Travel broadens the mind, even inspiring fictional worlds
Tej Turner, author and seasoned traveller, realised that his own experiences, backpacking in exotic parts of the world, were the perfect field research for his epic fantasy adventure series.
Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is committed to publishing outstanding books by incredible authors. One such author is Tej Turner. Tej works in Cardiff as a chef by day and writes fantasy books by night. But he is also an ardent explorer, informing and entertaining his many online followers through a travel blog in which he documents his, often ambitious, trips. Authors often spend more time doing background research for their stories than actually writing, especially if they have to create an imaginary world and populate it with competing peoples, myths, legends and cultures, not to mention geography, flora and fauna. Sometimes, though, the authors have already done some of the research without even realising it.
Peter Buck, Editorial Director of Elsewhen Press said, “In 2015, we published a gritty urban fantasy that Tej had written, The Janus Cycle, but we hadn’t physically met him because he was handling the edits while away on a 9 month backpacking expedition around Asia. In fact, we first met him in person when we launched the book at Eastercon in a hotel in Heathrow, Tej arriving straight off the plane from Kathmandu. We have been friends ever since.”
It was in 2014, just before going on that trip around Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan and Nepal, that Tej had written the first few chapters of Blood Legacy, the second book in an epic fantasy series he had been planning: The Avatars of Ruin. When he got home in 2015, he picked it up again to finish writing it.
Tej says, “I would like to say that I went travelling as ‘field research’ but that would be a lie – it is just something that I love to do. But that said, when I returned from that trip, I did realise that one of the arcs for Blood Legacy involved its main characters doing things that I had just done myself; namely journeying to lands that are not only different to what they know in terms of scenery and climate, but also – at times – a bit of a culture shock.
“I remember – when I returned home a year later and continued writing – reaching certain points of the story and realising that I didn’t need to do any research because I already had firsthand experience of what the characters were doing. One example of this being when they needed to cross a mountain range; I had just come back from doing a high altitude trek in the mountains of Nepal so the experience was all still fresh within my mind.”
In 2021, Elsewhen Press published Bloodsworn, the first book of The Avatars of Ruin series, and now Blood Legacy is also available, in both paperback and eBook. Tej is currently close to completing the third book in the series, Blood War. Tej adds, “Blood War includes a story arc from even more regions of my world, including a jungle civilisation.”
Bloodsworn attracted praise from best-selling authors Anna Smith Spark, who said: “Classic epic fantasy. I enjoyed it enormously”; and Christopher G Nuttall, who said: “a stunning introduction to a new fantasy world”.
Blood Legacy, too, has already garnered praise from respected authors. Allen Stroud, author and current chair of the British Science Fiction Association said, “Tej Turner is taking you on a journey into Fantasy, only it’s not quite the journey you expected, and it’s all the better for it”; Joanne Hall said, “a nuanced, smart high fantasy novel with intelligent, complex characters, good LGBT rep and some killer twists”; and David Craig said, “an exciting book which ups the stakes, mixing traditional fantasy with an element of possession horror”.
Blood Legacy is available from today in both eBook and paperback formats.