Lit Witches: A Fantasy Book Podcast
The Roman Empire is back: Author James Islington on his high fantasy 'Hierarchy' series | EP06
06 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This podcast is recorded and produced on Cammeraygal country. We acknowledge the traditional custodians and the first storytellers of this land and pay our respects to elders past and present.
I kind of wanted to do a bit of a sci-fi concept but in a fantasy world, especially because as soon as you move into a fantasy world it can be a bit looser, like I don't have to come and learn all the physics.
Like these are my physics.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Music
Hello, and a very warm welcome to Lit Witches, the podcast for fantasy readers, writers, and all things in between. I'm your host, Adelaide Jensen. This episode, I'm joined by James Eilington. James is the author of the Lycanius trilogy, and more recently, the Hierarchy series.
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Chapter 2: What inspired James Islington to write the Hierarchy series?
Welcome, James.
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Oh, I'm so excited to have you. I like to start all of my interviews with a very hard hitting question. Are you ready? How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Clearly too much.
Yes, it is very much a silly question, but I couldn't resist. It must be every day for you really.
Yeah, very much so.
More so than the regular person. And then maybe like a little bit more of a serious question. What's the fantasy book that shaped you, that brought you to the genre?
Yeah. Look, it was probably Magician by Raymond Feist. I read that when I was 14 and that was my first fantasy book. And before that I was, you know, I was a reader, but I was never really –
Thank you.
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Chapter 3: How does the Roman Empire influence the Hierarchy series?
Well, look, I should have bought the textbook. I should have bought it. Um, and I think the Celtic ones must've been especially challenging.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. They are pronounced so differently to what they look like. So again, it's just kind of... going through and learning them myself a lot of the time.
Making the best of it. And I think it is always so exceptionally helpful as a reader to have such an extensive glossary, which for this book extends to like 10 pages. So thank you for that. Place names, character names, explanations. It's so incredibly helpful. You've now joined the long held tradition of writing very long fantasy books.
Do you think that's because there's always so much rich world building that it's sort of inevitable?
Yeah, I mean, I... uh, so when I started the series, cause Lacania is sort of similar length and, um, and when I started this series, uh, you know, even, even in my contract, it was, it was like, you know, 150, 175,000 words. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's pretty easy. That's good. And the first one was 240, whatever it was, a thousand words. And I, you know, I don't,
It's just what the story has taken.
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Chapter 4: What themes are explored in 'The Will of the Many'?
And I don't think there's wasted space or anything like that. I don't think they're bloated books by any stretch of the imagination.
No, they're not.
But, yeah, I mean, like you said, part of it's world building. That's the reason fantasy is so big because fantasy books are so big because you're trying to – convey this entire world or in the case of the second one, three worlds to the reader as well as progress your plot and as well as develop your characters. And so it all takes space. But yeah, I would love to write shorter books.
We don't want that. Yeah, I... Yeah, I never regret having finished them. I never regret them being the length that they are. But, you know, when I'm writing them, I'm like, oh, man, if this was a normal book, this would be like done six months ago sort of thing.
And do you have like a certain trick to how you keep them so incredibly pacey as well as packing in so much detail and so much explanation?
I draft a lot.
Yeah.
I draft a lot. Yeah. I mean, despite the fact that, you know, I do plan out, um, I do change a lot sort of in between the key points as I go. Uh, so, um, you know, I'll end up with 50,000, a hundred thousand words scrapped in a, in a book because, uh, I'll either go, ah, this isn't working or, um, this is boring or, uh, you know, I can combine this scene and this scene into one scene.
And that actually just makes it more interesting. Um, So it's a constant kind of re-evaluation of the book, which I think really helps. And then also I just I think I get to a point if I'm writing something and I'm like, I'm bored, then I think that's a good indication that I probably need to do something better with it.
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Chapter 5: How does James Islington structure his writing process?
I went back and I'm not much of one to look at reviews generally, but I went back and I went, all right, I'm going to look at all the, not all of them, but a lot of the three and four star reviews of these books and go, these are the ones that people who liked the series, but they had issues with it or it wasn't perfect.
And trying to get a sense of, you know, these are the areas that I can improve on. And that was really educational. It wasn't fun. No. But, you know, it is really educational to take a big group of reviews. And I'm very fortunate that I was able to do that. and go, all right, here's the common threads throughout that people have gone, I wish he had done this better.
And then trying to apply it moving forward.
I think that's brilliant. That's a brilliant way of doing it. And it's like, obviously it must be painful at times, but yeah, if every author was able to, I mean, I can only imagine I've not written my own book. I would not be able to handle that kind of feedback, but being able to take that in and go, okay, it is mostly good. Don't focus on the bad, but take it and
And clearly that's worked for you, obviously, as well, because this has reached such a new height of freedom.
Yeah, it seems, I'm very glad to say it, it seems that the general consensus is that it's better written than my previous series, which is great.
Amazing. I'm very pleased. I did just want to go back to talking about the mind magic.
Yeah, sure.
Because it's so interesting to me, and you said that you came up with that first. How did that happen?
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Chapter 6: What research was conducted for the Hierarchy series?
No one will ever buy a book again. And yet here we are. The industry is only getting bigger and bigger over the last 10 years. It's been massive. And e-books certainly have a place. Audiobooks have a place. But there's just something about the appeal of a big old – Oh, absolutely.
I still prefer, I mean, you know, I have a Kindle, but I still prefer reading physical books.
Yes. And I think what's great also, like if we can transition a little bit into like the book talk conversation, is that they've really revived this love of like the physical book as a possession to have and hoard and like show everyone your shelves. I mean, you must have been touched by that a little bit differently, right? Because you're an established fantasy author, but yeah.
Now there's all these big, especially female writers coming along. The romanticist thing is taking the world by storm, but they've brought all these new people into the genre. Like what's your take on how that's changed everything?
Yeah. I mean, it's obviously, it's been amazing to see. Obviously romanticist just exploded over the last three or four years, especially I think since Fourth Wing. It's funny, Fourth Wing launched two weeks before my book, before Will of the Many. So I was looking at Fourth Wing going,
But, no, it is amazing because I think it is bringing in this whole raft of readers that may not have otherwise been interested in fantasy and they're reading romancy books and then obviously not all of them but some of them are then going, you know, I can actually enjoy this genre and then looking at other less romancy fantasy books. So I think it's fantastic from that perspective.
You know, I think it's hopefully it's not too, dominant. I think that is one thing that I've seen a few people sort of say. I've had friends kind of go into the bookstore recently and been a bit disappointed because they're like, here's two shelves, two massive walls of romance and I've got to look through and find my new, where's my new epic fantasy sort of thing.
But I think that's just, you know, everything kind of ebbs and flows and I think it's still a very good thing. Anything that gets people reading really is a really good thing.
Yeah, I think that's what we like to call Fourth Wing and things like ACOTAR, the gateway drug to the fantasy realm. They like open, they're like, oh, hello. Which is brilliant, but I guess, and then commercially the conversation is like, oh, everyone's buying the Romantasy.
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