Today we’ve been given the opportunity to interview author Tim Akers who has recently released The Pagan Night (The Hallowed War #1) through Titan Books. It is his fourth book to be published and gives us a fantasy world being torn apart by the very Gods that the populace worships.
Hellnotes (HN): Tim, thanks for taking time to join us today. First if you could share a bit about Pagan Night for those who are interested in checking it out?
Tim Akers (TA): Gleefully. The Pagan Night is an epic fantasy about feral gods, vengeful inquisitors, political machinations and the troubles they create. It follows the adventures of Malcolm Blakley and his son Ian as they try to maneuver through the increasingly dangerous political waters of the Celestial Church. The other main character is Gwendolyn Adair, a young girl who has been entrusted with the role of huntress for her family, charged with keeping the mad gods that roam the forests away from the villages, all while holding her family’s secret worship of those same gods hidden from the inquisition.
HN: As this is the first installment of “The Hallowed War,” I have to ask: how many we can expect to see and, without spoilers, what we can expect in the future?
TA: It’s a trilogy, with each book coming a year apart. We have The Pagan Night in 2016, with The Iron Hound in 2017 and The Winter Vow in 2018. With each installment the stakes will get raised and the scale of the conflict widened. The series is essentially about the collapse of order and the sort of heroic things individuals have to do to survive in that environment. All such collapses start with small things, which trigger bigger things, which eventually lead to even bigger things. In The Pagan Night, the trigger is a single act of protest by some angry farmers. Matters get quickly out of hand after that.
HN: What real life experiences have you drawn upon for writing The Pagan Night?
TA: One of the tricks of fantasy is that you have to find some way of grounding the narrative in the real world. I don’t know anything about surviving a pogrom from the inquisition, or hunting mad gods in the primeval forests of the middle ages. But I know a lot about religion, and I understand character. Most of the character motivations in The Pagan Night come from tensions between cultures and families. I spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between culture and religion, and went through my own process of leaving the church of my birth behind, mostly because it no longer seemed to line up with my understanding of the faith.
HN: If you had the opportunity to co-write something with another author, who would it be, what would it be about, and why?
TA: I honestly have no interest in co-writing. I’ve worked in other people’s playgrounds before, and I always find it very limiting. Part of the joy of writing for me comes in world creation. Maybe I’m just too much of a hermit to really enjoy the process, but writing with someone else sounds terrible.
HN: Outside of writing what are your interests?
TA: I’m a gamer. I play a bunch of different tabletop games, from Warmachine to Infinity to Battletech. I have a monthly D&D game that was originally my wife’s group, going back to college. I also play WoW, Civ V, Pike and Shot… lots of different stuff. I enjoy painting miniatures and assembling models, though I do less of that than I’d like. And of course I read SO MUCH.
HN: What has influenced your work that your readers might not expect?
TA: PG Wodehouse. My dad used to read Wodehouse to me, even as late as high school. It was something we did together. Wodehouse had a great sense of the comedically absurd that I try to incorporate into my writing. Even in something as dark as The Pagan Night, there needs to be some levity.
HN: Some of your work has a darker twist to it, do you go into the writing planning on having aspects of suspense and horror or do they just work themselves into the plot?
TA: The suspense I plan. I’m pretty careful about pacing and action, especially in something as long and involved as The Pagan Night. The revision process for me is largely making sure I have the timing and suspense right. As far as the darkness goes… that’s just how my mind works. I’ve tried writing more mundane narratives in the past and it never goes well. Weird things live in my head. I write to give them a place to live, and because I think they’re interesting.
HN: As a fellow Chicagoan do you feel that living in The Windy City has influenced your writing and if so how?
TA: The weather certainly influences my writing quite a bit. One of the aspects of the Celestial Church is Cinder, gray lord of winter, and the long months and violent cold of this region drive his character. There’s nothing like a blizzard along the lake to inspire an angry god.
HN: What can we expect next from your writing?
TA: I have a lot of stuff that I’m working on, but there’s no telling which project will get in front of readers first. I have the Hallowed War to finish, of course. I’m working on a series of stories about mages working espionage during the Second World War. There are notes on fantasy world where the planet has stopped rotating, so the same areas are permanently in spring, summer, winter and fall. I have an entire book written about an assassin with a wraith bound to his soul, but that one requires a lot of revision. Who knows what will come out first.
HN: Is there anything that you’d like to share with our readers?
TA: I grew up in a really small town. It’s was culturally very homogenous, and there weren’t a lot of fans of fantasy, or science fiction, or gaming. In that environment, I learned to get along with people very well. To find common interests and focus on those, and learn to get past the areas where we didn’t agree, whether those were religious differences, or cultural, or whatever. There’s a lot of angry stuff going on in science fiction and fantasy right now, and it tears me up. I would ask your readers to find their common interests, and learn to be friends in spite of their differences. Don’t tear anyone else down for what they like or who they are, and don’t let someone else tear you down because of what you like, or who you are. Let’s be known for our accomplishments, rather than our weaknesses.
