We chat with author Cameron Johnston about The Last Shield, which is a gender-flipped Die Hard set in a mysterious castle.
Hi, Cameron! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello folks! I’m Cameron Johnston, a Scottish fantasy author with a love of history, archaeology, mythology and ancient weaponry. I take a lot of inspiration from Scotland’s landscape and ancient places, the glens and lochs, standing stones and castles.
I currently have four books out:
The Traitor God, and God of Broken Things – film noir mixed with swords and sorcery.
The Maleficent Seven – seven fantasy villains team up to defend a town against an ‘army of light’.
The Last Shield – the new book you will find out more about in a moment!
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I don’t remember a time when I was not a reader. From Rupert the Bear, Asterix and Obelix, X-men and 2000AD comics to many battered copies of pulp fantasies from the 70s and 80s, and of course, who could forget the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf gamebooks. I was a library kid, going in after school and coming out with an armful of books, then holing up and reading my way through them in short succession.
Writing came as a natural progression later, and after many failed attempts in my mid-20s, I finally finished a novel. It was not good. Nor was the second, and neither shall see the light of day. But you do get better if you put the work in, and so long as you have fun with your writing it’s an immensely worthwhile endeavour.
Your latest novel, The Last Shield, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Oh, that is an easy one for this book: ‘Die Hard in a castle.’
What can readers expect?
A gender-flipped Die Hard in a mysterious castle – this is not one of those books with a slick marketing blurb on the back that promises you one thing and delivers a grocery order of items missing a few vital ingredients. The Last Shield is more than that of course, because screenplays by their very nature must be mean and lean or suffer from bloated screentime. Books allow an author to add so much more story and detail than a movie ever can, allowing me to dive deeper into Briar, the main character, and explore a setting inspired by ancient Scotland.
You can expect thrilling fights, crawling through secret tunnels, vicious brigands, dark sorcery, and a magically protected vault made from the fossilised remains of a dragon.
Where did the inspiration for The Last Shield come from?
On the battlements of a medieval castle in Scotland, after climbing a wet spiral staircase to get up there. As the wind whipped past, I got to thinking about all the fantasy battles I’d read and how we very rarely see the aftermath, of the wounded and disabled warriors.
The character of Briar immediately appeared in my imagination, fully formed, already wounded, and very pissed off. The plot of her being the only one left to save her people held hostage in a crumbling old palace soon followed.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
There comes a moment in writing a book when it’s finally time to write that scene you have been itching to get to. In this case it is when Briar finally confronts one of the traitors that helped the brigands invade the palace, and there is this fantastic savage fight with all of her emotions bubbling over.
Can you tell us about your process when it came to worldbuilding for The Last Shield?
I’m fascinated with history and archaeology, and there has been a real dearth of fantasy novels set in prehistory. For a long time, the default was a quasi-medieval setting of stone castles and armoured knights, but I took a lot of inspiration from ancient Scotland to craft a Bronze Age society trading with log boats and wicker baskets. The mossy standing stones and circles and the rugged landscapes around me went into the worldbuilding pot with bronze swords, ancient rituals and folklore, a little real-world archaeology of the time period – and all that spiced up by dark magic and monsters to make a delicious stew of a setting.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
- The one that made you want to become an author: The World of the Unknown: Ghosts, by Christopher Maynard. My young imagination went BOOM.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Historically? H. P. Lovecraft Omnibus 1: At the Mountains of Madness – my first introduction to cosmic horror.
What’s next for you?
I’ve been writing something very different for me. Less swords and bloodshed, and more arcane engineering…
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
It’s been a great year reading-wise for me: Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey, The Crow Folk by Mark Stay, The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell, The Serpent’s Quest by Nerine Dorman and Toby Bennett, Charlie Says by Neil Williamson, Miasma by Jess Hyslop, and The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart stand out from the crowd.
I can’t wait to get my hands on Deep Black by Miles Cameron.
