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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Oxford Fantasy Literature podcast.

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I'm Catherine Ollie and I'm a junior research fellow in mediaeval studies here in Oxford.

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And in this episode, I'll be introducing the work of Brian, McClellan noted for his powder made novels, The Powder Age trilogy and its sequel trilogy,

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Gods of Blood and Powder, and a warning at the beginning that there will be major spoilers for both of these trilogies ahead.

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Rather than taking its inspiration from the mediaeval period,

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McClellan's work is set in a kind of early industrial period and could be categorised as flintlock or gunpowder

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fantasy alongside a fairly traditional magic system in which uses quote privileged reach for and manipulate the else.

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Each finger of the hand being attached to one of the five elements Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Aether, which enables them to do powerful sorcery.

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There is also a competing, gunpowder based magic system.

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Those with the affinity called powder mages, or Markt,

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can snort or eat gunpowder in order to attain a heightened state of awareness a so-called powder trance.

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And they can also manipulate gunpowder based weaponry, for example, floating a bullet farther and with greater accuracy,

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and could be obtained simply by firing it from a rifle, a method that's often used to assassinate privileged from a distance.

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Or they could ignite gunpowder from a distance with that powers.

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And this disturbs the previous balance of power in which the privileged had no rivals.

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So you can see the social disruptions of the early industrial period in which an emerging class of industrialists and

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manufacturers begins to challenge the supremacy of the old landed elite being recast in McClellan's work in magical terms.

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Opening with a military coup masterminded by Field Marshal Thomas of the Atran Army,

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which takes obvious inspiration from the French Revolution with the aristocracy being guillotined in the streets,

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McClellan's work is an excellent example of how to successfully take the realism out of fantasy.

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But it's also a study in contradictions and a demonstration of just how pervasive and inescapable such loyalist tropes can be.

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Because by the end of his second trilogy and a major spoiler alert here it emerges that one of the series principal

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female characters couple the mysterious companion of Field Marshal Thomas's son Tinio is in fact a lost denies princess.

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And the trilogy ends with her ascending to godlike status and becoming the new empress of the Die Nice Empire.

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From a reader's point of view, it's a satisfying ending in spite of the cliché from a more critical perspective.

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It's very interesting to see a series that began by so definitely rejecting fantasies, fascination with royalty and by succumbing to that very lure.

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Although Capone is far from a traditional empress and indeed she hopes to use her position

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to modernise denies to the point where Monarch is no longer needed and she can retire.

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Still, the resilience of what we might termed the lost air motif is remarkable.

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Both Koppel and Field Marshal Thomas then sees tremendous, almost unlimited power with the aim of using it for the common good.

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But it's a good that is defined almost entirely, according to their own perspective, a perspective I believe we are meant to share.

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Seeing modernisation and democratisation as a good thing, but there remains a fascinating tension between despotism and democracy in McClellan's work.

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His narratives coalesce around individuals who usher in sweeping change, reshaping the world according to their desires,

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and his books leave little room for the slower, gradual march of progress.

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Amidst all their revolutions and wars for independence, of course, it's also a vexed question and one right for deeper sociological analysis.

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Whether depicting a military coup like Thomas's segueing successfully,

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if not entirely smoothly into democratic governmental rule is not just as wishful and unrealistic as the optimistic,

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noble realism which characterises many earlier and indeed current fantasy works.

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History would perhaps suggest that military revolutions have more chance of

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leading to turmoil or a military dictatorship than to democratic self-governance.

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And key to the success of the revolution in McClellan's novels is the death of its instigator.

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At the end of the modern age trilogy,

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which precludes the possibility of his holding on to power for too long and becoming the very dictator he has deposed,

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then McClellan does revisit this idea in his second trilogy in the character of Lindhout,

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who begins as a liberation leader and is transformed by the realities of power into something more oppressive but safely dead.

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Thomas offers a non-threatening legacy, one that can be embraced without fear.

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His death offers a kind of political closure, but it's also a personal one.

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Resolving finally the troubled relationship that he had with his son.

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Indeed, the theme of fatherhood runs prominently through both of McClellan's trilogies.

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As a side note, it's extremely fitting that the book, which starts it all promise of Blood is dedicated to McClellan's father,

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is the figure of Thomas, of course, who really embodies paternity and becomes the vehicle for its exploration in the first trilogy.

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Thomas's efforts to become the father of a nation,

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masterminding the transformation of Andrew from a monarchy into a republic take a heavy toll on his personal relationships,

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most particularly his relationship with his son, Daniel,

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but also slightly more peripherally with his adopted son, Bob Dole and his adopted daughter, Laura.

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At the beginning of the Powder Age trilogy, Thomas Centennial have a fraught, almost impersonal relationship.

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As a result of the many years,

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Thomas has spent meticulously planning his revolution rather than building a relationship with his son on Daniel's side,

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Thomas's impressive reputation as a military commander also leaves him a lot to live up to.

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And when they initially reunite after two years of separation,

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Thomas is seemingly more moved by the exquisite pair of duelling pistols that Tannehill gives him than by his son's actual return.

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Quote Thomas introduced Daniel as a powdered mage was.

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That all he wants to the field marshal, just another soldier.

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Tanya muses to himself in promise of blunt page twenty five.

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Their slow journey toward understanding and acceptance of one another is, I would argue, the major emotional arc of the trilogy.

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And it culminates as Thomas lays dying and finally admits to his son just how proud of him.

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He has become something that has been unspoken but now finally achieves full expression.

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And Thomas his last words to his son in the autumn, the public page five five five.

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Your mother says, Hi my boy, we love you.

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Finally, reconcile the fractured pieces of their family into one harmonious whole present together, if only for an instant before death.

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Separate them again. Ben Stake in McClellan's second trilogy, set in contrasts to a former territory of the C&S empire,

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serves as an interesting comparison to Thomas and continues McClellan's exploration of fatherhood.

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Like Thomas, Steak is a military figure. The leader of the Mad Lancers, who fought bravely infantry lost his war for independence.

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Also, like Thomas, he is a man on a mission.

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In his case, he's out to get revenge on the men who betrayed him at the end of the war and saw him sent to a penal labour camp for 10 years.

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Just as Thomas wanted revenge on the king of Ad-Rock on a personal level for allowing

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his beloved wife to be executed some years before the main action of the series.

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And again, like Thomas, Steak is an important paternal figure.

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The only one of the main protagonists in the Gods of Blood and Powder trilogy with parental responsibilities.

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While incarcerated, he adopted an orphaned girl, Selene, to protect her in the labour camp when her own father died.

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That? In contrast to Hamas, however, a state manages to walk away from his mission and not to be consumed by it.

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Hamas gives everything for his vision of Andro, including his life,

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while steak succeeds in the end in building a new life for himself and selling his growth as

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a parental figure is underlined by his troubled relationship with his own abusive father,

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whom he killed as a boy to protect his younger sister. Stake takes after his father in the sense that he is a very violent man,

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but he has channelled that violence into controlled military action rather than indiscriminate abuse.

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And when it begins to control him in the course of his revenge quest, he's able to reject its influence and walk away.

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His ability to do so is directly linked by McClelland to his parental role and the value that he places on familial relationships.

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So on the verge of killing Tenney, one of the men who betrayed him, state looks back to find solace in his adopted daughter watching him.

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Not it has to be said in horror, more in anticipation, but the sight makes Dich hesitate.

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And he spares Tony instead of killing him, explaining to Selene afterwards that quote Hardest thing a soldier can do is leave the killing behind him.

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Tenney didn't sell me out for money or power. He sold me out for a better life.

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[INAUDIBLE] thing to do, but he went somewhere. He couldn't hear the hoofs and the cannons and became a good husband to a fat little country girl.

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He did what I should have done 25 years ago, and that's from Wrath of Empire Page one.

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Acting in the middle of fighting a war stakes development over the course of the

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trilogy actually charts a course away from violence toward peace and contentment,

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finding in the very experience of fighting the truth of its limitations as a way of life.

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So McClellan's work is inescapably military in its focus,

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and those who don't enjoy reading about military manoeuvres or army organisation may well find his books not to their taste,

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but to reduce his books to only their military themes would be to do them a disservice.

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As I have discussed, there are many fascinating political and social overtones to McClellan's work, as well as religious ones.

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I've not even had time to touch on explorations of incarnation, sacrifice and the nature of the divine, which I leave you to explore for yourselves.

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I hope you've enjoyed this short introduction to the works of Brian McClellan. And thank you again for listening.