Libraries are (obviously) always important. But in Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series, a library is what keeps all of existence in balance. Tasked with keeping the peace between the noble, orderly dragons and the chaotic, untrustworthy Fae, the Librarians reside outside of time itself and maintain the balance between all possible worlds. Sometimes, this even involves stealing extraordinarily powerful books whose effect will too drastically alter the status of their world. In the fifth installment of the series, heroic Librarian Irene is summoned to solve a murder in an alternate-reality Paris before it derails a historic peace conference. We talked to Cogman about the future of her series, and which alternate-reality book she’d love to steal.

I love the concept for this series—two supernatural species, kept in balance by Librarians who can alter little pockets of reality and go about stealing disruptive books to keep them safe in their Invisible Library. Where on earth did it come from?
It came from a whole mix of things, really—law and chaos at opposing ends of the universe, and mysterious interdimensional libraries [of] Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and other sources. Like a lot of authors, I pulled out the bits I liked and put them together in a new way.

The plot of The Mortal Word relies in some ways on its setting in Paris. Did the setting or the story come first, or were they in balance, as it were?
I picked Paris because I particularly wanted to use a specific location in Paris. (I’m not saying which location it is because I don’t want to spoil the story, but anyone who’s finished the book can probably guess.) So I suppose the setting and the story were mostly in balance. But Paris fit in other ways—it was convenient for the peace conference and luxurious enough to keep the participants in a good mood. I suppose the peace conference could have been held in Antarctica in an abandoned science station, where nobody would have known about it, but imagine how certain people would have reacted on being asked to accept local inconveniences.

Have you read any books that you’re surprised a Librarian hasn’t stolen? And are there any alternate reality books you’d be tempted to steal?
Well, I have a copy of Ursula K. Le Guin’s translation of the Tao Te Ching, which I would think anyone would want to steal, but that’s not actually fiction. If we were to consider unique books which never got written in this world but might have been written in other worlds, I’d love to read a version of The Tale of Genji which actually went into how Genji died—in our world, that chapter is left blank, but who knows how the story goes in other worlds?

Each Fae has an archetype or a character that they follow, and their actions are prescribed by the nature of that character. Since they’re at war with the dragons, what do you think would happen if a Fae adopted a draconic archetype?
Unfortunately (for them), a Fae can’t actually turn into a dragon. (I’m sure it’s been tried!) It is quite possible for a Fae to adopt a noble, virtuous archetype, and in that case, they would behave in a noble and virtuous way. I’m not sure any dragon would trust them, though . . .

I got the impression that when the Fae’s stories get too many reboots, they’d turn out a bit like the Countess, with their personalities shattered and shot through with contradictions. Has that ever been done deliberately or tactically in the Invisible Library’s world?
It’s more the opposite—some Fae deliberately restrict their archetype in order to stay more focused, human and sane. Others prefer to go for the heights, and often go out in a blaze of glory. And there are always other Fae coming along after them, willing to take over the identity or imitate it on a smaller scale. There are probably half a dozen other would-be-Countesses out there, less powerful than the “acknowledged” one, lurking in their castles and dreaming of power.

I was struck while reading by the connections between the dragons’ characters and their elements, but also the connections between elements of related dragons. (For instance, Ao Ji’s affinity for ice and Kai’s affinity for water.) Are dragons’ elemental affinities tied to their personalities, or are they more hereditary or familial?
That is an interesting question to which the dragons don’t have a definite answer. It is considered fortunate for a dragon to have the same elemental affinity as one of their parents (Kai’s father also has an affinity to water), but it’s far from always the case. However, a dragon who has a strong affinity for a particular element will usually organize their life and surroundings to be conveniently close to that element—both for preference and for strategic reasons.

The Mortal Word feels a bit like an episode of a long-running serial, and the series could theoretically go on for as long as you want it to. How much more of the Invisible Library world do you think you’ll end up exploring?
I’m not sure at the moment. I do intend that the series will have an ending, and I have a rough plotline up to the end of book eight. Beyond that, I can’t be certain. (Or there is the possibility of exploring other parts of that universe—Irene isn’t the only Librarian who gets into trouble.)

There’s a reference to a Library cataloging system, in which worlds are given numbers, and one number, in particular, is very prominently mentioned. What world is Beta-001? Or is that something you can’t tell us right now?
It’s the first world that the Library has cataloged in the Beta series—the worlds that the Library considers to be magic-dominant. That may or may not be something important in the long run . . .

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Mortal Word.

Author photo © Deborah Drake.

With The Winter of the Witch, bestselling author Katherine Arden has crafted an utterly fantastic, truly satisfying end to her Winternight trilogy. Fans who have fallen in love with the fantasy series’ stalwart, magically gifted heroine Vasilisa Petrovna will be thrilled to return to Arden’s fairy-tale vision of medieval Russia, where the wonder of the setting is undercut by danger at every turn. We talked to Arden about completing her first trilogy, the roots of her love for Russian folktales and culture, and why she can’t stick to an outline.

You are about to complete your first published trilogy. How do you feel?
I’m feeling a lot of relief and excitement. I started the Winternight trilogy in 2011, and I knew how I wanted the first book to begin, and I knew how I wanted the last book to end, but I wasn’t totally sure what was going to happen in the middle. I didn’t know anything about writing trilogies, and I am not the best at outlining, so I had to get it right mostly by trial and error. There were times, honestly, when I was sure I wouldn’t get it right, and I had to just power through that feeling.

As a writer, the fact that all three books make sense, follow an overarching plot arc for the trilogy, have individual arcs for each book and resolve the three major intertwining conflicts of the story, is just amazing to me and I am proud of myself for pulling it off. No one wants to disappoint their readers, and, especially for the final book, I knew I had to stick the landing. The Winter of the Witch does so, I believe, and that is satisfying.

I am also so very excited for readers to be able to read the end of the story. The three novels of the trilogy are set back-to-back, so really they form one giant narrative, and I feel like you have to read all three books to get a sense of the whole design, and I am excited for fans of the series to be able to experience that.

Many of us are very unfamiliar with Russian folklore. Could you go into some detail about how and why you chose to set your books in Russia and heavily root them in its fairy tale history?
I was a Russian major in college and studied abroad in Moscow when I was 19, and again when I was 22. I had always loved books based on fairy tales, and when I decided to try my hand at a novel, writing a book based on a Russian fairy tale seemed sensible. I based the books in historical Russia because I wanted to add a sense of realism that history can give. I wanted my books to be clearly set in Russia, not a Russia-coded fantasy land. That was part of the reason I chose the Middle Ages, a time before the Tsars, before onion domes, and samovars and troikas, and all the clichés that we associate with Russia. I wanted to approach the subject from an unusual angle that might make people reconsider their Russian stereotypes. Also, the Middle Ages in Muscovy are not well documented, and it was easier, in that setting, to create a sense of possibility, that history and myth could coexist.

Other than the ones directly referenced, are there any fairy tales that you think we should read to gain some context?
The ones directly referenced in the text are the fairy tales King Frost (Morozko), The Snow-Maiden and Marya Morevna. There are also indirect references to Vasilisa the Wise, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Ivan and the Firebird, Koschei the Deathless, Finist the Falcon, and Ivanushka and Alyonushka. There might be more that I’m not recalling; all three books are full of fairy-tale easter eggs, for people who are into that sort of thing. I’d recommend reading an anthology of Russian fairy tales—it is absolutely worth it.

Vasya cannot seem to catch a break. She even starts this book with burns and a broken rib! Why do you hurt her so?
I’m not sure people would read 400 pages about Vasya just frolicking happily in the woods with her magic horse, although perhaps I’m wrong.

The magic in Vasya’s Russia is very mystical, like tugging on the strings of the forces of nature, with a few notable exceptions like Kasyan and Vasya’s ice knives. Did you decide on a specific system of magic, or did you intend for the nature of magic in your books to be more loosely interpreted?
I wanted magic to be about how people view reality. The more plastic your view of reality, the more plastic reality becomes. But the downside is if you go too far in that direction, you have no sense of what is real at all and start to go insane. So it’s not a system so much as a trick of viewing the world. And it felt very real to me. I think a lot of what we are able to do in life depends on our starting view of reality.

Any plans to return to Vasya and company in the future? What about a different story also set in Russia?
Not currently. I would love to do a fairy tale collection at some point, either in translation or original, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. I am sure I will revisit Russia in future novels, even if they are not about Vasilisa.

What are you reading? Have there been any specific books that helped inspire this trilogy?
Right now I’m reading The Kingdom of Copper, which is out soon, and I am really enjoying the second installment in Daevabad trilogy. I love the fairy tale retellings of Robin McKinley, and those really inspired me. Also Pushkin, Bulgakov, Gogol, Lermontov—the great Russian writers who mix realism, Russian folklore and fantasy. Another writer who inspired me is Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical fiction is both richly textured and incredibly intricately plotted.

Your recent middle-grade novel Small Spaces was a significant departure from your trilogy, but it was still playing with some of the same eerie themes. What did you enjoy about writing a novel for children?
It was a break. It was a chance to use a different voice, to set a book in the present day, to not have to do extensive research, to set myself a technical challenge (being scary but not gory) and to just have fun with writing. Your imagination is like a little kid: force it to do the same thing all the time and it gets stale and resentful. Every author, I think, really benefits from changing it up and I certainly did. It’s also great talking to young readers. Kids experience books in a more immediate way than adults, and it is so fun to see someone taking in your work in that way.

How do you write your books? What does your process look like?
Sit down with a notebook and pen and see what happens. I wish I could be more systematic, but part of my process is letting the process surprise me. I do a lot of research concurrent with writing, and the research informs the writing. I might scribble an outline halfway through, but then I don’t stick to it. Not for lack of trying, it just never seems to work.

If you could tell a reader to remember one thing while reading The Winter of the Witch, what would it be?
That no one is wholly good or wholly evil and we are all human.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Winter of the Witch.

Author photo © Deverie Crystal Photography.

J.S. Barnes takes readers to fog-choked Victorian London in Dracula’s Child, which imagines what happened after the events of Bram Stoker’s iconic Dracula.

What inspired you to revisit Dracula?
I’ve always loved the book, ever since I first read it as a boy. I’ve enjoyed versions of the story in other mediums, of course, but it’s the book to which I’ve always been drawn back. It’s often struck me as odd, however, that Stoker never wrote a sequel, when it seems to me that there are clear seeds planted in plain sight for just such an undertaking. I reread the novel about five years ago, and the scope for continuation seemed to leap out at me. It was almost inevitable, then, that I should start my own homage to it, a real passion project.

Who is your favorite character in Stoker’s original novel?
Probably Renfield, the lunatic who acts as a weird kind of barometer for the Count. There was no way to bring him back for this sequel, however, given his fate in the original! Out of the characters whom I’ve had a chance to write myself, I’d have to go with Mina Harker. Unflappable and determined in Stoker’s account, she’s grown even tougher and more watchful in the years that have passed before we meet her again in Dracula’s Child.

If you were to pick another horror or fantasy classic to revisit, what would it be and why?
Wow, there are so many to choose from! I’m actually working on just such a project at the moment—a sequel to a seminal work of late 19th-century horror. More on this as soon as we can announce it! But I’d also love to revisit many others—Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories in particular!

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Dracula's Child.

Why do we continue to be fascinated with vampires?
Even as trendier monsters come and go, vampires keep on speaking to us. Both scary and sympathetic, they represent simultaneously what we dread and what we long for. They change according to the times in which they’re written—each generation’s version of the vampire myth is different—while also, at their core, staying the same.

When writing Dracula’s Child, did you aim to address any current-day issues? Or were you more focused on reviving Stoker’s original mood and setting?
The aim was very much to channel Stoker’s voice. That said, it’s impossible not to be influenced by the times in which you’re writing, so I’m sure that there are moments of applicability here to our own era. After all, so many of the concerns and dilemmas of Stoker’s time are still with us in some form or another.

In P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn, the world was forever changed in 1872 when a man named Al-Jahiz opened a portal to another world and let all manner of magic into our own. Decades later, someone claiming to be Al-Jahiz returns from the dead goes on a murderous rampage through Cairo, threatening both the delicate balance between the world powers and the uneasy accord between humans and the supernatural. We talked to Clark about the inspirations behind his alternate history.

I love the world you've created! How do you start world building at the very beginning of a project? Was there any specific moment or image that kickstarted your vision of an alternate Cairo?
Thank you! I think for this world—what I think is now called the Dead Djinn universe—the idea began with an image in my head of the main character, Fatma, in the suit and a dead djinn hovering over her. Who knows what made me dream that up? But once it was there, I needed to figure it out. Who was this person? Was this a detective story? Maybe she’s a detective. No, maybe she’s an agent. OK, what’s with the dead djinn? What’s even the larger mystery here? And it went on and on like that, until I had a story.

Egyptian mythology (among other African and Middle Eastern cultures) has a strong influence in this book. Was there any specific work that inspired you? What draws you to the stories of that corner of the world?
My earliest years growing up, I was exposed to a lot of Afro-Caribbean folklore, Hindu cosmology and Muslim festivals (like Hosay)—part of my environment. So the non-“Occidental” has always been part of my lived experience. And I think I’ve always found myself searching for it, no matter where I’ve ended up.

"I didn’t have a plan for writing anything else here after my short story 'A Dead Djinn in Cairo.' It was the reception by readers that inspired me to do more."

Fatma, Siti and Hadia are such fun characters to see interact. How do you approach writing dynamic conversations?
With all characters, I try to imagine how they would approach a situation or react to others. I think of them the way I would real people, with certain personality traits, habits, quirks, etc. So when Siti says something, I ask myself how Fatma would respond, or Hadia. And I just try to stay true to who they are.

Dr. Hoda is my favorite side character so far, so I have to ask—will she get her assistant?
LOL. Great question. I like side characters like Dr. Hoda precisely because they leave the door open to revisit them later. In the meantime, if I can get readers to identify with them (despite their limited presence) and see them as characters with depth, I’m happy.

Is there anything from your personal life you drew on to write this book? Or do you prefer not to think consciously about what parts of your life go into your work?
There are parts that are based heavily on my memories of visiting Cairo. And certainly, I pulled from themes and issues in my head at the time I was writing. The Dead Djinn world as a nod to anti-colonialism reflects much of my own personal bias. But overall, the characters and whatnot have their own experiences and lives that are quite separate from my own. Also, I haven’t yet actually seen a djinn.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of A Master of Djinn.

Do you want to continue writing stories in this world? If so, do you have a plan for how many more books you would like to write, or will you just see where the story takes you?
Plan? No plans here. I didn’t have a plan for writing anything else here after my short story “A Dead Djinn in Cairo.” It was the reception by readers that inspired me to do more. Fortunately, because I enjoy world building, I always leave myself different doors and paths to explore. So, I don’t have anything yet in mind. But who knows?

What have you read and loved recently?
I am reading Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé. The prose and imagination are magnificent!

What else are you working on?
A project I’m not yet supposed to talk about. But let’s just say, I may be writing for a decidedly younger audience. Though the rest of you are welcome to come along, too.

What do you want the reader to walk away with after reading A Master of Djinn?
A satisfied smile. And a hunger for Egyptian street food.