"Creepy and hopeful and melancholic, the waystation is so well realised I can't do it justice: every single character, place and object feel infused with history and motivation. Will literally keep you guessing until the last page. Left my chest aching. Just... wow." - Kerstin V. Jene
We caught up with McNeill a few weeks ago after he sent the final manuscript for test printing. At our editor's suggestion, we met at a bar on the water's edge. McNeill is reading a well leafed paperback by Gray when we arrive.
Image courtesy of Ruby Hill.
Q: First, congratulations on The Vanishing Empire! Your third book in one year via UnderInk Press, what an accomplishment.
Oh, thanks. If you'd asked me in January if we'd end up here I would never have believed you. While all three did release this year, it's not hyperbole to say that was only due to years of preparation and a healthy dose of luck.
Q: Let's start with the title then. Maynard Trigg and The Vanishing Empire, tell us about The Vanishing Empire, what can we expect.
It's such an exciting title for me - I'm not a big marketing person, you know, my names for the first book were pretty rubbish until we settled on what we went with. The Vanishing Empire is one of those titles that I stumbled on that finds a way to summarise the whole work without saying too much.
Q: What's the book about, then? What's so exciting about the title for you?
If book one is us learning that Maynard is willing to break his own rules and steal to survive, and book two is that question of will this obsession with learning his father's secrets destroy a potential home, then book three is the culmination of that conflict in a lot of ways.
Maynard hasn't been docile since we've seen him. He's ingratiated himself in Haven, honing his thieving, and we find him balancing studies at The Crucible, maintaining his friendships, all the while moonlighting as a thief. He's found this place that makes sense, where he hands friends. A life. As much as he claims he's left the Seeker and Master Uskore and his father in the past, he can't let go.
And that inability to move on leads to some dangerous friends, and to some even larger threats to his way of living. Maybe the Crucible isn't so safe after all.
An old enemy surfaces, and he finds himself on voyage to Harfwere, a flooded mysterious waystation. None of the skills he's learned seem to help press back against the forces there, and the deep superstitions of the locals force him to take on a dangerous quest indeed.
The Vanishing Empire itself, to circle back, is woven into the rich culture of the waystation. Harfwere is the most complex and experimental place I've ever built out, and I'm beyond excited to see what readers think.
Also, this is the first sort of scary one, really. It's part horror, part political thriller, part pirate story. There's a lot here.
Q: Thinking back on it, a few of the early readers described it as a story about change, revelation, in some ways, does that resonate for you?
I'd say all stories are about change. But maybe I'd say it's about... realisation. You know it's really putting these characters that we know well in a dire situation and asking: what will they confess to save each other? What will they do for each other?
More than that, the story takes us to a place where Abbey's history and Maynard's father's history are kind of intertwined and it's about finding the truth of that. Abbey is this font of secrets. What don't we know about her.
Q: I've gathered that matters to you. We've been doing this for a few years now, and these stories keep returning to the truth of people.
That's Maynard's ultimate struggle for me. He's learning all of these skills like Detecting and stealing and what have you. These mechanisms to both interrogate and hide from reality, all the while chasing his father's deeds through time. Hoping to... construct the full picture of his father from what he's left behind.
It's an impossible thing, and that's sort of the heart of it, really. The people around him might sense it, but he doesn't know it. The other thing is his father is a small and important part of the world stage. He has this subversive proximity to these huge, mythic figures. And that's equally confronting for Maynard - it's that feeling of realising your parents are just people, too. But for him, it's also that his father was maybe deeply flawed. Or perhaps a genius on the cusp of a great discovery. Either way, it's this question of can you ever really know another person, or is there always another secret.
Maynard finds his place in The Crucible which has this apparent immunity to the white law, so what does that mean when politics arrives at the door while he's his father's son. And all of those things crash into each other in this book. We really see all of these big ideas layer on to each other.
Q: Those big ideas, can you talk about those?
Look this won't be a surprise, but the tension between the white law and those who oppose them is only increasing. The white law are a neo-liberal imagining of a subset of fascism: they're the authoritarians that have gotten good, really good at hiding their atrocities. The sky is big enough that unless you're a risk, a high priority, or in the wrong port, you wouldn't think about it.
Part of what I wanted to bring to The Vanishing Empire is the big, squinty parts of oppression that we can't quite see day to day. You know the previous two stories mythologise pirates while questioning the place of the Sons of Dale [the failed pirate revolutionaries] because Maynard hasn't quite understood the way of the world.
To that end, I really wanted to deliver on something people have been asking for since book one: this time, we open up the scope of the world a lot more. Here there be pirates, as it were.
Q: Can you say more about that then, opening up the world?
Let me try this without spoiling anything...
You're going to see locations, people, even galleons, in this book that you've been hearing about since day one. A big part of the fun there is how the reality of these things diverge from how characters talk about them, and even how Maynard's perspective colours how we understand the world.
Q: You said this is the darkest story so far. Without spoiling why, can you elaborate on what that means?
Yeah look we pick up Maynard's life a year and change after the previous book. A lot's different in his life. He's getting older. He's starting to see more of the truth of the way things work and candidly this world is pretty grim when you understand it properly.
I always wanted the world of Maynard to be built on friction. There's something really exciting about exploring the texture of things, finding those places where want and need come into relief.
Q: You mean Harfwere. I certainly noticed it felt different than the other places in the world so far. Not more science fiction, exactly, though there is certainly that, but more dynamic? The Crucible is sort of one thing. The Ferry is sort of one thing. Harfwere is expansive.
You read my mind.
Harfwere is one of the more curious places in the skies. You know we've seen Carthage, this mudder community that feels grungy, working class. Haven is kind of our middle of the road city, it's got a lot of range. All types of folk.
Harfwere is completely different. It's this waystation, disconnected from everything. The rest of the sky passes through it, ferries and galleons sure, but it's this ancient community with it's own traditions, superstitions and rules. And it's so visually distinct and bizarre that I hope people will enjoy some of the more unusual things we get to see.
Q: I completely agree - just visually Harfwere is so intriguing and alien. On that note, we were discussing this in our emails so I was hoping you would talk about what you did differently writing this book than the others.
I'll try and elaborate without blowing up anyone's spot.
The long and the short of it is this book started as a breakup book, really.
I wrote the majority of this manuscript in a NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month] in the aftermath of a few fairly messy relationships falling apart. It's a big part of what inspired the tone and focus while paying off some things I had planned from the start.
There's this strange thing that happens when relationships end where you sometimes find clarity about the nature of those relationships. Sometimes instantly, sometimes it takes years. And I wanted to channel some of that into a story, and so that's the story I ended up with.
It's a vulnerable, dark exploration of Maynard's choices and friends.
I sometimes think with breakups there's two outcomes, right. You either watch that other person go on to do something you understand. Something that makes sense. And that's comforting, in a way. Typically, if they date, you know, David 2.0, or even a generic, idealised sort of person, those things make sense. You did really know this person.
On the other hand, what if they go and do something that makes no sense. Maybe even contradicts everything you thought you knew - or hoped you knew to be true. If that's possible, then were they hiding some crucial part of themselves, and if so, why? And this book is kind of channeling that energy. Maynard is on this ill-fated journey to learn about his father, and at times it's sort of a cosmic compulsion, right? He needs to find out what happened. To close that loop and feel as if he truly did know his father but you know, he can't go back once he knows.
Q: One more thing on that then we'll switch gears. I'm putting you on a tight rope here but I want to dig into that a little more. Can you elaborate on that idea of trying to know someone - closure, I suppose - and Maynard himself?
I think of it a bit like this. Maynard is driven to find out these secrets. He will lie and steal to do so, but he feels conflicted about it almost every single time. Where this, for me, is interesting, is how he is kind of echoing his father's mistakes. George Lucas talks about Star Wars rhyming and for my money I think most series do this.
If Maynard finds out someone like... wait, I almost said the thing. If he found out someone else close to him had been hiding a tremendous secret from him, what right does he have to judge? To not forgive? That space is where I want to keep pushing the characters toward because that conflict is the experience of growing up. Of change. A million tiny revelations can feel like betrayals.
Q: "A million tiny revelations can feel like betrayals" - that's a t-shirt right there. The other piece we touched on was process, and the mythical database.
Good grief, yes, the unhinged internal wiki, as my friend calls it.
I'll give you the high level: I realised mid-developmental edit that there's too much stuff in Maynard's world to keep in my head, and there's only so many times you can re-read your own books. So I started a database - an internal wiki - of everything in the books, and everything that lives in my head. All the lore, locations, character history, references and so on.
It's currently somewhere north of five hundred thousand words and only growing.
Q: You've anticipated my next question well. A consistent theme in industry reviews is the secrets and connections that go unnoticed on a first read, do you think that's part of why the database became necessary?
Partly. The other piece is I'm driven to make this world do compelling things. I've learned so much about what stories I want to be telling in the last few years, and speculative fiction, science fantasy in particular, has such range to do things no other genre can.
There are questions raised in these books - in this book, the other two - that don't have neat, tidy answers. Sometimes what characters think about the world is plain wrong. Sometimes it's half-true. The database let me codify those ideas for proper, precise use. You can't paint a canvas without organised brushes and paints. Same deal here.
Oh, and slightly ancillary benefit, I have a few secret projects coming up that... required somewhere to centralise the world building information.
Q: Ahah, you mean the novella, don't you?
Hah! I'd ask how you know about that but I'm not sure I want to know.
Not specifically what I meant, no.
Q: Any comment on the novella then?
Mmmm no comment at this stage. This'll go at the end right?
Q: Yep.
In that case, we'll say it's a treat for reading to the end.
I'll tell you this: a manuscript exists set in the world that doesn't have Maynard Trigg in the title.
Q: Good enough for me! Actually, that reminds me, I heard some speculation that this might be the final book for Maynard.
I keep hearing that too, not true folks.
I've got a few more in the chamber! Originally I'd planned on four books in the series, but having revisited the final manuscript I've realised it would be far too long. Our printing company literally doesn't do books thick enough which was a tip off maybe it needed a rethink.
The intention at this stage, don't hold me to it, is to release book four and book five as companion books, as they really form half of one whole crescendo.
Q: That's exciting. Any final thoughts, anything you'd like to add?
I think we've covered what I'm most excited about without spoilers. I'll say this: this book owes a lot to Riddley Scott's Alien, The Book of the New Sun and the perpetual influence of Neil Gaiman and Pat Rothfuss.
Last thing here - I've never been more excited about the future of UnderInk. Becoming fully independent is a dream come true, and next year we're in the process of figuring out how to open up submissions for unsolicited manuscripts from up and coming authors. Watch this space folks.
Grab the Vanishing Empire now, exclusively on UnderInk Press →
]]>The first of three books McNeill has coming out this year through Underink, Give Up After Three is described on the dust jacket as being "about a lot of things, but mostly it's about the radicalised community that grew up around BBC's Sherlock."
Q: Okay, let's start with the obvious, why write a book about Sherlock?
Alright you be every person I pitch it to?
Q: Hah, sure.
You remember BBC's Sherlock? With Beneditch Cumberbatch and the guy from The Office?
Q: The one with Martin Freeman?
Yeah exactly. Well, basically this bizarre thing happened with the show that I haven't stopped thinking about since, well, ever. A bunch of fans online were so sure the show was good, despite it being a bit crap, they invented this conspiracy that the showrunners had a secret "final" episode they were going to release that would explain away all the plot mistakes and validate a queer relationship between Sherlock and John.
The whole thing was a bit of a farse, but as anyone who has followed me for more than five minutes will realise I have a bit of an obession with one of the co-creators, Steven Moffat.
So anyway, I'm chatting to a Star Wars buddy of mine, Darth, and we realise there's a lot of overlap in behaviour between the audiences of Sherlock historically, and the fans who interact with his Youtube content about Star Wars.
Naturally, we decided to record a year long show delving into each episode of Sherlock in release order while I read the historical blogs and content from users at the time. The notes and research from that show became the book. Was kind of always my plan.
Q: Certainly a unique way to come upon a manuscript. Is there anything from that process that really influenced the book?
You know, surprisingly, I think the biggest thing was empathy for the historical readers. They had all these goofy and bizarre fan theories and fan fiction, but doing the show and reading it along with Darth you just get the sense that these viewers want to see themselves represented.
A bunch of teenagers growing into themselves and realising their sexuality and preferences, and finding comradery in online spaces with each other.
They might've lived in places where it's not okay to be out, or even just where no one they know has similar interest. Sherlock fan spaces became communities for self-expression and growth. You know it was okay to want Sherlock to kiss John. Was encouraged. So yeah, I think the show helped me find the humanity in the analysis.
Q: On the podcast with Darth you've expressed a.. mild distaste for Sherlock. Can you express your thoughts on why you've invested so much time and creativity in a show that just doesn't do it for you?
My friend Pat described is well in a discussion we were having about Moneyball of all films, one of my top five all timers. He pointed out that I'm more interested in the abstract meaning or larger picture than I am compelled by the subject.
I care a metric ton about the original Sherlock Holmes stories, I've read them multiple times. They've informed my novels. Hell, book two [Maynard Trigg and The City of Whispers] is a murder mystery and is about "Detecting" as it's called in the story. It's a low tech version of Cumberbatch's wooshy wooshy VFX stuff.
But the show itself is like any subject for me. It's challenging and not something I'd watch in my down time, and that's part of why it was such a pleasure to work through the project. This opportunity to create something of value and substance from something I'd normally walk past.
I recognised there's something about the show that is the perfect gateway for media literacy. It's equal parts flippant and too self-serious. It felt... right as a subject.
Q: Pivoting a little, I noticed how contemporary feeling some of the posts are you include in the book. They feel like they belong under a news article on a gossip site reporting on the next season of an HBO show or some celebrity news. Despite being from 2012 they feel current? Is that something you're conscious of, how the whole fandom conspiracy theory fits fairly easily onto media cycles today?
These issues are timeless. It's a challenege of audience scale and media literacy, ultimately.
We were doing a live stream the other week, right? Literally a week ago. Talking about Star Wars stuff. And this person joins the chat and asks us to read their theory about the season finale of the show [The Mandalorian] we're talking about.
And they were saying things like "oh well it's on the top of the Star Wars" reddit and "it's gone viral, so many people think I'm right" and we're sitting there, doing our thing. We're wrapping up the show and decide to read the theory, talk about it.
It has all the same hallmarks of these Sherlock Tumblr fans. These theories that just fundamentally misunderstand how stories work and how TV gets made.
Plus all the classic radicalisation rhetoric like the imagined public, you know "if they do X the fans will..." and so on. And I sat there on the stream and basically worked through dismantling it with the same tools that I'd developed in the manuscript.
It was spooky timing, I guess but oddly validating that yes, it's more relevant than ever.
Q: Maybe it's inevitable with big media properties that have history to them. On that note, you follow a few Tumblr users throughout the book - inevitably-johnlocked and loudest-subtext-in-television, and throughout a lot of the example posts they maintain a tone of voice. Even certain phrases like "do you really think that" get repeated a lot which you call attention to. Is that sort of what you mean by hallmarks?
For sure. It varies franchise to franchise - there's that gross word again - maybe let's say it varies story to story and community to community instead.
But there's some stuff writ-large that gets wielded in these kind of thoughtless blunt implementations. It's like any time someone calls something woke or implies that wokesness is an issue with a franchise or text, saying it's "pandering" or whatever.
Even if wokeness existed, they're point ultimately is that a company thought including better diversity would make a better story or make them more sales.
Which isn't that free market economics at work? Isn't that what conversatives want? When I say hallmarks I mean that it's similar rhetoric. Similar moves. Comeplled by different motivations.
Shit, I've said it for years but it's the "I don't want politics in my stories" people who actually mean "this story has politics I disagree with" it's all the same rhetorical move. Fundamentally contradictory arguments that rely on all kinds of denial of reality.
Q: It does your head in after a while.
Which is the fun of the book, really. I get to take these big, amorphous concepts and trace them through individual users alongside the show as it plays out.
These communities normalise these opinions or rhetorical stances, however you think of them, and after a while it's like they don't hear themselves. You know these kids are analysing the importance of a candle on the set that isn't lit then connecting it to Barthes and cultural coding.
Some of it so absurd it wraps around to being endearing.
Q: Actually I wanted to ask you about that. At some point later in the book you call on how these fans approach Sherlock with similar kind of tools as radicalised folks like Flat Earthers and QAnon believers. The connection seems obvious when you lay it out in the book. You've already mentioned this on The Advisory, but I'm curious where the biggest changes are in the process of putting this book together versus the Maynard Trigg series?
Obviously the research is a huge part of it. I think I read upwards of thirty papers and more Tumblr than is probably safe for any one person.
Actually yeah that's definitely the biggest difference.
Writing fiction is very iterative with the writing then research then the editing. You chunk it into phases. "Oh this month I'm doing the structural edit" and then "cool it's time for the scene work and pacing" but the research for that is reading other fiction and looking up structures or like craft things. It's kind of utility based? I was stuck on this scene in the third Maynard Trigg book a few weeks ago and I studied a handful of chapters and TV show clips to find what I was trying to do. It's so different to the Sherlock book.
The whole time it's sitting down and going "hm, I make this claim here" and going to find support and challenges to the claim. It's a lot closer to a researched debate with yourself.
That's not an answer is it?
Q: Let me rephrase a little. You've made a name talking about stories, fair to say?
Sure.
Q: This book is a story of two people talking about stories. Are you comfortable talking about the conceptual hook?
I think it's already in the marketing somewhere so yeah absolutely.
The concept is something I came on very very early in the process. I'd read hours and hours of these Tumblr posts. Knew we were going to do the podcast and then I'd write the book. I wanted to find a way to show my appreciation for these fans and their approach to the show, so I sort of worked in this conceit I guess you'd call it.
In the book I visit Sherlock at Baker Street, and we talk through his stories, and that's what you're reading. Our discussion and synthesis. I even get to sort of pitch my own conclusion to his story.
It's fun and hopefully both proves the work of the research and shows my respect for the Tumblr users I'm referencing.
Q: On the note of fan fiction, you're somewhat known for your entry into publishing through your failed fan ficton Pokemon stories. Was that part of the motivation to write this book and tell the story of these fans?
I thought I'd get away without bringing it up, haha.
Absolutely.
It's funny, the older I get the more I love that it's part of my journey. I've been ashamed of those stories for a long time, but since I made that video in response to... was that my ex sub tweeting me? It was, right?
Q: I think so. She mentioned finding an old draft cleaning out her apartment.
That's right. Yeah, I've just started owning it.
In fact, we're launching a show soon on Black Swan Society to re-read and dissect those Pokemon books to pull out the valuable lessons and mistakes of being a young writer.
And that's kind of this Sherlock book, really.
It's the story of how a gang of nerdy, toxic teenagers has to face the music as it were. How these theories work under daylight. Where the rats run to, how they got tricked so bad, and what it means when everything falls apart.
Hopefully, it's a book you walk away from with hope for these folks.
I believe in them. Kind of the internet's shelf of misfit toys going on to lead big, fantastic lives where yeah, maybe Sherlock and John snog. What's so wrong with that?
While you wait, check out the Maynard Trigg series on sale now.
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We met David McNeill on a crisp evening in a whisky bar - an old bank they coverted a decade ago, he explains, and points to the original bat-wing doors that now decorate the wall. McNeill is nursing a tumbler of something dark, hunched over a laptop as we arrive. He's characterisically clad in a black suit, beard somewhere between trimmed and deliberately imperfect.
]]>We met David McNeill on a crisp evening in a whisky bar - a colonial bank-teller they coverted a decade ago, he explains, and points to the original bat-wing doors that now decorate the wall. McNeill is nursing a tumbler of something dark, hunched over a laptop and notepad as we arrive. He's characterisically clad in a black suit, perfectly at home against the old wood panelling and marble.
It's been a few months since Maynard Trigg and the City of Whispers released, but with lockdowns and schedules, McNeill has been hard to get a hold of. He clarifies this is no small part because he's been busy working on book three and an upcoming commitment for a side-novella.
Q: The sequel is out. A lot's happened since we last spoke. Where's your head at?
Grateful. Exhausted. Excited?
It's been a long few months in general, but I think when it comes to City of Whispers in the end that was the hardest I've ever worked to finish a novel. Not the writing itself - first drafts are relatively easy - but in shaping it up... I feel like I aged a few hundred years.
The editing process was far less intensive than the first but it took far, far longer. There was a lot more to consider.
Q: I can imagine. Last time we discussed what surprised you about writing the sequel, and I have to say, there were so many twists. I'd love to start by exploring what your thinking was behind the story. The City of Whispers is so different but somehow exactly the kind of sequel I'd have expected...
That's such a loaded question. Where to even start. The first book [The Creature Beneath The Veil] ends with Maynard and his allies on a brand new skyport. I always knew the story would end there. It felt final, but provided the perfect framing to explore what came next if I was lucky to have that opportunity.
As to why so different? I always wanted to write a book set in a school but not have it be a story about school, if that makes sense?
Q: Sure, I mean the story has this twisted Harry Potter energy.
Those ideas influenced the setting a lot, but so too some of Patrick Rothfuss' work in his Kingkiller Chronicles. The main concern for me in approaching the sequel was finding an angle that didn't feel like a rehash or only a sequel. Even though it's the second book, it's a standalone part of Maynard's narrative. Sure, like book one there's a handful of loose threads, but it's one tale: Maynard going to ground in The Crucible and learning the secrets behind the powers there.
It was especially fun putting Maynard back into a school setting after his journey on The Harmony and seeing how he's changed and matured.
Q: And he does seem visibly matured.
And we all would be if we'd experienced that kind of 'out of the frying pan into the fire' trauma.
Q: On that note, how has writing him changed? Is it challenging to evolve his voice or does that come quite naturally?
You know it's funny, I hadn't thought about that before. Maynard has such a strong voice that he really does a lot of the heavy lifting for me. I think the most challenging part is keeping his voice aligned with the internal voice of the prose.
The story is close third-person from Maynard's perspective, so sometimes what I want to tell the reader and what Maynard would actually observe or describe diverge dramatically. There's a scene early on where Maynard and Abbey are walking through Lutton, a refugee town. So much of the description there is critical for the reader's understanding of what's happened since we left the story, and important set up for what's about to occur. I agonised over that sequence for so long to find the exact sort of words Maynard would use to describe the place. He's a rich politicians son, right? But he's been through this trauma and dug in the dirt with thieves.
His diction ends up being eloquent at times, but mixed with this kind of judgemental directness that's exciting to bring to life.
Q: It's tonally different, too. Ever so slightly, leaning more into the dark fantasy elements where The Creature Beneath The Veil felt a little more steampunk, for want of a better word.
It [The City of Whispers] really is a detective story at its core. Book one has light elements of that, and certainly gets there by the end, but this one is end to end about Detectors, cold-reading and solving mysteries.
It's certainly darker and more thrilling, you never quite know what's going to happen on the next page.
Q: Which brings us to the new characters and setting. Talk to me about Master Uskore. He's such a brilliant, gigantic presence on the page. How did he come together?
Uskore is a joy to write. I think the idea came a little off the heels of Lady Sterling. She's this saccarin, two-faced politician who kind of pretends to know things and uses this to distort your perception of her.
Uskore is almost the opposite. He's this force of nature who seems to know everything somehow. You can't hide anything from him, and he has all these bizarre rules and rituals that have no underlying logic.
Unlike Lady Sterling, he's not a villain, so adding this kind of dangerous individual to the board ended up being tons of fun.
All of the characters in the Maynard series are colourful and engaging, but Master Uskore is so visually striking, it became a big focus for the description of him. In no small part because he's always picking apart other's appearence in a Sherlock-esque cold-reading thing, so it felt natural for Maynard's description to dwell on the physical.
Plus I love the idea of this mysterious, impossibly knowledgeable professor drinking what seems like one thousand proof liquor and smoking cigarillos. Gives him a real Books of Magic vibe which heavily inspired the novel.
Q: Without spoiling too much, we also get our first proper city in this book, as the title would suggest. The world really pulls back here and we see a lot more of what's going on. Reading through reviews and feedback on the first book, I noted people commenting that they've love to see more of the world. How do you balance that urge to show lots without giving away too much?
Fantastic question.
I have a sort of rule about this kind of thing. Details about the world come in three flavours usually: they're about a character's life, about the plot or world colour. If you have too much or too little of one type things can get wonky. I always think back to BBC's Sherlock and how absolutely everything ends up being about the mind-battle between Sherlock and Moriarty and it just feels... off.
Focus and essentialism is all well and good (and I do that a lot too) but it really was about breathing life into the city in a way that didn't feel convinient.
Q: And what about the characters? We learn a heck of a lot about Abbey and her life but she somehow still feels like an engima.
Abbey is the ultimate pandora's box of a human. She's done so many shady things that she never talks about, it's always a joy to reveal the pieces of her backstory.
I won't say what here, but in particular there's someone we meet from her past that reveals this whole new side of her.
Q: I know exactly who you mean - well there's actually a lot of characters from her past in Haven.
Absolutely. I once went on this trip to the home town of a girl I was seeing at the time, and every third person knew her and had some backstory or history with her. In retrospect it betrays a tendancy for meddling and selfishness, and felt so natural for Abbey to have a whole city full of dirty secrets she'd rather keep hidden.
Q: That does seem to be a theme of the series: that people are rarely honest.
I would add that perhaps adults are not to be trusted is more accurate. There are some haunting, exciting reveals in this book about Maynard's family and the Seeker and the conspiracy, but they're all devestating. Every piece of knowledge comes with another blow to Maynard's idea of the people around him.
Q: Except for Erika. She's a new character in this story, a quick, sharp tongued young chemist who seems to be Abbey's previous mentee. She has this whole story of her own happening that happens to overlap with Maynard's until she gets properly sucked in. Is it nerve-wracking introducing a character like that, especially with all the moving parts in the story already?
Completely terrifying but vital.
The story is full of people constantly betraying or tricking each other. Well, all the Maynard series are really. Erika isn't completely honest, sure, but she's direct with Maynard. They bond over their shared respect for Abbey. The balancing act there was important.
Like you said, Erika has her own life and motivation. She doesn't bump into Maynard, suddenly want to help, right? A bit like Spiggot and The Hand, she's got her own agenda, right? What's different about Erika is she really does want to help. She's one of the first people Maynard's met who actually likes him and isn't trying to extract some information or secret.
She doesn't initially care about his investigation or quest. Instead, she begins to care for him and as a result invests in the conspiracy and plot and whatnot.
Q: Shifting gears a little, let's talk bad guys. Or, the antagonists, I always feel its hard to put the baddies in Maynard into that definitive bucket.
Yeah they all sort of end up being a little more complicated.
Q: The white law have a firmer presence here in Langstaff, a decorated Officer who is on the trail of Maynard. We've also got Soot, a petty, bitter rich-kid who delights in picking on Maynard. Who was more enjoyable to write?
Another doozy. Let me think.
Well, Langstaff's arc is a treat. Without giving too much away, he starts adamant in following the rules and the white law's dictum, but as he grows more frustrated and antagonised by The Crucible, he lets his emotions dictate his behaviour. He starts to make some really questionable chocies. I loved exploring the way that corruption kind of seeps in. I don't think anyone starts out trying to be a bad guy, so growing him into a good guy making bad choice after bad choice was really rewarding.
But it's Soot. Soot's ridiculous powdered suits and high collars and hair is so much fun. There's a particular line that I remember writing with a grin on my face.
Maynard and Erika are doing something-a-rather with one of the professors, and Soot is there too. Soot is trying to act like he's ignoring them, and he's picking imagingary dirt from his fingernails, as if this rich lordling would ever get his hands dirty in the first place. Makes me smile every time.
Q: We've covered a lot of ground today, but there's one area we haven't touched on, which is the sky pirates. They're back in a kind of indirect way here, we will see more of them in the future?
I shouldn't say... I feel like saying either way might give away how this book [City of Whispers] plays out or might give away some stuff about book three for those who have finished this one.
Q: In that case, what can you tell us about book three?
If book two is about Maynard taking all the lessons from the ferry and exploring them in the new world, book three is his decisions coming to a head. It's a lot more of a horror I'd say, and darker than the other two but still fun and action-packed.
A year after the first outing in the world of skyports, pirates and schemers, the sequel is nearly here, introducing:
Maynard Trigg and The City of Whispers centers on The Crucible, a great school of alchemy and learning, and the denizens who live there. When students start to go missing, Maynard must find the culprit before the white law closes in.
Ahead of the book's release, we sat down with the author, David McNeill. We wanted to see what we can expect from the exciting sequel to Maynard Trigg and The Creature Beneath The Veil.
It's a cold June morning.
We've met David at his new apartment, and on the balcony we're a few meters away from each other (he handed us sanitizer on the way in, doing his best, he explains).
He's swallowed by a long dark coat, and he has a new ring on which he fidgets with absently as we talk. He looks out at the sky - I can imagine him with a laptop or notebook in the afternoon, writing.
Q: Alright, tell us a little bit about The City of Whispers.
Straight to it?
It's the next chapter in Maynard's journey - and really it's about seeing this person who went through so much seek out his place in the world.
For me it's really the start of Maynard finding his feet by himself, but he's still in the shadow of everything that's happened. The ferry, the Seeker, his father: his past is right behind him.
It's far more about how Maynard deals with people his own age now that's he's been forced to grow up so quickly.
Q: For all the scheming and plotting, The Creature Beneath The Veil had an ambiguous conclusion as far as it's morality - without spoiling anything, it's left fairly grey as to whether or not Maynard and co did the right thing on The Ferry. Is that something you were looking to bring out in this story?
Definitely.
If book one is about Maynard finding his own morality in a crooked world, [The City of Whispers] is about him putting that morality into practice and seeing how it shakes out.
I think that's what I'm always curious about. People build up these codes and rules for themselves overtime, and it's not until they get challenged that we realise we're so entrenched in them.
That work of self-reflection and self-criticism is how you grow up.
Q: Has that happened to you?
Oh absolutely. I was living a particular way for a long time, and I met someone very important to me, and she admired what I was doing, but...
I think of it like you decorate your house without letting anyone come in, and you live there for years, and finally you let someone in and they walk around and go "Wow, you've been living like this? Why?"
So it's a bit like that.
She changed my life by asking those questions.
Q: That sounds like you've lifted that experience directly in some ways?
It's not one to one, but yeah, I think you always draw on those experiences to create story.
Q: On that note, can we expect which favourite characters to return?
Well, we pick up pretty much where book one ends, so you'll see the trio back in action. There are some returning faces, but you'll just have to wait and see who else shows up.
Q: What are you most excited about in book 2?
There's a lot in this story - mostly it's great to expand the world, and this book takes place in a total foreign skyport.
It's all brand new to Maynard. Bringing in these elements that were touched on in book one - like The Crucible and Detectors - that was really exciting to flesh out and bring to life.
In particular, I enjoyed creating The Crucible. It's a big, messy place with lots of moving parts. I love the process of developing a place that feels real and lived in.
The people who live there aren't like the folks on The Ferry. The Ferry was this waystation, I guess. The Crucible is an institution.
It's filled with lots of secrets and history.
Q: Tell me about that. Is history something you're interested in?
I suppose. I studied a lot of modern history in high school - the world wars, dictators, that sort of thing.
I think I'm less interested in history itself than how... what am I trying to say?
Q: It's not history, exactly?
Yeah, it's the way history is kind of titrated into stories. How you can go to a place and someone can tell you all these anecdotes about how this room was built, and that time Aunt Whoever put a dent in this wall, and so on.
It's part of why I find travel less interesting when it's for a purpose - going somewhere just to see it or experience the culture is just fine, but when it comes to writing I want to understand how and why people tell stories about places.
There's this house, near when I grew up.
It's on this really expensive street that I had to walk on my way back from the pub in my later years. And all the other houses are modern, kind of air-y looking things with high rooves and that.
But this one house is red brick. There's no fence, just a brick wall, and you can't really seen into any of the windows. It's this anachronism.
I used to make up stories about the house when I was walking past as a kid - who lived there, why had the place stayed the same for so long, why hadn't they sold it for the land value, that sort of thing.
Q: Changing gears for a moment, you mentioned a few times that you listen to hip hop and rap while you write - do you find the words distracting?
Good question.
I don't think so?
I tend to listen to the same handful of albums on loop. I know most of the lyrics by heart, so it's like this pattern recognition happening in the other part of my brain, and frees my creativity up a little.
Q: Right, so the words keep your brain working without being like... another story, a TV show for instance?
Exactly!
Q: On that note, you have such a distinct voice on the page. I heard someone describe it this week as a mix between Stephen King's middle-American bluntness and Neil Gaiman's specific elegance.
I don't know about that, I would never compare myself to them.
Q: I was more thinking with your description.
Oh sure, yeah.
They're both a huge influence on my style, for sure.
Q: A lot of the reviews from the first book note how vivid and clear the description is - which is interesting given how minimalist your description is. What's your process for deciding what description to keep and what to cut?
There's a few factors that go into it.
Without getting too inside baseball, I have a few techniques that I employ: the inverted pyramid, and the red door test.
The inverted pyramid is simple. It's the basic flow of the description, where it should start broad and grow more precise. This is one of Aron's (the editor of the series) biggest tips as we work on the line by line edits.
The second is the red door test.
I don't know who came up with this - but it's an exercise when describing an object where you start with the most basic description.
"He opened a red door" right?
Then you add another detailed.
"He opened a red door by turning the silver handle."
And you keep adding detail until you end with something like: "The old man in the blue jacket, slouching, turned the handle and shoved the crimson door with chipped paint and rusted hinges until it swung open," or whatever.
Once you have every possible detail on the page, you can strike off things that are superfluous or that don't service the scene.
Eventually, you end up with something minimal includes only the detail that's needed or is effective.
It's more involved than that - I also think about who is narrating and what they would notice, how'd they'd notice it and so on. Is it significantly unique? Is it interesting? It is arresting in its specificity? Does it matter? Does it tell us something that dialogue cannot?
You ask all these questions of each piece of description.
I feel like I just kept talking there.
Q: No that was great - any tips for other writers when it comes to description you wish you knew earlier?
Oh god.
Um.
What I said before: does the description matter and what about it will the reader care about?
You have to have so much respect for your reader's attention. They're choosing to take on the words you've put on the page, so make sure that whatever those words are, they tell the best possible version of the story.
Respect, brevity, and no adverbs.
Q: What is it King says, "-LY" words are evil?
Hahah yes.
"-LY" words are evil, and should be used in limited quantities and carefully.
Q: On the writing process, you do a great job of injecting a sense of playfulness. It makes your work a joy to read - particularly in short bursts, particularly when the story gets dark or grim. What's your process for doing this?
That's a great question, for the most part it's a balancing act. The key is that the characters have to take the danger and situations they're in seriously, but that doesn't mean the book has to.
I'm a big believer in being self-aware and recognising that sometimes we get ourselves into absurd situations - Maynard definitely acknowledges this a lot, but he's never curt or surly.
Q: Do you worry about that? Coming across as too sarcastic?
Definitely.
My accent and voice sound sarcastic
Editor's Note: David talks with a certain cadence that can come across as facetious even when he's serious. We hypothesise for a moment that this is because he takes things seriously, but not himself.
Where were we?
Q: Maynard sounding too sarcastic.
It's always a concern if you go too far in one direction you can have these characters who are self-deprecating and nihilistic. And that's not super fun to read, and it can feel like a cop-out: this character knows they're reacting to an absurd situation... it takes away some of the authenticity, it's like a cheap way out.
Q: Cheap?
Sure, yeah.
Think about that person at a bar who makes fun of themselves every few sentences - it's a mechanism of insecurity I think.
As if you're saying "you can't make fun of me, I beat you to it" and that's fine in real life, but on the page that stuff is much bigger.
Louder, I guess.
I read this series of books by Brent Weeks when I was a bit younger - they're about this fantasy assassin.
There's a lot of swearing in those books, it's part of the style, yes, but I remember how large the cusses were. They sort of ate the air out of the prose. He makes it work but that's not my style.
Q: Is there anything about it writing a sequel that surprised you?
I think how much I enjoyed how different the type of story is. It's still Maynard's story and it'll feel really familiar, but the themes and ideas I got to explore are new.
It's exciting.
Where The Creature Beneath The Veil was about Maynard coming to terms with his new reality and his father's past, The City of Whispers forces Maynard to work out what he wants moving forward.
You know, he has these skills and this little bit of worldliness he's picked up on the ferry, so how does he deal with a new city and new allies and new threats.
Q: Speaking of, Maynard seems to be a character pulled in many directions internally, where did the inspiration come from?
It really comes from book one, and probably my experiences.
His father vanishes, his mother is absent, and all these new allies all want different things.
That's really the difference between being a kid and an adult - as an adult you have to manage all of these competing demands on your time and attention and skills, and where you put your energy and action eventually defines you.
It seems to me the people I admire the most have those priorities sorted out. So Maynard working through those is kind of cathartic, I guess.
Q: If only it were that easy in real life.
I'm not jealous at all!
But to answer your original point: the thing that most surprised me about writing a sequel is how many great opportunities there have been to flesh out the world-building and universe.
Q: On that note, the skyports are vivid and strange but very familiar. There's all this old world technology that's ancient, and the white law and the Detectors and so on. But it feels like the pirates are at the core of the stories, why is that?
Pirates represent an antithesis to the white law.
Most governments need a bad guy to target and other, and these pirates who lost a revolution are such a rich vein to tap - this kind of war they've been through that they all refuse to talk about is something I want to explore more.
Q: Okay, moreover, why sky pirates?
I don't know if I have a good answer to that, but I was asked this the other day.
I think it's mostly from The Edge Chronicles. I read them as a kid, and a handful of those books are, at least adjacently, about sky pirates.
But really, it was all based on this short story. I was writing in between shifts when I was a short order cook.
It wasn't much of a story - just a series of passages about this older general-type walking through a shipyard. The ships were all falling apart and ancient, and parts of the wreckage floated. I think I just really like the imagery of this debris frozen in statis, hanging there.
And then he picks a ship and has it rebuilt, and it just made sense it would be a skyship.
From there, everything sort of flowed outward.
With the second Maynard Trigg novel out very soon, we touched base with the author, David McNeill, to discuss book one spoilers, and reveal the name of the upcoming sequel. So stick around to the end for the title of book two!
"I think choosing a title is so hard, especially for a sequel. There are so many factors to consider, but we ended up with a title that tells you what the story is about, but similar to book one, it's a little mysterious as well."
This chat is full of spoilers for book one, Maynard Trigg and The Creature Beneath The Veil. Proceed with caution.
Q: How have you been? It feels like a lifetime ago when we sat down.
Good! Busy! turns out writing a sequel is an awful lot of work.
A lot of work...
Q: How has it been, the process? Different than last time?
I guess far more streamlined, but by the nature of being a sequel, the book is a lot longer. So I feel like I've achieved a lot more in a shorter space of time. Aron might disagree, hahah! But it's getting there. I'm really excited to have book two finalised, and we're so, so close now. Only a few tweaks left and then it'll be ready to see the light of day.
People keep asking when it's out, and the answer is soon... very very soon. But we'd rather it be up to our standards than just get it out the door!
Q: Okay, so let's talk book one spoilers, because that's what we're really here for. What's your favourite scene in the book, and why? You can be honest if you can't pick one.
Oh no, okay! I think I'm supposed to say it's like choosing between your favourite child, but every parent does secretly have a favourite...
I really enjoy the scenes with Spiggot and Maynard - there's an authenticity in their friendship that is undercut brilliantly by -
Wait, am I allowed to just spoil the twist?
Q: Go for it, we'll put a big warning at the top.
Okay, well, when you know Spiggot has sold Maynard out to secure The Hand, that friendship is so much more complicated. Because there is some genuine fondness between them, but undercut by the bitter-sweetness of Spiggot lying the whole time.
Plus you can revisit a lot of the scenes with Spiggot, and knowing he's lying and working with Sterling, I spent a lot of time making sure those signs are there in the subtext.
Q: You've very tactfully avoided picking a favourite.
Gun to my head?
Q: Sure.
I love the scene with Lady Sterling where she gives her villain speech. She talks about people being flowers, and it's just really sinister and was very icky to write.
"Did you know, Maynard, that there is nothing worse than a disloyal friend? A disloyal friend is not truly a friend let alone a person. Empathy, integrity, and reliability make for good friendship, Maynard. But a friend is no friend without loyalty. Without loyalty, those friends are more like flowers. They might be beneficial. Perhaps they make life easier for you. Perhaps, even, they make you happy." - Lady Sterling, Maynard Trigg and The Creature Beneath The Veil
There you go, I picked!
Q: Haha, thank you - on that note, was there a particular inspiration for Lady Sterling. She's well realised as a villain, in that the whole time, right until the last moment when she threatens to execute our heroes - she felt like she believed she was doing the right thing.
That's a huge part of making a convincing villain - but there was no specific person or character I drew on for her. She's a combination of all the politicians and people in power I've met who, through the nature of their position in life, tend toward politics of condescension.
As you said, she believes she's doing the right thing, but maybe more importantly, she believes she knows best because of her status.
So there's something kind of gross about her telling Maynard about friends and loyalty because she's speaking down to him from a position of power. That came naturally in a way, I didn't go out of my way to make her like that.
I also knew I needed a red herring villain, so the dirty, potentially brutal cop-type of Vanderbilt felt like he needed to be balanced against the opposite of that: the sweet, ideologically seductive politician who really just wants to help.
Q: Vanderbilt is really not a bad guy, is he?
He's certainly not a good dude, he drinks on the job and lets his anger at Maynard blind him.
But I agree, he's not a bad dude in the same way Sterling is.
He's actually one of my favourite characters to write - it's so fun getting into his voice and motivations. I'd love to flesh him out in future stories when it makes sense.
Q: Moving on to The Seeker - the otherworldliness of the creature is really what drives the horror around it. There's something cosmic in our lack of understanding of what this creature is. This time when I reread the story, I noticed there's a lot conflicting information and unreliable narration around The Seeker. It makes it really hard to pin down what it is and how it behaves.
Absolutely what I was going for.
The Seeker is really the physical manifestation of the unknown. As you alluded to, there's something elemental about how impossible it is to know anything this monster. What motivates it? Who controls it? Can it be hurt?
Even information we do learn in the story is contradictory. The aside story describes it as this howling bird-like thing, Hogwood talks about it as some kind of ogre-esque bird-demon, meanwhile, in real life, it's a silent, careful killer.
Q: Changing gears, when we last spoke, we discussed that book one deals a lot with isolation and trust. Does book two continue this exploration?
That's a good question - I'm always going to write about those topics, and in this world trust is always going to be a focus for Maynard.
So yes, and no.
It's also a lot more about the next stage of that. I think I ended up writing a little more about connection and trying to forge those meaningful bonds, whereas book one was really about being lied to and taken for a ride.
Q: That's just a function of where you are in your life?
All art sort of reflects where you are when you make it.
Book two is definitely representative of a different part of my life.
When I was starting on The Creature Beneath The Veil I was really trying to find my place in the world. That struggle informed a lot of the themes.
But I'm a little more grounded now, and I've firmed up a lot of moving pieces in my life, so book two is a lot more reflective of that. Without saying too much, that is. It for sure looks forward, and Maynard has to start asking himself some bigger questions about the kind of life he wants to lead.
Q: That makes sense. Is there anything you can tell us about book two?
The blurb hasn't been signed off yet, but we have settled on a title.
Q: What's that process like? I imagine trying to give something you've worked so hard on a title - a unifying identifier - would be really hard.
I think choosing a title is so hard, especially for a sequel. There are so many factors to consider, but we ended up with a title that tells you what the story is about, but similar to book one, it's a little mysterious as well.
The process is a long one, but I'm a list person.
So what I did last time (and this time) is, once we'd finished structural editing, I jotted down a list of potential titles.
You know, Maynard Trigg and The....
A list of ten or twenty, then shopped them around to my friends.
I settled on a title pretty early, and because I'm indecisive, it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I changed my mind again and we settled on the title for book two.
It was my partner, actually, who took one look at the list and went "it should be that one, the title you chose makes no sense" - and she was right. It has the mystery and wants to be read.
Q: Okay, I'll bite. Are you allowed to tell us the title?
Sure can.
Book two is called Maynard Trigg and The City of Whispers.
Q: Oh, very mysterious.
Yeah look, it has a lot of double meaning behind it from the text, same with book one. I think it's really important that the more layers you peel back, the more you start to understand those layers.
It's exciting when people finish book one, close it, read the title again and realise just how much information is loaded and layered in the title.
Hopefully book two does the same.
Q: I'm very excited to find out. Before you go, one final question: what are you most excited about in book two?
I've loved expanding this world and deepening ideas hinted at in book one. From The Crucible to Detectors to The Seeker, these are all big, complex ideas I've loved breathing more life into.
So I'm excited for people to see more of the world, and the characters who live there, and just how Maynard is going to navigate an ever-expanding cast of people who want different things from him.
Q: That and more sky pirates.
And more sky pirates!
When we arrive, The Whitlams (an Australian band who made it big in the early 2000's in Melbourne) are playing quietly from speakers we can't see and David is staring at three monitors, working on a script.
The space is neat and tidy, but the string lights and curtained walls feel homey.
He's clearly somewhere else when we arrive - he looks at the screen intently, hand on chin, but sparks to life as he notices us.
After introductions, we sit in the big, comfortable armchairs, and he perches on the edge of a chair at a table designed for podcasting.
Q: So, last time we spoke the book had just come out. Now it's out there, what's changed?
I mean, people have read it now. Which is kind of crazy, you know? I got an email the other week from someone who had just finished for a second time and they live in Portugal.
Which is wild to hear someone liked enough to go back for a second helping. But it's really cool to hear that sort of thing.
Q: That is very cool. Do you think about that a lot - people reading your work, I mean?
Yeah I guess so - because we make Art For Artists* weekly a big part of that show is looking at different ways to read media. Most of what I do for that podcast - or what I bring to it, I guess, is that I make connections between things. So we'll be talking about a movie, and I'll say to myself "oh yeah, I can see how this is touching on The Real a little, I wonder if I can bring Lacan into the discussion." And whether or not I end up going that way, I'm thinking about that every week.
So it's kind of interesting when it's your own work. Because sure, people listen to our podcast every week, but it's sort of different when it's a single, completed work divorced from you as an entertainer.
That's more vulnerable.
Q: Has anyone's response to the book surprised you then?
Maybe not surprised, exactly? The coolest thing is when someone gets it, you know?
Q: What do you mean?
Well, when they write a review or they send me a message and they've noticed the pacing or they go back through, and once they know the twist, they can see all the set up that was there all the while. The other day an old friend who I started making youtube content with got in touch and said he loved the book - that meant a whole lot.
I'm mostly grateful when someone takes the time for a reading, and they see what I was trying to do.
Q: For me, I was struck by how subtly visual the book is. It sounds simple, but it's definitely related to the pacing. It seems like you were really careful with the description to make sure there was just enough and didn't slow things down, especially at the start of the book on Carthage - how did that come about?
That stuff all comes from a lot of hard work. Which I know is super cliche but that's it. After the structural edits I spent a really long time refining the voice to make sure Maynard's voice was present throughout the story, then I paired it back a little.
When you're younger - or for me at least - I thought less linguistically - it was more semiotic and interpretative.
So having the story from Maynard's perspective had this challenge where it was all about balancing between providing enough description to make the world feel real and interesting, and not so much that you read it and go "no kid would describe an awning on a house as squalid."
But then I studied contemporary literature, so the Tolkien-esque thing of describing every possible detail isn't my style.
And especially in the edits, I was able to explain that to Aron so he really helped make sure that was happening.
Q: You mention Aron a lot when people ask about the story, is that just a function of your author/editor relationship?
I mean it could be, but also most creative projects I've done in my life are less like burning the midnight oil alone, and more like taking a bunch of people I like on a boat down some dangerous rapids - it's all still my ideas and me in charge, but you can't really do it alone.
Q: A big theme of the story is about isolation - Maynard spends a lot of the book trying to find people to trust. Is that focus a result of your experience then?
One of the tricks with writing younger characters is trying to tap into how people think they used to think - it's not enough to capture what it felt like to be fourteen, you kind of have to inhabit people's expectations of reading someone's experience at that age.
And most of my work ends up being about isolation and connection in some way. Some more explicit than others.
There's a running joke in our content that I'm a fan of stories with "Sad Dads," and that's sort of related, where, even now, I find connecting and relating to other people either super easy or super difficult. It's either instant and lasts forever for me, or it's just an anxiety nightmare.
Q: Do you relate to Maynard then?
Actually, I think I gravitate more toward Abbey and Vanderbilt. They're both adults trying to survive. There's something tragic about them that I love as well - they're both kind of bound by their beliefs, and while Abbey is highly competent and disconnected, Vanderbilt is so intensely connected he can't be competent.
So as much as that is an obvious reading to say "oh it's just the author self-inserting" Maynard and I are really different, and maybe that says something about me in and of itself. So, no, not really.
Q: That seems to go hand in hand with asking about inspiration - was there one of those "aha" inspiration moments for the book?
I've just been working on the world for so long. We're working on the second one now, well into the edits, and I had one of those moments last week where things just clicked, but I'm not sure I can remember one from book one.
I know for sure that there's a specific scene in the book that I wrote from start to finish and we changed maybe five words? It was toward the end of the edit, and we needed it rewritten, and I was just tuned in to what we were doing - plugged in or whatever. And it just super worked first time, so that sort of counts.
Q: Can you tell us what it was without spoiling the story?
It's the story within a story that we get - that aside where we learn about the world a little and the main antagonistic force - the story about Deverill.
Q: There's a decent amount of subtext in the story about politics and lying and stealing, and without naming names, the politicians in the story feel uncomfortably real - do you mistrust politics in that way, or is it just a product of the story?
I wouldn't say I don't trust politicians - I served on the Youth Electorate for my local politician. I just don't trust anyone who says they have it all figured out. When someone has a galvanised worldview that they don't budge from I just get really defensive - like, that can't be healthy?
One of the coolest things about life is learning new stuff as you go, and there's a whole group of politicians and leaders who just pretend they have it all stitched up. And I've always been wary of that, so when I was thinking about this world - and Veilmakers** especially, I wanted to communicate how convincing and sinister it can be when you're on the receiving end of that.
You have these people who all think they're the good guys doing anything they can to get to what they think is the right outcome. And then here's Maynard, a kid just trying to get by, who becomes sort of engulfed by all this ambition and conspiracy. Because that's what it felt like when I was growing up. There's like, a moment, where the curtain is pulled back and you see just how complicated and messed up the world is, and that there's no easy fix for anything.
And I guess as a result Maynard has to face that reality. He doesn't get an easy option to solve his problems, right - he's offered the choice we all are: do you take the path of least resistance or do you try to do what you think is the right thing.
He doesn't really end the story with an answer, because I don't have one. And I don't think anyone really has an answer - people who say they do are either ignorant or lying.
Q: It does feel like a story where children are treated the way it feels to be treated when you're young - a lot of characters dismiss Maynard until they need him - is that a reflection of what you see?
Absolutely. They're super smart and super switched on. They [kids] notice more than they can express, and we constantly treat young people poorly.
Q: Okay, so what's next for book two then?
Without spoiling anything... we're still in the structural editing stage, but it's an exploration of who Maynard has become at the end of this story, and how he might fit into the world now that he's leveled out a little.
We end the story with our crew on the way to The Crucible, and book two is all about that journey. It's a little more cerebral, but I think, as we work through it now, it's going to be very different from the first, but in the right way.
Regardless, it's an exploration of Maynard going from a thief into a Detector - or something like it. I'm excited to see where we end up.
*Art For Artists is a podcast David runs where each week they examine something from pop culture, and David does a deep dive of research to understand what makes the thing work, and what creators can learn from it.
**Veilmakers are a composite politician and conspirator in the Maynard Trigg world.
Q: So, the book is out, what's it like to finally be a published author?
I think everyone expects you to have a clever answer to that - like "I woke up and everything had changed" - but honestly, it's just really cool to see it out there, and to be able to hold the book.
The most interesting thing has been handing people a business card at events - you know, networking things - and the business card has author written on it and the url to the website where they can buy the book. It's somehow surreal to point people to a storefront where they can find my work.
Q: I can imagine there's a follow-up when you hand them the card and they read that, what do you usually say when they ask what the book is about?
I'm still struggling to do that without being self-conscious, but I'm getting there. The main thing I say is that it's a young adult fiction dark fantasy story - but it's character driven and really focused on delivering a punchy, compelling mystery.
Q: Is there something about those conversations that surprises you?
It didn't surprise me, but I really surprised someone yesterday. We were talking about the book, and I mentioned that it was sort of like Firefly meets Fallout meets sky pirates, and they asked how I went with the world building. Which isn't something I'd thought about in a while, because the world and concepts have been around in my head and writing for a few years.
Q: That is kind of funny. Is there anything you'd want to say to people interested in the book?
Just that I'm really proud of what we've made, and I think it's really something I would've loved to read but couldn't find elsewhere. It's got a lot of character and heart, but it's also an adventure and a mystery.
If you want to learn more about the book, you can read the first chapter for free here: https://maynardtrigg.com/pages/Book-Preview
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