Explore Jamie Cass’s Inspirations Behind the Stories
Inspirations Behind the Stories
Discover what fuels Jamie Cass’s creative journey through history and fantasy.
Historic Roots
A Roadmap for Inspiration
Starfall wouldn’t be possible were it not for my deep love of history. I’ve grown up loving it as a subject, from the early days of reading Horrible Histories, to taking it at school, to studying it at multiple universities and now finally to teaching it every day to students in a classroom.
To my mind, what’s so special about history, compared to any other subject, is that history has the unique ability to locate ourselves within itself. The Napoleonic were over two hundred years ago, but the stories of the men and women who found their lives shattered in their wake, are as real and powerful as the stories in the news today. As a conflict, it shaped a generation, and laid the foundation for an Empire which carved its name into the entire world.
Fantasy Realms
Source of Imagination
Fantasy has always had a special place in my heart. It’s a way of escaping the dreary everyday. As a young man, I would lie in bed, and picture myself hatching dragon eggs, carrying rings on long quests, and fighting for my life in brutal arenas. To be clear, these were all good dreams.
As I got older, I began to take my daydreams and feed them, little by little, line by line, until stories emerged. At first, these stories were just Frankenstein creations, patched together from other writer’s work. But the more I did it, the more the stories began to take on new life, with new characters, and settings and plots. Starfall isn’t the first fantasy novel I’ve written, but it’s the first that truly came together from all its different components, and like the ill-named monster, came alive.
Literary Influences
The books that paved the way
The list of books and authors that led me down the road to Starfall is too long to go into here, or anywhere. But there are a few special cases that deserve mention.
Firstly, The Lord of the Rings has always been my guiding star. It may be fantasy of a different era, telling a stories in a way which might not sell today, but the morals and themes of that novel have stuck with me all my life.
Secondly, The Name of the Wind is a source of endless delight for me, reminding me that great fantasy can be complex, and rich, but also kind, and full of feeling and hope.
Thirdly, as I wrote Starfall, I found myself repeatedly returning to The Blade Itself. No other book, to me, does morally grey characters quite as well, and I aspire to one day write characters like Logan Ninefingers.
