Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy: Saladin Ahmed

My latest blogpost is another interview on Black Gate. This time I spoke with Saladin Ahmed, author of Throne of the Crescent Moon. Obviously, I could not do a series on the best of modern Arabian fantasy without talking to Saladin, who got starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, and Library Journal for his debut novel.

I asked Saladin, as I've asked all my authors, about the research process. His response: 

Well, I’ve been taught about Arab/Muslim history, and have had living Arab American culture in front of me, all of my life. So by the time I wrote Throne, I had a certain amount of ‘research’ almost hardwired into me. But I certainly did tons and tons of historical research as well: books on daily life in medieval Cairo, books on the topography of Baghdad, books on the history of middle eastern religion/mythology, etc. Ultimately, though, I wrote a secondary world fantasy rather than a historical because I wanted all of that research to be something I could draw on, rather than something I owed fidelity to.
He also gave some teasers about his next book in the Crescent Moon Kingdoms series. Head on over to Black Gate to read the whole piece.

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