Jon Courtenay Grimwood has this blog posting on the Orbit publishing site, with lots of glorious photos of Venice, and some discussion of what he was trying to accomplish with The Fallen Blade. Here’s a quote:
“My favourite mention of The Fallen Blade so far calls it, ‘Two books occupying the same page space.’ And describes those as, ‘An adventure fantasy with a smidgeon of romance, great hordes of vampires and werewolves and, of course, plenty of swordplay.’ Mixed with, ‘A fantastic evocation of Renaissance Venice… the beauty of the culture it gave birth to and the merciless, brutally violent and Machiavellian politics that ran alongside it.’ [Guardian, UK]
My favourite, simply because that’s *precisely* what I was aiming to do.
When a reader commented on Facebook that the only thing the review missed was the, ‘Shakespeare casserole… delicious, and not too filling,’ it was time to crack open a cold beer. Because riffing off the first half of Othello was part of the fun. And I’m already enjoying myself riffing off the second half (and the first half of Hamlet) in the second book, which I’m now editing.”
The reader who commented on Facebook–that was me!
He talks about what he is trying to do with these stories, and about Venice. Then there are some wonderful pictures. Please go check it out yourself.