The magickal powers-necromancy and the Emperor’s Voice-really just came from me thinking about what the most useful powers for an investigator to have would be (being able to use animals as witnesses, asking homicide victims directly who murdered them, and forcefully extracting confessions from people). More generally my day job as a litigator was a big part of it, and the idea of “fantasy lawyers” has been bubbling away in the back of my mind for a few years now. having the story be about Sir Konrad but not told by him) was inspired by Robert Harris’s Cicero Trilogy, in which the storied life of Cicero is told not by Cicero himself, but by his slave, Tiro, whilst the Slavic/Teutonic feel of the world was inspired by both the Witcher 3 videogame, and more broadly the late Antiquity Roman Empire/Holy Roman Empire non-fiction I was reading around the same time. This may be a more common question, but I always love to know: is there anything in particular that inspired The Justice of Kings? The Justice of Kings really stood out to me as a unique story with the narrative style and the law focus. When I was younger I was just interested in writing actiony explosive sci-fi and collapsing fantasy empires now I find I’m much more interested (both as a consumer and producer of fiction) in exploring the human condition against a backdrop of actiony explosive sci-fi and collapsing fantasy empires. I’ve started to allegorise more-and not be afraid to allegorise-and I’ve found that that exploration very motivating and in some ways cathartic.

RS: I think the biggest change I’ve noticed in my writing, certainly as I’ve got older, is that I’ve found I’ve had more to say.

What changes (if any) have you noticed in your writing over the years? You’ve been writing SFF for a number of years now.

The justice of kings by richard swan