Interviews with the characters we all love with a little help from the authors that wrote them.
In this case some Grimdark Fantasy from Anna Smith Spark
Name (and title if appropriate):
Gertri The Shield. Hardest of the Hard, Toughest of the Tough, Seen It all, Killed It All, Slept Like a Baby Through It.
Written by:
Books you appear in (links welcome)
Kill a shitload of people and save enough to get my kids nicely set-up in life.
That’s more than five words, I can count. But I’m the one with the sword here.
The Dripping Bucket off Tsepsis Street. My home-away-from-home, thus my home-away-from-my-dick-of-a-husband-and-my-kids. Great food, great beer, great company, a place where everybody knows your name.
My sword. I do like a good bit of close work knifing, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something about a proper full-on disembowelling sword stroke that’s so special.
Oooh, tough one. Either that moment you’ve finally got the kids into bed and you can sit down with a beer, or just before you gut someone.
People always ask this kind of question expecting a big moral statement of principles like ‘the accursed evil butcher king of Tsarr, may his genitals rot and ooze maggots and his name be spat upon by rabid dogs’, but I never think that’s a particularly realistic kind of answer. Probably my boss or my next-door neighbours, like most people. Or my husband when he’s trying to be helpful round the house.
My mum was a schoolteacher, my dad stayed at home and looked after me and my two brothers and the dog. We had a nice house on Dhisyntri Street with a garden with a may tree and an apple tree in it that I loved climbing and playing in. My parents still live there, if I’m not too busy with work we try to go round every ten days or so for a roast. My dad makes the best apple cake!
It’d be nice to have a bigger house, the children having separate bedrooms would be lovely – I do feel a bit guilty the two youngest are stuck sharing. Oh, and a hall! The door opening straight into the living room is a right pain in the arse. My parents warned me way back that this job might be exciting but it wasn’t the best paid and the work might be unreliable, and of course I was too young to listen. So yeah, I’d be in a bigger house on a bit of a nicer street. But I love my job, I’m not sure I’d say it was a bad choice. I’d rather this than a bigger house and a boring job I didn’t find as fulfilling. My mum was a teacher and she instilled this public service ethos in me. I enjoy my job and I like to feel it’s making a real difference.
So yeah, a bigger house maybe, be nice to have a proper garden, but basically I’m pretty happy with the way things are in my life. (Don’t tell my husband or my boss I said that).
Although, actually, thinking about it, there’s some rumours going round that the situation with Tsarr might be hotting up a bit – which might mean some interesting work opportunities. With luck, Thaliates willing, I might be able to afford a bigger house in a few years.
Probably not my place to say it, but … tomatoes in a fantasy city? Umm? You guys ever heard of historical verisimilitude?
As I often find myself telling my kids: burnt bits are the best.
