Books: The Iron Ship
Exclusive interview with author M.K. McKinley and a review of her novel about a world based on magic instead of petroleum
Rating: 3 Stars
by Gabrielle Pantera
“At the end of the Renaissance, when a lot of the principles of modern science were being laid down, scientists were also mystics, and spent a good deal of time examining magic,” says The Iron Ship author M.K. McKinley. “Science won out, but I wondered what a world would be like where magic was real and was utilized according to rigorously applied empirical principles. In The Iron Ship, there’s an industrial revolution going on engendered by this approach to magic. A magically powered and realized industrial revolution.”
The Iron Ship creates rich detail about the mythology and religion of a fantasy world based on industrial magic. Strong female characters are defined in the context of epic fantasy. The dialog moves the story. The book starts off slowly and sometimes it’s difficult to follow the plot. Still, it’s a great choice for fans who love fantasy and sci-fi.
McKinley, who conjured up the idea for the story about four years ago, added: “I didn’t need to do too much research as I’ve had this sort of thing hammered into me since before I could talk,” says McKinley. “There’s a lot of inspiration from early industrial history in The Iron Ship. I have a history degree and my parents dragged me around every vaguely historical attraction wherever we went when I was a child…a tradition I’m continuing with my son. I did do some reading on early steamships, particularly on engines and on industrial processes. I confess, I made a lot of it up.”
“I use Wikipedia all the time,” says McKinley. “So much so that I donate monthly to it. It’s one of the great gifts of the Internet age. It’s a great place to go to get a primer on a subject, and to find other, more detailed or academic websites and books to visit.”
Certain things that are very different in McKinley’s world, turn out to be similar to our own. “I was thinking about oil and how its use has changed our world,” says McKinley. “This won’t become apparent until the second book, but magic, specifically the solid-state ‘glimmer’ the civilization in the novel uses as an energy source, is a similarly powerful fuel to oil, and of course it has all its own drawbacks, most of which are not immediately obvious.”
McKinley says the Kressind family in The Iron Ship are loosely based on her own family, although the parents are not. The Kressind are an ambitious, upcoming new money industrial clan, trying to make their way in a world that is rapidly changing.
The Iron Ship is also a statement on feminism. “In some of the cultures in The Iron Ship, like ours in the past, women are restricted by convention. But if they’re smart, lucky, or bloody-minded, they can achieve anything. History is full of people defying the role society would prefer they adopted. I think too often currently, when we talk about feminism we reduce women to a completely unempowered or completely empowered binary, and I just don’t think that’s true. Even slaves can find and exercise power, and some people always find a way to do what they will, no matter what huge obstacles are placed in front of them. I wanted to write about powerful women like that.”
McKinley has been a journalist and magazine editor since 1997, although since 2013 most of her writing is for books. “I spend most of my time at home alone writing. It’s between projects where the interesting things happen, in my reading or through meeting people or visiting places.”
Next for McKinley is writing The City of Ice. “A knot of unconnected ideas that I have to hammer into shape,” says McKinley. “That’s the fun part. Fantasy is the literature of cataclysmic change, whether unexpected or part of a larger mythic cycle.”
McKinley lives in Yorkshire, in the North of England, the city where she was born.
The Iron Ship by K. M. McKinley. Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Rebellion (June 1, 2015), Language: English, ISBN: 9781781083338 $ 7.19
