Guest Blog - Kody Boye, author of Blood

The Three Series that Inspired Me to Write Fantasy

Kody Boye

Readers are often interested in the inspirations that inspired their novel—most particularly, for fantasy novels. Though since 2009 I have refused to read fantasy fiction for fear of accidentally leeching its elements or story plots and incorporating them into my own writing, I was a very avid fantasy reader back in the day. Here are the top three stories that inspired me to write the first novel in my Brotherhood Saga, Blood.

1. Tamora Pierce’s Tortal Universe. Through a series of nearly twenty books now, Tamora Pierce has introduced readers and lovers of fantasy to the vast and sprawling country of Tortal. The first quartet, Alana, dealt with a young girl who wished to become a knight. The second, Realm of the Gods, followed a young nature mage named Diane as she attempted to thwart against the Gods themselves. Finally, the third quartet (and ultimately my favorite,) Protector of the Small, takes place dozens of years after Alana did in a time where girls can now train as knights. It was this last quartet that inspired me to write a story about a young man who journeys to his capital and then is acquisitioned into the royal army after he is deemed appropriate for training because of his magical talent.

2. The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix. Back in the day, Garth Nix influenced me to the point where I wrote a semi fan-fiction book that surrounded the idea of a Necromancer being ‘good,’ though my story came nowhere near the perfection that Nix accomplished in his trilogy. It follows a series of characters—first an anti-necromancer called an Abhorsen, then a charter mage and her companion—as they attempt to not only protect the kingdom from the slowly-growing undead, but also a threat that could destroy the country behind ‘the wall’ entirely. It features something I was always interested in—zombies; or, more appropriately, the ‘undead.’ Unlike zombies who just shamble for food, however, these dead things have consciences, and use them to their deadliest advantage.

3. The Harry Potter Saga. Spanning an entire decade, the story of a young man who journeys to a wizarding school entertained my imagination ever since I started reading the Harry Potter series when I was in sixth grade (it ended when I was just fresh out of high school.) The magic, the creativity, the worldbuilding and the plot is enough to drive any fan of fantasy, old and young alike. It isn’t until after the fourth book that my favorite thing comes into play—the darkness, the death, the destruction and the omens. It is in the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, that we are introduced to one of the most demonic and cruel villains of the early twenty-first century. To say J.K. Rowling inspired me would be to discount all the impact she had on me as a child. Her story and her power of telling it made me venture into fantasy and then write The Brotherhood Trilogy (which is now a saga) when I was only thirteen.

See all Kody's books at http://kodyboye.com/.