Posts Tagged ‘medieval weapons’

“Weapons, Weapons, Weapons!” Elizabeth Moon on Research for Epic Fantasy

Limits of Power – released today

Elizabeth Moon publishes LIMITS OF POWER (UK | ANZ), the penultimate volume in her epic fantasy series Paladin’s Legacy, today. As an author who’s returned to the classic fantasy world she first created in the Paksenarrion series again and again, we asked her how she keeps the details about this world realistic, and consistent . . .

My first visit to New World Arbalest wasn’t a quest for crossbow knowledge, but a chance to see a period (real, not modern make) rapier . . . to hold and flourish a sword that had been used, several hundred years ago, either to mark someone’s rank or kill someone’s foe.  I had met “Master Iolo” (David Watson) and his wife Kathleen – both fencing instructors – at a convention.  But in that first visit I saw the shop at the back of the house, full of wood, sawdust, shavings, antlers, arrays of tools, and crossbows in every stage of construction.  I knew very little about crossbows then, except that I wanted to learn more.

Writers are often research junkies.  We need to find out about all sorts of things in order to write stories that go beyond our own personal experience. Whether it’s a thriller or a mystery or a contemporary slice of life story – or epic fantasy – there’s always something we need to learn.  So we haunt libraries, have overstuffed bookshelves in our own homes (or, now, overstuffed e-readers, or both), spend hours hunting down facts (we hope) on the internet.  When we meet someone with first-hand knowledge of something we know we’ll need for later books, that poor soul hasn’t a chance.  A writer in full research mode is like a hungry vampire: we will get what we want . . . (more…)

Use of Weapons: The Armoury of Epic Fantasy

When embarking on a High Epic tale like THE GATHERING OF THE LOST (UK|ANZ), with its diversity of heavily armed societies, making an inventory of the epic armoury becomes a priority. Any good armoury, after all, should comprise an array of weapons – some magical, some mythic, some even real – that may, depending on circumstances, save the day for one’s protagonists.

The Gathering of the Lost paperback is released today!

The Soul-Sucking Sword

A favoured contender for any self-respecting High Epic tale has to be The Soul-Sucking Sword. After all, they do abound within the annals of the epic literature we love: from Elric of Melniboné and Stormbringer, to CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine with Changeling, and Steven Erikson’s Anomander Rake and Dragnipur. Even Robin McKinley’s (far) more benign Blue Sword has an ambivalent sense of humour. When the chips are down, a soul-sucking sword – or one that can drop whole mountain ranges, like the Blue Sword – has to be handy to any protagonist with worlds to save and a destiny to fulfil.

There may not precisely be soul-sucking swords in THE GATHERING OF THE LOST, but there is reference to black blades:

“Fool!” the old woman spoke with asperity despite her cut and bruised mouth. “She’s carrying black blades—that’s how she defeated the siren worm five years ago. That’s where all your power is going now, too, unless I much mistake the matter.”

 “Black blades—fables for children!” Boras said, but Garan noticed they had all taken a step back.”

There is also a frost-fire sword with a liking for geasas—but to say any more than that might be a spoiler.

The Spear of Power

Spears of power are almost as popular in the epic armoury as soul-sucking swords. Tolkien’s Gil-galad carried Aiglos, which “none could withstand”, into battle against Sauron at the end of the Second Age, while the Irish hero, Cuchulain, possessed the Gáe Bolg, the spear of mortal pain. Whether the spear of power is quite as effective as a soul-sucking sword remains moot however. Tamora Pierce’s heroine, Keladry, may wield the glaive to good effect in the “Protector of the Small” series, but proficiency with a spear does not preserve Oberyn Martell in George RR Martin’s “A Son of Ice and Fire.” Nor does it appear to have done Kaladin a great deal of good, so far, in Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. (more…)

Cover Story: THE KING’S BLOOD by DANIEL ABRAHAM

WEAPONS! Where might one go to procure something if  …  say… you wanted to reenact the Knights of the Round Table, or Edward James Olmos in Miami Vice*, or find an axe for the cover of Daniel Abrahan’s THE KING’S BLOOD? You go to Weapons Specialists in downtown (or downton if you want to be chi chi) Manhattan. Which is what I did one blistering hot day last summer. Check out the video of my visit and revel in the fact that the folks who work there have THE BEST JOB in the world. I would like to apologize in advance for the rather large sweat stains I’m sporting in the video. It’s like my armpits had a pool party the rest of the body wasn’t invited to. So… yea.

I had very specific details for the axe and the final weapon needed to scream warrior. In other words, the axe needed to look used. Obviously this combination of elements isn’t something that you just find off the interwebs, so I needed to create the final image from composites of multiple weapons.

After leaving Weapon’s Specialists with a rifle case full of medieval cutlery, which by the way is really surreal carrying through Grand Central, I needed to photograph everything and start working on what you see on the final book. Here are the weapons I got to play with.

 
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