S. Kaeth

After reading an amazing book, you know I just have to chat with the author! I have hosted S Kaeth (SK) many times on the blog, often to kick start new series (Indie Recommends Indie), and today’s chat is no different. We are talking about Let Loose the Fallen which I reviewed yesterday. When I read Between Starfalls, I hosted SK for that book too so you can check out that interview here if you want some extra context around the story and world. Click on the reading experience graphic below to navigate to the book 2 review. Or just sit and enjoy the conversation. If you have read the book already, I am sure you will love it even more!

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Hi SK! It is amazing to host you again for another interview for The Children of Nexus series! I don’t think I have ever done a follow up interview for an author and I am not surprised at all that that trend begins with you. 🙂 For my readers who might be joining us for the first time, tell them a bit about yourself!

I’m so glad to be here again! I’m honored to begin this new trend with you. 

Hello everyone! I’m a science fiction and fantasy author writing new worlds with deep worldbuilding and magic that’s simply another thing people can do. I write powerful characters doing the best they can in situations that are stacked against them, sometimes blatantly so, including by powerful antagonists. 

Your short version of the key events in Between Starfalls (see here if you want to refresh your memory too) and the notes at the end of the book were very helpful in coming back to the world almost a year later. Now that I was familiar with the characters, I immersed myself in the plot and world of Let Loose the Fallen.

Once I remembered where we had left off in Between Starfalls, it was like coming home and going on a journey with characters I love. These were going to be testing times for them and I was curious on how they would develop further after being shaken so badly by the feast at Starfalls. I think you chose the challenges each of them faced very well in line with their character arcs and I love how each of them grew. I want to ask a question about each of the characters, in all fairness. 😀

I’m thrilled that you felt like you were coming home! That’s what I was hoping for, even though things were looking a little grim at the end of Between Starfalls. I was hoping that readers would be invested in all the various wheels that were spinning and in the characters’ individual journeys, and were ready to dive into the rebuilding process. 

I didn’t quite realize the tug of war that was going on in Taunos until this book. His time under the direction of the Elders was a secret and he learned many truths about himself and them this time. I love his questioning nature and the fact that he is called a sea-wizard by many. Can you tell me and my readers about sea-wizards? Are there land-wizards too? Are dragon riders wind-wizards? 😛

Poor Taunos. I attempted to place some hints of his struggles with the Elders in the first book but there weren’t good places to really dig into that, and he wasn’t ready to be cracked open and let all the pain leak out yet anyway.

Sea-wizards! There would be ramifications between having a few peoples (some of which are yet to be fully revealed) who knew about and accepted magic separated from other groups with extremely limited access to magic. No separation is ever 100% complete, so I spent some time thinking about what those ripples would be. 

So even peoples without access to magic would still absolutely know of magic, even if it was relegated to myth and folklore. That’s a powerful place for survival knowledge anyway, and not every magic user will be benevolent or humble. Sea-wizards are just the neutral term for anyone who comes from elsewhere who has magic. The world is mostly ocean with enormous tides so traveling by sea by itself is almost magic, and even if they walked, they’d be called sea-wizards. This would mean that dragon-riders would also be considered sea-wizards XD. 

Takiyah had had a very rough time in Between Starfalls and it was saddening to see her loose faith in relationships. I loved getting to know her history and I learned more about her background story and appearance in Rinara. While I read four different narratives, each of them added something to the others’ and this was particularly evident in Taunos’ journey and Takiyah’s real world experiences. How do you decide when to transition narratives and weave a well grounded storyline all around?

I felt so bad for Takiyah and everything she went through. I wanted to address some things some of my beta readers had commented, even though I understood the sentiment, and Takiyah’s arc fit perfectly for that. It’s really hard not to meet hatred with hatred, and when I got the mix right, Takiyah’s rebellion against her own pain and trauma felt really uplifting to me.

The structure of Fallen was really hard for me to get right, and I rewrote so much of the book (including the entire thing once). I settled on weaving them together with a different question for each character. For Kaemada, the main question I tried to focus on was How?, Taunos was Who?, Ra’ael was Why?, and Takiyah was When?. Obviously, it got a little muddied with their arcs as well and their growth, but my intention was that by focusing on those separate aspects, hopefully it would all come together for the reader even if it takes the character (being more limited) a bit longer.

As for when to transition, I do that mostly by feel, ending the scene whenever it feels done. Then when I go back in edits, I make sure each scene represents another step along the character’s arc (both interacting with the world and their internal journey) to make sure nothing’s dragging too much. 

Ra’ael was a priestess and her way of coming to terms with what happened at the Feast of Starfalls felt very true to a devotee who had lost her god. I liked how she turned to what else she knew of the world and tried to pursue happiness that way. The world got a lot more exposure through her narrative and learning the origins of the Kamalti cities. Can you also tell me a little bit more about the Kamalti’s origin history in relation to crystals and ships? That was another beautiful moment to challenge the concept of ships through both Ra’ael and Takiyah’s narratives.

This is one of my favorite parts of the story. If anyone hasn’t read Fallen, you’d better go do that before reading on! 

It was really fun to explore ships with Ra’ael, Takiyah, and Taunos. Takiyah explained why ships are not common in Rinara, and Taunos introduced us to sailors, so hopefully Amanah’s awe of them felt real to readers given the dangers Takiyah mentioned. And then Ra’ael! This is where I was finally able to pull back the veil on what they had been seeing underground since discovering the Kamalti. Hearing beta readers and CP’s shout “oh my gosh they’re spaceships!!” sent me into fits of maniacal laughter. 

It was so cool for me to move Ra’ael through her arc and get that polished up against the backdrop of Kamalti culture. It’s been mentioned before that Kamalti and Rinaryn used to live together and then the Kamalti moved underground, long, long ago. There are several races with technomages out in the wider universe, but as Galod explains, tage tech doesn’t work in the atmosphere. Neither do spaceships very well, as the crashed ships stand in testament. The advanced technology allowed the tages to survive the crash and impressed the Kamalti greatly, as evidenced by the fact that their second pantheon of gods are the Takis–the technomages. 

Not all of the tages would have stayed among the Kamalti, however, even without access to their powers–which then ties right back into the sea-wizards.

Secretly, I wish I could hear the characters tell each other what had happened to them over the course of Let loose the Fallen and see all these interconnections that I am seeing! It’s so beautiful SK! Can I expect this conversation in Book 3? 😀 You are almost done writing it, how does it begin?!

Yes, they do explain their experiences to each other! I skip over that in the start of Book Three though and jump right into the interconnections the characters see and the paths they want to explore.

Memories begins a couple days after Fallen ends, with the aforementioned conversation. Ra’ael reasons that if Taunos can bring people through the Trees with him, maybe she can use them to realmwalk because they must be easing the process somehow, while Galod and Taunos argue about the risks Taunos took at the end of Fallen and whether or not they were justified. And then I throw a dragon into the mix along with fall-out from something Galod did in Fallen.  

Coming back to this book, Kaemada encounters both elves and fae and learns much about what has been happening to the Rinaryns and her kaetal. I loved the notes in the book about the watchful eyes of fae and the knowledge and promises of the elves and also the snippets from Kameda’s journal. Can you tell us about the elves and fae? Are yours different in any way from the commonly known representations of them?

I hope I’ve put a fun twist on my elves and fae, as with other common ideas of fantasy races! One thing I slipped into Fallen was that the fae took the name “fae”, so if it helps, you can think of them as “imposter fae”. I’ve always been interested in the shadow-puppetry organization idea, as well as the cracks and splits within any group of people. So I started with the fae and their machinations, and then the Rinaran elves naturally split off from them. That’ll be explored more in Memories, too.

As for differences, I realize I maybe should have made this more clear in Fallen, but I envision my elves and fae to be brown-skinned like so many others of my peoples, and they follow the same magic system as the rest of my world–so psionics, or technomancy, or “healing”, but no combination thereof. My elves and fae are psionic, as was shown in Fallen. I also really enjoyed putting the details on the elves’ culture–like the hammocks, the slow, patient shaping of living trees into buildings (and how that interacts with their philosophy toward other peoples), and the idea of twining spider webbing into threads strong enough to weave into cloth. Taking a step back and considering how an extremely long-lived people might see the world was an interesting exercise for me. 

Was there one character whose development you were most excited about, maybe knowing what will be coming up in the next books?

I’m really excited to share each one of their arcs, because I love them so much. Having written out the whole 5-book series, I have a strong idea of where each of them will end up, even though I’m changing the events significantly as I re-write each book. 

I thought for the longest time that Eian was the one on the cover of the book and that gave me the impression that a lot of time was going to pass and he was going to get older. However, as I read the book, I was convinced that it is actually Taunos on the cover with Amanah and Emin on the back. Am I right? 

You know, originally I had written it so that Eian did get a lot older in Fallen, but it didn’t work out very well, so I shortened the timeframe of Fallen to six months, the same as Starfalls. But I do have plans for readers to continue to see Eian, so you’ll watch him grow up, never fear! 

It is Taunos on the cover, yes, set in the market of Arruk in Far Dahutad. The people on the back are actually just some random market-goers! It was cool watching them take shape though, and I kind of want to explore them and their culture with the wooden masks and the many small feathers on the backs of their clothes. I asked my artist to show a market with lots of different people from lots of different places and cultures, and he did a wonderful job with it!

How much time does Let Loose the Fallen cover? (This is purely for my mental timeline so that I can age Kaemada accordingly. xD )

Whoops, I already answered this one! Let me just add that this makes Kaemada, Takiyah, and Ra’ael 26 at the end of Fallen, and Taunos is 30. Eian was just about to begin his fifth summer at the end of Starfalls, so he’s 5 at the end of Fallen. Rinaryn culture sees everyone gaining their next “summer” all together, rather than celebrating individual birthdays.

So many reviewers mentioned angels in Between Starfalls and one of the things I loved about Let Loose the Fallen surprisingly, was that there were bigger terrors out there as the world expanded. What were the Angels up to while this story arc was going on? Will we learn about their society in the future?

Oooh yes, more will be revealed about the Angels in later books. They aren’t up to much in Fallen, which is why we only see them occasionally. There are a lot of various dangers out there, and I intend to keep them balanced so that nothing gets too forgotten, but without overwhelming the reader. (The characters, though, are fair-game for feeling overwhelmed, lol!)

Let Loose the Fallen is the second book in the series. The ending of the first book was heartbreaking and did not really prepare me for all the things that happened in this one. Tell me and my readers about writing a series: Do you plan out most of it in advance? Do you wait for a book to finish before you know what’s happening in the next one?

My writing groups laugh at my process because it’s a bundle of chaos like me, lol! I write without a guiding outline, discovering the story as I go along, but I also write out of order. This means that I do a lot of re-writing too, and lots of editing after I’ve figured out the story to make everything make sense. I wrote the whole series out a couple years ago, but since then I’ve changed the timeline and a large chunk of Dahuti culture as well as Amanah, so I know I’ll be re-writing it, but I am aiming for the same character arcs. The road might be a different one, but the endpoint will be similar! 

We have chatted about writing in our private conversations and I know a lot of writers are trying to make their stories better. Did you rewrite parts (or all) of Let Loose the Fallen? What did not make the cut? 

I completely rewrote Fallen from my first writing–it originally covered 5 years and Eian was kidnapped by Theron from the City of the Lost, Takiyah’s arc was a lot darker, and there was a whole thing, lol. Shortening the timeline made it make so much more sense and made things more impactful too. I also originally had an Amanah POV, even after re-writing it, but I found I wasn’t able to do justice to her arc while also juggling everything else the book was exploring. It was stuffed past its seams.

Amanah and the Dahuti culture originally had a strict patriarchal feel, with Amanah’s arc stemming from that. I’d intended to show how damaging that can be to everyone, not just women. But it was really hard to balance that with Taunos’s arc, and while she still has an arc, her PoV was redundant to Taunos’s since they were together throughout the book, so I ended up cutting her PoV, which meant changing how her motivations were shown since I wasn’t able to show her thoughts and hidden emotions anymore. But I like their relationship and Taunos’s relationship with Emin a lot more this way, so all the work paid off, I hope!

If you have rewritten parts of your books, not just this one, at what point do you decide that the way the story is going is satisfying and you will not make further changes?

After I write my first draft, I let it sit for a bit and marinate. And then, I go back through and I look for what I’m trying to say, as well as inconsistencies. Once I have a clear plot that makes sense, and things look good to me, I have my husband read it–he’s my alpha reader and is really good at asking hard questions that I’d rather not consider, lol! I’ll fix things and then send it to some of my CPs and some beta readers. Their feedback will then tell me whether or not I need to re-write from scratch. If something I thought I fixed isn’t fixed but I have a potential tie-in elsewhere, I can just polish that up with more editing. Sometimes, however, there are deep structural flaws or, like in Fallen, I’m just trying to do too much with a single book.

I trust my CPs–they are writers who have proven they understand what I’m trying to do and who my characters are, and they push me to keep improving. Rarely will they suggest I re-write something, but sometimes an entire arc won’t work for them because they can’t connect to the character anymore or they feel it conflicts with previously learned lessons. They also are amazing at asking me why I need to say this particular theme or what I’m trying to do with this arc or this setting or this situation, whatever is causing the trouble. Sometimes, like with the Dahuti culture I mentioned before, I realize that maybe it’s already been said and better. Sometimes, ideas can be challenged not just by a head-on confrontation, but by showing that there are alternative ways of living and being with others. 

Keeping up with the first interview tradition, can you tell us about the legend of the Tsaeyichape’itsan?

Oooh, I’m not sure I can tell you that yet! It’s in this draft for Memories so it might be spoilers! 

Is there a favorite quote you would like to share from the book, SK?

I’m going to give four, one from each PoV, if that’s ok!

I think one of my favorite places is Ra’ael singing in the dark. That sliver of hope when everything seems lost is so precious, and Ra’ael’s arc becomes clear here, I think. 

It didn’t matter if she couldn’t hear the song of the spirits. She could still sing, even if the darkness ate the tune.

I also love how Amanah and Taunos each push each other to be the best person they can be, and how Amanah drove right to the heart of Taunos’s pain. 

Amanah reached for him. “More would see you if you let them. What are you so afraid of? When you pull back like that, Haari Taunos, and you throw up those walls thicker than that of Arruk, shields in front of you and in back of you, no one can get to you. You hold everyone at arm’s length, pretending with smiles and jokes that’s not so. You smile as if nothing affects you, and you change the subject to avoid those that hurt too much, that aim too true to your heart. But it means nothing can get in either.

Takiyah had some great realizations, I thought, too. Like:

“You find something beautiful, something delicate. Now, you have a choice. Do you add to it or destroy it? What you decide says something, I think,” she said.

I love the conversation between Umril and Kaemada, as well. 

“The stories of my people always end well if the hero is virtuous, if the hero makes the right choices. All I have done is cause harm.”

“You assume three things.” Umril’s voice was stern and vast, and somehow it seemed to echo in her mind. “One, that you are virtuous; two, that you are the hero; and three, that you are anywhere near the end of your story.”

A broken laugh burst from her lips. “My pride. So I am a sapling throwing a tantrum because a storm has come and I do not like how it feels?”

Amusement shone in his eyes as he shook his head. “You are not a sapling. But if you were, you would be pretending to be a rock and angry that the storm treats you as a tree.”

Between one breath and the next, she went from feeling like she could almost understand to having no more sense of comprehension than a fish could have of flight.

With that ever-present smile, he went on. “When a tree tries to be a rock, it ends up doing a terrible job at being either. And you are a horrible psion.”

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Thank you for hanging out with me and SK today! We really appreciate you taking the time to read about Let Loose the Fallen and hope that if you pick it up, you will let us know!

Find this book on Amazon Print, Amazon Kindle, Goodreads and IndieStoryGeek. My review can be found here.

Happy Reading!

Cover Photo by Mark Timberlake on Unsplash