Hello again dear reader or listener, it is my great pleasure to have another amazing author interview for your reading pleasure today. This time I am picking the brain of author Christian Cameron (aka Miles when publishing SFF)!
In between being a martial artist, reenactor, and historian, he has written Thrillers, and continues to write Historical Fiction and SFF, with his latest release, Breaking Hel, marking 51 published books! Rather that listing aaall his works, it would be faster to point you to his website but his most recent publications include the Epic Fantasy trilogy titled Age of Bronze, and the ongoing Sci-fi series Arcana Imperii.
Aside from his written work he is also known for the endlessly fun and super informative, in depth video series on accurate historical weapons and combat, created to help authors visualise and understand how to best write fight scenes, weapon handling, and more. A link to that is here.
Seen as for this round of questions I am focusing a bit more on Deep Black (book two of Arcana Imperii), this is your mild spoiler warning for book one in the series, Artifact Space. Very mild, I promise.
Also, if you’re looking for more detailed spoiler-free reviews full of not a single bit concealed gushing you can read my thoughts on Artifact Space here and for Deep Black here.
But enough dallying! Let’s get to the fun!
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First of all, congratulations on your double book release this past August for Deep Black (Arcana Imperii #2) and Breaking Hel (The Age of Bronze #3)! I understand you are now at 51 published works.
You write across a few genres and you have mentioned in the past how a pseudonym was recommended in order to publish that way. I was hoping you could tell us a little more about that dynamic and what, if any, are the differences in your readers’ responses to each genre you write in. I remember you saying once that fans of your Tom Swan series are almost a living entity of their own for instance.
Hello Eleni and thank you so much for having me! Euxaristw poli!
I’m going to dive straight into this, as I have a camping trip in a few days and I want to get this out.
So in answer to your first question, I have a pseudonym, Miles Cameron, that was strongly recommended to me by Gollancz when I started writing SFF. I have ‘views’ on this, as I think now that having two names, one for Historical Fiction and one for SFF, mostly just confused people about my ‘brand’ and forces me to do double the advertising and social media. If I had to do it again, I’d stay with one name. I think this is a useful moment to talk about the real world of being a traditionally published author. I’m not denigrating the support I get from Gollancz—the editing is superb—but I do most, if not all, of my own social media and advertising, so doubling up on my ‘names’ is fairly inconvenient.
Funny story…a few years ago at a signing, a reader came up and told me—as Miles—that he’d really like to recommend this other writer who he thought I’d love, a really talented historical fiction writer… named Christian Cameron.
I said I’d look into this guy.
Sounds like a double compliment to me!
How are you feeling now that Breaking Hel is out and thus completing another series? You have a few completed sagas under your belt now, does the trepidation and anticipation over the conclusion to a series ever change?
To be honest, I’m not sure I’m finished with my fantasy bronze age, or Era and Zos, or my fantasy pacifists. I might have to write more. It’s a ‘period’ that moves me deeply. It wasn’t as ‘Greek’ as you might have expected (lots of Babylonian, Mesoamerican, and African in there) but I still have a lot of stories to tell in that world and… well, I’ll save the spoilers.
To actually answer your question, I always hate ending a series, mostly because to some extent I’m telling these stories to myself and I never really want them to end.
That makes sense, I imagine it’s hard to let go of something that has lived in your mind for so long.
You regularly post pictures of your writing set-up at a coffee shop with an accompanying pastry or two, so I was wondering, what is the importance, for you, of personal rituals for writing? Are they essential to get you into the mindset or do your stories just flow regardless?
This is a 10/10 question. Before you asked it, I really hadn’t considered it, but here goes. I think rituals are very important to me BUT as I grow in experience and (I hope) skill, I enjoy them more than I need them. Back in early days, I used to need 4-5 clear unencumbered hours and near total silence to grind out 2K words. Now, if I have to, I can sit down in an airport and produce 4K words; I did it on the way to Glasgow, because I ‘had an idea” and there it was.
That is definitely a great skill to have acquired through the years!
Our friends Dylan and Charles, at Friends Talking Fantasy, have called you a Renaissance Man (regardless how much fun you poked at that term), and with good reason; it’s difficult to think of something you haven’t taken an interest in, going from dance and fashion to various histories and many more. The range and richness of your works is probably the biggest testament to that. So, what is a bit of random trivia you know that you think would make for a great story? Be it historical fiction or just as inspiration for an SFF story. I’m sure there are many but pick one for now!
Here’s one that is both historical and an inspiration for an SFF story. In early nineteenth century, 10% of Britain’s import/export with the largest merchant fleet in the world was devoted to the import of tea from China, the single most profitable trade in the British Empire and the most highly taxed. If you consider the distance from Britain to China, the difficulties of cultural interactions (from both sides) and the sheer number of people employed in Britain, India and China to make this trade possible, you have an idea of how vast economic systems can grow out of a partiality for a hot beverage. Honestly, that sort of thing inspires me to write; and all the Colonialist, Imperialist, and culturalist overtones, undertones, the sheer complexity of the human interactions…
Oh yes, the stories there would be endless! And not too far from elements within Arcana Imperii either.
Which leads me to where I wanted us to turn towards for a little bit: Deep Black, which is the excellent sequel to your sci-fi debut Artifact Space. Not only was the ending of book one satisfying for the story overall, but it was the most fun and upbeat cliffhanger I’ve read in a long time, with just one word! So, while I know it’s a little soon, how are you enjoying book two finally having its chance to shine after so long in the throes of publishing limbo?
Again, total honesty here, I was quite worried when I read some of the reviews of Artifact Space and I knew that without the sequel, some readers were deeply dissatisfied. Without understanding that Marca Nbaro was chosen for political reasons by the AIs (spoiler) she seems impossibly lucky and talented; and there are other political elements to the story that a few reviewers didn’t like and that are not sorted until late in Deep Black.
But that said, I really wanted to tell a giant story, and there’s two books to come. As this is my 50th book, I decided to take the risk of launching a huge story and hoping readers would trust me to carry it through to the end. I think most folks know that I write quickly; book three of this series is almost done (I’m aiming for October 15th) and book four will come out in 2026, and then you’ll have seen the whole main arc. To be honest, I’m so in love with this universe that I may just keep writing in it; not always about Marca Nbaro, but with a few characters and ships carrying over.
Long story short—I’m really happy with it. The reader reaction has been incredibly positive.
I am really glad you’re seeing the risk pay off!
As a fellow research enthusiast, I understand how difficult it is sometimes to want to put everything you learned about something into your work, and one thing that jumped out at me with Deep Black compared to Artifact Space was how much more space flight and battle physics you had to contend with this time round. Which I suppose makes sense considering Marca’s neural lace and her wider access to information now. How difficult/fun was all that for you to learn and research?
Let’s just say Deep Black was much harder to write than Artifact Space. I do maths in my head and I’m mostly right; I admit to occasional errors but most of my space battles were laid out with old GW Battlefleet Gothic ships on a matt, and I’d literally write out the vectors (speed and heading) and acceleration. If mistakes were made…well, I tried. I did teach or rather, re-teach myself calculus while writing Artifact Space, and in Deep Black I re-read ‘Infinite Powers’ which helped me with my constant attempts to calculate g force. But some things were just made up; we don’t have hydrogen fusion engines yet, so I have no idea what the fuel consumption is, so I made up a system from small spacecraft to the huge greatships and guessed….
I know I could never do it for instance, because my brain struggles with STEM subjects, however I had no trouble following Dorcas’ attempts at decoding the alien languages and history, which was also a fun way of layering your story and keeping it accessible to more readers. What do you think then is your greatest challenge to writing sci-fi compared to historical fiction or fantasy?
My greatest challenge is not filling my prose with joking allusions to a mis-remembered past. As an historian, I’m always amused by how badly most people remember history, so I am endlessly tempted to have characters state blatant mythology about our present or our past; I do this a couple of times anyway, but the temptation is always there. I had a reader get very angry that Thea Drake claims the DHC is Socialist, and I think that person failed to understand that six hundred years in the future, people’s definition of socialist and capitalist will be utterly different from today…
So, in a way, guessing the future is the hardest part. One tiny example—dark matter. Physicists are wrestling with the idea that Dark Matter and Dark energy play a major role in the Universe, but there are lots of physicists who are now doubting the existence of Dark Matter. Which model shall I go with? Will they have solved this problem in six hundred years?
In that vein of misremembered past, one of my favorite things to find in fiction in general is another aspect of both Artifact Space, and now Deep Black, I deeply enjoyed, and that is how you approach the idea that history is written by the victors or, more specifically, how informed it is by the complex systems that moved people. How did you go about building this centuries spanning history while also weaving in all the conspiracies and secrets of the empire, that unravel within the events of book two?
At the risk of sounding boastful, I know a bunch of history. Moghul History, Chinese History, English History, Venetian History, Greek History, Ottoman History, Mesoamerican history—I love it all. So often I use sub-plots and reactions from history. As a banal example, the DHC is mostly the good guys. Mostly. But you know, as a Greek, that the Greeks really didn’t love Venice, even though Venice did, sometimes, provide enormous cultural support to the Greeks. And that’s my model for the DHC. They’re Venice in space, and not everyone loves them, and that’s normal and human, because they’re not perfect. They’re not the United Federation of Planets. They’re a trading combine with a conscience and some rules. By borrowing from the Venetian example, I have very realistic political problems embedded in my SFF ‘past, present, and future.’ I DO sometimes make things up; I’m not just writing pseudo-history. But I like to have arcs of tension that are pretty clear and have resolutions.
Which also follows into how your protagonist Marca Nbaro’s point of view was informed differently by the various and sometimes contrasting opinions of the people she encounters on her journey. She has her own past and biases, but she is determined to be a blank slate and start a new life at the beginning of Artifact Space, which sets her up in a very interesting way for you to explore the various themes you bring forth in this series. Themes of culture trading and melding, social contracts being broken, love both romantic and platonic, and many more. Do you start off your stories thinking about how you want to deliver a specific set of themes in a given work or does that evolve naturally as your story progresses?
I think I’m going to disappoint you, but Artifact Space was the most ‘Pantsy’ book I’ve ever written. I walked out of a movie theatre (Little Women, which I loved) with the whole thing organically in my head. I wrote it down like I was taking dictation. I really am not sure that I even dreamed up the ultimate meta-arc before I was a third of the way into the book. It was as if a muse was whispering in my ear.
I bet that’s zero help for other writers. So here’s my thing; I’ve written fifty books; most of them plotted carefully. But a few, and sadly, the best few, just poured out.
I just wrote another one (still a secret) and in it, at about the fifty percent point, I had to go back and rewrite four scenes, because I realized how very complicated it needed to be and that I’d missed an arc that was right there all along… this is a new thing for me, but I like it. Maybe I’ve levelled up. Maybe I’m just old. 😊
Oh no disappointment there at all! I think it’s always interesting to see all the different ways in which authors work. It helps remind aspiring writers that no one method is the law.
Now, with book two Marca is no longer that naïve to the ways things work and I would like for you to tell us how you went about writing this slightly older and wiser yet no less of a self-deprecating character. Because even though in the story it’s only been a week between the events of books one and two, she feels like a stronger evolution of who she started as.
It is my belief that some events are cathartic. I can remember one in my own life. The fight on the station and ‘capture’ of the alien allowed Marca to prove herself—to herself. She’s much easier on herself after that. She belongs. And most of the time she believes that she belongs. And her moments of doubt are…well, what I think most people feel, unless they’re sociopaths, but way less frequent.
Character depth/complexity is one of the aspects of your work that gets most praise and I know I definitely felt like I was meeting up with long lost and dear friends again when I finally got to read Deep Black. Or still remember how genuine the protagonists of your Masters & Mages series felt, years after finishing the books. I found that is, funnily enough, because you often render highly complex feelings or situations through very simple acts or beats of dialogue. I was hoping you’d tell us a little more about that approach to dialogue rich text, because saying “less is more” doesn’t quite fit here I feel.
All your flattery is deeply appreciated! I love writing dialogue, and in among my research projects, I am constantly listening to people and other writers as to dialogue. Real dialogue is often non-linear, so one of my techniques is to have two characters who talk past each other a bit and then come around to actually discussing a third topic—lots of info passed and then also the human reality that we’re not always listening to each other.
And emotional dialogue should be halting, because most people suck at discussing emotions. I like writing characters who have self-doubt and overcome it, because to me, this is everyday life for most of us. I do inner dialogue, sometimes at an almost comical level, to show the difference, for instance, between the heroic exterior of Marca Nbaro and her inner anxiety.
I also especially enjoyed the nuances of each character’s reaction to being forced into warrior roles when all they wanted to be was explorers and traders. As well as the tact with which you hinted at a few different kinds of PTSD. Why was it important for you to touch upon all that the way you did?
Let’s just say I have a touch of PTSD myself and I have read lots about it. And I have good friends who are sufferers. I think it is important to write the long-term effects of trauma so that we don’t glorify it too much.
I definitely agree with you there. It is so very important.
How about we also shine an extra bit of light to the love story between Marca and Dorcas, which although perhaps unconventional under some aspects, is so meaningful and genuine and fun. Talk to us about not sacrificing a healthy and meaningful love connection and story for the sake of unnecessary drama or to make space for a more “serious” space opera. The idea that you can’t have both is most definitely an old and frankly stupid bias, but it nonetheless persists in some corners of SFF forums.
I think sex and romance are basic tenets of human life; a form of relationship that most people, regardless of gender and preference, form. And life under pressure of combat or near combat puts pressure on relationships and that makes for good writing.
But the belief that they have to go bad is, to me, foolishness. It’s a trope that started as an anti-trope (because in late 19th c. melodrama, everything was about love and marriage, or that’s my guess). And lots of the trope is (or can be) misanthropic and even misogynist (I can’t tell you how many Hisfic novels feature various women ‘betraying’ the main character. Whatever. Eye roll.)
In as much as this series is about Marca Nbaro, her realization that she didn’t love Richard Hanna, a very decent young man, but did love the very difficult Horatio Dorcas, was part of her learning to control her own life and sexuality and be—her own person.
And yeah, you said it, unnecessary drama. I let Dorcas and Marca write themselves. It turned out happy, at least so far, but count no woman happy until she is dead… we’ll just see what political pressures do to them in books three and four. I don’t know myself, yet.
Sir, I am telling you now, if our power-couple sinks, I won’t be the only one riding at dawn.
But jokes aside, is it correct to say that the Arcana Imperii series is your most autobiographical (of sorts) out of your recent works? The Greatship Athens is, after all, very much like an aircraft carrier. Was there a personal anecdote from your time as an officer that you snuck into either of the two books in the series?
Er, I had some trouble with laundry… I didn’t deal with them as well as Marca, either. But it’s not autobiographical at all. Lieutenant Lochiel, the somewhat nerdy and hesitant intel officer, is me. I really enjoyed my time on a carrier and flying around in the back seat, but I was not Marca Nbaro in any way.
The places where I use my experience are the details of flying, and the details of Liberty ports or planet visits.
Or, alternatively, is there something from your time in the service that was actually too absurd or unbelievable to include even in a science fiction book?
Oh yes, but I’m not telling.
Well, I had to try.
You’ve said you love writing about heroism and hope because that’s what you want to read, and while that is evident across your works, I would also argue that a lot of your characters do not always fit the conventional or archetypical idea of hero. In fact, you’re excellent at showing how working through flaws, fears, and struggle is what makes for real heroes, while also showing the burden of heroism and its unexpected responsibilities.
With all that in mind, what would you say is the truest measure of a hero? And how do you balance the smaller scales of heroism (such as Marca trying to deal with her notoriety aboard the Athens or dealing with seemingly menial tasks that are in truth more important than she might realize) with the larger stuff (such as her leadership role and honing her skill at it in order to make sure her and her team get out of it alive) as both are important and have their place?
The true measure of a hero is consistency. I had the pleasure and honour of knowing (in and out of the service) some very noble individuals. I think there is heroism all around us, and to me, the truly heroic individuals aren’t those who perform one heroic act but those who throw themselves on the various problems and horrors every day.
I need to talk about the AI Morosini as well, whom I feel was your only chance at getting to describe stylish antique clothing in detail while still fitting the context of this sci-fi world. But jokes aside, I found it really interesting and refreshing to see how you approached his character and the realisation that oh this is a highly intelligent creation that seemingly also has no emotional qualms, hence, in truth, is pretty terrifying. Especially as seen from Marca’s eyes and her anxieties and doubts. Can you tell us about that a bit more?
It’s funny—about six months ago I was invited to join an advisory panel to discuss AIs at a major university and I’m like—hey, I know zero about AI, I just write speculative fictions…
That said, I was inspired by a game I love (Infinity, the table top wargame) where most of the factions have recreated famous humans from the past (Saladin, Joan of Arc, etc.) And I thought, if there really were AIs (not just LLMs) that were self-aware and had to deal endlessly with humans…why not give themselves ‘personalities’ modelled on the past to hone their awareness? I could go into what I perceive as the weakness of AIs, real and imagined, but that’s for another interview.
And now for some of the rapid-fire questions! Do you have a favorite fan theory or take on your work for any of your books?
I enjoy watching readers catch on that all the fantasy books are connected.
Travel is really important to you for inspiration so is there a place you haven’t visited yet but that you’d love to go to? Historical battle sites not allowed!
Iran, China, India. In that order. Especially Persepolis and Delhi and Beijing.
What is the question you get asked most often? And vice versa, is there a question you’re always hoping someone will ask?
Do you really fight with swords? May I make a movie of your book?
How excited were you for Writing Fighting making it onto WorldCon? It was after all a spur of the moment video turned into a pet project to have something to do during the lockdowns, then a bit of a marketing tool, and it made it all the way to being a live show in Glasgow!
I was/am super excited. It went off well, and I had friends old and new support me, and damn, it was a rush. I hope I get to do it live again.
Finally, what can you tell us about any future projects? Is it too much to hope for an extra hint or two about your Epic Fantasy, Neo-Victorian, and necromancy, secret project?? I’m also dying to know what more you have in store for us in the Arcana Imperii!
In Whalesong (Arcana Imperii 3) Marc Nbaro is a present but minor character, and we follow Thor Storkel and a few other old friends including at PTX officer through a detailed spy novel plot, all the while looking at Marca’s political life and engagement in high finance. It’s not dull, but it’s different… essential, though, because the series climax in ‘The Alien’s War’ (book 4) can’t just happen, it has to evolve. SO that when it’s Marca as a decision maker, we’ve seen an arc from waif to … well… no spoilers.
Secret Project 11 is a neo-Victorian novel. It’s NOT England; it’s a fantasy world with undertones of England and Iran and Canada, overtones of France and Germany and China, and necromancers and tempomancers and scientific magic and horrible industrialists and spies. And an incredible wilderness that goes on for thousands of miles. The protagonist is a scientific mage who worries about clothes and is the first female professor in an all-male university. There are no airships, and we get a good look at worker exploitation.
See? Fun. But it hasn’t sold to anyone yet. So we’ll just see.
I cannot express how much I need all of that. A feeling mutual among any of your readers, I’ll bet. So I’m crossing everything possible for that to happen! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions here today, I for one am extremely excited for everything you have in store for us!
Eleni, you always bring unique and insightful questions and it is always a delight to chat… not least because you share my passion for Greece!
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Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962. He grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, Iowa City, Iowa, and Rochester, New York, where he attended McQuaid Jesuit High School and later graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in history.
After the longest undergraduate degree on record (1980-87), He joined the United States Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer and as a backseater in S-3 Vikings in the First Gulf War, and then on the ground in Somalia, and elsewhere. After a dozen years of service, he became a full time writer in 2000. He lives in Toronto (that’s Ontario, in Canada) with his wife Sarah and his daughter Beatrice. He’s a full time novelist, and it is the best job in the world.
Besides his website, you can find Christian on Instagram @christian_cameron_author and X @Phokion1.
Until next time, dear reader,
Eleni A. E.
