r/books • u/NicoleGalland AMA Author • Mar 10 '21
ama 1pm I’m novelist Nicole Galland, and I love to nerd out about time travel, magic, and Shakespeare. Ask me anything!
My new novel, Master of the Revels, is the eagerly-awaited sequel to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., the New York Times bestseller I co-wrote with Neal Stephenson. You needn’t have read the prequel before diving in to Revels, though, and you needn’t have read Master of the Revels to Ask Me Anything on March 10th!
When I’m not working on time-travel stories, you can find me writing medieval or Renaissance-era historical fiction. But I’ve also written some lighthearted contemporary novels - so I’m opinionated in a range of genres. I’ve got a background in theatre, I’m certified Shakespeare nerd, and also – no kidding – a former X-wing fighter pilot.
In Master of the Revels, an Irish witch is using time travel to erase modern technology. She’s got multiple schemes all going at once, sending her adversaries (aka our heroes) to Renaissance Florence, Roman-era Sicily, and Jacobean London - where she embeds real witchcraft into Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Our heroes must first figure out what she’s up to, and then stop her - before she kills them.
It’s a fun way to inhabit fascinating time periods from a modern POV. It’s also the ultimate background for what-if scenarios. (My favorite being: if one mistreated slave’s escape to freedom could endanger the future of humanity, should you help them escape?)
Proof: /img/28ryau4klhk61.jpg
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u/Neologist13 Mar 10 '21
Does this book end on a cliffhanger again like the last one?? I have been waiting so long since The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. came out! Please advise. :)
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Hi there! Your question is appearing and reappearing, as if it were coming at me from several different Strands ;-)
I'm glad you enjoyed the last cliffhanger ending... but what kind of storyteller would I be if I told you whether or not this one was also a cliffhanger?? ;-)
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u/CorporealTunnel Mar 10 '21
You clearly read really widely, which is easy to see from the books you write. Are there any particular favorites - individual books, or periods/subjects - that you are enjoying right now?
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Thanks, I do try to read widely although it's really more like "very deep dives into multiple different pools at once."
I just started to read Dante's Divine Comedy, and my gosh, what a change of pace that is from Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie, which I just finished and loved. (oh, no, now I want to do a mashup of those two).
I'm currently working on a memoir-ish thingy, so am getting a lot out of Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir, and also Cheryl Strayed's Wild.
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u/GapFrosty2111 May 23 '25
And here I was going to suggest Dan Simmons' Fires of Eden, where you can flash back to a younger Samuel Clement on his travels to Hawai'i - and the mythical creatures residing there; a good old fashioned cautionary tale of magic, superstition and overdevelopment driven by capitalism...
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u/CorporealTunnel Mar 10 '21
Oh my gosh I loved Travels With Charlie. Read that in Paris, many years ago, and it so rarely comes up in discussions. Thank you! And that sounds like it would be a mighty mash-up. As would, now I think of it, a smoosh of the Divine Comedy and Cheryl Strayed's Wild...
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Thank you, everyone! Closing down shop here for the evening (I'm in Ireland, so it's evening here) Have a great Wednesday, and thanks for dropping by!
Nicole
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u/GapFrosty2111 May 23 '25
HI Nicole!
I enjoyed Master of the Revels and am hopeful you're working on the next adventure, taking us back to Rome and Mel's quest. Grainne's become quite the villianess, and I appreciate the "no one is safe" approach to your storytelling - it definitely keeps the reader on edge.
Will you be working on another, and is the a potential film/mini-series on the horizon?
Cheers,
Anthony
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u/Chtorrr Mar 10 '21
What were some of your favorite things to read as a kid?
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Hey there! I loved fantasy, of all kinds, but my favorite book ever was The Phantom Tollbooth (whose brilliant, funny, compassionate author, Norton Juster, just passed away a few hours ago :-( )
My OTHER favorite - still fantastical but very different - was Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series.
I also read The Chronicles of Narnia (and later, Lord of the Rings), and Ursula LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea Trilogy.
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Mar 10 '21
What resources do you use to research for your historical fiction? Do you find it overwhelming trying to figure out what historical details to incorporate or discard?
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
This is a great question that changes with each project... for my first novel, The Fool's Tale, I was able to access literally all known historical material about the very narrow time and place (eastern mid-Wales around the year 1200) that was the setting. When it comes to a book like Master of the Revels, it gets a lot tougher - Shakespeare figures heavily and there is SO much out there about Shakespeare, for instance (plus the other story-lines are about Roman-Republic-era Sicily, and early-Renaissance Florence, 15th-century Japan, etc)...
I realize I am rambling here and not directly answering your question. Simplest answer: go to a good library. I have library cards for some of the world's best. And there are great online resources, too, including Britannica.com... but nothing is ever as good as going someplace in person! I try to visit every place (if not ever time period, natch) I write about.
Overwhelmed? It's easy to end up there, yes. That's a delicate dance, each project wants more or less detail... I'm always game to add more historical nuance than I probably need to LOL
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Mar 10 '21
Thanks for the informative and engaging answer! As somebody who would possibly like to dabble in writing historical fiction I’ve always been curious.
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u/BubblezWritings Mar 10 '21
So say you hypothetically have a TARDIS; first thing you do? (Other than meeting Shakespeare, I consider that a cheat answer given the context of the AMA)
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Ha! I love this question... I can't remember offhand what the rules of engagement are for TARDIS travel (we have a lot for the DODO universe and I might be getting them confused)... I would probably return to my hometown in the years of my early childhood; it has become highly overdeveloped and I miss my childhood memories. I'd like to prove that in fact yes, you CAN go home again
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u/CorporealTunnel Mar 10 '21
Travel by TARDIS: aim someplace interesting and harmless, and then miss. Slightly. Mostly on the "harmless" part.
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u/SheWearsHistory Mar 10 '21
How much liberty can you take with a real historical character in the service of a good story?
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
This is an important question and the answer... well,there are two answers really.
Answer #1: it depends on context. Let's take Cleopatra as an example: if you're writing a novel ABOUT Cleopatra, you better stick to the most interesting and truthful interpretation of what we know. On the other hand, if you are writing a story about X (where X is "powerful women leaders in ancient Rome" or "women who are not defined by their relationship to their husband" etc) then go ahead and tweak things in order to tell your story, as long as you are mindful of the changes and own them somehow - talk about them if you're interviewed, put an author's note in somewhere.
Answer #2: so much of what is considered "objective fact" about historical figures is often very biased, and in a sense even a biography is taking some liberties. I had to research Frederick the Great for a book years ago, and read about him in both the German and Italian sections of the same edition of Encyclopedia Britannica; it was like reading about two different men.
The most important thing to keep in mind, I think, is this: if the historical person in question belongs to a population that is under-represented or chronically mis-represented, don't disregard the qualities that make them underrepresented just so they will fit into a story more easily. That was a choppy sentence but I hope it makes sense...
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u/TomDoyle2 Mar 10 '21
Congrats, Nicole, on the new book! Is there a book or books about these time periods or subjects (e.g. Shakespeare) that you'd recommend? Besides Jacobean London, which time and place was the most fun for you to write? And what are you working on now? Enjoy!
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u/NicoleGalland Mar 10 '21
Hi Tom! Thanks for stopping by! I got a lot of mileage out of a book called The Lodger Shakespeare, it's very layperson-friendly nonfiction that tells you a lot about London circa 1600. Also, How To Live Like A Tudor is GREAT.
I love any excuse to go to Florence, so from that perspective, I really enjoyed the Florence storyline in Master of the Revels... but the moral twistedness of that storyline was not exactly a romp in the park...
I am taking a breather between projects but watch this space; that will change soon. Thanks!
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u/Neologist13 Mar 10 '21 edited Mar 10 '21
Do you ever write first, research later?
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u/HFMurrayIII Mar 10 '21
So in your world where photography interferes with magic by fixing a single strand in 1851, is there a possibility that the rise of photoshop and deep fakes may allow for Magic’s reintroduction without all the mucking with past history?