We chat with author Pablo Valcárcel Castro about Dream of the Jet-Black City, which features intricate worldbuilding, political intrigue, a magic system based on dreams, a mythic storm raging above a city – and secrets from the past that threaten an entire nation.
Hi, Pablo! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, Nerd Daily readers! I’m Pablo, debut author, long-time fantasy lover and larper. I am originally from the Canary Islands, although I currently reside in Madrid, Spain with my partner and three amazing cats. In my day job, I’m an innovation coach and teach entrepreneurship, so in a way I try to help others make their dreams come true.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
As a child, I fell hard for Tolkien’s Middle-Earth to the point that, by the time I turned twelve, I had already grown exceedingly disillusioned with the real world. Luckily, roleplaying games (TTRPGs) entered my life shortly after, allowing me the perfect hideout from reality. My love for books seeped into my games though, and I’d constantly write short fiction pieces (oftentimes in-world documents) about the setting and/or the characters. That was the seed for my love of short fiction and worldbuilding that in due time blossomed into a love for writing novels.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Little Vampire by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. A child becoming best friends with a young vampire? Sign me up! It filled me with equal parts fright and wonder as a child.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Many! If I had to pick one: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. It’s such an exquisitely delicate, lyrical and bewitching novel. It also taught me writing is a form of magic.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. Elegantly written and delightfully approachable despite its philosophical depths.
Your debut novel, Dream of the Jet Black City, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Magical nightmares in stormy Venice!
What can readers expect?
A dark, dreamy adventure through a rain-soaked, Venice-like city made of onyx palaces and endless bridges. A lightning-thief, a mystical singer and a relentless Nightmare-Huntress in a race against time, fighting to fix a plague and struggling to defeat political intrigues. Oh, and of course, a sophisticated setting based on daydreaming and imagination as forms of magic, which allows me to explore how creativity and art allow us to combat grief and despair.
Where did the inspiration for Dream of the Jet Black City come from?
Dream is my love letter to the fantasy that shaped me: J.R.R. Tolkien’s elevated, nature-loving epics; Michael Ende’s and Ursula K. Le Guin’s thought-provoking fantasy; and that gothic revival in the 90s that included Vampire: the Masquerade TTRPG, The Crow and The Sandman comics.
In the early 2000s, I conceived of this setting as a tabletop RPG (which served me as a basis for some games with my group and a couple of failed fiction projects). But my vision for it only became fully realised when I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. All of the sudden, other pieces of the puzzle fell together: My desire to explore my dual British-Spanish heritage, my experiences as an educator and innovator and also my love for darker fantasy novels such as China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight or M.A. Carrick’s Mask of Mirrors.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I had a surprising amount of fun writing everything that had to do with the Sisterhoods. A whole plot thread in my novel revolves around an order of religious women that chant in a sort of mystical ecstasy to the Eternal Motherstorm raging above Onyxia. Writing their religion and magic was a fascinating opportunity to explore my views on art (and music specifically) as a form of spiritual transcendence. Oh, and of course, Omen, the panther companion to one of the protagonists, emerged fully formed in my head (probably inspired by my own pet cat Stark) and, in a very cat-like way, pretty much wrote himself.
Can you tell us a bit about your worldbuilding process?
It all begins with a ‘novum’: something that sets this world apart from ours. In this case, Daydreaming/Imagining as a way of literally manifesting things into existence. From there, and since I’ve written in the epic fantasy tradition, I try to take inspiration from history. I try to get a feel for what would be an equivalent historical period to the setting I want for the book and then consider how the ‘novum’ alters these historical parallels.
Sometimes, it means some societal developments play out faster (E.g. Air travel appears during the middle ages in the form of skyships, which combined with an early emergence of the printing press in turn leads to a quicker development of certain political ideas), while other developments don’t come into play at all (No wars of religion in this world!), and sometimes wildly different things happen (E.g. A massive tower of Babel-like library remains perpetually stuck in a strange frozen vigil while it sinks into a marsh!).
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Cutting stuff. My love for ‘realistic’ worldbuilding in a fantasy book meant the book was originally even denser with more factions, more philosophical ideas, more secondary characters. etc. Both my editor and agent were great at steering me in the right direction and helped me strike a balance between my relentless passion for worldbuilding and creating a tight plot.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
I had written and sold some short stories before I ever considered writing a full-length novel. Then, in 2016, I had the privilege of attending the Odyssey Writing Workshop in New Hampshire. That experience changed my life. Not only did I learn more craft that I thought possible, I made friends for life – and many of them have become incredible novelists themselves (R.F. Kuang, Joshua Phillip Johnson, Farah Naz Rishi, and Linden A. Lewis to name a few)!
These new friends inspired me to try my hand at it, and after one failed attempt I was lucky enough to craft a first draft of Dream of the Jet-Black City that, bloated as it was, caught the eye of Julie Crisp, one of my dream agents (pun intended!).
What’s next for you?
Currently, I’m starting my second round of edits on Nightmare of the Evenfall Forest, the sequel to Dream and the conclusion of the duology. It’s quite the fun and demanding balancing act, because on one hand it raises the stakes and expands the world, while on the other it further develops the plot from the original book and its consequences.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I’ve been lucky to read in advance two amazing fantasy novels I strongly recommend: Halfheart by Linden A Lewis, a poignant tale about how stories shape the way we view ourselves, but also about how they allow us to face grief. It’s also a total rollercoaster with romance, thrilling action and an incredibly badass female protagonist. The other is The Eye of Leviathan by M.A. Carrick, a tour de force of historical fantasy that examines Golden Age Spain and colonialism but in a world with fairies. Outside the fantasy genre, I’ve immensely enjoyed Farah Naz Rishi’s The Flightless Birds of New Hope and Melissa Auf Der Maur’s 90s rock memoir Even the Good Girls Cry.
Other books I’m eagerly awaiting are R.F. Kuang’s Taipei Story, John Gwynne’s The Wolves of War and Gareth Hanrahan’s The Dungeon Book.
