Peter Darbyshire is joining us today to talk about his novel, The Wonder Lands War. Here’s the publisher’s description:
The eagerly awaited fourth book in the Cross series of supernatural thrillers.
The immortal Cross is back in a wild new adventure – a desperate hunt to find the enigmatic Alice from the Wonderland tales. Alice has helped Cross save the world countless times over since she stepped out of the pages of her book, but now she is the one that needs rescue after vanishing during an apocalyptic battle.
Aided by the faerie queen Morgana and her court, Cross journeys to mystical islands populated with murderous immortals and into famous libraries with powerful librarians and magical texts until they reach the chaotic and terrifying Wonder Lands, the dangerous inspiration for the original Alice tales.
But they are not the only ones looking for Alice. A rogue group of angels are also hunting her for mysterious reasons of their own. The very fate of the world may rest upon who finds Alice first.
What’s Peter’s favorite bit?
What if your favourite places from books, paintings and other works of art were real?
This is something I’ve been exploring in my Cross series of supernatural thrillers from the first novel, with the immortal rogue Cross finding a secret way into the Last Supper painting to battle renegade angels (The Mona Lisa Sacrifice), getting trapped in a ghost version of Hamlet’s castle due to a faerie enchantment (The Dead Hamlets) and searching for the lost city of Atlantis with Captain Nemo to save the world (The Apocalypse Ark).
In the fourth instalment of the series, The Wonder Lands War, Cross discovers that Wonderland from the Lewis Carroll books is actually based upon the Wonder Lands, a supernatural realm created by a court of long-dead faerie that had Carroll under their spell. Cross must find a way into the Wonder Lands to rescue the enigmatic Alice, the character come to life from the books. But he is not the only one searching for her, as a mysterious group of rogue angels are also on the hunt for Alice and will stop at nothing to capture her.
The Wonder Lands War is very much a descent into a literary rabbit hole, where I try to capture the spirit of the original books and meld it with the Cross universe. While Cross’s quest takes him to many fascinating places — magical libraries with supernatural librarians, a Venetian island of murderous and undying priests, a secret tomb for an angel within the depths of the Vatican — my favourite place in the book is the Wonder Lands, which are far more dangerous than their literary counterpart. The Wonder Lands have collapsed into ruin and mad creatures stalk the bewildering and unstable place, seeking escape or perhaps just to spread pandemonium to our realm. Cross must not only rescue Alice from their grasp but also find a way to save the world in the process. Because these Wonder Lands are as inextricably connected to the real world as Lewis Carroll’s tales of Wonderland are. That connection between fabrication and reality is key to me, as I write fantasy not to escape the world but to hopefully make it more magic. By writing a tale where our favourite places come true, I hope for readers to look upon our own world with such enchantment and seek out the magic in the everyday.
Why are the Wonder Lands in particular my favourite bit of my new book?
I subscribe to the idea that every story is a conversation with the rest of literature. The Wonderland tales hold a very special place in literary history and our collective imaginations, and the constant reinvention of Wonderland has become a fascinating conversation all of its own. It’s hard to imagine another fictional place that has taken on so much reality in our lives. I wanted to add to this conversation by connecting Wonderland to our world a bit more, especially in having Cross seek out the original — and magical! — manuscript and the places where Lewis Carroll wrote the Wonderland tales. I also wanted to share my own takes on some of Carroll’s characters — not just Alice, but also a different sort of Cheshire Cat, a menacing bandersnatch, a deadly revelation beast and many others.
Even more importantly, I wanted to unleash the imaginations of readers upon this new realm. I love presenting wild stories or even just ideas to readers that trigger their own storytelling impulses to fill in the creative spaces I’ve opened for them. I deliberately did not map out the Wonder Lands or lay out its defining characteristics because I want readers to create their own versions of the Wonder Lands (or Wonderland for that matter) that live in their imaginations. Call it collaborative storytelling perhaps, with an invitation to join the conversation.
The Wonder Lands War is part of my ongoing love letter to literature in the form of the Cross series, and a world of possibilities waits within its pages. I hope readers find these Wonder Lands as captivating and inspiring as I have.
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BIO:
Peter Darbyshire is the author of seven novels and dozens of stories. He lives near Vancouver, British Columbia.