well publish the episode in future.
Aparna Varna's Novel Success Story
00:00:33
Speaker
Here's the second half of the interview we did with Aparna, where Pete and I talk with her about her hugely successful novel, The Phoenix King, which started out as a self published book called The Boy With Fire. And it did so well largely to her use of social media that it got picked up by orbit and was turned into a trilogy. So enjoy.
Aparna's Writing Journey from Childhood
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crohn's Cast, the fantasy science fiction and horror podcast. I'm here with Pete Long, co-host, and our guest this time around is Aparna Verma, who joined us last time to talk about Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. And we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about her journey as a writer. And it's quite an interesting journey. And we're going to be talking about where her career has started from, where it's going.
00:01:37
Speaker
ah some of the influences that she's drawn on to write her novel the Phoenix King and well anywhere else ah it takes us in between. So welcome back you two. um Pete I'm going to hand straight over to you because I know that you've got something that you want to ask Perna about.
00:01:55
Speaker
Right, yeah, and it is leading on exactly from where we left off. Aparna, you were talking about where you wanted your career as a storyteller, not just a writer to go.
NaNoWriMo Impact and College Experiences
00:02:06
Speaker
um So I wanted to ask you about where it began. Yeah, well,
00:02:12
Speaker
um
00:02:14
Speaker
The, I've been writing all my life. I forgot to go from the very, very beginning. I've been writing since I was like four years old. I've always known since I was a toddler that I wanted to be a writer. I didn't quite know that the work that would have to go into it, the publishing nuances and whatnot, but I had known I'd always wanted to be a storyteller and it began, I would say my writing journey really began um When I started to do NaNoWriMo, for those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo actually stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November, which is this international movement where people write a 50,000 word novel in a month.
00:02:59
Speaker
in November. And I'd always been writing short stories before, like little stories, but it was my first time that I ever attempted to write a novel that was back in high school. I did it three times, filled all three times, never quite hit the 50,000 mark, but I loved it. You know, I loved being able to to to put an idea together and um try to create a closed story around it rather than giving up halfway. that i I always had so many unfinished projects. you know It's quite communal as well, isn't it, NaNoWriMo? There's a real sense of you know everybody's geeing themselves on, you post your little updates and saying, I've managed to get
00:03:40
Speaker
you know, 3000 words done today, like, yay, go me or only manage 300 words today. And then you feel the pressure. But yeah I managed it once. I did it once. And I thought I'm never doing that again. yeah It was too much. I did it once. And I did because a lot of people do it.
00:03:59
Speaker
um not to write a standalone novel in 50,000 words, but they just take a 50,000 word chunk of their own, of their existing work and see if, see if I can crack it. That's, that's the way that I did it. But, um, how long is, do you know how long NaNoWriMo has been going on for now? It's quite old, no isn't it? Yeah. How, uh, is, I don't know. It's a good, uh, yeah, it's, uh, since 1999.
00:04:27
Speaker
19 is really that as long as that 25 years, that's a lot of words that have been written. Yeah, yeah in that case, I think it's a wonderful movement. um And it it kind of just taught me discipline as a writer. And so going into to undergrad at Stanford, I had known right away that I was going to be an English major and the track that I chose was creative prose, rather than poetry, I did prose. um There was actually a class called novel writing where we did NaNoWriMo as a class. And there's nothing more, um I would say, invigorating for a type A straight A person than to get an A for a class to finish a book. Like that was my motivation. I was like, if I don't write a book, I'm going to fill this class. And there was nothing more motivating for me than to like, you know, being able to do the class. So I think that's a really cool idea as well to have that because it's communal anyway, but most of the times
00:05:25
Speaker
The community is online. and sir You find your people online and you you compare notes or tweets. To have an actual class. Yeah, having actual class and to yeah so go through NaNoWriMo together where you can go to the cafe or the pub afterwards and talk about it and think, you know, is this working? Is this not working? I think that's a really good idea. So it did. Yeah.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, did so did um Boy With Fire come out of that? Or is that ah or did your NaNoWriMo thing just, you you finished that and that was that? It was it was a close thing and it's never gonna see the light of day.
00:05:59
Speaker
So actually, I'm still in contact with professors who taught that class. And I actually went back to Stanford earlier this year to taught to teach that class um and do a speaking event because I actually wrote, it was called The Assassin.
COVID-19 Lockdown and Self-Publishing Journey
00:06:13
Speaker
And I wrote it for my 2016 NaNoWriMo class.
00:06:19
Speaker
Um, and I hated it. Absolutely hated it. It was like 53,000 words. It printed out, it's a box underneath my bed that I haven't opened since. Was the assassin's name Yassin, by any chance? Yes, it was. There we go. But it was called the assassin and it was wildly different than what you know the boy with fire and the phoenix king turned out to be. um But I think You know, before when I tried NaNoWriMo, it was all for like shits and giggles. Like, you know, I was like, oh, let me just do it because it's cool. um Did it for a class with other writers who were serious about writing, with professors who had published before and were serious writers. It just taught me um the the degree of what I was doing, like, you know, like the the importance of what I was doing. And I think that's what it made it really real for me. And from then I told myself, you know,
00:07:13
Speaker
I made a promise. I was like, I'm going to publish this book one day. I'm going to publish this story one day, and I'm going to do it right. you know I want to do it the right way. I want to do it with giving the time and attention that it needs. So fast forward to 2020 when I was a senior.
00:07:31
Speaker
in school at that time and everything shut down. you know are We thought we were leaving for extended spring break, jokes on us, we never came back. you know so And so ah during that time,
00:07:46
Speaker
I had this, you know, really deep self reflection, you know, I was graduating, I had this English degree. And in my mind, I, for whatever reason, kept thinking I had nothing to show for it, which isn't true. But I thought, you know, I have such a a fancy degree from a fancy elite school. And I don't have a book yet. Like, you know, what is, you know, I think that kind of made me stop kicking the can down the road of like, you look, we're stuck inside at home, there's nothing else to do. Might as well write the book.
00:08:16
Speaker
if you If you were thinking of imposing the right conditions yeah to write a book, then you couldn't do much better than lockdown, could you? I mean, I'm not advocating for lockdown before you know go down that rabbit hole. But yeah, you get if you get a lemon and you're if life throws you a lemon and you're a writer, then you're well you write lemonade, don't you? Yeah, exactly. And and I ended up drafting It was then The Boy With Fire in about four months. and And I spent the next year and a half, two years editing it. And that's when I self-published it as The Boy With Fire. um I self-published August 31st, 2021. I started talking to Orbit in november late November. That's really quick. That's very quick. It was very very quick. So yeahute I wanted to know, actually, that this is what I
00:09:09
Speaker
wanted to understand the journey from self-publishing and what type of self-publishing did you go for? And how did that lead to a conversation with Orbit? Because it's it does happen, obviously. So Andy Weir is is the poster boy for this this sort of journey. But even so, he's kind of an outlier. And I wanted given the rapidity that you went from self-publishing your first book and you go get into a big publishing house off the back of that, I wanted to know, well, the nuts and bolts of it, but also did did the self-published book translate into sales? Did you get good sales from the self-publishing book, a self-published version of Boy of Fire? Yeah. By the end, when I pulled the numbers, I made 25K.
00:10:01
Speaker
in like what, six, six months, less than six months of the board. That's fantastic. Yeah. and And it was only through, and I didn't do any Amazon ads. I didn't do any Facebook ads. I did. It was all through social media, all through Tik TOK marketing, all through maybe Instagram marketing.
00:10:17
Speaker
And that was it, you know, like I didn't do like in self-publishing world and in the indie world, you do a lot of market research for Amazon ads, for like newsletter exchanges, doing like a book bub ad or book book deal. Like those are part of the bread and butter of getting sales in indie. I just did not go down that route more so because I didn't have the time to understand and educate myself and of understand the intricacies of Amazon ads and keywords because that takes, that's an art in itself to master. yep But I knew social media. Like I knew marketing. I had been doing internships and jobs in marketing. I was like, you know, I'm going to do what I know best, which is social media marketing and use that to my advantage for the Boy With Fire. So Boy With Fire comes out August 31st, 2021.
00:11:02
Speaker
And it becomes an instant number one Amazon bestseller in its category on release day. um And it held like you get that orange banner, you know, when you become a bestseller. So that it became an Amazon bestseller, like right away on on release day, which was really exciting. um And it generated great sales through like Amazon, through Barnes and Noble, through like, what's, is it not Indigo? And I'm forgetting, I forget Ingram Sparks was that you're kind of like your distributor that you use for self publish, like it's kind of like the big one. um And when I first, let me actually let me get back to it a little bit. So in order to afford to self publish, it usually takes about 6k, a book to self publish a book with the right way, meaning that
00:11:50
Speaker
You pay for layout editors, typesetting, proofreading, cover art, cover artists, all of it, about 6K. So I had fundraised that money using, I forget the name. as it ah It was a platform similar to Kickstarter. It ah it was a crowdfunding platform. It starts with an I.
00:12:13
Speaker
um And I ended up raising maybe about 7k on that. um And it was basically me going through all my Facebook friends list and just cold email, like cold messaging everyone saying like, hey, I'm writing a book. I know we're all stuck in a pandemic. I decided to write a book. Would you be willing to donate to it? And I had no shame. Like I just emailed anyone, everyone, my professors, my friends list, I said, um you know, if whatever happens, yes, it was Indiegogo. I was like, no matter what happens, the worst thing they'll say is no
From Self-Publishing to Book Deal with Orbit
00:12:50
Speaker
and not donate money. Yeah. um So that was definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone, for sure. um How long did you how long did you run that Indiegogo campaign for? Think about a month. Oh, so not long. Yeah, yeah. But you but you but you used social media to promote the
00:13:07
Speaker
fundraising rather than promote the book itself? Yeah, mostly for the fundraising part, I used Facebook, like I i didn't do any ah Facebook and Instagram, I was i wasn't even on TikTok then, you know, um for a long time, I would I'd refuse to be on TikTok. Because I i was in that camp of like, I was always just dancing teenagers, like I can't one of my kids here, you know.
00:13:29
Speaker
um So when I was fundraising the money, I was just on Facebook, I was just on Instagram, asking friends, family, acquaintances, people, like, you know, friends of friends to to donate. And one trick that we learned is that, um that I learned was kind of like if you get, if you publish a list of your supporters saying with this many people donated,
00:13:50
Speaker
you know, money towards a campaign and you put their name in a list, it will compel even more people to donate because they want to be on that list. So as soon as you publicize, every time I will post an updated list, 10 more people would donate. And I was like, okay, I, you know, and so over time we got about $7,000.
00:14:07
Speaker
I use that money to and you know get every like get the appropriate you know help that I needed, your your developmental editor, your editor, your play out. I've looked and I've supported actually Kickstarter campaigns for for books in in the past. And what I've noticed is that the the author or the or the publisher will have a a mocked up or a one off copy of the book produced so that you can hold it in your hands, you can shoot a video and and say, look, here's my book. It's real. I did it. And then you base the campaign off of that. and Then you raise the money. So the book is already dead. Is that what you did?
00:14:47
Speaker
No, I didn't have the, book I had a manuscript and I told them this is like, and I had like mock-ups of like, it just said the boy with fire. There was no real cover. um I don't think there was a real cover. Maybe there was a cover by then. I don't know. It's been so long. It was like, you know, early 2021 or alone in 2020, it wasn't even 2021.
00:15:06
Speaker
um But I remember just making a video um for Indiegogo is saying like, this is what the book is. like And it it was it was a high price point. It was like $39 for a paperback. It was like a super high price point. Yeah. yeah Well, that's quite again, that's quite common for Kickstarter and ah campaign fundraising campaigns. But it's it's not just the book. We've had this conversation, Pete and I, with with a traditional publisher. So when we spoke with Anne Perry, who works with Quercus and Jo Fletcher books in the UK. She's American as well. ah She was saying that that one of the sub markets that is growing now is for unique versions of books which command a higher price point. yeah and So when you're saying $35, did you say?
00:15:52
Speaker
for a copy of $39 for a copy of The Boy With Fire. Yeah. So, but you're not paying, but it's not something that you could go into Barnes and Noble or Waterstones and you can pick it up off the shelf, right? It was only for the pre-order. It's like if you, ah the the the, I guess you could say the, um the enticement was if you support my Indiegogo at the $39 price point, pre-order the book, your name will be printed at acknowledgements of the book. So,
00:16:20
Speaker
And if you have the original copy of The Boy With Fire, if you're trying to acknowledge it, there's like a long list of all the supporters. And so that was like a part of it. And they got a signed copy with like special artwork and you know book merch. That was all part of you the campaign.
00:16:35
Speaker
um Yeah, but it's... yeah I love that, and I suppose that because because it was reprinted later under a different title, those original, those first editions, well, they become limited limited editions, right? Yeah. So that becomes extra special. color Yeah, people are selling them for $500. Like, I wish I could get that money. I don't know if they were selling, but I was like, wow, okay. Next time, go back in time and keep a few more roll for copies. Yeah, next time, buy all your own books.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. no So i after so ah when I self-published, so I self-published, and then, yeah, really soon Orbit started to come knocking. And it's actually a really funny story of how that came about. So i it wasn't through TikTok or Instagram. It was actually through Twitter. So on Twitter, I was like also like pushing out some of the amazing artwork I had commissioned. So I actually saved a budget of,
00:17:35
Speaker
commissioning artwork. I didn't want to use AIR ever. ah no but book And I want to commission real artists to help push out the book to create merch that will go with the book and you know, just to make it more special. And i mean that costs about $1,000, right? You know, to get a good artist who will provide you with the right proofs and in the right formats, yeah that cost about $1,000, doesn't it? Yeah. my The artist I've worked closely with, Noc Nguyen, and she um is this amazing, young Vietnamese um ah artist. And she actually did the artwork that's inside the Phoenix King now. like It's permanently inside of it. um But she was my first ever commission, and I was her first ever commission. So we like kind of grew up
00:18:18
Speaker
with our own, like we were both amateurs working together, but it it ended up working. um And I've been working with her, I commissioned so many artworks from her and she's great. And and one of those artworks, the ah art direct, no, ah the marketing director at Orbit saw it on his Twitter feed. And he sent it to my former editor, Priyanka Khushan. He sent it to her, he said, I think this is a book that will be right up your alley. Like he's like, you should look into this book.
00:18:47
Speaker
And apparently Orbit, and I'm sure other publishers may have this, but they have a running list of successful indie books that they keep an eye on because they might be ripe for acquisition later down the line. I mean, Travis Baldry, Legends and Latte, like that's another book that was self-published that Orbit bought. Or was it Orbit or Tor?
00:19:08
Speaker
i think it was all but yeah, yeah it was one of them ah like bought it and that was a big indie book, you know, and they keep tabs they're they're seeing who's coming up and Atlas six by all of the Blake, another one that was self published bought by Tor and like went off to the races. So um I had then emailed Priyanka. I didn't know that she had already seen the book, knows about the book. I decided to email her out of the blue, out of the cold. And I just said, hey, this is this book called The Boy With Fire. It's an Indian inspired fantasy, sci-fi fantasy book. I think you'll like it. And I kind of gave her, I was like, it's the first ever South Asian adult fantasy. It hit over a million views on TikTok. It was a finalist for the International Book Awards.
00:19:53
Speaker
for indie books and I kind of gave her like all the accolades I've been getting like number one Amazon bestseller and I was like I think you might it might be worth your while she actually emailed me back saying I'm currently reading the book right now she's saying I'm glad you reached out I'm already reading it let me it was like on a Friday she's like let me read it over the weekend get back to you on Monday she emails me back kind of I think no it was actually on a Tuesday she emails me back saying um But she's like, this book feels familiar um in a way that I love. And I absolutely adore Elena. And for Yassen, I want to simultaneously hug him and grab him by the shoulders and shake him. And I remember asking my friend, is that a good reaction? Like, what does this mean? Does she love the book? Does she hate the book? Is she frustrated with the book?
00:20:44
Speaker
um Turns out she loved it. like It was her thing of saying, like I love the characters. I'm connecting with them. um And she told me later on, like wink, wink, you should get an agent. you know like If you want, I can make introductions. Or if you're do you do need a list, it's like, wink, wink, you should you know go get an agent, because I'm interested. um So I decided in December and January of 2020, December 2021, January 2022, I started querying
00:21:15
Speaker
um agents but in my So you still had to go through the same process of subbing and querying? now <unk> No. So I in the subject line of every email, I said orbit editor interested.
00:21:29
Speaker
right So that puts you right ahead of the queue. The queue line, you're like, and then it's like, hey, I'm an Orbit editor. She's interested in this book. And of course, Orbit doesn't look at unagented writers. Here's the book. Would you be interested? I got i think I queried six Asians. I got five yeses out of the six. um And I ended up going with Lucian Diver. And Lucian, I was introduced through a friend who um Demianti Biswas, she actually introduced me to Lucien, who read it over the weekend by Monday was like, I'm 60% through and I want to sign you like, let's get on a call. And I ended up going to Lucien because um she's one of our big authors is NK Jemisin, who's, you know, got here.
00:22:11
Speaker
you know, writer, and I look up to Nora's books. But also, Lucianne, when I signed with her, had actually a really good list of South Asian female writers. And I was actually quite surprised because i all the other agents I queried and looked at didn't have a roster like hers. um So it made me feel like, okay, the books that I'm going to write, she will understand, or she knows how to go about them.
The Phoenix King: Book Development and Themes
00:22:34
Speaker
um So we ended up signing maybe in like February,
00:22:39
Speaker
of 2022 and then by April we had a deal with Orbit. So this is all happening super quickly. Yeah, it happened quick. And the Phoenix King, as it became retitled, that was 2023, wasn't it? Summer 2023, is that right? Yep, August 29th, 29th, yeah. And and presumably it's it's it's gone gangbusters, right? Since it's been sold by Orbit? Yeah, it's in its fourth printing now, which is really exciting.
00:23:10
Speaker
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, ah how many changes, if any, did they ask you to make? Yeah, so that's it. So they wanted to change the title um right away. I am terrible with titles, The Boy with Fire. I was OK. It was a great title. ah But they they said um it could, even though ah you know the book is adult fantasy, but they thought the title may skew it a little bit YA because it has boy in the title.
00:23:37
Speaker
So they asked, let's change it. And I love the Phoenix thing. I think it, I then made the names for the rest of the books, book two and three, and we set those in stone. So I'm excited and it all fits the theme of the trilogy. Can you tell us the names of the latter books or is that strictly under lock and keep? Not yet, unfortunately. No, we was trying to get a scoop out of the, I guess. Yeah, maybe. You do it via interpretive dance.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't work so well on a podcast. No, not that well. Yeah, so i and changes they changed the title, obviously. My editor actually asked me to um make the story longer. She wanted me to go deeper into some of the world building aspects and the backstories of the characters. So the Phoenix King actually turned out to be about 32,000 words longer than the phoenix then the boy with fire. Yeah.
00:24:32
Speaker
So we're back again we're back to gaming again, aren't we? Expanding on this ah on his TV show. So when you said when you're talking about that in everywhere, I was like, that's what happened to me. You know, I ended up expanding um the world and the book. so So tell us what was the process of what we we'll actually come on to talk about the book itself, I think, in a little bit. um But a bit I love talking about this stuff because there are so many different ways that you can get to publishing a book.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, people think it's either you sub to an agent and you get an agent or you self publish through something like Amazon or whatever. And that's it. They're your two options. But there are so many other middle ways and different ways to go around it. And so I think it's a great story and and an instructive one because A lot of our listeners are writers in some way and different stories that we get from the different guests that we've got on. ah all of the All of them have made their own, they've carved their own way into getting a book onto the market. Yeah. you know with With various, you know, different difficulties and humps in the road along the way. But they've, it just shows that you don't have to have a fixed mindset about these things. I agree. I agree. And if you if you look to the opportunities, then then they can they can reveal themselves.
00:25:46
Speaker
Um, yeah but I was going to ask, let's go back to the book itself. I was going to ask, um, the boy with fire because um i I haven't actually seen that book. I haven't been able to get a hold of a copy of that. And I probably won't be paying $500 for one. Sorry, Aparna. Not that it matters to you because you won't be getting that profit anyway. you have money Yeah, exactly. You should start. Yeah. Yeah. You'll have to start buying them up. Start. When you're writing that, um,
00:26:17
Speaker
given that you you had to expand the book when Orbit got hold of it and and they said, work with it we want more depth. yeah out was the What was the the extent to which you were going into things like world building and character and plot in The Boy With Fire? So what what are we what are we missing? and And this might be a good idea to actually give an overview of of the story of Alina, Yasmin and Leo yeah and and of the the the prophecy.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, so um in in the book, so there's three main POVs. You have Alina, you have Yasen, and you have um Leo. Alina is the heir to the throne of Robbins. She's going to become the next Phoenix King. ah Being Leo, that being Leo. Yeah, the current Phoenix King is Leo. And she, at the age of, um I think it's 25 sons, there's this tradition that the new heir, as soon as they turn 25, they have to be coordinated to become the throne. so Sorry, like old king, you can't stick around for too long. like you know like it's ah It's a strange government system, but oh I wanted to to make it that way for a certain reason. and
00:27:23
Speaker
Alina, in order to take the throne, must be able to walk the ugly butt, which means a path of fire, which includes holding fire during her coronation ceremony. And no matter how hard she tries, she's unable to wield fire, and her father, who knows the secret, is not willing to tell her it. So she is coming up against this wall of like, okay, does my father actually not want to give up his power and his throne?
00:27:47
Speaker
to me as tradition demands. Yassin is a exiled assassin. He is half-Ravani, half-Genthari. And um his his um arc in this story is that he has left his the the the criminal organization, the Orahasin,
00:28:05
Speaker
and is seeking amnesty from Robbins. And in order to get amnesty, he is willing to divulge the secrets of the Aurisen and protect Alina for her coronation, which the Aurisen have threatened to bomb and attack. And so he is he is exchanging his services to help protect her and make sure she has a safe coronation, a safe ceremony versus the against the people he used to work with.
00:28:31
Speaker
the The third and final POV is actually Leo, who is the the older king. he is And I think what's interesting in fantasy is that we don't actually get... Well, first of all, the parents are always dead in fantasy books. They are never around. And if they are around, we don't get to see inside their heads. But I wanted everyone to see what Leo was thinking. I wanted to, quote unquote, give a a voice to the villain, which I don't... you know Depending on how you see... it it's very it's ah It's quite Game of Thrones that, isn't it?
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he I don't really quite. He's very, I would say, like, what you would say morally gray. And some people might view him as a villain of the story. But I wanted to give his background and his psyche and his thoughts of like, why is he um disill like not allowing his daughter to, you know, get the power that she has been born born into and you actually see that his arc is being able to protect his kingdom. And even though his his ideals are good, his actions to uphold protecting his kingdom may not be as honorable as one might think. Yeah, yeah he's he's he has a classic case of overreaching, isn't he? so kind of like the over you said His sort of moral framework is kind of intact, but he uses it to overreach. And at the point of overreaching, actually, he he's failing the traditions that he's trying to uphold.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah. mean For me, i I ended up seeing Leo very much through Elena's eyes and the mix of both um love and a sense of betrayal and the I don't get what you're doing, but I still can't let go of wanting the approval and wanting to know. And I thought that bit was really well done. Yeah, well, thank you. that That's actually, so, Danny, you were asking about what were parts of the story that you were expanding and delving into. So Alina and Leo's relationship was one of those aspects that I think the Boy With Fire just kind of scratched at, but the Phoenix King delved deeply into.
00:30:31
Speaker
Another thing that that also was it is an addition was a subplot of the the gold caps and Alina's scheming to like overthrow her her her father's most ardent supporter so she can take the throne. and and not have them like you know stopping her. um So that was an addition in in the Phoenix King. um and And another addition I would say is um some of the like the world building aspects. So some of the information that I was saving for book two, my editor is like, you don't need to save it, add it now, like tell us now so we can understand. um So some of the
00:31:10
Speaker
I'm not quite sure specifically, but there was more of like the idea of the prophecy, the phoenix, and all the other gods that are mentioned, just giving a little bit more background of who they are, the cultures that they come from, and their significance in the current landscape of the book. Well that um sort of leads me perfectly into a question that had been in my mind. um People talk a lot about the difficulty of doing book two,
00:31:36
Speaker
um after you know you spent ages polishing book one and then all of a sudden you're on a publishing contract and book two has to come a lot faster and does that grow more difficult when all of a sudden bits from book two suddenly get shoved into book one as well Yeah, so it was definitely, I mean, I'm suffering through book two. Like, I don't know, trauma. I have, I have imagined submitting um part one of book two to my editor tomorrow, like I finished that up.
00:32:07
Speaker
Um, this weekend. And so I'm making my deadline. Thank God. Um, that's not the whole book. So I still have the rest of the book to edit, but at least I have, you know, a part one to add to my editor. Um, yeah, I would say ah book two is, is an early beast one, because now you have expectations put on you that book one, you have expectations of your editor, the readers, the agent of yourself.
00:32:33
Speaker
um And try as you might, you have all these voices, you know, like, you know, you try your best for book one, not to read criticisms, not to read reviews, not to let others like, um visions impact your original vision, but it does kind of seep in, you know, if like what they wanted to see in book two, or where they think the story is going to go, and it does kind of influence how you see the story.
00:32:55
Speaker
Um, book two is also, uh, a different beast because you have less time. Like, you know, yeah I book. Well, it's a job now, right? Isn't it? It's a job now. work It's a job added to my nine to five job. Like, you know, like it's something I have to do after work. So, um, it's book one, I had like 10 years of it just percolating in my mind and and working on it like little bit by bit versus book
Cultural Influences and Universal Themes
00:33:19
Speaker
two. I have had like two years, a little less than two years, yeah chip away at it and just, it's you know,
00:33:25
Speaker
it's um It makes it harder, but I'm super excited about how the world expands in Book 2 and how we get we dive a ah more deeply into some of the character relationships and the tug and pull of two very so in the book two two very ambitious characters who want um to take revenge for their countries.
00:33:48
Speaker
and are trying to work together. But the issue is when you put two very ambitious people together, they're going to be at each other's throats, because they see the others competition. So that's with ah and one of the central conflicts in book two are these two very powerful and um competitive characters trying to do the best they have the moral frameworks kind of like Leo, they have the moral frameworks to go about freeing their countries, but their pride their ego, their own ambition gets the better of them when they have to work together. um So and everything everything you've said about but and ah everything in in The Phoenix King, everything you've said about this the the second book that's coming along the chain as well. um When I was, I haven't quite finished The Phoenix King, I have to confess, but everything I've seen, I know ah your and you mentioned this early, you're drawing on certain
00:34:42
Speaker
aspects of Indian mythology and gods and magic and mythos. And while it's explicit, it it also feels, to me, as I was reading, it felt very familiar because it's also grounded in universal truths and things that are cross-cultural as well. So a lot of them the mythos itself seems to be, um
00:35:05
Speaker
you can you can see a sort, it would it fits in with the Western canon as well. Let's put it that way, I think. And the fact that the characters motivations, the fact that that the way that how they act, the romance, the violence, the backstabbing, the the the misuse of power, you know, from from Leo, his, like I said, his overreach, their constants, you know, and and I love the fact that even though it's, it's grounded, well, it's that the surface is the Indian
00:35:36
Speaker
um
00:35:40
Speaker
I don't want to say veneer. Veneer is the wrong word, but it has the myth ah the mythology. I'll use that again. it's actually It's actually quite universal. Is that something you're specifically aiming for in the book? Or is that just a fact that whenever we write our stories, whoever we are and the mythology or the the the the background that were that we're grounding it in and that we're basing it in, we're going to also be drawing on that universal thing naturally because well we're all people right and we all have the same loves and fears and hates and worries.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, I, I think it's a ladder. And, you know, but I think if you study mogul history in India, like, so the moguls could give Game of Thrones a run for its money, like, they were crazy,
00:36:24
Speaker
you're more ruthless. And, you know, ah so for me, when I was running the Phoenix King, what always compels me as a writer are um the people itself and how people interact with each other and and their relationships and how who they honor and who they don't and how they talk to each other and the things that they hide and don't tell each other about. I think there's so much ah material as a writer and the things that are said and the things that are unsaid. you know and And that is apparent in the way that we uphold relationships. And you know and the Phoenix King, one of the central relationships is Alina and Leo's
00:37:03
Speaker
the family bond. And I think um it was really important to me to show a father-daughter relationship because we don't really get to see that often in in fantasy, specifically in Indian fantasy, which is not like very, very little, like we barely get to see that. um And I think it's a universal experience of like being like know the eldest daughter or the only daughter and having like a protective father. I think like no matter if you're Indian, American, British, Chinese, Vietnamese, that's something that people can relate to and understand what that feels like. um of having
00:37:38
Speaker
Being able to have a vision, being ambitious, and yet having someone who's a family member who loves you and is protective of you and wants the best for you, holding you back just despite doing it in in your best interest. You know, like they think they're doing in your best interest. It's really interesting that you framed that in terms of a father-daughter relationship because I think more traditionally, more conventionally, not traditionally, conventionally you would see that framed in terms of the mother and the son. So the mother who is overprotective. Yeah. Excuse me. So the mother who's overprotective and the son is the one who wants to
00:38:14
Speaker
or embodies the adventurer going out into the world and to flip it into the father becoming a tyrant, but also taking on that sort of the yeah the negative aspect of the of the female mythos. I think it's it's it's a really, is yeah, kind of a refreshing twist. you know it It frames it differently and it shows that the pathologies that we talked about, pathologies the pathologies of the sexes in the last episode when we did Under the Skin,
00:38:41
Speaker
but the pathologies of the sexes are the pathologies of the sexes, but they're not they're not limited to to men or women. we Oh, you're back. Sorry, we lost you apparently for a second then. It was mid-flow. So, your father. so um Leo, he has what we would consider a female pathology, but it's in a man, which is absolutely true. You know, it's like in Northern Lights where the demon is the opposite sex to you because you've got both in you. And I love the way that you framed that. And Elena herself is, she has several masculine traits. and she's very she's She's quite headstrong. She's a warrior. She's an explorer. She goes off into the world and tries to to forge her own path. And as well as taking up the mantle
00:39:32
Speaker
of the father, which is traditionally and a male thing to do as well. So I love the and sort of fun you've had with that. Yeah. Pete, I think you were just about to say something. I i was i was going to remark. I know you often talk about um the Phoenix King as June meets some Avatar the Last Airbender. And I was wondering whether you'd taken any of the parent-child relationship from June into this.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, I just rewatch Dune. I watched Dune 2, like the movie. And it's funny, because so I use that. I love Dune. So good. So good. They didn't really impact the writing of The Phoenix King, even though it's comps. The comps came after I wrote the book. I did slightly wonder whether that might have been the case.
00:40:25
Speaker
that's That's just that's just how publish that's like, hello, that's yeah and getting the machine of publishing, he you know, it's like, how do you make me look familiar, take something that people love, like are familiar with and other, like, epics are similar, and then put them put them together like they, like, I would try to ask Amber to do like, I read them and watch them before reading The Phoenix King, but they weren't necessarily direct inspirations where I'm like, whatnot.
Blending Fantasy with Reality in Storytelling
00:40:48
Speaker
However, going back to, Dan, what you said about universal truths, it's something that powers all storytelling. So even Paul and Leto's relationship of the father and son and the burden of ah familial trauma, of generational trauma, of like coming and upholding um a seed of power, I think is something that you see in the Phoenix King with Leo and Alina of the burden of the throne, the burden of their family, and like the sacrifice that each family member must make as the heir.
00:41:16
Speaker
um that sort of generational trauma is something that you see in DNA, you see in the Phoenix King, because I just think that's a, it's when we talk about trauma, when we talk about generational trauma, it's something that's passed down for family member to family member. And I think it's usually placed on the eldest, you know, from from the parents, because the eldest usually is deemed the most responsible is kind of gets they have the most expectations upon them as well, right. Exactly, exactly. And that's something I think it's a apparent in most cultures, you know, it's not just Indian culture, I think it's like in an American. Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's probably fair.
00:41:55
Speaker
It's just a it's just a universal truth. And, you know, you'll see people, you know, like talking about the yeah the eldest daughter slash father relationship and how sometimes the eldest daughter, the eldest child is a replica of, you know, their parent in the best ways and in the worst ways. You know, Alina has Leo's anger. She has, you know, his stubbornness as well. or She's certainly fiery, even though it's funny, isn't it? Because she can't even though she can't hold hold the fire in in the ritual sense. You can't hold it in the rituals. and She's a fiery character. Yeah. I mean, it is is that was that intentional that you would have her just be described as fiery? So she is, she still is fire. Yeah. Fire um and the the motive for fire in in the book is the transformative power of fire. Yeah. So she literally even though she can't go through with the ritualistic like the the
00:42:50
Speaker
the codified version of transformation, she still embodies it in a different way. Yes, I think and Alina more than Leo embodies what Robbins is like she embodies what the the kingdom stands for what I think this the symbolism of fire is like fire can be and there's a lot of mythos that comes from ah from Indian mythology that you could find not just in India, but also in like Greek myths, because the Indo-Greek proto myth prototypes have traveled across the world way back in the Asian man. So um there's this the the god of fire, Agni, in Indian mythology is said to have two faces, one benign and benevolent, another one malicious. And that shows the duality of fire. Fire can be nourishing. It gives you warmth. Like if you're in a cold place, you create a fire.
00:43:40
Speaker
to to get warm, to cook food, right, to boil water so you can safely drink it. But fire can also be destructive. like you know It can destroy buildings, it can destroy forests, it can destroy homes. but you had that duality. So when I was thinking about the themes and how to make that explicit in in the characters and also in the world building, you see that through, and I think in all the characters, but specifically in Alina, her having that fiery streak of kind of that destructive bent that comes from her father in a way of ah where she kind of unleashes. And yet she also has this um kind of protective aura about her of you know wanting to,
00:44:18
Speaker
protect her kingdom and also the people she loves. like She has a really fierce, loving relationship with Ferma, her spear. And you see that kind of love transcend the page when it comes to their relationship. so And that comes from just what fire is. And so um I think there's so many ways you can play with themes and mythology beyond just world building. I think like that's what I love about writing, is like you can take something from a myth and not just take it into the you know the the the surface level this is their firepower this is how the magic system works based off of this mythology but you also do it into the psyches of the character and how these things and how they perceive the world yeah i love that i love well that's the mark of of great fantasy
00:45:02
Speaker
fiction, I think, where it's grounded in something that's really ancient, and you acknowledge that, and you're giving it a different a different veneer, a different different look, a different feel, and and well, doing what all the great fantasy pra protagonists do, which is remake the world. That's exactly what you've done. It's fantastic. One thing I love about the book is um it's a crossover novel.
00:45:29
Speaker
And you don't often see that oh yes in fantasy as well. And I love a crossover novel. It's what I prefer to read and it's what I prefer to write as well. So I love the fact that it's fantasy. It's also sort of quasi-historical. It's also SF as well, because we've got things like hoverboats and pulse guns and things like that, as well as roaring hearths in palaces and yeah and magic systems. Yeah, I love that. It's great. yeah I love, I love a good genre bending. I, you know, for me, those was are my favorite books to, to, to read as well. I think our world isn't so simple and cut and clear. Like, you know, it's not cookie cutter where our, our life itself is not, I always say, like, you know, when people ask me, he's like, why did you put sci-fi and fantasy together? Like, why create that crossover? I was like, well, that's what our world is currently.
00:46:18
Speaker
you know Yeah, absolutely. actually Old religions, and yet we're talking through, what is it, Zencaster? Yeah, I love that. yeah it love that if You're absolutely right. You've nailed it. and and and and how could it be And how could it ever be anything different? yeah It's always the same. No matter where we are in time, it would have been the same 500 years ago, and it will be the same 500 years from now.
00:46:42
Speaker
Exactly. it's we're We're always constantly living in the past and the future and our current
Conclusion and Book Recommendations
00:46:47
Speaker
present. and that's I just made that explicit in the Phoenix King. It's part of our natural truth now. I just made it more fantastical in the Phoenix King. I love that. yeah yeah and We probably probably need to wrap up soon. Is there anything else, Pete, you wanted to ask about Phoenix King? um I think i we've covered most of the good stuff. We've covered all... well it's It's mostly good stuff, isn't it?
00:47:12
Speaker
I mean, if we've missed some of the good stuff, that just means there's always grounds for Perna coming back. Yeah, well, you know, book two, definite which has been heavily, heavily dropped during this conversation, but you haven't given us a title. Yeah. both and You'll have to come back and when book two is out, can you at least give us a date? Well, it's not a date, but it's August 2025.
00:47:38
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. we We can live with that. All right then, before we wrap up, before we wrap up, we've got a couple of questions that we usually ask our guests. And the first one is, what are you reading at the moment? And two, could you give us a recommendation? So something that our listeners might not have heard of before, but you think it's utterly outstanding and that they must go out and buy it.
00:47:59
Speaker
Oh, I currently reading Leigh Bardugo's new book, The Familiar, ah which just came out last week. And it's an amazing premise. It's about um a it's it's actually based off our family history. So during the Spanish Inquisition,
00:48:17
Speaker
um part, like anyone who wasn't non-Christian were either forced to leave or forced to convert. And part of Leigh Bardugo's family converted for from Judaism to Christianity and some left. So this is her exploring her family history through a fantastical lens and bent. I'm only like 10 pages in and I already love it. So I'm like kindm excited to you to keep reading. A book to ah a recommendation. um Your listeners may not have heard of.
00:48:48
Speaker
Well, I think this book has, what's it called? I have to look at my bookshelf. It's called The Jin. Wait, ah hundred no, no wait it's 100 years. No, no, no. It's the one that just came out. um by a debut writer uh shoot i'm forgetting it's name actually do you mind giving me a second it's all my bookshelf i'm gonna go grab it is that okay the jinn waits a hundred years no no no it's it's something you won't wait a hundred years i'll be right back yeah yeah the perils of live podcasting hey i thought she was gonna say the jinn waits a hundred years but no the jinn oh
00:49:31
Speaker
I want to see if I can guess it before she gets back. Wait, actually you were right. It is a Jin Wei. It's a hundred years. Shouldn't have come. Right. Okay. Yeah. So this came out maybe a couple months ago. So it's January 9th here. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a new book. She is a, this is her debut book. She's a South African author.
00:49:56
Speaker
and And it's set in South Africa. And it's set in this, it's almost like this a fantastical gothic version where there's this old crumbling house like as, you know, as you see in both gothic fish fiction, but there's a jinn that lives in it.
00:50:16
Speaker
And the Jin has been haunting this this crumbling how house in and south and South Africa. And the protagonist is a a young girl who never has had a real home, is always jumping from place to place, and um finds the Jin and uncovers some of the secrets behind the house. And i ah it's it's just such a, it's well-written,
00:50:41
Speaker
I love a good gothic book that just twists things from what you would expect. So it sounds like a a real sort of gothic ghost story. Sounds like Brother Bean would, that would be right up his alley, wouldn't it Pete? Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to mention that. Yeah, The Gin Weights, A Hundred Years by Shubhan Khan.
00:51:01
Speaker
that us That's a great recommendation. OK, well, I think we're going to wrap it up now. We're about at time. Aparna, it's been wonderful to speak to you. It's been so much fun and instructive and just lovely all round, really. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. No, you're very welcome. And hopefully we'll have you back one day as well. Yes. For book two, I'll be back. Book two. Book two. OK, awesome. OK. Lovely to have you on again. And yeah, see you soon. See you guys. See you.
00:51:44
Speaker
This episode of Crohn's Cast was brought to you by Dan Jones, Pete Long and our special guest, you for listening. Join us next time when we talk to Richard