Snapshot 2014: Trudi Canavan

Trudi Canavan lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has been making up stories about people and places that don’t exist for as long as she can remember. While working as a freelance illustrator and designer she wrote the bestselling Black Magician Trilogy, which was published in 2001-3 and was named an ‘Evergreen’ by The Bookseller in 2010. The Magician’s Apprentice, a prequel to the trilogy, won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2009 and the final of the sequel trilogy, The Traitor Queen, reached #1 on the UK Times Hardback bestseller list in 2011. For more info, visit www.trudicanavan.com.

The first book of your new series, Thief's Magic, came out not too long ago. It's about an industrial revolution powered by magic, which is a bit of a departure from the settings of your other books. What made you want to explore that particular setting?

At Aussicon 4 I saw a panel on exploring other potential something-punks than Steampunk and Cyberpunk. I got to thinking about what magic-punk might look like. What if magic was used instead of coal? What if it had a grimy residue like coal? Tyen's came together as a separate story, at first - a 'one day I'll write this' novel. But while hashing out the synopsis for my next series I realised it needed a second story thread, and since that was set in a multiple-world scenario I could easily add Tyen's story to it. As it turned out, the magic systems blended very well, and the two very different worlds give the setting contrast and texture.


Last year you had a Doctor Who novella come out in conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebrations, Salt of the Earth. Can you tell us how that came about? Also, did you get to choose which Doctor to write about?

When the email first turned up, on a Friday, my first reaction was doubt, because I've not written tie-in fiction and time travel and science fiction aren't what I usually write. I decided to think about it, and by the end of the weekend I had a rough plot idea and setting. The process was very different to what I'm used to, with approval processes for each stage of story development. I wound up writing a story that could use almost any doctor and companion and left it to them to decide. I was happy when they chose Jon Pertwee, though not too sure about Jo Grant as I couldn't remember much about her. So I borrowed as many dvds as I could of the third doctor's series featuring Jo, listing 'Third Doctorisms' and facts about Jo in order to get their 'voices' right.


I assume your current plans are to finish up the Millenium's Rule Trilogy, but do you have any plans beyond that? Can you tell us something about future books?

Bookwise, I'm planning to write another trilogy in the Black Magician Trilogy world. I'd also like to do a short story collection in future. And in my 'one day I'll write this' list there's a young adult horror novel that's been patiently waiting for me to find the time to write, as well.


What Australian works have you loved recently?

I gave Jane Routley some feedback on a small novel recently that was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed Alan Baxter's dark fantasy, Realmshift. I'm lucky to find the time to read 15 or so books a year, and a few of those are manuscripts, yet I keep buying books as if I read three times as fast so my to-read pile is enormous.


Have recent changes in the publishing industry influenced the way you work? What do you think you will be publishing/writing/reading in five years from now?

Actually, not much has changed in the way I work, but some things have changed in the way I interact with fans and other writers. I get my own swag printed and arrange some publicity events. I'm not going to as many conventions now, but I aim to get to a pair of Supanovas a year. Social media has taken over from blogging and forums - and I like it much better! The only way any of this has affected how I write is to make sure the first chapter of a book is a good length for a reading, and I keep an eye out for good quotes to put on bookmarks.

 ~

This interview was conducted as part of the 2014 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from 28 July to 10 August and archiving them at SF Signal. You can read interviews at:

http://tsanasreads.blogspot.se/search/label/2014snapshot (here)
http://fablecroft.com.au/tag/2014snapshot
http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com/tag/2014snapshot
http://bookonaut.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2014snapshot
http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://tansyrr.com/tansywp/tag/2014snapshot/
http://randomalex.net/tag/2014snapshot/
http://jasonnahrung.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://stephaniegunn.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://helenstubbs.wordpress.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://ventureadlaxre.wordpress.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://mayakitten.livejournal.com/tag/2014snapshot/
http://benpayne.wordpress.com/tag/2014snapshot/ 
http://www.merwood.com.au/worldsend/tag/2014snapshot
http://crankynick.livejournal.com/tag/2014snapshot

The Traitor Queen by Trudi Canavan

The Traitor Queen is the final volume in Trudi Canavan’s Traitor Spy Trilogy. I read the first two books as they came out and while I only have vague recollections about the plot of the first book, I didn’t find this to be an issue at all with picking up the story again.

The Traitor Queen is very much two story lines running parallel with little impact on each other. There are a few minor common characters — most notably Sonea, who was the main character in the Black Magician Trilogy set earlier in the same world — but for the most part the two story lines took place in different countries and didn’t intersect. I didn’t have a problem with this as I was already invested in both sets of happenings from the earlier books. I can see how others may find this more irritating, however. The two story lines did come together at the very end in terms of having related consequences on the future of the world, but otherwise weren’t very thematically linked either.

The war that takes place in the The Traitor Queen is fairly short by fantasy book standards (and by Canavan’s own past writings) but what I found interesting was that it dealt with non-combatants caught suddenly in a war zone. And not miscellaneous peasants (who always get caught in war zones in these sorts of things) but foreign diplomats who don’t necessarily have a clear “side” and who will have to deal with whichever side does win. Assuming they’re not caught in the cross-fire. Although the shortness of the war meant this wasn’t explored in a large amount of depth, I very much liked that it was included and that there were tangible consequences for the observers.

I continue to like all the characters we’re supposed to like in this series. My favourite is easily Lilia who grows quite a bit as a person throughout this book. There are few lesbian protagonists in fiction, so it’s nice to see that the number isn’t actually zero. And she gets to save the day. (Actually, given what happens in Sachaka as well as in Kyralia — where Lilia is — the Traitor Spy Trilogy is fairly heavy in empowered women, so yay.) My only objection to Lilia’s story is that I would’ve liked to see a bit more of a conclusion to her run-ins with the novice bully magician.

Canavan has left the ending open so that there might be a sequel but with all the loose ends absolutely tied up. From her website, I see that Canavan is working on something in a completely different world, so I wouldn’t be expecting more Kyralia/Sachaka/Allied Lands books soon if at all.

I recommend this series to fantasy lovers, especially those who enjoy non-medieval Europe settings. Of course, you should start from the first book in the trilogy, Ambassador’s Mission, then read the second, The Rogue, before reading The Traitor Queen. If you want the full effect, I suggest reading the Black Magician Trilogy first (The Magician’s Guild, The Novice, The High Lord) but that isn’t necessary for the Traitor Spy trilogy to make sense. Although if you’re thinking of reading the Black Magician Trilogy, Traitor Spy does contain spoilers for the ending as the consequences are important to the world building.

4 / 5 stars