I just love this world that Laura Anne has created, because it's so deep and complex, and feels so true. It's an alternate American history in which the entirety of what would have been the Louisiana Purchase was never owned by either the French or the Spanish, but is being protected by a being known as "the devil."
The identity of the devil is not super clear. Physically, his appearance fluctuates from one set of features to another.
Laura Anne tells us that she has a set of short stories coming out which explore the question of who the devil is a bit more. The stories include "Crossroads," "Devil's Jack," and "Boots of Clay." There will also be a new short story and a new novella.
She says she doesn't like spelling things out.
In the books, it feels like the devil has always been there, protecting the Territory. He's recognizable by his eyes and his voice, which don't change.
I asked Laura Anne if she did a lot of research for this third book. She says, "There is always more." She wasn't able to do boots-on-the-ground research in Louisiana because of flooding, but she was able to use memories of a trip there many years ago.
Even one of her editors tried to tell her that the town she describes in the book was in the wrong place for New Orleans - but as she informed him, "It's not New Orleans, honey." It's Baton Rouge, directly translated as Red Stick. The city that corresponds with New Orleans is the Free City, which is not a part of the Territory. She knew that the city would exist, but it wouldn't necessarily be French. Spanish and Portuguese sailors who jumped ship would have lived there, as well as escaped slaves, traders, freebooters, and pirates. The location would be one not owned by anyone, but would hold the keys to the river. Laura Anne told us she was thinking of Thieves' World and Sanctuary when she designed it.
The law of the Territory is entirely based on the Agreement, which was made between the devil and the native peoples of the Territory. Across the river in America, people say that if you can get across the river, you can be free so long as you abide by the Agreement.
I asked Laura Anne about how she found the idea for the Agreement. She explained that she had to figure out a way that the devil could restrict settlement and protect the people of the Territory. It started out nebulous, but when she wrote the novel she had to codify it, because if you have to retrofit, it's a headache.
The Agreement needed to be simple, and vague, to be effective. The idea of it is that if you come into the Territory, you are a guest there.
Essentially, this is anti-manifest destiny fantasy. The whole point of the Agreement is to force people to behave themselves.
We talked about magic sources. Laura Anne says they are not animist, but that animic magical power exists in everything. It's easy to use it up, and easy not to hear it. Isobel is good at listening. The magic comes from various sources. The "bones" are the earth and stones. Water, wind, and silver (the "blood") also have power. Each of these sources of power has its own strengths, and different uses, and awarenesses. There are also talking animals who are spirits who speak for the Territory in different ways.
Western (canon) stories tend to get too discrete in their systems of magic. This world treats magic as a whole with many different aspects.
I asked Laura Anne what the devil is. She says she has a very good idea, but she isn't telling.
The character of Gabriel is very interesting, and has a special relationship with water. He is a dowser, which means he can sense water. This keeps him and Isobel alive a great many times. It also comes with drawbacks, since water is mercurial, more fluid and less caring.
Isobel is a "bone child," which means she is connected to stone and to earth. In this world, it is said that flesh comes from water and stone, but only stone cares.
Gabriel is running away from himself in many ways. He tried to run away from the Territory, but once you are part of the Territory, you can't leave.
Different people are tied to different aspects of the Territory, and each pays a price. Magicians are tied to wind, and have great power, but at the cost of their sanity.
Isobel is coming of age during all three of these books, and figuring out what she has become. Gabriel has been in denial and pushed down the question of his identity for 20 years. He is having a midlife crisis. He's in his late 30s or early 40s. (By my calculation he's at least 36.)
In Red Waters Rising, the question of water and of Gabriel's power and identity becomes urgent. Water is a constant throughout the books, but usually Gabriel has been dealing with creeks or small rivers. In this book, he's dealing with the Mississippi itself, one of the major sources of magical power.
Laura Anne says that people often try to imagine Gabriel and Isobel into a romantic relationship, but their relationship is not at all romantic. It's more complex than that. They start out as strangers and become road companions, then teacher and student, then peers. In the end, Isobel becomes his superior in some arenas. Their evolving relationship is the spine of the story, as is Isobel's evolving relationship with the Territory.
In these books, a problem is not necessarily a thing that can be defeated.
In Red Waters Rising, there is mention of the previous Devil's Left Hand, who died before Gabriel was born. They remember the story in Red Stick, but we never hear exactly what happened. Some readers apparently think, "Why should we bring this up if we're not going to follow it?" Laura Anne says this isn't a loose thread, but "fringe." Things in this world are not neat.
This book concludes the story begun in Silver on the Road, but there will be a novella, "Gabriel's Road" coming out to follow Red Waters Rising, in which Gabriel is finally dealing with his issues.
Laura Anne told us she's under contract for two more books. One she's working on now is an alternative 1774 American Rebellion, the story of a young woman who should have gone back to learn Old Country magic but is held back by the unrest, in Massachusetts. It's about how the village in Massachusetts deals with the unrest, with magic being used against them, though if they use their own magic to defend themselves, their neighbors would turn against them. She says she takes inspiration from the Jewish experience in Eastern Europe. Characters at different points in life are coping with secrets, abilities, and responsibilities. The book is a standalone.
Laura Anne says, "I tend not to write the same thing more than twice. I would probably lose my mind."
She is also working on a contemporary Americana Fantasy in which she has made up an entirely new magic system, "AGAIN." She says the science of creating a magic system is integral with creating the story.
I also asked Laura Anne what it was like working with the various different languages that appear in the Devil's West books. She calls it "the worst best mistake I ever made." She needed there to be a lot of languages that her characters didn't necessarily speak. She was fortunate in that she had native speakers to help, but she ran into people who would say, "This isn't accurate Spanish," and she would have to reply, "It's Portuguese." There are sections where Isobel has no idea what's going on. This is in part why she brought trade sign into it. Native groups often shared signs. Laura Anne says, "It was complicated, and given my druthers, I'd never do that again." However, it wouldn't ring true if there were only one or two languages. There are even Inca people who are still around.
Did she make her copyeditor cry? She says she has a whole folder of emails about Red Waters Rising, and that there was a lot of whimpering. "I was going to say I'd broken him in, but I may just have broken him."
How did her writing process change with a real map (as opposed to a fantasy map)? Laura Anne emphasizes that you shouldn't need a map to understand the story. When writing the Devil's West, though, she had a huge map on the wall with the whole trail followed by Isobel and Gabriel. Laura Anne says too often people feel the need to go back to the map in a thick fantasy. In Vineart War, she worked with a map of real places in Europe and Africa, but the idea was that it was so long ago they didn't have names.
She made sure that in the Devil's West books, they never eat stew. There's no chuckwagon, and no time to put a meal together. Soaking beans in a bag while riding is something real riders do. Laura Anne says she learned to build a rabbit trap, and read a lot of wilderness survival guides, prepper guides, and even used summer camp experience (cooking over an open fire, navigating without a compass) to help flesh out the experiences of the characters in the books.
Thank you so much, Laura Anne, for joining us and sharing your insights! Thank you also to everyone who attended. I highly recommend the Devil's West series.
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