Over at her livejournal Jo Graham discusses the “Warrior Princess” archetype in fantasy, and explains how she aimed to make Gull – the priestess in Black Ships – distinct from it.

“I think it’s important that our stories talk about the full range of human experience. Throughout human history important and interesting things have been done by people of both genders, playing a variety of gender roles. Our popular fiction chooses to focus on a few. Why not talk about Ruling Queens? About Sacred Whores, as Jacqueline Carey does in Kushiel’s Dart? About the neglected male archetypes of The Priest and The Psychopomp?”

You can read the whole post here.

Black Ships is out now in the US, and is forthcoming in the UK. Click here to read an excerpt.