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Samantha Shannon was one of the most sought-after epic fantasy authors at Celsius 232, and we sat down with her to discuss her creative process, expanding worlds backwards, her evolving relationship with long-running stories, her distinctive approach to mythmaking, and, of course, her stance on adaptations.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, this is my last day at Celsius 232 in Avilés, Asturias, Spain, and I'm here joined by Shannon, thank you so much for joining us.
You know, we've been talking fantasy, science fiction, even comics and video games with many authors, epic fantasy is your thing."
"I want to ask you, you know, traditionally epic fantasy looks to the past, so what do you say, what can you tell us The Root of Chaos say that's different in this regard?
Well, The Roots of Chaos does intentionally look to the past to some degree, so it's first of all like in terms of the history I'm using, like the first book, The Priory of the Orange Tree is what I call a gunpowder fantasy, which is like 16th, 17th century inspiration, and then the prequel is like medieval."
"So I like playing with history, I think that's a lot of fun, but with fantasy I don't have to stick exactly to it the way I would with historical fiction.
I can play with history where I want, but also move away from it when I want to.
In terms of like building on tradition with epic fantasy, I mean, again, I do intentionally try to lean into that."
"The Priory of the Orange Tree is supposed to feel like quite a classic quest fantasy in the style of something like Tolkien, you know, the quest to Mount Doom.
In my case, it's the quest to slay the dragon, which is one of the oldest narratives that we have in history, in mythology even."
"But I wanted to focus it on different people to what the epic fantasy genre has been traditionally focused on.
It's often been perceived as being quite masculine, and there are men in my books, but I really wanted to offer like a female perspective as well, and to tell the story through the female gaze, and have the idea of like one of the damsel was the one who killed the dragon rather than the knight."
"Let's talk about expanding stories backwards.
The Day of Fallen Knight, you did that.
So did it reveal something that you didn't know when you were creating the world?
Oh yeah, sure. I mean, Priory of the Orange Tree was supposed to be a standalone initially, because I have another series called The Bone Season, and I didn't want to delay The Bone Season too much."
"So I was just going to write one story, but then it was such a big story, and I had to create a thousand years or more than a thousand years of history.
So I was curious about some of the rest of the stories this world had to offer, and it seemed a bit foolish to shut that box once it was open, when there was like still so much treasure inside."
"So I decided I was going to explore this war I had mentioned in Priory, which was a war between dragons and humans called the Grief of Ages.
And I liked the challenge of that, because how do you realistically write a war between dragons and humans?
It's fairly obvious dragons are going to win."
"They can fly, they are very armored, they can breathe fire.
I liked the idea of what if they had to survive rather than fight back.
I just thought that was a really interesting premise.
And it was. I had a lot of fun writing that book."
"I actually enjoyed it even more than I enjoyed Priory.
But I think that writing prequels can be interesting, because a lot of people want me to write a sequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, but I think the sequel will be better if we know more about the past first, and the stories that the past can tell."
"I think it will offer more context and richness when I write the sequel.
And you've mentioned The Bone Season and you've been with it for a decade.
Over a decade.
How did your relationship with it change over time?
Well, I love The Bone Season."
"It's actually my favorite thing I've written.
It's like a dystopian fantasy set in a sort of alternate future about a war between gods and humans.
I love it still, but I was very young when I wrote the first one."
"I was 19.
And I feel like my writing has changed a lot since then.
So actually for the 10th anniversary, I asked my British publisher if I could revise the series and do a full edit on it."
"And I created the author's preferred text, which are basically just my...
It's like Taylor's version.
It's like Samantha's version of The Bone Season."
"The director's cut.
Yeah, the director's cut. Exactly.
Or like when they update video games so that they have remastered graphics.
It's kind of like that."
"Like a remaster.
Yeah, it's like the same story, but it's kind of just told in a slightly more updated style.
And the characterization is a bit richer."
"And I plug some little plot holes I didn't notice when I was younger.
So yeah, unfortunately the new ones are not published in Spanish.
It's just the old ones.
And normally I say to people, you read the ones with the floral covers."
"But in Spain, the floral covers are actually still the old translation.
So I'm hoping that the new translation will be done at some point.
But yeah, generally for the English version, I would prefer people to read the author's preferred text."
"I would read that one for sure.
Both The Bone Season and other of your works look tailored for adaptation.
Look very fitting, right?
Which one would you like to see adapted?
And which is the single thing you would like to see preserved in the adaptation?
Oh, that's a great question."
"Well, I mean, I would like Priory of the Orange Tree to be adapted.
That's the other one.
I don't think it will be.
The reason for that is because I think Game of Thrones happened really recently."
"That's dragons.
And then Fourth Wing is happening as well.
So I think there will probably be a slight oversaturation of dragons by that point.
I mean, maybe it will be made in the future."
"I also think it would be very, very expensive.
Like if you think about the number of dragons in Game of Thrones, there were like three.
Priory of the Orange Tree has a ton of dragons."
"Not only that, but it has wyverns and basilisks and lynnworms and like loads of other creatures.
It's got like giant mongooses.
So I think it'd be very expensive."
"Also, cynically, I say this as a gay woman.
I think Hollywood is maybe not ready to risk that much money on a movie with gay leads.
I'm just not convinced it's that progressive at this point.
So again, maybe in the future."
"I'm not saying that I never think it would get made, but I think at the moment the climate is a bit difficult, I think, for LGBTQ forward representation.
Again, maybe in TV, but definitely not film, I don't think, at this point."
"Bone Season, I would love that to be a TV show.
And I would also love it to be a video game.
I am a passionate gamer.
You kind of answered my next question."
"Continue, please.
No, I'm a passionate gamer.
So I've played games ever since I used to sit on my dad's knee when I was a kid and watch him play Tomb Raider."
"And I've always loved games.
And I can picture the Bone Season as a video game.
I have ideas for how the magic system would show up in a game and all the different mechanics that you could use."
"So I think that would be very cool.
But yeah, I'd love it to be TV.
In terms of what I'd like to be preserved, I have seen two screenplays of the Bone Season that have been made when I did sell the rights."
"One of them was for film, and one of them was like a pilot TV episode.
And there's certainly things that I notice when they've been stripped out."
"So like my main character, Paige, she's Irish.
And her Irish heritage is really important in the story.
And in one version, like her Irish heritage was really kind of stripped out."
"Or it was reduced to kind of stereotypes.
Like they gave her red hair because it's like an Irish stereotype, even though she's blonde in the book.
So I definitely would want Paige's Irish heritage and that importance to be respected if it was adapted."
"That's one of the most important things to me.
This is very interesting, because you mentioned game design things instead of narrative things about the potential video game based in the Bone Season."
"So perhaps not adapting that one.
Is that something that would interest you to create narrative that's for interactive narrative, for video games narrative that can be adapted based on players' agency?
Is that something you want to try your hand at?
I think it would be interesting."
"Yeah, I mean, I don't know if the Bone Season would be quite right for that.
Because I think it does have quite a specific story.
And it's because it has the sequels."
"If you were going to make a sequel game, I'm not sure how much choice would be reasonable in that particular story that's based on something else."
"I do really like choice-based games.
Like I enjoyed like Telltale's The Walking Dead.
I really enjoy Baldur's Gate 3.
That's like one of my favorite recent games where there's a lot of choice."
"So it'd be cool.
I just don't know if it'd necessarily be the right choice for the Bone Season specifically.
But I do think that games are really underrated as a form of narrative."
"Like when people talk about, you know, it's so hard to get people into reading, for example.
But I think if they game, like they are at least engaging with storytelling, right?
And like even if you don't have like strong agency in a game, you are still interacting with the story."
"You are moving the characters through it, choosing when to do things, when to meet objectives, when to go on a side quest.
So I think that it's kind of underrated."
"It's sometimes viewed as like, oh, a bad thing if someone games too much.
But I think it's still a way to, you know, engage with and absorb storytelling."
"Of course.
And another broader question about myth-making in your work in general.
Do you rather try to work on the events that will happen in the facts or before that on how people will react to them and remember them?
Like in terms of like how people in narrative remember these events."
"Exactly.
Well, I mean, that's the premise of the Priory of the Orange Tree in a way.
It's like one group of people thinks that the knight, the St. George figure, was the one who killed the dragon."
"And one group thinks that it was the damsel who killed the dragon.
And I thought that would be an interesting premise for like two different religions."
"I mean, that happens in real life.
I mean, if you look at the Abrahamic religions, like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, they share quite a lot of elements."
"Like they're often like there's similar stories at their roots.
Like there are figures who appear in the religions, like between the religions."
"So I was raised Christian, so I always found that really interesting.
So yeah, I do often start with what was the event.
So the event was that somebody defeated the dragon."
"And then, yeah, I think about like what would be interesting ways to react to that.
And then I had to think, how would that myth maybe be viewed by someone who lived in a completely different country and had never heard of either of these figures before."
"Interesting.
So yeah, it's like I have a lot of fun with that.
Like just thinking about stories and who is telling the stories and for what political reasons they might be changing things."
"Like that kind of thing.
All right, and finally, Celsius is also about passion and the fans and, you know, getting to know them, then getting to know you."
"So what's the sort of the feedback that you've got from them?
And what are you telling them they can expect to read from you next?
Oh, I mean, Celsius has been so passionate."
"I've just been like talking to other authors about like how engaged we found the audiences.
Because, you know, sometimes you get like an audience who might be like a little bit quiet, which is fine."
"You know, I'm British.
I'm quite reserved and shy normally.
So I fully empathize if the audience is a bit quiet and like maybe scared to ask questions."
"But I had one of my events last night and I just noticed the audience was like so engaged and so passionate and they were like laughing and like and clapping, which was really lovely."
"Like, I just felt like, you know, you have people in the audience shouting out like, yes, if they agreed with something, which I thought was really sweet."
"So, yeah, you felt like you were, you were kind of doing an event with the audience rather than to the audience, which I always really like."
"And of course, lots of people in the line, like, you know, they had artwork that they'd done based on the books.
And I always think that's, I mean, it's such an honor when your creativity sparks somebody else's creativity."
"I always think that's really cool.
So what am I doing next?
My next book is called The Moth Reborn, which is the sixth book in the Bone Season series."
"And that is coming out, The Moth Reborn.
Yeah, that's coming out in February.
Looking forward to that one.
Thank you so much for your time, Samantha."
"Enjoy your final day in Celsius.
I will. Thank you very much."
