We chat to author Nathan Makaryk about Lionhearts, which is the sequel to his 2019 debut novel Nottingham. Releasing on September 15th 2020, Nathan discusses his inspiration and challenges, along with book recommendations, writing advice, and more!
Hi, Nathan! Tell us a bit about yourself!
Hi! I’m an author living in Southern California who is also a playwright, theatre director and producer, combat choreographer, actor and comedian, and—most importantly—a nerd! My nerd credentials include building a living-room-sized Risk board, working as an official dev ‘Hardcore Tester’ on the Guitar Hero franchise, and I once edited the entire Back to the Future trilogy into chronological order.
With the current state of the world, what are you doing to cope with the changes we’ve had to make with our day-to-day?
Well theatre is sadly entirely shut down, so most of my extracurricular activities (aside from writing) are on hold. But I also have “the day job” so my wife and I are lucky to still be both fully employed, and working from home. The only problem is that we also have “the child”: a four-year old who can obviously no longer go to day care! So my wife and I toggle between work and child-watching every 90 minutes, from 7am to 10pm every day. It’s exhausting, and doesn’t leave much time for anything else.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
According to my mom I taught myself to read at the age of three, so she’s clearly an untrustworthy source. I remember writing a very Dungeons & Dragons-y novel in junior high school, and I only barely remember its details (but I’d pay a good bit of money to the first time traveller who offers to go back and get a copy for me). But I never thought that a normal person could ever “become an author”; I assumed one had to go to school for that, like becoming a doctor. So I never pursued writing seriously aside from local theatre, until a friend published a book and I thought, “Wait, we’re allowed to do that?”
Lionhearts, the sequel to Nottingham, releases tomorrow! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Robin Hood: Into the Robin-verse.” Okay, it’s a much more serious story than the indisputably best Spider-Man movie, but Lionhearts lets me explore a world in which many different people “put on the hood” and take on the persona of Robin Hood. I get to tackle various versions of the legend at once—from a swashbuckling nobleman to a sinister gang leader … there’s even a wink to a particularly foxy cartoon.
So, for those who haven’t read Nottingham, what can they expect? And then what do they have to look forward to in the sequel?
Both Nottingham and Lionhearts are a deconstruction of the Robin Hood legend, which views Robin and his men as less-than-altruistic self-serving thieves, and the Sheriff of Nottingham as an honest politician who struggles to keep the peace. It’s generally more historically-respectful than most retellings, but it also dismantles a lot of Robin Hood tropes and rebuilds something that’s more realistic—for better or worse. While Nottingham focuses largely on the creation of the legend and has a lot of canon “Robin Hood” moments, Lionhearts gives me more freedom with the characters to take the story in my own direction. Fortunately, history provided me the perfect backdrop for my characters to get entangled in: as the title implies, it has a lot to do with King Richard the Lionheart’s return to England. Known as Richard-of-the-Last-Reel by movie buffs, he’s famous for sweeping merrily back into town and righting all wrongs, but this is far from the violent truth of what actually happened—which is one of the biggest events to ever take place in Nottingham.
What inspired you to write the series?
Believe it or not: the phrase “I hate Robin Hood.” That’s not to say I actually hate Robin Hood, because I love everything about the Robin Hood mythology and the setting and sword fights and archery—all of it! But it’s always bugged me that Robin Hood stories are the worst offenders of creating black-and-white lines between good guys and bad guys, and I’ve never seen a version that properly painted everyone in grey. The first version of Nottingham was a stage play called The Legend of Robin Hood which had a successful run, which I then novelized. And Lionhearts is the extension of that story into a much wider scope. With both books, my goal was to break apart the stories we know and analyse them: which parts are respectable and worth keeping? Which parts deserve our ridicule? And most importantly, can we reverse-engineer those stories into something more realistic and morally-grey that might explain where these exaggerated character stereotypes actually originated?
Were there any challenges you faced with writing the sequel?
I had foolishly written about half the sequel before I even had a deal for the first book, which meant that the editing process for Nottingham often had giant rippling effects into Lionhearts as well. But on the flip-side, having the sequel so far along meant I could plant the seeds into Nottingham for events that don’t pay off until Lionhearts, so that ended up being quite beneficial. But I’d been imagining where I wanted this story to go for years and years since working on the play, so honestly the sequel was very much me chomping on the bit, ready to push the story into a much bigger playground.
Without spoiling too much, is there a favourite moment that you really enjoyed writing in Lionhearts?
Several! Pretty much anything with Prince John, who’s a very fun character to write. He plays a larger role in Lionhearts than he did in Nottingham, and if I’m lucky enough to continue the series with a third book, he’ll be a major player in that one too. I also include the infamous “Archery Contest” scene in this book (which is only briefly mentioned and rightfully mocked in Nottingham), in which the Sheriff arranges for a public tournament that is intended to lure Robin Hood into the castle and expose himself. I’ve always thought this is one of the most ridiculous strategies in history, so doing something different with it in Lionhearts was definitely a highlight for me.
Do you have any advice for aspiring fantasy writers?
Don’t do what I did! Please learn from my mistakes. I made the poor choice of writing the book before I ever looked into the actual process of getting published, which meant that I wrote a large (300,000+ words) book, because that’s the kind of book that I like to read. This ended up putting a lot of obstacles in front of myself, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. Suffice it to say that an agent, editor, and publisher are always taking a risk when they contract a new author, and they’re far less likely to take that risk on a book that requires such a significant investment of time. Nottingham ended up at about 225K words, which is still about three times longer than most debuts. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get published with a longer book like mine, but it’s far more difficult—and there are already so many difficult hurdles to jump when trying to get published. So do your research and investigate what kinds of books are appropriate and possible to get sold as a debut in your genre, to give yourself the best shot at success.
Lastly, what are you currently reading and do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
SO MANY! If war sci-fi is your thing and you want more stories like mine that show both sides as sympathetic, please check out Reese Hogan’s Shrouded Loyalties. I’m currently reading (and loving) the third and final books in Alex White’s The Salvagers series (rag-tag scifi crew with a touch of magic), and K.A. Doore’s Chronicles of Ghadid series (desert assassins versus the undead). Or, if Nottingham tickles your fancy for more visceral English myth retellings, pick up By Force Alone for Lavie Tidhar’s version of the Arthur legend.
You can find Nathan on Twitter and at his website.
