My Mythical Menagerie series follows the adventures of Ambrose Davids, a young man who lives in London.
Over the course of four books, he travels quite extensively. He visits Paris, Rome, Germany, Malta, Greece and a number of other places – sometimes by rather unconventional means – but London is always home.
Now I’m planning a brand-new fantasy series, with a completely new world, new characters and a new mythology.
And somehow, my new protagonist lives in London too.
There’s just one slightly odd thing about this.
I’m South African. I live in Pretoria.
So why on earth do I keep setting my fantasy books in London?
Why Not South Africa?
When I first started writing Mythical Menagerie almost a decade ago, I think part of my reasoning was simply that London would be an immediately recognisable setting for more international readers.
If I handed you a world map and asked you to put one pin in London and another in Pretoria, which one would you feel more confident about?
Exactly.
But these days, I don’t actually think familiarity is a particularly good reason to choose a setting.
There are South African authors writing very successful speculative fiction set here – JT Lawrence’s Johannesburg-set urban fantasy being one example. And as a reader, discovering somewhere I don’t already know can be part of the appeal of a book.
Looking back, I think there was a much more important reason Mythical Menagerie needed to begin in London.
London suited the story I wanted to tell.
A Different Setting Creates a Different Story
Mythical Menagerie draws heavily on European mythology and folklore.
Ambrose encounters unicorns, dragons, selkies, leprechauns and all manner of other creatures with their origins in European legends. As the story expands, so does his world, and he travels across Europe in pursuit of mythical creatures and the people who hunt, protect and exploit them.
Could I have written a contemporary fantasy series about mythical creatures set in Pretoria?
Probably.
But it wouldn’t have been Mythical Menagerie.
If Ambrose had lived at the bottom of the African continent, the creatures around him would have been different. The mythology would have been different. The places he visited would have been different.
And inevitably, the adventures would have been different too.
That’s something I find fascinating about setting. It isn’t simply the backdrop behind the characters. Change where a story happens, and you change the story itself.
And Then There’s the Travel…
There was also a slightly more selfish reason for choosing London.
I love travelling.
London gave Ambrose a wonderfully convenient base from which to explore the rest of Europe. Paris, Rome, Germany, Malta and Greece are all considerably easier to reach from London than from Pretoria.
Admittedly, this turned out to be less logistically important than I might have expected, because Ambrose only rarely uses conventional forms of international transport – apparently, when you work with mythical creatures, airports become optional.
But writing his adventures still gave me the opportunity to travel vicariously through him.
And London itself is a city I love exploring.
Putting My Own London Memories Into My Books
I first visited London on holiday when I was in my early twenties. Later, I technically lived there for about two weeks before moving to Cardiff in Wales, where I stayed for two years.
Since returning to South Africa, I’ve visited London several more times, and it remains one of my favourite cities.
Hyde Park. Big Ben. Trafalgar Square. St Paul’s Cathedral. Westminster Abbey. All places I’ve walked through and explored as a tourist that eventually found their way into my fictional world.
And there’s something immensely satisfying about taking a place I remember visiting and asking: Okay, but what if there were mythical creatures here?
Quite often, it turns out.
So Why Am I Doing It Again?
Which brings me to the new series I’m currently planning.
This is an entirely new story. It isn’t connected to Mythical Menagerie. It has new characters, new rules and a mythology based around the gods of ancient Egypt.
And my new protagonist, Libby, lives…
…in London.
Again.
This time, however, my reasons are quite different.
Libby and her family aren’t originally from the UK. They’re Egyptian, and Libby was born in Egypt before her family moved to England when she was young.
Why did they leave?
I’m not telling you that yet. It’s tied rather closely to something important in the story, and I have to keep some secrets while I’m planning this thing.
What I can tell you is that growing up in England affects Libby’s relationship with the country where she was born.
Eventually, her story will take her back to Egypt. When that happens, she won’t experience it entirely as someone coming home, nor entirely as a foreigner.
She belongs to Egypt, but at the same time, she has spent much of her life somewhere else.
That gives me the opportunity to explore questions around history, identity and belonging that fit this particular story – while also allowing Libby to experience Egypt partly through the eyes of an outsider.
And since I am, of course, an outsider myself, that’s a perspective I’m particularly interested in exploring as I research and develop the series.
But Why Didn’t They Move to Pretoria?
Well… Remember that world map? Can you find Pretoria yet?
The Setting Has to Serve the Story
I don’t think I’ll ever choose the setting of a book simply because it’s where I happen to live.
The question I find much more interesting is: What does this place allow the story to become?
Ambrose’s adventures would have looked completely different if I’d based him in Pretoria instead of London.
And although Libby’s story is only just beginning to take shape, I already know the same is true for her.
So no, I’m not a Londoner. I’m sure actual Londoners may occasionally spot something I got wrong, despite my best efforts.
But I love the city, I have my own memories attached to many of the places I write about, and I’ve had an enormous amount of fun living there vicariously through my characters.
Especially once I start adding mythical creatures.
And if you haven’t met Ambrose yet, you can start his adventures in Myth Hunter, the first book in my complete Mythical Menagerie contemporary fantasy series.
What about you? Do you enjoy reading books set somewhere you know really well, or would you rather have a story whisk you away to somewhere you’ve never been – perhaps even somewhere on your bucket list? Let me know in the comments!
