Tuesday 18 December 2018

Who Travels The Fastest?

Charles Darwin on his throne, at the Natural History Museum, London


So, this is publication day! I'm writing this in the strange quiet period between the new book being available and anyone telling me what they thought of it. It's always a weird time, especially since Up To The Throne is quite different in style to either Straken or the Space Captain Smith books. Many thanks to everyone who has bought a copy. I hope you enjoy it!

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I thought I'd mention something about the title. The phrase "Up to the throne" comes from a poem by empire-builder, Jungle Book author and exceedingly good cake-maker, Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is probably not read very much now, and I expect he has dated very badly, but he did have a knack with phrases. A surprisingly number of expressions come from his books, sometimes from works that are half-forgotten.


Disney changed a few things...

The poem "The Winners" contains the lines "Down to Gehenna [Hell] or up to the throne / he travels the fastest who travels alone". It's a rather bleak poem that, as far as I can tell, says that the quickest way to change where you are is to act alone (or at least to take the credit). Apparently it refers to characters Kipling wrote about, and not his own views, but either way it seemed appropriate for the novel that I'd written.

One idea running through Up To The Throne is the selfishness of revenge, and the need to have more purpose than just getting your own back. Grodrin the dwarrow calls revenge "running towards your death", and Publius Severra describes a life lived for vengeance as a life wasted - although I doubt he'd let bygones be bygones, either. As Giulia's search for revenge gets her, and her enemies, closer to seizing the throne of Pagalia, she discovers that her revenge won't let her just kill her target and walk away.



The Winners
 
What the moral? Who rides may read.
When the night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend, indeed,
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

White hands cling to the tightened rein,
Slipping the spur from the booted heel,
Tenderest voices cry " Turn again!"
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,
High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone--
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

One may fall but he falls by himself--
Falls by himself with himself to blame.
One may attain and to him is pelf--
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame.
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest and travels alone.

Wherefore the more ye be helpen and stayed,
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,
Sing the heretical song I have made--
His be the labour and yours be the spoil.
Win by his aid and the aid disown--
He travels the fastest who travels alone!

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