Hello Hivelings! Following on from my review of The Black Hawks, I wanted to know more about David Wragg’s band of mouthy mercs, and his own initiation into the fantasy author roster. Lucky for me, he was nice enough to answer a few questions about his roller-coaster ride of a debut.

Thanks for joining us again on the Hive, David! Please, tell us a little about yourself.

Hi! I’m David Wragg, middle-aged white British man of slightly unreasonable height. My debut book, The Black Hawks, came out on 3^rd October. In my day job, I work nebulously ‘in tech’. I am married with some cats and daughters.

For those who have yet to read The Black Hawks (and if you haven’t, you’re missing out…just saying!) unleash your elevator pitch! 50 words or less. Go, go, go!

The Black Hawks is a low fantasy story about a young man with strong but untested ideals, and those ideals meeting reality. At speed. It features chases, explosions, sharp objects, wild animals, unconventional dining choices and a vast array of swearing.

Why this story? Why Chel, and Tarfel, the world around them, and yes, why The Black Hawks?

I grew up reading quest fantasy from The Hobbit on-wards, and it’s a foundational aspect of my internal literary canon. I wanted to write a quest story in the vein of the stuff I read in my youth, but because I’m both a cynic and a giggling buffoon I was determined to mess around with as much as I could along the way. My goal was to keep readers guessing by evoking things they recognised and then running off in another direction, tittering. The setting, the character archetypes, the plot-shape are all supposed to feel familiar, but I hope the result isn’t!

As for the Hawks themselves: I’ve had some surprising and memorable colleagues in my many professional years, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a universally positive sense. I wanted to bring a bit of the feeling you can get as a freelancer of joining a group who already have their own dysfunctional dynamic, then slowly injecting some of your own.

I’m not going to ask you who your favourite Black Hawk is – though I’m really, really tempted to.  Instead, if you had to choose one member of the Black Hawks to be your personal guard – a la Chel & Prince Tarfel – who would it be, and why?

I’d go with Whisper in a second. On the one hand, she’s calm, professional and experienced, and on the other, she’s probably the only one of them that wouldn’t belittle and needle you all day on a constant basis. Verbally, at least.

*Mike grumbles about not picking Lemon*

If you suddenly found yourself in fantasyland having to assemble a crew of mercenaries, who would you hire?

I’ve selected a crack team of some of my favourite characters from popular culture, all of whom would bring with them far more than just top-notch skills…

Tactician and moral compass: Sarah Connor (Terminator 2 edition)

Tracker/chief negotiator/weary sigher: Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher series)

Heavy weapons and tact: Detective Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn 99)

Social Secretary: Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne (Game of Thrones)

For those writers yet to be published who might be reading this, rather than share the greatest advice you’ve been given about writing – as that question always gets asked – if there was one golden nugget of truth you could share with yourself, back before you were published, what would it be?

Keep writing new things – you can always come back and tinker with something later, but time marches ever on. I think it’s important to get things out of your system, and it’s probably a safe assumption that the first thing you ever write will be crap, but that doesn’t mean you should then spend a long time (e.g. three YEARS) trying to de-crapify it. The more new stuff you write, the better you’ll get. Probably.

On that note, The Blacks Hawks is a much deeper tale than that of a bunch of mouthy mercs swearing and sword-swinging their way across the land. I for one found the themes woven into the story especially powerful. Which of these was most important to you as a writer?

The series is called Articles of Faith for a reason (indeed, that’s what the first book was originally called). Fundamentally it’s about the difference between assuming you’d do the right thing, and finding the cost of trying for yourself. And that’s assuming you can determine what the right thing is in the first place. There’s also a bit of political, historical and moral theory in there (you’ll know the one) too, which I reckon holds water.

Plus, you know, ‘don’t trust entrenched, self-perpetuating power structures, kids!’

That should be on a t-shirt.

Speaking of quotes, of the tens of thousands of words in the story, do you have a favourite line?

There are a good number that make me chuckle, but I think one exchange that nails the tenor of the book for me is this between Chel and Rennic, given the context of what just occurred:

‘You need to teach me to fight.’
‘I need to teach you to tie a fucking knot.’

Of course, it’s a bit odd in isolation, which is why everyone should nip out immediately and get the book so they can fill in the blanks.

Which brings me nicely to my last question. In the years to come, what would you like readers to take away from reading your books?

I want the books to be fun, a bit different and surprising, and I’d like to think that any reader taken along for the ride will at least have found themselves wondering which side of any given argument they’d take.

Plus, you know, ‘don’t trust entrenched, self-perpetuating power structures, kids!’

Thanks again, David!

Thank you for having me!

David Wragg is the author of THE BLACK HAWKS, available now.