Q&A with Ian Irvine

1. Runcible Jones is essentially a story about magic. Did you believe in magic when you were young?

I’m sure I did; I certainly believed the fairy tales that I read when I was a kid. And even when I was older, I found myself completely drawn into stories like The Dark is Rising and The Hobbit where magic was important. And I still believe that magic could exist in worlds other than our own. Or even in hidden, secret places on our own world, for that matter . . .

2. Where did you get the idea to write this book and how did you come up with the character of Runcible Jones?

Many years ago I began writing a fantasy series for younger readers called The Children’s War. It was set on a world where children had certain magical talents that they lost when they became adults. Unfortunately I became so busy with my fantasy novels for older readers that I never had the time to finish the story, but a few years ago I took the idea and began to change it around to see what I could make of it.

I ended up having a story set on two worlds, each affecting the other in some way: an Earth much like our own, but with one important difference – magic is banned though no one seems to understand why. Also a beautiful world called Iltior, where everyone (and many things) can do magic, but science is illegal.

3. Who would you say is Runcible’s most trustworthy friend in the book?

He’s friends with Mariam, a tall, rich girl who is unlike him in every possible way. She’s been sent to Grindgrim as a punishment for doing something so dreadful at her old school (the best girls’ school in the country) that she was expelled and the truth was hushed up.

4. What was your favourite children’s book when you were growing up?

It’s hard to pick out one because I’d read so many – literally thousands of books, but I think it was The Wreckers of Pengarth, by Michael Gibson. It was set in Cornwall, on the south coast of England, a long time ago, and was about a gang who used to lure ships onto the rocks so as to get their cargo, and the children who had to try and stop them. I must have read it a dozen times.

5. Runcible Jones is your first children’s novel. What made you want to try writing for a younger audience?

I’d been wanting to ever since I began my story about the children’s war (way back in 1992). By the time I was ready to start work on Runcible Jones my youngest daughter was twelve, and I wanted to write a story that she would really enjoy, full of magic and adventure, desperate dangers and unpleasant enemies, and kids doing things that the adults couldn’t.