Paul Finch talks about Vikings and family memories of two World Wars

Author Paul Finch has two new collections due out over the next couple of months.

Darker Ages is being released over the Summer by publishers Sarob Press. The volume features two Finch novellas - The Blood Month and Twilight in the Orm-Garth - featuring a definite Viking theme.

The Blood Month is set in 1030AD and follows the lives of Radnar and Ljot in a tale of Norse myth meets Pagan magic. Fleeing the defeat of their King's army, Radnar and Ljot head for the protection of their cousin Sigfuth, who's settled on the coast of a Fjord in western Greenland. They arrive in November, the Blood-Month, when even at noon only the vaguest seam of daylight is visible. Normally a time of superstition, events are worse this year as rumours spread about a hideous evil stalking the fells…

Twilight in the Orm-Garth tells an unconnected story in 1060AD when William the Conqueror's harsh policies are causing unrest in Saxon England. Dagobert of Caux is trying to celebrate his fiftieth birthday but an ancient pagan entity is heading for Wuftbury Castle. With the Vikings raiding settlements nearer to the Castle with each passing day, Dagobert's going to experience the birthday from hell…

Finch clearly has a fascination for the Viking era. "History, in particular the history of Britain, is one of my real passions," he said. "I go out of my way to re-awaken it in my writing, and the Vikings are only part of this. I guess, if I was forced to make a decision, I'd have to nominate the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages as my two favourite periods of history, and the Vikings are obviously integral to these, so they possibly crop up in my work more often than most.

"Not that the Vikings aren't enthralling in themselves," he continued. "Everything about them is so evocative, certainly as far as I'm concerned; their dress; their culture, their art; their mythology; their warrior spirit. I think I also have a personal interest because, as a youngster, some of the earliest books I read were the Henry Treece Viking adventure novels. I don't remember too much about them now, other than their frequent, bloodthirsty battles and the raw, harsh climate against which they all were set. But I do remember never being able to put one of them down once I'd picked it up."

Finch has been playing in the Viking arena for some time. His last novella from Telos, Cape Wrath, explored Viking rituals in a contemporary setting on a remote isle of Scotland. Obsessed he may seem, but don't go thinking he's telling just one Viking story over and over again. "No way are they the same," said Finch. "Cape Wrath was an out-and-out horror story, in which the Viking antagonist was a vengeful, elemental force from the distant past. In it, I scarcely touched on the Vikings' many achievements, preferring to wallow in the darker side of their nature and hypothesising on how it would be received by modern, softer Brits who weren't used to having to fight for their lives.

"The Blood Month, though it might sound gory and violent, and in fact is pretty gory in many places, gives a much wider view of Norse society. It's still a horror story - or perhaps a fantasy-horror would be a more accurate phrase - but it takes us back to a Viking settlement of the early eleventh century, where now it's the Norsemen themselves who are in mortal danger. I did as much as I could to make this a living-breathing world, and to portray the Vikings - both the men and the women - as a fully-rounded people, with lives and loves, just like everyone else, rather than two-dimensional hairy savages who are always attacking from the sea.

"In fact, the second novella in Darker Ages is called Twilight in the Orm-Garth and this one is concerned with the aftermath of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. In it, the Normans, the 'civilised' founders of modern Britain, are depicted far less sympathetically than the Vikings are in the first story. The Normans were Vikings too, by origin, of course, so perhaps it's a moot-point, but in Twilight, the Normans are now Christian and well-educated, and though there are good guys among them, they are largely shown as opportunist freebooters and harsh oppressors ... very much the way folk often imagine the Vikings to have been."

There's a dark and bloody to all Finch's Viking novels so far. Does he think he'll ever write a happy tale about Viking life? "I'd love to diversify into purely historical fiction, but at the moment I've no time for that," he said. "It's always possible though. There are many uplifting tales that could be told about the Dark Ages.

"It's important to remember that the era was only 'Dark' because, when history was first being written down, little was known about it. Nowadays, we're more informed. We know that those once-lost ages weren't just a holocaust of civil war and barbarian conquest, but also witnessed a great flowering of art, poetry, religion, architecture etc, and in political terms, laid down the bases for most of the great nation-states that still exist today.

"The Viking age is a relatively brief one, but by the end of it, the Norse invaders were largely colonists, blending peacefully into the societies they'd once terrorised, and massively enriching native cultures as a result. So there are many good things that can be said about that period of time, and if no-one else is going to do it, then maybe it will be down to me."

Finch's other new release, The Extremist, will be published by Pendragon Press and launch at the British Fantasy Society's annual Fantasycon event.

This new collection draws its inspiration from the all-too-real events of two World Wars. "I'm aware from the outset that this is a difficult area, of course," said Finch. "Emotions still run high, particularly about World War Two. Several of my relatives who experienced and suffered it are still alive, and I make dedications to them all at the front of the book. But I think this is likely to be a more controversial collection than Darker Ages.

How many of his family stories went into The Extremist? "I won't elaborate too much because it would give stuff away," he said. "But I was born in 1964, in a family that was extensively involved in both wars. The Second World War, in particular, left its mark on us. As a kid I'd sit for ages listening to parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins etc, all exchanging stories and anecdotes from that conflict, and picturing in my mind's eye incidents that seemed to me to have only just occurred. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, though the war had been over nineteen years when I was born, I've always had plenty of source material to draw on when writing wartime fiction, and the stories in The Extremist were no exception."

"Three of the stories originally appeared as a trilogy in Nasty Piece of Work," he said, "which you may remember was a British hard-core horror magazine of the late 90s. It was very tough and uncompromising in the stories it published, and often demanded a strong stomach from its readers. I was a regular contributor, I'm proud to say, but in late '98, I got this idea for a trio of war stories to be published in consecutive issues through '99 and thus mark the end of the twentieth century, surely the bloodiest, most brutal hundred years in the entire history of humanity. Dave Green, the editor of Nasty, went for it. The stories - We Who Fight Monsters, My Day Dying and Ordeals Inc. were thus published, and out of necessity, were all hard-hitting pieces.

"There was no particular pattern to them, though. They weren't linked, but were freestanders, each one examining some aspect of either the First or Second World War, or its after-effects. They were pretty well received at the time, but that was then it. Done and dusted. Earlier this year, however, Chris Teague of Pendragon Press had the idea of republishing them in book-form. I was made up when I heard this, because, though Nasty Piece Of Work cut a bloody swath through the independent press when it was first published, it's now receding into history, as are the many wonderful stories, from a variety of great writers, that it featured.

"For me, this was a rare chance to see three of my own tales from that time reprinted, so I jumped at the chance. Obviously, on their own, the three stories wouldn't have been sufficient to fill a book. So I got together with Chris, and we decided to include The Extremist, which had come third in a 'weird war' contest run by Brian Keene on his excellent Horrorfind website back in 2001, and a brand-new piece called The She-Wolf Shimmered, which, looking back now, seems almost to have been tailor-written for this collection, though it wasn't.

"I should reiterate again that the final five stories to make the line-up aren't connected to each other in any way other than by subject-matter, and even that varies considerably. And they are, all of them, grim outings. However you treat warfare, particularly contemporary warfare - and I regard both WW1 and WW2 as contemporary - you can't afford to do it lightly."

Both new releases can be considered as grim outings, but they are delivered in two different formats – short stories and novellas. How satisfying does he find the shorter fiction, compared to the longer length of Blood Month and Twilight?

"I don't think there's any real difference in terms of the personal satisfaction I draw. The story, The Extremist, which kicks off The Extremist collection, is one of my shorter pieces of recent years - about 3,000 words - but still one of my favourites. I suppose it's the usual thing, when you're writing horror or suspense ... a short, hard punch to the belly can be just as effective as the massed assault of 20,000+ words. I must admit though, that the more novellas I write, the more I seem to be edging towards normal novel length. Perhaps that's my inevitable destination. And yes, I am currently writing a novel. It's half way finished now, but as I haven't got a contract for it yet, it can't take priority over other projects. So it could be some time before anyone sees it."

Watch this space for future Paul Finch developments…

Copyright © Sandy Auden, 2004

Sandy is currently working as an enthusiastic reviewer for SFX magazine; a tireless news hound for Starburst magazine; a diligent interviewer / reviewer for The Third Alternative magazine and a combination of all the above for The Alien Online. She spends her spare time lying down with a cold flannel on her forehead.