The Game Of Thrones and the Wars of the Roses. They both sound like epic fantasies, but only one of them is one. The other was a real historic event during the 15th century England. They both have rivaling Great Houses, a useless king and plenty of drawn-out-wars and race for the crown. George R.R Martin has stated frequently that he used Wars of the Roses as an influence and a good thing so; it’s a great setting. Now mind you, he didn’t copy the historical events, he just took some of the juicy parts, mixed them around a little and made them even better. He managed to make something unique enough to excite fans for over ten years (first GoT novel published in 1996) in both prose and as television-media and I for one can’t wait for the next book to come out. Eventually.

I just started reading a book from Allison Weir about the Wars of the Roses and I can recommend this to all the history fans in the crowd. I have this problem of getting new books before I come even close to clearing my reading backlog. As a problem, it’s really a pretty good one to have.

I love it when authors use history as a basis for a new story. I recurrently see the use of the Roman empire as a stereotype for evil empires and Vikings for noble, yet fierce northern cultures (Skyrim anyone?). It’s a pretty convenient strategy to imply a wider culture and like any great idea it’s basically just taking a cliché and reinventing it in an interesting way. Fantasy authors are not alone here: just as many Sci-fi authors use our current political climate, nations and inventions – our modern history – to inspire their plots and world building.

Speaking of history, couple of years ago I read 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. It is a book by Gavin Menzies that argued that China discovered the America. Never mind if it’s true or not, the whole concept of it is intriguing enough and I keep wondering what the world would look like if China had actively colonized America before the Europeans arrived.

All the speculative pseudo-history stuff just makes my brain tickle. I guess I’m just a “what-if” kind of guy. I’ve been asked a few times what the inspiration was behind Run Freak Run and I’ve always ended up giving this really big talk on having the ability to do what ever we want with it and it being inspiration enough for a lifetime. But in reality, I probably just wanted to see what if witches were real and Inquisitors were girls and what if the world never lost it’s magic.

Speaking of magic, here’s some magical sketches for pages from Kaija that we haven’t posted here yet. They are, once again for an upcoming chapter that has more (winged) animals than any other Run Freak Run chapter and I can’t wait for you to get to read them.

Love always,
Silver