Late last year, I discovered Mike Shevdon. No, he wasn’t hiding under a mushroom. And I’m not saying I discovered him, as in nurtured his career, and showed his brilliance to the world like some shiny new gem. No, like any of you might have, I discovered his books, The Courts of the Feyre. They include Sixty-One Nails, The Road to Bedlam, Strangeness and Charm, and soon to come The Eight Court.
The story of The Courts of the Feyre center around a middle-aged man named Niall Petersen. And it all starts in what can be mistaken as a resurrection. He dies and a feyre half-breed named Blackbird comes along to save him and he ultimately goes on to save the world.
The universe that Mr. Shevdon builds in his series mixes old English mythology (think fairies, goblins, and other assorted monsters) with our everyday gritty world. Set in London and the surrounding countryside, we traverse not only through familiar cities and hamlets, but through history seen from the eyes of mythical creatures that live, die and kill among us.
I love the series because I fell in love with the main character, Niall Petersen. He’s around my age and he struggles with his new found power in a way I found sympathetic. But I was also intrigued by another aspect – the absence of god.
In a predominantly western, Christian world, when someone writes about mythical creatures born from pagan mythology, one runs the risk of alienating a large portion of the devout Christian population. Though Mr. Shevdon does delve a little into the possibility of the clash between religion and the world of the Feyres, he primarily steers clear of the obvious conflict, focusing instead on the personal story of Niall Petersen. And this atheist wants to know why. So I decided to ask him. Lucky for me, he said yes.
Hello Mike, thank you for sitting down with the APOV and talking about your Courts of the Feyre series.
Shevdon: My pleasure.
APOV: Can you tell us a little about the inspiration for your series and what it’s about?
Shevdon: The series is about a man, Niall, who discovers that the mythical creatures of English folklore are real and that they inhabit the same world we do, though they are not the pretty delicate beings depicted in Victorian picture books. It’s about his own discovery of power and what that means to him and to his family. It’s about love and loss, about responsibility and duty. It’s about coming to terms with life and death, and what it means to live.
APOV: In a previous conversation, you mentioned that you purposefully decided to avoid the ‘comparison and intermingling of folklore and religion’. However, I think they are intricately combined. To exclude one or the other, you are ignoring the big elephant in the room. I understand your desire to focus on a culture and faith that is true to old-English folklore, but don’t you think that culture would have been impacted by human religion? And vice versa?
Shevdon: You’re right, I deliberately avoid bringing religion directly into the stories, not because I’m against religion but because I wanted to focus on a particular mythology. Religion has its own mythology – angels and devils, for instance – and if I confuse one with the other then it sets hares running that I did not want to have to chase down in the books. I made a specific decision. The Feyre do not believe in God, because if they did they would share a cultural connection with humanity, and I wanted them separate. The books are impacted by religion, though. If you think about the conversations between Niall and Greg Makepeace – the vicar in The Road to Bedlam, then you’ll see the impact of religion on the characters. It’s there as a cultural difference, though, rather than a clash of belief.
APOV: Let’s talk about that focus, the basis of the Feyre mythology in your book, and the cultural difference you allude to in terms of morality. Would you say that English folklore mythology had a different morality than say, our culture? If so, in what way? How important is that difference to Niall and how it impacts his relations with Blackbird and, even, his children?
(Keep in mind that when I say our culture, I mean western culture which is heavily influenced by Christianity. I would even say that most secular humanists and atheists in the United Kingdom and the United States share the same basis for their morality. The whole ‘do not kill’, ‘honor your family’, etc. that we find in the Bible (minus the sexism and homophobia).)
Shevdon: What is the morality of stealing another person’s child and replacing it with a creature that looks the same but isn’t? What moral lesson comes from receiving gifts or gold that turns to simple beans or gravel in the morning light? These tales reflect a morality that is different from our own. I’m not sure they were created as moral tales, though. That may not have been their purpose. For Niall, it’s about adapting to that culture while maintaining his moral compass. He tries to do what’s right, but is often faced with a choice of wrongs. Does that affect his relationships? Of course. By doing wrong we undermine our own position in saying what’s right. It makes hypocrites of us.
As a culture we come to a common understanding of right and wrong. One definition of culture is the values and beliefs we pass on to others. We have a culture of ownership. This is yours, that is mine. When we say that something is ours we claim exclusive rights to it that are not intrinsic. It’s a very inefficient way of using resources. Our entire culture is based on it, though, and it’s difficult to challenge. Christianity was different, though. In some ways it was closer to communism – to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.
APOV: I never thought of Christianity akin to communism, but I suppose it fits. But back to that morality for your Feyre characters, what exactly do they believe in? Towards the end of Strangeness and Charm, Blackbird informs Gregor that she does not believe in a god. She repeats that statement twice, maybe even three times. Though Niall doesn’t say it, I presumed he’s a non believer, too. So…what do they believe in? Themselves? Is it something that the Fey even consider?
Shevdon: The Feyre believe in the cycle of nature, that nothing is lost. Each will grow and live and die and then live again. It’s only when they are consumed by the void that the cycle is broken. That way there is no way back to the cycle. That’s what makes the wraithkin so scary for the Feyre. If they die that way, they don’t come back. This isn’t Niall’s belief – he’s not fully fey and has only recently come into his gifts. He’s not sure what he believes in. At the beginning of the first book he’s not even sure he even believes in himself.
APOV: Let’s get back to Greg Makepeace and Niall in The Road to Bedlam. He is one character I didn’t particularly feel any connection to. Don’t get me wrong, though I’m a heathen, I often do relate to characters and people who firmly believe in their faith. I am writing about one now, but Mr. Makepeace came across as…insipid – to me. I felt that if he really had a bit of fey in him and suspected that Niall did too (though I understand he would think of it as touched by God or something), he would have dug down and gotten some truth out of Niall about Niall’s abilities, as well as his own. But maybe I was just looking for some conflict there when there wasn’t any. When writing those scenes with Niall and Greg, did you feel any underlying conflict between their cultures and/or religion that you had to push aside for the sake of the story?
Shevdon: Your question has an underlying assumption that Greg wants to know why. Greg has been through a spiritual experience that shaped him. He gained his health and his calling, and he lost the need to question everything. You could as well ask why he does not get himself examined. Is there not a potential cure for the lame within him? Could that not be a benefit to humanity?
Greg doesn’t ask that question, and many others. He doesn’t ask the mother of the lost daughter why she’s pretending she doesn’t know where she is when he clearly knows she’s lying. Greg’s discovered faith, not only in God, but in people. He doesn’t need to ask.
We have a concept of angels. Whether you believe in them or not, you know what I mean. They’re the ones with wings who sing hosannah a lot. The word ‘angel’ comes from angelos, which is Greek for messenger – not a holy messenger, but any messenger. There is a school of thought that says that we can all be angels, we can all carry a message. We may not know the importance of that message, and we may not be aware of its purpose, but we can carry it. When we deliver it, we are fulfilling a purpose. We don’t need to know what that purpose is, we just need to have faith. Greg has faith. To Greg, Niall is an angel.
APOV: An angel? Ah, yes, I see that now. I’ll have to go re-read those conversations between Greg and Niall. I obviously discounted them without realizing what was going on.
Shevdon: It’s natural for someone with a strong faith to see things in terms of that faith. Niall doesn’t feel like an angel, but for Greg, he wouldn’t have to. Niall wouldn’t even necessarily know about it. There is that sense in Greg that we are all doing the will of God. Niall says…
“I didn’t come here looking for sympathy.”
He [Greg] stepped out into the middle of the church. “Do you believe in God, Neal?”
“I’m not sure I know what I believe in.”
“I believe in Him. You may think that’s obvious, given my profession, but you might be surprised at how many who follow this calling come to doubt the presence, if not the existence, of God.”
“I didn’t come looking for God, either.”
“Don’t have to. Rather the point, don’t you think?” He turned and faced the window. I watched him, facing the full light, outlined against the morning.
APOV: Re-reading that here, yes, I do see what you mean. Greg, or someone with faith, would simply take Niall at face value, without questioning the how or why even though he obviously had fantastical abilities. However, if I were Greg, I would have thought Niall was the devil. A lot more closer to the truth, eh? (Joke!)
Shevdon: Ah, but then would he not be left questioning the source of his own gifts?
APOV: Exactly! Which is why if I had been Greg, I would have wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery that Niall presented. But you are also right that most people of faith do not have that need to know. I guess that is the difference between skeptical atheists and folks who are attracted to a faith. Let’s move on.
The Courts of the Feyre’s story involves Niall’s family in very intimate ways. Religion, beliefs, and morality are often related to familial bonds, but these folks are just surviving at this point in the story. Where are they drawing their core beliefs from to overcome their challenges? I guess where I’m going with this is: Do you think a morality, as we define it in a religion, is necessary to live a life of love, triumph, and purpose?
Shevdon: I think that perhaps philosophy can be considered a product of civilisation. After all, we only get a chance to think “What’s it all about” when we have the luxury to pause. Whereas when we are driven to acts of desperation, we don’t tend to think about the consequences until later. Morality is different, though. Morality defines what we would and wouldn’t do in the vast majority of circumstances. It defines our limits and boundaries. There are still extremes, though, that go beyond these boundaries. If you threaten someone, you might get one response, whereas if you threaten their baby you might get another. That goes beyond morality and taps into instinct. The boundaries between instinct and morality interest me – indeed it’s often when you reach the boundaries that you reveal something about character. Pushing characters to those boundaries reveals something about them, but you can’t necessarily take that and use it to generalise about religion or familial behaviour. It’s a deliberately constructed artificial situation.
APOV: In Strangeness and Charm, Niall is tasked with hunting the people who escaped the prison at the end of The Road to Bedlam, and Garvin, his boss, pushes Niall to do what he must to get rid of them. This poses a moral dilemma for Niall. He doesn’t see the fey-mongrels as problems to get rid of, but people to help. Additionally, later on in the book, he and Blackbird have to convince the Fey Lords and Ladies that the mongrels are worthy enough to constitute a place in the courts. What parallels in our own culture and societies inspired this conflict?
Shevdon: The integration of different groups is an issue that has been with us for ever. It is the idea of belonging which spawns the idea of someone who doesn’t belong: us and them. Underpinning it is the concept of competition – we must compete with others for resources, for attention, for our place in the world. It can be played out on the personal level too, in the playground or even the workplace. It’s an idea that propagates itself through education, in testing and examination, in sports with leagues and point-scoring, in business with winning deals and ‘beating the competition’. The received wisdom is that life is a zero sum game and that success comes at the expense of someone else’s failure. We’re told that competition is ‘healthy’.
Is that true, though? Are we only better off when we’re doing better than someone else? Is comparison with failure the definition of success? These are societal values which underpin our economy, our society and our sense of identity. What do you call someone you despise – loser? We live in a world of increasingly limited resources and competition is rife. That can only lead to increased conflict and resentment from the have-nots. Perhaps it’s time to challenge the conventional wisdom and look at teaching cooperation rather than competition.
APOV: But without competition, would we be as technologically advanced as we are now? The number of inventions devised to kill or beat our fellow-man has, ultimately, lead to where we are today. Without them all, we wouldn’t have the internet. Or GPS (Global Positioning System). Or advanced prosthetics. Or might we be further along with cooperation? I’m not sure. I guess we’ll never know the answer. Is that what you see Niall doing? Trying to cooperate and not compete?
Shevdon: It’s an interesting dilemma. Certainly the peacetime applications of some of the artifacts of war have advanced our society – radar, atomic theory, the jet engine, etc. What advanced us, though, was the commitment of resources to solving a problem prompted by an extreme threat. If we’d committed those resources without that threat would we have achieved the same end? Perhaps we need that sense of desperation to push ourselves?
I’m not aware of pushing Niall towards cooperation rather than competition, and if it is happening it’s unconscious. He and Blackbird are trying to pull people together, though, which may amount to the same thing.
APOV: I feel a little uncomfortable asking, but here it goes: Do you have a message? Is there a specific ideology you want your readers to absorb from your books? (Oh, and does Niall get to kick Raffmir’s butt in the next book or what?)
Shevdon: There’s no conscious message. When authors stand on soap-boxes and preach it irritates me and I think many readers feel the same. First and foremost it’s about the story. Of course, I bring to that story my own thoughts and worries, my concerns about society and the choices that we make, which may emerge in the course of the tale, but that’s true of any writer. Hopefully the books contain more than one ideology and allow the exploration of a clash of cultures and values. I try to see things from all points of view – even Raffmir’s.
There are people who read the end of a book and then go back and find out how we got there. There are those that race to the end because they want to know what happens. There are also those that are along for the ride, for whom the journey is at least as important as the destination. I don’t do spoilers. I will say that Raffmir appears again in The Eighth Court, but to find out what happens between him and Niall you have to wait. Sorry.
APOV: I really didn’t think you’d tell me, but since The Eighth Court won’t be out until next year, I had to ask. Is there anything else you’d like to tell the readers of The Atheist’s Quill? Keep in mind, most of ‘em are heathens like me.
Shevdon: I don’t preach ideology but if the books have a message it is that the world is a mysterious and wondrous place, if only we lift our eyes from the ground in front of us and see it. We live in an age of wonders and terrors, and where we end up depends on the choices we make. Perhaps what we really need to do is to make better choices. Figuring out how we do that, and how we include others in those choices who do not share our beliefs, is the challenge before us.
Sixty-One Nails, The Road to Bedlam, and Strangeness and Charm are available from Angry Robot Publishing.
© 2012 N.E. White / Mike Shevdon
The third book in Mr. Sprunk’s Shadow Saga, Shadow’s Master delivers a satisfactory conclusion to the series. Thank goodness. Not that I didn’t like the Caim’s story and world, but damn the man took a beating and kept on ticking. He needs a break!
