Losing the (Historical) Plot – Katherine Roberts

Eowyn in the film version of "Lord of the Rings"

History gives us traditions, which provide a strong foundation for our society. But eventually tradition becomes unwieldy, society moves on, and things need to be changed.

After an attempt at allowing women bishops, the latest in the firing line is the royal succession law. In the old tradition, a younger male child could inherit the throne ahead of his older sister. The change to the law gives girls and boys an equal claim to the thone, so that the firstborn child inherits ahead of any younger sibling, no matter what gender. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge William and Kate’s baby will therefore be born into a very different world... boy or girl, their child will take his or her rightful place third in line to the throne. (Unless Kate has twins, of course, when I guess things could get a bit more complicated!)

This got me thinking how many executions, wars, and heartache might have been avoided if someone had only thought of changing this law a few hundred years ago. Would Henry VIII have been so hung up about getting a male heir that he saw fit to execute so many of his wives, if a girl could have lawfully inherited? He might have relaxed a bit instead of developing an eating disorder and a morbid fascination with beheadings.

Even my own Pendragon Legacy series, while based on legend and rather than real history, has a central plot that hinges upon the old royal succession law. To provide a strong motivation for my characters, I tweaked Malory’s family tree a bit so that Arthur becomes King of Camelot ahead of his older sister Morgan Le Fay (Arthur's half sister in Malory), who feels she has been hard done by and uses her witchy wiles to snatch the throne back for her son Mordred (a nephew in Malory’s version). Cue magic and mayhem, hundreds of books, and a TV series or two. With the recent change to the succession law, however, Morgan Le Fay might have inherited the throne, in one sweep turning Arthur and his daughter into the villains of the story, and the brilliant hook my publishers came up with:

Introducing Rhianna Pendragon, Arthur’s secret daughter and Camelot’s last hope.

would need to be rewritten as:

Introducing Rhianna Pendragon, Arthur’s villainous daughter and Camelot’s darkest enemy.

Doesn't have quite the same ring, does it? Morgan Le Fay thus becomes the wronged heroine, her actions and Mordred's (while still as nasty as ever) at least justified in the reader’s mind.

Of course you might argue it’s not that simple, and heroines/villainesses are born not made. But often it’s unfairness and persecution that provides the hook for the greatest stories – and historically women seem to have had more than their fair share of unfairness and persecution. Maybe that's why women have such an affinity for historical fiction, because we can identify so closely with the heroines? Much of history is about wars and battle, and girls have had to struggle for their place in it... but thanks to the change in the succession law if Kate has a little girl next year, she's unlikely to have to fight as hard as Eowyn above!

History Girl challenge:

Can you think of a famous historical epic that would lose its plot, if the succession law had been changed during its period?

***

Katherine Roberts is the author of the Pendragon Legacy series for young readers.

Book 1: Sword of Light is now available in hardcover, paperback and ebook.

Book 2: Lance of Truth is available in hardcover.

Book 3: Crown of Dreams will be published in February 2013

Book 4: Grail of Stars coming in autumn 2013

Dark Age Breakfast - Katherine Roberts

Princess Rhianna Pendragon would like to invite you to breakfast at Camelot Castle to launch her second adventure Lance of Truth.

Regretfully, King Arthur will not be attending this year, since Prince Mordred killed him at the Battle of Camlann and Merlin whisked his body away to Avalon for safe keeping. But you might see the king's ghost, which sometimes appears at Camelot in the presence of his sword Excalibur, which Rhianna won back from the Lady of the Lake in her first adventure Sword of Light. We’re also hoping Queen Guinevere might put in an appearance later, if she manages to escape from Mordred’s dark tower, where he is keeping her hostage in a bid to get his hands on Excalibur - sorry, that should be hand (King Arthur chopped the other one off as they fought).

Welcome to the Great Hall of Camelot, where there’s plenty of room for everyone at the Round Table, since it is a magical table and can seat as many knights and their guests as required.

Weapons are not normally allowed at the Round Table when the knights meet. But for this special breakfast, you may bring a small knife or dagger to cut up your food. No forks or spoons, please. Princess Rhianna will probably use Excalibur to slice her food, but do not be alarmed – she's not allowed to blood her blade if she wants to take the sword back to Avalon and complete her quest.

Excalibur

Silver platters will be provided for royalty, and trenchers of stale bread for everyone else (please do not eat your plate before breakfast is served, since you will get crumbs on the table, which may interfere with its magic.)

CAMELOT BREAKFAST MENU

Fish

Our fish comes fresh from Lady Nimue’s lake, so if it has arms and green hair you’re advised to throw it back.

Meat

Wild boar and venison from the king’s lands.

Hare or rabbit pie (some of the squires can’t tell the difference).

Spicy sausages.

Fowl

Pigeon, quail, duck, a swan if we can catch one, and that old favourite, blackbird pie.

 For vegetarians

Selection of soft fruit from our orchards.

Porridge sweetened with honey from our hives.

Onions and cheese made from the milk of our prize flock of sheep.

To drink

A selection of Camelot ales

Dandelion wine

Elderflower cordial for the children.

Entertainment will be provided by Prince Elphin of Avalon, who (it is rumoured) has six fingers on each hand for making unearthly music. He might also sing a ballad.

 Sing a song of sixpence

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Wasn't that a dainty dish,

To set before the king?

The king was in his counting house Avalon

Counting out his money;awaiting resurrection;

The queen was in the parlourMordred's tower,

Eating craving bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes;

When down came a blackbird merlin

And pecked off her nose.

Virtual book signing will follow the breakfast, after which Rhianna Pendragon will leave for her next engagement, riding her fairy horse Alba.

All breakfasters will receive a souvenir grail, also supplied as a drinking vessel for the event – if yours appears to contain anything other than what you put into it, please notify the organisers at once, since the Grail of Stars (one of the four magical Lights Rhianna needs to bring her father back from the dead) vanished a few years back, and Arthur’s knights have been searching for it ever since.

Before you leave, please eat your plate to save on washing up, and take extra care when crossing the drawbridge on your way out. Camelot Castle accepts no responsibility for guests who fall into the moat while drunk or suffering from indigestion.

We hope you enjoyed your Dark Age Breakfast!

***

The Dark Age Breakfast is a virtual launch party for the Pendragon Legacy series, published October 1st 2012 by Templar.


Book 1: Sword of Light paperback and ebook
Book 2: Lance of Truth hardcover
 
More about the series at www.katherineroberts.co.uk

Retro Summer Reading Challenge - Katherine Roberts

Hooray! It’s summer! School’s out, the sun is shining (at last), and the Summer Reading Challenge for children aged 4-11 is in full flow at libraries across the UK. This year’s Story Lab challenge has an Olympic theme, and children can sign up to read six books of their choice over the summer holidays.


inside our beautiful new library


There's a website with author videos, a whole list of recommended new titles, and other incentives to encourage young readers to read... wait for it... for fun.

Such grand schemes did not exist when I was a child. I never saw a real-life author, whether at a book festival, in school, or online… well, there wasn’t an online back then, and barely any festivals existed, though you’ll be pleased to hear we did have schools. I can only assume authors did not do so many visits in those days, or maybe my school didn't have the budget for them.

Fortunately, I needed no encouragement to complete my own personal reading challenge. My local library was my primary source of books, and I would read three (the maximum you could take out with a child’s library ticket) every weekend, and as many as I could get away with during the summer holidays. Before it transformed into the modern library shown above - complete with air conditioned meeting rooms, several floors of new low-level shelving, computers, indoor garden, café, and specially commissioned sculptures with a literary theme - my childhood library looked like this:


my childhood library today, awaiting demolition


It had a nice setting in a leafy corner of the local park, and in those days it was not boarded up or covered in graffiti, of course. But to me as a child, the library and its surroundings did not matter. I just remember the books I found there and the stories they contained, which whisked me away from the real world into one of adventure and magic.

So here, especially for the History Girls blog, is the...

*** Retro Summer Reading Challenge ***

Think back to when you were a child (i.e. before you transformed into a rebellious teenager and started reading the equivalent of "Fifty Shades of Grey" secretly under the bedcovers by torchlight). What books and authors did you enjoy?

When I was that age, my favourite author was Andre Norton. I devoured her Witch World books, of which there were many.

I did not know that she was American. I did not even know for sure that she was a “she", though for some reason I assumed this. I did not know she also wrote science fiction, fantasy and historical novels for adults under three pen names: Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston. I did not know that none of these three names were actually the name she had been born with - Alice Mary Norton - which she legally changed in 1934 to Andre Alice Norton to "increase her marketability”, because most science fiction/fantasy and historical adventure at that time was written by men and assumed to be read by boys. (Interestingly, this is a game many female authors still play today... haven’t we moved on from gender typing yet?!) I did not know she won the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1968, and published over 300 books between 1934 and 2005, when she died aged 93 still writing. To mark her wonderful career, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America created the Andre Norton Award for younger science fiction and fantasy literature.

Wow. If I had known all that stuff about my favourite childhood author, would it have made me want to read her books any more eagerly? I think not. Andre Norton was still very much alive at the time I was reading her Witch World books in the early 1970’s, which was brilliant for me because she already had a long backlist by then but was also still producing new books. I discovered her all on my own, because her books looked interesting on the library shelves, had exciting covers, and - more importantly - there were a lot of them, so I knew I would not run out of reading material. I didn’t particularly want to meet her, or watch a video of her, or see her talk at a festival. I had no idea how old she was and I didn't care. I just wanted her to hurry up and write the next book. Which, happily, she did.

Andre Norton was another author who effortlessly combined historical adventure with science/fiction fantasy, a connection I wrote about in my earlier Hunger Games post for this blog. If she had been in mid-career today, she might even have been a History Girl. Her first book "Ralestone Luck" (published as her second novel in 1938) was an adult historical adventure that begins with these inspiring words:
How hold ye Lorne?
By the oak leaf,
By the sea wave,
By the broadsword blade,
Thus we hold Lorne!
The oak leaf is dust,
The sea wave is gone,
The broadsword is rust,
How now hold ye Lorne?
By our Luck, thus we hold Lorne!

I’m delighted to discover Andre Norton’s "Witch World" novels are now being republished as ebooks to bring them to a whole new generation - one of the unexpected joys of modern technology. What goes around comes around, as they say.

So who was your favourite author (or favourite book) when you were a child? Let us know in the comments below, and we’ll create our very own Retro Summer Reading Challenge list!

***

Katherine Roberts www.katherineroberts.co.uk writes fantasy and historical adventure for children.

Sword of Light, the first book in her Pendragon Legacy quartet about King Arthur’s daughter, has been chosen for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge in UK libraries. See Katherine's message to young readers.

Did Joan of Arc hear the voice of God? – Katherine Roberts

When Mary Hoffman asked us to pick a favourite historical character for the History Girls’ birthday month, two famous characters immediately charged out of time on their warhorses yelling “ME, PICK ME!” (They both rode horses, of course - that's one of the things I love about history.)

My first candidate was Alexander the Great. Six years ago I wrote my most historical novel so far, telling his story through the eyes of his famous black stallion Bucephalas in I am the Great Horse. The other was Joan of Arc, who has not yet appeared in a novel of mine, but who has a surprising amount in common with the young heroine of my new children’s series… and since this is a History Girls blog, and I’m writing about a sword-wielding maiden at the moment, Joan's hired. (Sorry, Alexander... you're fired. Always wanted to say that!)

So, without further ado, let’s meet Joan… or Jeanne, to use her native French name. And lest you think I am being horribly unpatriotic in this Jubilee year, I happen to believe Joan/Jeanne’s nationality is not really important to her story. Yes, I know she fought to defend her homeland against the English invaders... that’s historical fact and it casts us in the UK as the baddies, and I suppose if you're just looking at the historical plot then that's true. But to me history is all about the characters. So my chosen heroine being French and fighting the English doesn’t really matter to her story, since the war between the French and the English is just a dramatic backdrop that helped make her who she was.


Joan of Arc was born in the small French town of Domremy in 1412. Believing she heard the voice of God calling her to help her king in his war against the English, she left her childhood home to meet Charles VII, who was afraid to take up his crown. She persuaded him to give her a horse and armour, and then led his army of 5,000 men to a famous victory against the English at Orleans. In battle, Jeanne carried an ancient sword she found in the tomb of a saint and a white banner embroidered with lilies, which she used to give courage to the soldiers and the besieged townspeople. Following several more victories over the English, she attended King Charles’ coronation at Rheims, after which she wanted to return home. But the king, eager for France to be entirely free of the English, persuaded Jeanne to fight one last battle against the Duke of Burgundy, who took her prisoner and sold her to the English. Because she refused to deny her “voices” (which they claimed came from the devil, not God) she stood trial for witchcraft, and was eventually burned at the stake in Rouen. Taking pity on her, a solider lifted a crucifix through the flames to her lips, and so she died a martyr. In 1920, Joan of Arc was made a saint.

All brilliant material for the historical novelist, of course, and my unicorn tells me at least one History Girl is writing a book about Joan of Arc even as I write this blog (now that’s got you all guessing, hasn't it...?!) I'm eagerly awaiting that book. But in the meantime, for today only on this blog, she's all mine and so I'd like to tell you why Jeanne's story resonates with me on a spiritual level.

Joan of Arc was born in a backwater, an innocent, believing she could change the course of history - and she was brave enough to do it. Did she hear the voice of God, as she claimed? Or was it simply her own voice, telling her to do this thing in the way voices speak sometimes on the edge of dreams? Whatever voice Jeanne heard, she obviously believed in it deeply enough to put herself in personal danger - and, more importantly, she believed that voice was urging her to do good. Therefore, in Jeanne's eyes, it must be the voice of God, because that was what she had been brought up to believe.

I see this kind of blind faith as being more important than any fact, historical or otherwise. Without it, no author would ever embark on the long and perilous journey of writing a book. No publisher would ever publish an author’s words in the hope someone out there might want to buy them. No bank would ever make a loan… oh, wait a minute, they're not at the moment are they?! But so often in life it’s faith and belief – the things you cannot measure – that win wars, whether they're obvious battles of the kind fought by Joan of Arc and Alexander the Great, profits in a bank, or smaller battles fought on more personal ground.

The King of France could count his soldiers. He probably had spies in the enemy camp so he knew the odds against him and could plan his tactics, maybe even estimate how many men would die in the coming battle. But he could not measure the effect of a single maid on a white horse carrying a lily-flower banner... the effect she had on men’s minds, both on the French army at her back, and on the invading English who watched her approach with bemusement. Jeanne was undoubtedly brave, but bravery alone would not have been enough to do what she did. Would an equally brave young man riding a horse with a sword in his hand have had the same effect, without the same innocence and faith and vulnerability? Jeanne had the magic ingredient that everyone claims to be looking for, but actually I think most people are scared of - precisely because it cannot be controlled or measured.

I may never write my novel about Joan of Arc - after I am the Great Horse's rocky road to publication, I have been rather put off writing another historical novel for a children's publisher. Anyway, there have been children's books written about Jeanne already (if you have a young reader in the family, they might like to try Michael Morpurgo's recently reissued Sparrow.) But because Jeanne's story speaks to me, and she's all mine for today, here’s a little poem I wrote about her with the help of my unicorn muse:

A voice whispers my name on the wind
I hear you, Lord, I hear!
My home is invaded by men who have sinned
I am here, my lord, I am here!
Orleans is under enemy attack
I hear you, Lord, I hear!
Our soldiers have courage, it’s faith they lack
I am here, my lord, I am here!
Where a maid does lead, the enemy will yield
I hear you, Lord, I hear!
With saintly sword and a lily-flower shield
I am here, my lord, I am here!
After the battle our king will be crowned
I hear you, Lord, I hear!
And victory carried to every town.
I am here, my lord, I am here!

The Duke of Burgundy knocks at our gate
I can't hear, Lord, I can't hear!
To please my king I must ride to my fate.
You're not here, my lord, you're not here!
Why do my people betray me for gold?
I can’t hear, Lord, I can’t hear!
And deliver me into the enemy hold?
You're not here, my lord, you're not here!
Accused of witchcraft and bound on a pyre
I can’t hear, Lord, I can’t hear!
They will burn me in their hottest fire.
You're not here, my lord, You're not here!

A soldier offers me his crucifix
I hear you, Lord, I hear!
I will die with Jesus’ name on my lips.
I am here, oh Lord, I am HERE!


For me, Joan of Arc is so much more than a character from history. She’s a symbol of what it is to be a woman carrying a banner of faith and self-belief through a man's world. I  hope the History Girls (and Joan herself) will forgive me for borrowing a little bit of her story for my current heroine Rhianna Pendragon. Because no matter which army stands at the gate, a warrior maid on a white horse with a sword shining in her hand will always seek to find a way through...

Katherine Roberts is a children’s author.

Sword of Light, the first book in her Pendragon Legacy quartet about King Arthur’s daughter Rhianna Pendragon on a quest to bring her father back from the dead, has been chosen for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge in UK libraries.

Book 2 Lance of Truth publishes in October.

Meanwhile, you can find out much more about the series and Katherine's other books at www.katherineroberts.co.uk

Why I didn’t write The Hunger Games - Katherine Roberts

This might seem a strange thing for a grown up History Girl to say, but I’m a huge fan of the Hunger Games. I think I’d have loved them as a teenager too, though back in those days (we’re talking history here remember!) they would most likely have been published with a Gollancz yellow spine on the adult genre shelf as science fiction/fantasy… my first choice of reading after escaping the children’s library, because as far as I was concerned that’s where all the best stories were.

I've seen some wary reviews of the film, claiming it glorifies violence and (to quote the Sunday Times last week) “children killing children”. This is misleading. There’s certainly killing, yes, but first of all let's stop calling the Hunger Games and other stories like it a children’s book. No matter what the age of its youngest characters, it is young adult - a genre that did not exist when I was a teenager, although the books with their equally challenging stories were there if you looked in the right place (those yellow spines were a good place to start). Secondly, it's not really about the killing. Although a girl as young as 12 can - and does - die in the Hunger Games arena, these books are fiction of the dystopian tradition that digs through the veneer of our society to show us where we are headed if we are not careful, in much the same way that looking back at history and seeing where we have been can help us see what to avoid in the future. In fact, take away the hair and makeup and some rather sugary teenage smooching, and the Hunger Games is to my mind an adult sf read, equally as disturbing as Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” - another book I would recommend to HG fans.

In case you've had your head buried in the sand for the past few months, Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen is a feisty girl picked (or "reaped" - note the Biblical reference) to take part in a vicious reality TV gameshow where teenagers must kill or be killed. She is forced into an impossible situation by her futuristic society, so she plays the game to help her family - and although reluctant to get involved in the bloodbath that follows the celebrity high jinks, eventually she kills too.

Katniss Everdeen - kill or be killed

The film has a 12A rating here in the UK, which worries me slightly because as a children’s author I am very aware of my responsibilities when writing for this impressionable age group. Which brings me back to the History Girls. Left to my own devices, I write fairly gruesome fiction. I've done my own bloody version of gladiators in the arena (published by a small press magazine back in the 90's), and I’d defy anyone to find a children’s book with a higher body count than my “I am the Great Horse”. But I got away with that one because it was about Alexander the Great’s atrocities, which are history and therefore strangely acceptable on the 9-12 shelf, in the way a dystopia like the Hunger Games would not be - or maybe writing from the POV of a horse helped pull the wool over people's eyes!

Yet fighting obviously appeals to children. So when it came to inventing my own feisty heroine for a younger market, I dived back into history/legend with the idea of making her more palatable for the age group and came up with King Arthur's daughter, Rhianna Pendragon. Being younger than Katniss, and inhabiting a children’s book rather than a young adult book, I knew from the start that Rhianna couldn't be the kind of heroine who goes around beheading people on every page, at least not if she is to remain a child's heroine for very long. That's why I set her story in Dark Age Britain, where swordplay is much more acceptable, and added magic from the Arthurian legend to sweeten the gore. Rhianna carries a sword, yes, but she cannot blood it if she is to complete her quest. This gives her an added moral dilemma, neatly sidestepping her needing to kill to be strong.

Rhianna Pendragon cannot blood her sword.

I believe both history and fantasy/SF can be used to address violence and other challenging subjects in a safe arena, whether you're writing for children, teenagers or adults - which might explain why my own writing appears to range across two disparate genres. It was touch and go whether I plunged back in time or forwards for "Sword of Light", since I also have a science fiction series in development... which makes me wonder how many fans of historical fiction out there are also fans of fantasy and SF, besides me?

Rhianna Pendragon stars in Sword of Light: Book 1 of the Pendragon Legacy (Templar hardcover £9-99)
Paperback and ebook coming in September 2012.

If you'd like to try my historical fiction for young readers, for 5 days only you can read The Great Pyramid Robbery (US readers click here) ebook free on your Kindle - offer ends midnight 9th April... pass the word!

More details of all my books can be found on my website http://www.katherineroberts.co.uk/ and blog http://www.reclusivemuse.co.uk/  

King Arthur: history or fantasy? – Katherine Roberts

This month sees the publication of Sword of Light, Book 1 of my Pendragon Legacy quartet about King Arthur’s daughter, published by Templar.

As you can tell from the cover art by talented New York artist Scott Altmann, this series belongs firmly at the fantasy end of my writing spectrum, whereas my previous novel “I am the Great Horse” (told by Alexander the Great’s warhorse Bucephalas) lay firmly at the historical end.

King Arthur is obviously less historical than Alexander the Great, even when authors try to stick to the facts, so I thought it would be fun to create a History Girls scale of 0-5 (where 0 is pure fantasy and 5 is historical fact) and try to grade some well-known elements of Arthurian legend. Do let me know if you disagree!

King Arthur
The good news is he probably existed. But if he did, then he’s likely to have been a Dark Age war leader rather than a great medieval king. Nennius tells us he lived in the 6th century following the departure of the Romans from Britain, when he fought several battles against the Saxon invaders.
Conclusion: Undoubtedly a hero, but a dead hero… all those rumours of him returning from Avalon when we most need him are obviously fantasy, because in my opinion we need him NOW.
HG rating 3

Mordred
King Arthur’s nephew, who killed the king on the battlefield of Camlann after a long and messy skirmish where just about everyone changed sides. The bad news is Mordred was probably real too, but unlikely to have been King Arthur’s son conceived under enchantment as Mallory would have us believe.
Conclusion: A villain of the darkest sort, ready to betray his friends and his own family to get what he wants.
HG rating 3

Camelot Castle
Arthur would have needed some sort of fortress in which to train his knights and lick his wounds after battle, but it’s more likely to have been an uncomfortable bachelor pad where nobody ever does the washing up, rather than the romantic high towers of legend.
Conclusion: An Englishman’s home is his castle, however humble.
HG rating 2

Round Table
Arthur and his knights had to eat their wild boar somewhere. I have a round table in my kitchen, but it wouldn’t seat many knights, and my “siege perilous” is a chair with a wonky leg rather than a magical seat where nobody dares to sit. Anyway, I’ve never seen the Grail appear floating above it in a ray of light… at least not yet.
Conclusion: Whatever shape it was, there was probably some dancing on it.
HG rating 2

Knights of the Round Table
Pretty sure to have existed, since there is historical evidence for mounted knights by the time of the Crusades, and Arthur’s secret weapon was meant to be mounted warriors who could ride quickly to battle. The much-loved medieval knights who joust in re-enactments today are their descendants.
Conclusion: We’re still knighting people today, so this is serious stuff.
HG rating 5

Avalon
Do you honestly believe Glastonbury Tor is a magical fairy island where Arthur’s body was taken after Mordred killed him?
Conclusion: If you do, then you should enjoy my book!
HG rating 0

Excalibur
If Arthur existed and Mordred existed, then a decent sword must have existed as well so they could fight each other. Who knows what Arthur called it? Probably a few rude things, if the battle was going badly. The Lady of the Lake stretching up her hand to reclaim Excalibur after Arthur’s death is pure fantasy, though warriors did offer their best weapons to water spirits, so there is some historical background to that story.
Conclusion: Every hero needs a good sharp sword.
HG rating 3

Merlin
The king’s enchanter. Traditionally an old man with a long white beard and staff looking a bit like Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings”. More recently, a young boy with sticking-out ears in BBC’s TV series “Merlin”. Was he a druid? Maybe. Probably not a wizard, though.
Conclusion: More likely to drink blood in the sacred groves and scare people with his tattoos.
HG rating 1

Rhianna Pendragon
Who? She’s King Arthur’s daughter and the heroine of my new series. Pure fiction, you might think, except there’s a slim possibility Arthur did have a daughter or two lying around, since (male) historians like Nennius are unlikely to have thought a girl deserved writing about. And remember Celtic women did fight alongside their men, the most famous being Queen Boudicca who saw off the Romans.
Conclusion: Dare you to say I don't exist!
HG rating 0 1 2 3 4  5

Rhianna Pendragon drawn by Scott Altmann

For an author creating a work of fiction, high numbers on the history rating can be tricky. It sometimes feels like writing in a strait-jacket, making sure your historical characters do what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it. Low ratings obviously offer more freedom, and a rating of 0 offers the most freedom of all – but it can be scary doing pure fantasy, since you have to make everything up. For me, the ideal rating is around 2 or 3. That’s enough history to anchor my story in people’s imagination and give me some background to work with, but enough freedom to invent a magical plot… making King Arthur's daughter an ideal choice.

SWORD OF LIGHT is published this month by Templar in hardcover. For all the latest gossip including links to reviews you can follow Rhianna Pendragon on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PendragonGirl
Katherine’s website is at www.katherineroberts.co.uk

Stepping twice into the river… from Song Quest to Sword of Light – Katherine Roberts

“You cannot step twice into the same river” according to Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived in Ephesus around 500BC… yet that is exactly what I am about to do! Having been sitting on the bank for five years since the publication of "I am the Great Horse", watching the water flow past, I am now ready to jump in again with the publication next month of the first book in a new Arthurian fantasy series about King Arthur’s daughter.

What Heraclitus means, of course, is that if you step into the river again… even only a fraction of a second after stepping out of it… then although it might look like the same river on the surface, it won’t be the same, because the water you stepped into last time has already flowed downstream, whereas the water you are stepping into now is new water that you’ve never experienced before. (At least, not unless last time you stepped into the river further upstream, then jumped out again, and ran faster downstream than the water flows, and timed it so you stepped in again at just the right moment when your original water caught up… but that is all rather exhausting to get your head around!)

My time out of the water watching the publishing river flow past, while undeniably frustrating, has shown me a few important things. First, for a children’s author, the river flows faster than it does for those of us who write adult books. We cannot (however hard we try) hold on to our fan base, any more than a mother can stop her children from growing up. The 9-year-olds who will be reading my Pendragon books were not even born when my debut novel Song Quest was published back in 1999. They might be the same age as those 9-year-olds who enjoyed Song Quest, but they are clearly not the same children.

Catnip, 2012

That’s why, at the same time as my new series is published, Song Quest will be republished for a new generation of readers. To today’s children, it should seem like a brand new book. Whether today’s 9-year olds enjoy it as much as those who are now 22 remains to be seen, since even fantasy books age, and I'm aware of the difference in style between Song Quest (leisurely and detailed and long at 70,000 words) and Sword of Light (fast and simpler and short at 50,000 words… all right, maybe not that short!). I suspect Song Quest’s readership today will be slightly older than the readership for Sword of Light, which might not be a bad thing.



Element, 1999

 The author’s experience is rather different, too. When Song Quest was first published by Element in 1999, there were no blogs like this one. There was no Twitter. There was only a limited, slow internet. I had a simple website, kindly put together by the British Fantasy Society as a favour to their members... a website I never even saw until it had been “live” for two years, because I didn’t have the internet connection required to view it. There was no email for me. I sent big packets of paper to my publisher, and they sent big packets of paper back. “Tracked changes” were something to do with railways, not Word files. Fans wrote to me on paper in real envelopes that came through the letterbox, rather than opened on Outlook Express. I did zero self-promotion, beyond walking into town and telling the owner of the local independent bookshop I had a book coming out.

I rode the rapids when Song Quest won the Branford Boase Award and I signed a seven book contract (on the same day!), and a year later flew to San Francisco to launch my second children's book Spellfall at the American Libraries Association conference. With several years of deadlines lined up and a lovely agent - Maggie Noach - on board, I got swept into the middle of the publishing river without even realising it, and the water was, on the whole, life-sustaining. Then at some stage - and I still don't know what I did wrong, because I never stopped writing - I found myself washed up on the bank. That taught me the second thing about publishing: a contracted book (or two or – in my case – twelve) does not a career make. Meanwhile, those publishing waters kept rushing noisily downstream, and those still swimming in them probably didn’t have time to notice, but a new stream appeared, quietly trickling alongside only visible to those of us sitting on the bank… ebooks and amazon's Kindle. In the absence of either publisher or agent, I dipped my toe into that little stream and sipped of its waters. It kept me alive.

Templar hardcover, 2012

Then Rhianna Pendragon came trotting out of the enchanted mists on her fairy horse, and I knew it was time to step into the main publishing river again. On the surface it still looked much like the same river… but Heraclitus was absolutely right, that river had changed. From something that looked inviting, it had become a roaring flood of debut authors fresh from university writing courses, pseudonymous series produced by the fiction factories, hotshot young agents and editors, and more and more new books. And it had become so NOISY! All those authors and publishers and agents now have blogs and Twitter accounts and singing, dancing websites, and appear at hundreds of new festivals that have sprung up all across the country talking about writing. The author’s job description has clearly changed.

So here I am! On the wonderful History Girls blog and elsewhere on the net, spending almost as much time writing these blog posts as writing my books. I’d much rather be sorting out the tricky plot holes in the middle of Book 3, which is carrying me downstream towards its deadline at an alarming rate. But I'm swimming again, and that’s got to be better than sitting on the bank thirsting for the publishing waters. (Though now, of course, I am a bit afraid of missing something that can only be seen from the bank...)

Thank you, Heraclitus, I think I understand now. And thank you, Templar, for inviting me back into the water!

Sword of Light is published by Templar in hardcover on 1st February.

Song Quest is republished by Catnip in paperback, also 1st February.

Meanwhile, you can follow Rhianna Pendragon on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PendragonGirl

Details of my other books (many now available as reasonably-priced ebooks for Kindle) can be found on my website at http://www.katherineroberts.co.uk/

I wanted to be a warrior princess... Katherine Roberts

Lucy Lawless as Xena from the TV series Xena Warrior Princess  

You know how some authors always seem to be writing the same story? I don’t mean sticking with a single book or series, though this happens. But often we might use different characters, plots, settings, experiment with different genres and age groups, or even write to someone else’s brief, and yet the same THING always fights its way out of the pages. Cleverly published, an author’s THING becomes their "brand”, but it can take some time to find.

All of the authors on this blog are "history girls", of course. Yet history is a very wide ranging genre, especially when you venture into legend and myth, and although I've written books with historical backgrounds, I don't think "history girl" really describes me. (Mary will probably throw me off this blog now!) All my work has an element of magic, which puts me firmly on the legend and myth side of history, and I write for young readers so story is always more important than hard fact. But I never thought I had a THING until I got as far as formatting my latest Seven Fabulous Wonders title The Amazon Temple Quest as an ebook and realised that warrior princesses keep fighting their way into my pages in true Xena style.

In The Amazon Temple Quest, my warrior princess is called Lysippe. She is the youngest of her tribe, last of the legendary Amazon warrior race, on their way to join King Philip of Macedon’s army for his coming Persian campaign. They are also on a quest (hence the title) for one of the lost “gryphon stones” of their people, which ward off death. Before they reach Macedonia, however, Lysippe and her sister Tanais are captured by slavers. Tanais is badly wounded, leaving Lysippe to lead a daring escape attempt during which the runaways seek sanctuary in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

model of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Turkey.

Needless to say, Lysippe and Tanais are not your typical fairytale princesses with jewels in their hair, batting their eyelashes at handsome princes. They owe a fair amount to Xena, since their tribe lives without men. I located their home on the Scythian steppe, after reading about a grave discovered in Kazakhstan containing the bones of an unusually tall warrior queen buried with weapons. They wear leather leggings, carry half-moon shields, ride horses, and are armed with bows and arrows. But in keeping with the myth element of my Seven Fabulous Wonders series, the amazons in my book also have magical powers.

Seven are the signs of a true Amazon:

the yellow glare,

the sleep that heals,

a fighting spirit,

a blinding shield,

birth without man,

death without pain,

and the power to command a gryphon’s flame.

Yet they are vulnerable too, since despite being warriors they are not as physically strong as men. Here Lysippe has ridden out alone after arguing with her sister, and has just been captured by the slavers, who mistake her for a village girl…

She took deep breaths as her captor crouched before her and removed his helmet. He had pale silver hair and grime on his cheeks where dust had built up under the bronze. A jagged scar split his forehead above his left eye. Most unsettling of all, he had no eyebrows or eyelashes so there was nothing to soften that cold, blue glare. Lysippe made herself meet his gaze, though she still felt queasy from the pain in her ankle, and the bruises she’d suffered in her fall were beginning to hurt.
    He fingered the worn leather of her leggings. “Where are you from, slave? Where did you steal that horse?”
    “I’m an Amazon!” Lysippe said, trying to sound braver than she felt. She peered past him to see what had happened to Tanais. “Northwind’s mine – I didn’t steal him. And my mother and all her warriors are on their way back, so you’d better let me go!”
    The men who had stayed behind laughed.
    “Don’t lie to me, slave!” her captor growled. “Everyone knows Amazons are extinct.”
   
I've sneaked warrior princesses into other stories, including a short tale about Queen Boudicca's daughters that got shortlisted for the Library of Avalon Geoffrey Ashe Prize, and you might have noticed the Amazon queen made a brief appearance in "I am the Great Horse", my story of Alexander the Great from the horse's mouth (now sadly out of print in the UK).

Ten years later, and a slightly younger warrior princess has inspired a series of her own... King Arthur's daughter Rhianna Pendragon, whose first book Sword of Light comes out in February 2012 from children's publisher Templar for readers aged 9+. I'm quite excited about this, because for the first time my warrior princess has fought her way on to the cover. And although we are being careful not to make the book appear too girly in case boys are put off by that, Rhianna is very much the heroine.

(cover mock-up subject to changes in colour and finish)



You'll be hearing much more about Rhianna Pendragon next year, since Book 2 is due out at the end of 2012 and I am currently writing Book 3 in the series, but I hope you don't mind me giving you this little pre-Xmas taster to prove that you don't have to own a Kindle to read my work! I know you must be beginning to wonder... but this is not the place for lengthy explanations of why authors "go dark", so I'll save that for another day.

While inhabiting very different books and stories, all these warrior princesses have something in common. They are strong and brave, they ride horses and brandish swords and take on the men at their own game. They do not expect a handsome prince to fight their battles for them (although they wouldn’t say no if a prince happened along... with the possible exception of Xena, of course!). Yet they are not just sexier versions of kick-ass male warriors, as so many heroines written by male authors tend to be. My warrior princesses seek spiritual fulfillment as well as power and glory, which is an important element of my own writing as I swing my pen - or keyboard - instead of an imaginary sword.

The truth is I wanted to be Xena when I grew up… does that count as an author THING?

The Amazon Temple Quest ebook is now available at the promotional price of 99p until Dec 31st.

You can preorder Rhianna Pendragon's first adventure "Sword of Light" here (or, better still, wait until it comes to your local bookshop since this one will be a REAL BOOK - and a very beautiful one, too!)

More details on my website http://www.katherineroberts.co.uk/
Follow my unicorn on Twitter @reclusivemuse