Blog Tour: The Assassin’s Curse

Today I’m very lucky to have the author of The Assassin’s Curse (Review tomorrow!) – Cassandra Rose Clarke – stop by the blog and talk about Pirates. As they feature heavily in the novel, they’re quite the talking point. Thank you to Cassie for taking time to tell us about her favourite pirates.

A lot of people seem taken with the pirate aspect of The Assassin’s Curse, something I didn’t quite expect when I wrote the book. I’ve talked on the blog tour already about why historical pirates interested me, so I thought here I could touch on what makes fictional pirates so interesting. And I thought I’d do it by listing my five favorite fictional pirates, in no particular order.

1. Long John Silver: Even before he lent his name to a chain of fast food seafood restaurants, Long John Silver was the fictional pirate. Robert Louis Stevenson’s depiction of him in Treasure Island has arguably had the most influence on how we, in the twenty-first century, think about pirates. Peg legs? Shoulder parrots? X marks the spot? All those pirate trappings were borne of Treasure Island. We can thank Long John Silver, along with Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, for turning pirates into bad guys (even though Long John Silver actually possesses a fair amount of moral ambiguity in the original story).

There are many depictions of Long John Silver across the media, but I want to give a shout-out to the most wonderful and bizarre of them all, a 2002 Disney movie called Treasure Planet. Look it up, seriously. There are pre-Avatar cat aliens and space ships that look and work like sailing ships. Long John Silver is a cyborg. It’s magnificent.

2. Captain Jack Sparrow: I have a feeling that Jack Sparrow may give Long John Silver a bit of competition in the “most influential fictional pirate” category, at least in the long term. I mean, I’ve been to Renaissance festivals since the release of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie nine years ago. I’ve seen the Jack Sparrows stumbling around. I can imagine that in one hundred years, scraggly braided beards will replace the peg leg as the most infamous pirate signifier.

Really, though, what I like most about Captain Jack Sparrow is that he captures one of things that’s fascinating about pirates for me, which is their slipperiness. Jack Sparrow is so slippery in his wheeling-and-dealing that about halfway through the second movie nothing makes sense any more. Yeah, okay, maybe that’s just a flaw with the movie’s script, but deep down I like to imagine it’s because Jack Sparrow’s trickiness is so finely-tuned that a non-pirate like myself simply can’t follow it.

3. Han Solo: Yes, space pirates count as pirates.

Honestly, I think Han Solo (not to mention his subsequent popularity) was more of an influence on Captain Jack Sparrow’s character than Long John Silver. You have that same quasi-moral ambiguity — Han Solo is clearly a good guy in the movies, but there’s a reason everyone went into a tizzy when George Lucas ensured that he didn’t shoot first. Everyone loves a rogue! For me, pirates’ roguishness is another big reason for my fascination with them. I love morally ambiguous characters, and pirates are always a great vehicle for exploring moral grey areas. Han Solo lives outside the law, more or less, but during the course of the Star Wars trilogy he comes to fight for the common good.

4. Smee (from the movie Hook): I picked this guy because I like the idea that not all pirates are badasses. I’ll be honest: I’ve never read the Peter Pan play, and it’s been about a million years since I saw the Disney animated film, so I really don’t know what the original Smee was like. But in the movie Hook (which, in case you’ve forgotten, was a ridiculous, over-the-top, adultified version of Peter Pan), Smee’s character was this smarmy bureaucrat who convinces Hook to manipulate Peter’s children against him. There’s more than one way to be a pirate.

5. I really wanted at least one fictional pirate on this list to be a woman, but the only two I could think of were Elizabeth Swann and Angelica, both characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Of the two of them, I have more of a fondness for Angelica (she was in the most recent movie, as Blackbeard’s daughter) since she’s basically the female counterpart to Captain Jack Sparrow in terms of trickiness.

It actually surprises me that no one’s yet bothered to make a movie about a pair of real-life lady pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. I really don’t have room here to tell you even a summarized version of their story, but rest assured that it involves crossdressing, mistaken identities, love affairs, and, of course, lots and lots of piracy. Get on it, Hollywood!

Wait… where are you going? There’s more! Would you like to win an exclusive, one of a kind annotated version of The Assassin’s Curse? Of course you do, it features sketches, deleted scenes and lots more about the characters. Each blog that has taken part in the tour will pick one winner and that person will go into a hat, the winner drawn at that stage wins the book. It is an International giveaway and all you need to do is leave a comment below!

 

Storyteller Blog Tour – Anna

Bertil

What can I say about Anna?

She’s locked herself in a tower of ice, now that the story is over. Won’t pick up the phone anymore. Won’t talk to me. She hates me. That’s what happens to you when you love someone, they hate you.

I loved her from the first moment I saw her, which was in Year 5 and a long time ago. She’s the kind of girl that looks straight through you without seeing you. Not because she’s ignoring you, but because she’s lost in thought, lost in her own dream world.

She is so beautiful. Always was. I wonder if he even realized how beautiful she is? That dark hair, those deep eyes. I can still see her with the silver flute raised to her lips at one of the school’s concerts. Her lips … let’s not go there.

Imagining her locked in that winter tower she created just makes her more beautiful to me. It was winter when her story with Tannatek began. It is summer now, but I guess it will never be summer for either of them, Tannatek or Anna.

How I wish I could free her! Save her! I tried to, you know, tried to save her, back then. But she was much too hard-headed to let anyone help her. She told me she didn’t need me, didn’t need anybody to take care of her.

Tannatek … you want me talk about him, too? I can´t talk about him. I’d just get into a rage…

He came along, and Anna fell in love and – if that is possible – I fell in hate.

He used to just sit there, you know, out by the bike stands, selling his stuff, never talking to anybody, not even in class. I never understood why he wanted to take the exams with us.

His world was totally different from ours, he lived in one of those blocks outside town; he got into his share of fights and he looked it. He didn’t necessarily loose them.

They say he had that little sister he took care of, but if you ask me, I can’t imagine him caring about anyone. I mean, I know about what happened to him in the past, I know that now, people have been talking a lot at school, talking and talking and talking. As if words could heal anything.

I did try to feel sorry for Tannatek, but believe me, I can’t.

Did he love Anna at any point in the story? For her sake, I hope he did.

Mantelpiece Musings – An Interview with Annabel Pitcher

When I initially read My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, I was utterly gobsmacked by how powerful and thought provoking the novel is. Not only did I review the book and lavish praise upon it, but I’ve since championed the book and pushed friends and family to read it (I’ve also just discovered that a quote from my review, originally found on Libri Populus, was used for the inside cover of the paperback.). I’m very lucky to be able to promote the book even further here, with an interview with Annabel Pitcher, the author.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece approaches subjects that many authors would shy away from, were you scared that it wouldn’t be well received or that the book would be deemed controversial?

Not at all. I wrote it while travelling the world, completely engrossed in the story, not really considering other authors’ work or what was selling in the shops. I was totally hooked on Jamie and just wanted to write the most real, funny and moving book that I could. To me, the story didn’t feel controversial in the slightest and I certainly wasn’t trying to shock anyone or get a reaction – it just so happened to be the story that had popped into my head one night in Ecuador and my only concern was getting it down on paper in the best way that I could.

It’s well documented that you wrote the novel in notepads on a trip to Ecuador after the inspiration from a film about 9/11. Once you had the basics down did you look anywhere else for further inspiration or research?

Inside myself! That sounds incredibly cheesy, and I don’t mean it to, but this book came from the heart and I put everything into it that I have ever learned about humans, how they interact, how they suffer, how they overcome grief… I drew on my own experiences and all I’d observed in others. I also looked on websites devoted to those who lost their lives in terrorist attacks like 9/11, just to check that I was on the right lines in my portrayal of a family’s reaction to such a horrific and shocking event.

Despite dealing with many difficult subjects (and there are many) the book is far from depressing and becomes uplifting and inspiring, how important to you was the use of humour to reach this balance?

Absolutely essential. I did not want to write a book that was depressing or overly sentimental. I wanted to write a book that was about courage and hope and survival, rather than one that focused on misery and death and grief. The humour – particularly in Jamie and Sunya’s interaction – helped me to achieve that.

The original hardback cover

Did you initially find it hard to write in the thoughts and speech of a ten year old boy? And what did you do to deliver it so well?

Not at all! Jamie was so vivid to me, so real, that I found I could slip inside his head quite easily. That being said, I was extremely strict with myself, and edited the first draft extensively, taking out any sentences that sounded like Annabel talking, rather than Jamie. Even if I loved a particular passage, if it didn’t sound like Jamie, then it had to go! I think I probably wrote 1000 words for every 500 in the book. For me, strict editing is the key to creating an authentic voice.

Who was your favourite character to write?

Definitely Sunya! She provided so much light relief, and she just leapt off the page. Her first key moment in the book, when she is reading out her horror story in class and makes the teacher fall off her chair in shock, was one of my favourite sections to write.

The new paperback cover

The book has been described in so many ways and features so many topics, but what does the book mean to you?

For me, it is a coming-of-age tale, pure and simple. We see Jamie go from a position of not understanding the world around him, to a place where he can empathise with his father’s grief. At first, Jamie disappears into a fantasy world to cope with his life – believing his mother will visit, dressing up as Spiderman – but by the end he has the courage to stare reality in the face and accept it for what he is. He grows up, and the book is about how he does that.

The cover design has changed radically from hardback to paperback, was that a decision from yourself and how do you feel about both covers?

It wasn’t really my decision! I like both covers. The hardback, as it ties in with the trailer (See Below), worked really well, but I also like the quirky nature of the paperback. I think it captures the novel’s offbeat focus and sense of humour.

With Sister and your upcoming second novel, Ketchup Clouds, both written for Young Adult shelves, what inspires you to write for that audience?

I remember my own childhood and teen years very vividly, so it seems natural to write about characters of the same age. Also, teenagers are at a very interesting time of their lives – forming their own identities, questioning things for perhaps the first time, experiencing intense friendships – and I love exploring that as a writer.

You were thrust into the writing world with the auctioning of the rights to the book and waiting to see a finished copy on shelves. How does it feel now to sit at home and realise that you’re a published author? Is it a dream come true?

It had been an ambition for such a long time, and it was fantastic to finally see my book on the shelf. After all the hard work and effort, I get a thrill of excitement every time I walk into a bookshop and see Mantelpiece! When I sit at home and write, I just feel incredibly lucky to be making a living from something that I love to do, and something that I find challenging.

How close are we to seeing Ketchup Clouds being released? And what else does the future hold for you?

Ketchup Clouds is finished and will be out next summer, and I am already looking forward to that. In terms of the future, I am starting to work on several exciting projects, so we’ll see… I’d love to say more but it’s top secret at the moment. Watch this space!

Please follow the rest of Annabel’s blog tour, you can see where she’ll be next on the image below. You can also follow Annabel on twitter – @APitcherAuthor.