We chat with author Calvin James about Affairs of State, which follows Levar Boylan is hurled into a world of diplomatic galas and impossibly high stakes to rekindle things with his lover, the demon empress Astrid.
Hi, Calvin! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m Calvin James, and I’m an author, aerospace engineer, amateur historian, and role-playing game enthusiast. I live with my wife, dog, and two cats near Denver, and I’ve been seriously writing for ten years now.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I actually started writing stories running a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for my friends when I was ten. Even then, I eschewed pre-made adventures and wrote my own campaigns. As I ran more campaigns and had more ideas, I started setting my ideas down and eventually began dabbling in writing books. I wrote my first story in seventh grade, and have dreamt of being a novelist at least since then.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- The one that made you want to become an author: Lord of the Rings
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Les Miserables
Your debut novel, Affairs of State, is out July 28th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Romantic war-torn space palace intrigue
What can readers expect?
A second chance romance packed with longing, historic-based palace society among the stars, subtle political manoeuvring, a dash of violence, a murderous yet maniacally loyal mechanical ally, and a suite of seductive, scheming characters for our hero to outmanoeuvre if he hopes to reunite with his long-lost love.
Where did the inspiration for Affairs of State come from?
There were two inspirations. One was a conversation with my buddies after one had had a breakup and then had to work with their ex-girlfriend. We started coming up with outlandish worse alternatives, such as her being the boss’s daughter, her being the boss of the labor union, her being a vampire out to suck his blood, or my suggestion, her being an evil enemy emperor trying to conquer the world, but who had never gotten over him. Imagine Sauron pining after Aragorn and making the One Ring for him, only for Aragon to give that ring to a hobbit to throw into the fire because we are So Done, Sauron!
That’s where the character of Astrid came from, but the plot had to wait until I read a history book about the Congress of Vienna. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, as they negotiated the world order which would dominate Europe for a century, the crowned heads of Europe turned Vienna into a drunken, debauched, and decidedly raunchy eight-month long party, all while manoeuvring huge armies to seize lands and intimidate each other. When I read the outrageous exploits of these individuals – which culminated with the Tsar of Russia and Austria’s Foreign Minister sleeping with each other’s mistresses, buying them expensive presents, and expensing the purchases to their governments under the guise of ‘performing diplomatic reconnaissance’ – I knew I had to set the sexy drunken diplomacy in space. But what would the plot be? Of course: the main character attends the peace conference to find his college ex-girlfriend, who is now the evil enemy emperor.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Tilly was a delightful surprise. Originally, I didn’t have her in the novel, but then chapter two came around, and cavalry captain Levar Boylan needed a mount. I wanted something more unique than a horse, so I decided on a flying robot horse with the vocal range of R2-D2 and the attitude of a homicidally protective pit bull. Every scene she showed up in, I knew I was going to have fun watching Levar try to prevent his murderous mount from wreaking havoc.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Affairs of State is the first and only novel I “pantsed”. I find discovery writing exceptionally difficult and far more work than plotting. I prefer having plans, outlines, character profiles, and a few thousand years of world history before I start writing, but this one I went in on vibes. For example, I wasn’t certain if I wanted the “evil emperor ex-girlfriend at Vienna” story to be fantasy or science-fiction, so I went with both, and only turned to full science-fiction once the demons became genetic augments. Thus, this novel has had the most amount of editing, re-writing, and mid-writing pauses to build out the world of any I’ve ever written, and took the longest time (over a calendar year) to finish. But, with determination, three filled notebooks, and a willingness to torch entire chapters which didn’t work, I forged a novel which I truly enjoy reading.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Long. It was long.
I started writing seriously in 2016, at least finishing novels and pursuing publication. I’ve written ten full manuscripts in those ten years, and Affairs of State was not my first. For six years, I struggled with rejections so cutting Achilles would have felt his tendons twinge had he read them. I honed my craft, read books on writing and attended workshops, trying to make myself good enough for someone to see me.
My agent found me at a literary conference read-and-critique session. She walked into the session, pulled out my first ten pages, and asked, “Who wrote this? I want to read the rest.” She saw me, and she stuck with me for another two and a half brutal years as my novels failed to attract attention. She could have moved on to faster-selling authors, but Amy believed in me, and that gave me hope.
I kept writing, and produced another novel which grabbed a different publisher’s attention. Hearing that I might soon be off the table, my current editor reached out about Affairs of State. When we started the call, my editor said, “My publicity team says I can’t spend the entire hour talking about history with you,” and my agent said, “Oh god, there’s two of them.” A solid start, to be sure.
The last sixteen months have been a steady building pressure to this moment. Today I am achieving a lifelong dream, and the feeling is what I would imagine riding a rising storm cloud would be like.
What’s next for you?
Titan books has chosen to go ahead with the next book in the Rimverse series! It’s the story of how Levar and Astrid fell in love at school, but when Levar throws over his high-class popular-crowd friends after they insult his girlfriend, they set about trying to ruin Levar and Astrid’s lives. Levar must rely on his new rag-tag group of outcast friends to survive his former frenemies’ ire, the corrupt military police department’s attention, and entanglement in a treason plot which threatens far worse than expulsion.
That book is already written, in the hands of my editor, and will come out next year assuredly! After that, well, I have one finished manuscript that I’m particularly proud of. It’s not set in the Rimverse, but I think I’ll keep the details to myself until my publisher has a chance to look at it.
For Rimverse fans, though, I have several more Levar and Astrid books in mind, a spinoff in the works, and another fully written. If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing. I’m nowhere close to running out of stories yet!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora so much I finished the trilogy in a month, and I’m two-thirds of the way through the Mistborn trilogy, but after that, I think I’m going to find another nice thick history book. You can find so much inspiration in history, even for stories set among the stars.
