Born in 1975 to an English father and a Norwegian mother, Giles Kristian has led a varied and somewhat unconventional life and admits that this suits him just fine. As the lead singer in nineties pop group Upside Down, he achieved four top-twenty hit records in the official UK sales charts and appeared on countless national and international TV shows including MTV and VH1. Upside Down were the subject of a BBC documentary which followed the band’s formation and rise to fame, including their first appearance on Top of the Pops.

Later, he worked as a model in London, appearing in national TV ads and poster campaigns. His poetry has been broadcast by the BBC, which has in turn led to him receiving numerous commissions. In 2004 Giles began working on Raven, the story of a boy’s relationship with a band of marauding Norsemen from across the grey sea. It is a rich and violent coming-of-age story with more than a touch of the old sagas about it, which I really enjoyed. I asked Giles about how writing compares to pop-stardom, and what happens to Raven next…

Are you a bookgeek?

Unfortunately, I don’t think I am. I’m quite a slow reader, which means I don’t get through as many books as I’d like to. Instead of letting the words wash over me, I’ll indulge in a well-crafted sentence. I’ll reread an original, evocative metaphor, appreciating the writer’s talent. Sometimes after reading something, a battle scene perhaps, I’ll close the book, close my eyes and let my mind weave the images until I can almost hear the desperate cries and smell the blood. All this makes every book I read last rather a long time. I used to persevere with a book even if I wasn’t enjoying it, feeling that I’d failed if I gave up on it. Now I realize that life is too short and there are too many great books out there to waste your time on those you’re not into.

When you are writing do you have an audience in mind? Is it a person, real or imagined, or a group?

With Raven: Blood-Eye my ambition was to write the kind of book I would love to read, so I guess I am my own target audience. I wanted to create a real sense of time and place but without encumbering the reader with too much historical detail. I wanted it to be fast-paced and action-packed and I wanted to enjoy writing it as much as I enjoy reading the novels of such authors as Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden. Sometimes, I’ll write a scene and get so excited that I have to get up and walk around the house – I’m just too charged to sit still. When that happens I like to think my readers might share some of that excitement.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve been given?

Sometimes when writing you can get carried away or go off on a tangent. My agent suggested I cut a whole scene from the first draft of Blood-Eye because, he said, it did nothing to move the story forward. At first this was quite hard to take, because I was quite pleased with the way I’d written the scene. But I soon realized my agent was right and it was superfluous. So, it might be the most beautifully crafted scene you’ve written since lunchtime but if it doesn’t add to the story’s development, highlight, delete and don’t look back.

You’ve certainly had a varied career – and there’s quite a contrast between performing in a band and writing a novel. How do you cope with the solitary nature of writing compared with your earlier activities?

The writing life suits me. I’m very happy in my own company and I relish having the room and the peace and quiet to think. In the band I loved the touring, because to me it was like a series of missions, each show being a new objective to be successfully completed. I think in whatever you do it’s important to feel a sense of purpose. As long as I’m creating, I’m happy, and I’ve wanted to be an author since I was very young. So far I’ve found the publishing world to be much more decent than the music business, which was full of cretins.

Your sympathies in Raven seem to be firmly with your Norse protagonists, rather than the English. Would you have made the same choices as Raven?

I have to be careful here because my father is English and my mother is Norwegian, so I know how it feels to be a half blood. The Vikings captured my imagination when I was a small boy in Norway. I feel Norse blood marauding through my veins and I admire the sheer audacity of these Vikings who took to their open, clinker built boats to see what they could find. I’m afraid I’m a sucker for the warrior’s way and the heroic ideal, so yes, Raven’s choices are my own. Having said that, some of the heroes in my book are English. It’s more about a state of mind than ethnicity.

Was it a hard decision to make to have Raven commit rape near the end of the book? Were you worried about maintaining reader sympathy after that point?

Yes, it was a hard decision. But you have to think that this young man finds himself at last accepted, part of a fellowship of warriors he admires enormously. He is becoming totally immersed in their way of life. This scene happens after an horrific battle and Raven must be in shock. They are ale-soaked, brutal men, celebrating being alive when so many others are not. I felt it would have wrung hollow if I’d made Raven decide to abstain. These are men of their time and it would have felt incongruous to give Raven my own 21st century morals and sensibilities. In all honesty, of course he would have gone along with the rest of them, so, as much as I knew it might offend some readers, I still had to write it. At least Raven regrets his actions and learns more about himself through them. I hope readers understand my decision.

How did you go about researching Raven? And did you have a firm policy when you started about historical accuracy vs the needs of the story?

I have always been passionate about Viking history, having accumulated an extensive library over the years. Before beginning the novel I did a Medieval History diploma just to brush up on a little research. These days many people tend to get their knowledge of momentous events and historical figures from historical novels. Therefore, as a writer, I feel a responsibility to create a world that is authentic to the best of my knowledge. The beauty of fiction is that I am allowed to embellish and exaggerate in order to write a great story. There is a balance to be struck, but at the end of it all I am writing a novel not a history book.

How conscious were you when writing of the other writers who have trodden a similar path – Tim Severin, Bernard Cornwell, et al? Did you read their work, or deliberately avoid it?

I had almost completed the first draft of Raven Blood-Eye when I saw Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom sitting on the shelf in Borders. It was a funny feeling. I love his work, so as a reader I was excited, but as a would-be writer I felt sick that he’d beaten me to it. I decided not to read his book until mine was ready. In the event he actually read and enjoyed my book and I was thrilled to see his praise on the cover of Blood-Eye. It was a surreal moment for me. There are always similarities between historical novels dealing with the same period, and perhaps more so with Viking novels because the sources are few and far between, meaning us authors often refer to the same material. Then again, there’s nothing new under the sun. How many novels about Rome are there? How many about the crusades, or the Napoleonic Wars or vampires or wizards and elves? If I’m into a subject I’ll read everything that comes out about it. There’s room for us all.

What can you tell us about Raven’s next adventures?

In the next book Raven and the Fellowship are out for revenge and soon find themselves in Frankia, the lands ruled by the Great Emperor Charlemagne. Now the Fellowship must tread carefully or else risk the wrath of the most powerful leader since the fall of Rome. It is a new and vast world to Raven, but his thirst for fame remains unquenched and the path he treads becomes ever more dark and dangerous.

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