Q. The City values pacifism and non-violent resistance. Where does that approach begin to fail?
It begins to fail at the personal level when there are few challenges to remind you of its value. Complacency is an early sign; the assumption that your comfortable status quo is sufficient against outside influences—that you are above it all. You barely notice its presence or its effect. Integrity fades into the background and your life slips into a doze. Complacency incubates a fear: the resistance to change.
Q. How do you sustain escalating tension across three books—especially through cliffhangers and unresolved questions?
I write best to endings, whether for paragraphs, chapters or the books themselves. Even a general sense of the ending helps the writing become assured as it explores more adventurously, more playfully. Endings are coy accelerators and clarifiers as are step by step understandings. Cliffhangers, unresolved questions, characters taking wrong turns, missing clues, struggling with themselves or suspect information ratchets up the tension and suspense even as these open new vistas, perspectives, possibilities or—the most fun and exciting of all—lands a startling revelation that resets the plot arc.
Q. Describe the moment in Book Three when your characters finally recognize the larger pattern unfolding around them.
It builds from chapter 1 in Book One, Threat, when Sas feels he’s the wrong choice to “Educate the barbarian.” As he moves from pawn to player, his perspective matures as he teases apart the strategies, manipulations, successes and reverses that have not only contributed to his growing awareness of the looming disaster but have masked it as well—as if a grander dynamic is trying to ripen unseen, without interference until the moment is right.
Q. When do you know a character has truly come alive—and how does that affect the direction of the story?
When they interrupt the writing and talk directly to you. They are undeniably there. You can’t ignore them. They have something to say and you better listen and pay attention because their ideas are usually better than yours. You take dictation. When the writing slips into this vivid hyper mode, something larger than you takes over and you experience a transformative creative high.
I was unprepared for Quickening’s final chapter—an ending if ever there was one—which utterly possessed me in a blazing ten-hour writing blitz. The ending subsequently demanded a complete re-edit of the entire series that took an additional five years before it was submitted to the publisher.
Q. Is it possible for a society to rediscover strength and integrity without becoming what it opposes?
Absolutely, but the society may have to walk back if the slide has gone on too long. Crises can reawaken integrity, reminding you of who you are, what you represent, allowing you to reclaim who you once were. Not only can it empower the reclamation but interrogate what was inadequate about it and the relationship you had with the original premise. It can lead to a renewal, a reset, an upgrade of the standards, sharpening the sense of justice, the sense of what’s right, what is necessary. If sufficient people in a society accomplish this, renewal can bloom into renaissance. Yet, if circumstances are fraught, individual or societal renewal may need protection and secrecy until the timing and numbers are right. Lalya, trapped in the notorious 5th School, buries herself under a mountain of lies, in order to keep going as she struggles to reclaim the vestiges of her former self.
Q. Can you tell me three fun facts about the main characters of your book?
Sas likes to play the game of Spheres, even though he knows he’s not very good at it. He also loves reading the old tales about Magicians from The Panmageon, the City’s multi-volume history of magical practice. He once thought of becoming a potter. He enjoys buttered yolks, a springtime City treat.
Lalya loves books, one of the reasons she became a librarian. She’s fond of the popular City snack called triangle puffs but has no patience for cooking and loathes the sloppy way her father chews his food.
Hyur, Sas’s friend and former companion, also likes to play Spheres with Sas and usually wins because he’s the better player. He’s a talented metal worker who has forged small metal sun rings, which can determine solar time throughout the year. They sell well at the Pilgrims market.
Gleswea, the astronomer, is passionate in her studies of the night skies and plans to travel south to view skies never seen before. She has no interest in running the family household and she’s relieved her brother has taken charge of it.
Q. What type of reader will enjoy your book?
Anyone who wants to lose themselves in a rich immersive world that although exotic and mysterious has many similarities to our own.
Q. Do you see parallels between that awakening in your story and what’s happening in the real world today?
I have loved reading history for reference and inspiration, yet each age and era seems to resonate to the other. It is true: History repeats itself, making its templates, patterns and parallels appear universal. Recently, I read a quote by Hegel that confirmed a long suspicion: “The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.” Repeating cycles indicate our premises and approaches: religion, philosophy, science, politics are inadequate. If we are to evolve as a species, we should more consciously reassess the inadequacies and recalibrate ourselves to step away from these cycles. There are signs we have begun this.
Sas, near the end of Book 3 Quickening, puzzling over inexplicable events, begins to realize he’s been glimpsing the underpinnings of existence—the sentience of Reality itself—and knows he must embrace the understanding. As must we.
Peter Gribble is a writer and a lifelong student of history whose work explores the intersections of knowledge, power, and the human condition. His fantasy series, “The City of the Magicians,” is set in a civilization that rejects traditional warfare. The series examines how intellect, psychological strategy, and telepathic abilities can be both a society’s greatest strength and its most dangerous vulnerability. Influenced by his childhood in postwar France—where silence about the war was as pervasive as its lingering shadows—Gribble crafts stories that explore the dangers of complacency and the consequences of pacifism and brutality colliding. Learn more at PeterGribble.com
