The setting of the World Tree is integral to my fantasy books. Certainly, the physical challenge of living life high up in the clouds, on branches many miles long and with a Void gaping perpetually beneath you, is an interesting one. Even if the Tree is more like a continent, as wide as the Himalayan mountain range and about as high, there’s still the problem of limited space. What do you do when the branches come to an end, when there are only clouds below and no leaf-forests on the horizon? In the case of the Argosians, for example, you simply stop exploring. You make a religion out of fear and conservatism and refuse to countenance change. Science, that great leveler, is distrusted – to enter the Storm clouds at the bottom of the Tree is considered a heresy.
But more than shaping socio-economic realities, more than influencing politics or philosophy, the World Tree for me is a character in itself. It’s a world with a built-in lifespan, far shorter than that of a planet – a world which is necessarily temporary, fragile, anthropomorphic.
What is a setting from a published fiction story by another author you would compare this setting to and why are they similar?
I could compare this setting to two existing stories. One of course is the ancient Norse myth of Yggdrasil, the original World Tree said to hold all of Midguard, the world of humans, in its branches. That tale influenced me greatly and shaped most of my initial ideas about the Chronicles of the Tree. There are other myths featuring world trees, but Yggdrasil is the best known.
The second story I had the joy of discovering after writing my own series was Kaaron Warren’s ‘Walking the Tree’, published in 2010 with Angry Robot. I love that book to distraction. The fact of featuring a giant tree (in this case the size of an island) is really the only common factor between the two stories – Kaaron is a far better writer than I am! But I think it represents one of the most original and engaging fantasy worlds I’ve come across. Buy it, read it, be swept away as I was…
How would you describe the way you introduced this setting to readers of your story?
I was faced with the problem of presenting an unusual world straight off – there are very few recognisable visual cues one can give an audience about living in a giant tree. Really, the closest thing in our experience would be high mountain passes for the branches and a cliff-face for the trunk of the Tree. Exposition is always an issue but in this case, I couldn’t avoid it. I chose to introduce us to the world, its physical layout and its inhabitants through the eyes of an Argosian priest traveling on a dirigible – the vantage point from the deck of a flying vessel gave me some cinematic leeway, if you like. Father Ferny is coming home to Argos city after a term of duty in the eastern colonies. His vision of his surroundings, both literal and figurative, sets the tone for the series.
How would you describe the integration of characters and setting in this story?
The setting affects the characters both physically and metaphysically, if you’ll indulge the phrase. The Tree environment is certainly limiting in some ways, conditioned by size, material and gravity. This affects what characters can do, what modes of transport they use, etc. It has an enormous effect on the details of daily life, household objects, how the economy works, what people eat… the list goes on. The ramifications of a Tree-world are endless. How would you make knives without metal or rock? How would you plant crops on a branch? What do you use for glass? Everything we take for granted has to be rethought.
Of course the characters respond to these subtleties in their language and culture. There would be no metaphors in Argosian involving ‘steely smiles’, for example; sunsets are never golden. There would be no appreciation of running beasts such as horses and certainly no love of wide-open spaces, which to a Tree-dweller mean certain death. The closest comparison would be the mind-set of Spanish sailors heading off in a galleon across the Atlantic in 1492. Many must have had a sneaking suspicion that they were sailing off the edge of the world. They would have clung to their tiny universe of sails, planks and ropes for dear life.
I spoke a little already about the effects of insularity, and how some of the inhabitants of the Tree respond to such limitations. But a tree is also a hierarchical structure, lending itself to ideas of heaven and hell, God and man, up and down ad infinitum. In that sense, the setting of the World Tree dovetails quite nicely with a priestly mindset, which is why I chose to delve into those concepts.
How would you describe the interaction of story and setting in this story?
Again, as above, the physicality of the Tree has an effect on the story told. But more than anything else, the idea of the Tree as character determines much of the overall arc of the series. To go into it more would be a spoiler! Suffice to say, the Tree is both a physical and symbolic motivator in the story – you can’t have the Chronicles of the Tree without the Tree.
How much research did you do for the setting of this story, and what did that involve?
In order to prepare for the story, I did a fair amount of research into myths and legends involving sacred trees. This went from the literal World Tree in Norse and Siberian myth to the more esoteric Tree of Life in Kabbalistic lore, passing by concepts of holy trees in many other religions. There’s no shortage of wonderful images and ideas associated with trees in human literature – we’ve had a love affair with those stately creatures for many thousands of years.
To what extent would you describe the setting of this story typical or atypical of the settings in your fiction stories?
Well, I’ve only published three books so far, all set in the world of the Tree. But one thing is certain: the setting is unique to the series. The Chronicles of the Tree come to an end with ‘Oracle’s Fire’ and it wouldn’t make sense to revisit that world in any other context. So barring further forays into Tymon and Samiha’s universe, I won’t be visiting the World Tree again... The project I’m currently working on has an entirely different premise.
How do you usually decide on or develop a setting for your fiction stories?
It’s something that comes naturally, associated with the tale I want to tell. I really don’t separate the two out. When I begin a story, the environment – its sounds, sights, smells – are very much a part of what’s going on, and influence the development of the story.
To what extent do the settings of novels you read have an impact on why you read them, and why?
Setting is vital for context and depth. Without it (and this often happens when worldbuilding is too sparse) the story feels contrived to me, the characters inhuman. A story consciously conceived without an environment is hard to pull off. A few speculative fiction writers have done it well – I’m thinking of Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Telling’, for example, in which the characters see their reality fall apart around them and have to piece it together from scratch, a sort of existential exercise. But that’s very rare! Even in ‘The Telling’, Le Guin first anchors us in her Hainish universe before stripping away the setting and building it up again.
Author website: http://maryvictoria.net
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