The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,110
find the most difficult to write?
I love writing scenes with Hendricks. He’s an amalgamation of some of my favorite people in real life: verbose, articulate, flamboyant, creative folk who always convince you to go to one more pub and have one more drink.
There isn’t a particular character that I find hard to write yet. If I’m struggling to put words in a character’s mouth, it usually means I haven’t nailed down their point of view. If that happens, the best solution is to put them in conflict with Fetch. Not only does that help me define what they’re saying, it makes Fetch’s narration more loaded.
He’s a character who works best when the whole world is out to get him.
Fetch is haunted by his role in the war. What was it like writing a character dealing with PTSD?
When I was younger, I romanticized the idea of growing up into the kind of man that Humphrey Bogart would play in films: cool, stoic, unflappable. With most of these characters, there’s something traumatic in their past that made them that way. Sometimes it’s war. Often it’s heartbreak. As an anxious young man, I remember thinking that life would be so much easier after you got hurt and you stopped giving a shit. Of course, when you grow up, you realize there is nothing romantic about becoming wounded or traumatized, or using your past as an excuse to be jaded, cynical or selfish.
With Fetch, we get to swim in the mind of someone who made terrible mistakes, while he tries to hold a hard-boiled face over his guilt and fear. He projects a certain image, but we know that the man underneath is extremely broken.
To make matters worse, every aspect of Sunder City reflects his failures. Fetch blames himself for this broken world. Each day, he has a choice to stay stuck, give up or be better. I don’t suffer from PTSD, but I’m pretty sure we all go through times in our lives when this choice isn’t as easy as it should be.
It should also be noted that we are hearing this story from Fetch himself, and he probably doesn’t realize how screwed up he really is. A lot of things that Fetch justifies in the text could be seen as quite horrific when looked at from a distance.
Fetch’s internal journey will not be a straight line, and it won’t be wrapped up in a couple of books. This is the beginning of a fantasy adventure, but we don’t yet know if we’re journeying with Frodo or Sméagol.
Who are some of your favorite authors, and how have they influenced your writing?
As mentioned earlier, Raymond Chandler was a huge influence. So many people have been inspired by Chandler over the decades, but often they take the skin and forget the soul. What I always loved most about Philip Marlowe was his sentimentality. So, for better or worse, Fetch is an overly sentimental son of a bitch.
As far as fantasy books go, I read a lot of Terry Pratchett growing up. I can’t deny that the shadow of Ankh-Morpork hangs over Sunder City. The stories I wrote when I was younger were heavily influenced by the Discworld books, but I hope I’ve found my own way of using a fantasy world to explore the things in my head.
Without giving too much away, could you tell us what we can expect from the next novel?
With the big flashbacks out of the way, the stage is set for things to get much more complicated in book two. After what Fetch witnesses in The Last Smile, things have to change. People in Sunder now believe that Fetch is the guy you go to if you hear a rumor about returning magic. So, whether he wants them or not, magical quests start coming to his door.
We get more twisted versions of classic beasts, a huge new player in the Sunder City business world, a lot of murder, a touch of magic and a visit from an old friend.
Finally, we have to ask, if you had to meet a supernatural creature in a dark alley, which would it be?
This premise sounds terrifying, so I’ll say a unicorn. A classic unicorn, though. Not one of mine.
You’ll see what I mean in book two.
if you enjoyed
THE LAST SMILE IN SUNDER CITY
look out for
THE FETCH PHILLIPS ARCHIVES: BOOK TWO
by
Luke Arnold
The name’s Fetch Phillips—what do you need?
Cover a Gnome with a crossbow while he does a dodgy deal? Sure.