Title: Stanley Brambles and the Lost City
Author: Owen Spendlove
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-4917-7866-1
Pages: 367
Genres: Young adult, fantasy, action/adventure
About the Author
Owen Spendlove loves to read, and is a rabid fan of fantasy and science fiction, and his writing career can be traced all the way back to his fourth-grade creative writing class, when he completed his first sci-fi epic, ‘Planet of the Slugs’. It was six pages long, and not very good.
Since that time, Spendlove has refined his craft, and has set out to make his mark on the world of young adult fantasy.
He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada with his fiancee and their pug, Lily.
Author Interview with Owen Spendlove
Interviewed by: Jenn Weiss
Today we are talking to Owen Spendlove, author of “Stanley Brambles and the Lost City.”
PBR: What inspired the idea of Stanley searching for a lost city?
When I first started writing the Stanley Brambles series, I wanted each book to have a different theme, a different “type” of adventure. The first book in the series, Stanley Brambles and the Pirate’s Treasure, is (obviously) pirate-themed, with lots of high-seas shenanigans and sea monsters.
Before I had even finished writing the first book, I knew that I wanted the second to be a jungle adventure. Jungles hold an incredible array of strange and fascinating creatures, and the almost impenetrable wilderness of towering trees and other rampant plant life can hide many secrets. Like the ocean depths, the dark interior of a jungle can seem as strange and as alien as if it were on another planet.
I’m also very interested in Mesoamerican civilizations like the Aztecs and Maya, and wanted to factor elements of them into the story. The lizard people—the Saurians—encountered by Stanley and his friends are, of course, pure fantasy, but they were heavily inspired by aspects of the Aztec culture of Central America; their architecture, music, and religion are very much based on the real thing.
Finally, for reasons that will be revealed in a later book, I wanted this second installment to revolve around the search for not treasure, but a weapon (or what appears to be a weapon, at least). The weapon would be an ancient artifact housed in the eponymous Lost City. In the 1800s and early 1900s, there was a sort of “adventure boom”, in which “adventurer” became an actual job. People (usually upper-class British men) would set off for the ends of the Earth to explore the deepest, darkest jungles of South America and Africa, possibly looking for ancient artifacts and lost civilizations. Some found what they were looking for, but most probably just found a brutal, unforgiving environment rampant with disease and danger. The idea of a heroic adventurer blazing a trail into a savage wilderness and discovering the wonders of some lost city swallowed by the jungle is very exciting and romantic, but not very realistic. For Stanley and his friends, though, I think the idea worked well!
PBR: What Happened to Grey?
As of the end of Stanley Brambles and the Lost City, I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure what happened to Grey, and what he’s been up to since Stanley set off into the jungles of Verduria. I do know Grey’s history with the mysterious woman who attacked him, and that will be covered in a future book, but exactly when, I can’t say for sure. At this point, I’m still sort of wondering whether Grey might need a book of his own—a side-story about what happens to him after he leaves Stanley at the Port Verdant docks to pursue his attacker. Stanley and Grey will definitely meet again, and I would like to work him into the third Stanley Brambles book, if I can.
PBR: What happens in Stanley’s dream of the blue crystal? Was there more to it or was it just the crystal hanging there?
Stanley’s dreams of the blue crystal don’t have much of a plot or anything like that—they’re just that: dreams, or maybe visions of the crystal, accompanied by the almost desperate notion that he needs to find it in real life. In his dreams, he can always see the crystal clearly, and he knows he has to get to it, but is unable to do so. He tries to run towards it, but he never seems to be getting any closer.
I think we all have dreams like that at some point—we’re trying to get somewhere or find something, but no matter what we do, we never seem to get any closer to our goal. Maybe such dreams say something about our inner thoughts and insecurities.
Stanley’s dream, though, is quite literal (and it may not even originate in his own mind. Something to think about). He definitely does have to get to the crystal, and an entire continent’s worth of danger stands in his way. Still though, even after reaching it, the reason for his need to see the crystal isn’t entirely clear. Not yet, anyway.
PBR: Did Nerobius kill the original Nigel Blake, if not what happened to him?
“Spoiler below”
Nerobius didn’t kill the original Nigel Blake (although he certainly would have, had it suited his plans at the time), but he did take possession of his dead body.
Not long before Stanley and his friends start their journey (in Chapter 9: A Relative Meeting), they attend a meeting at Governor Cromwell’s house. The governor tells them (briefly) about the loss of a ship at sea nine months earlier, and the recent discovery of that ship’s wreckage on the shores of Verduria.
*Spoilers about the first Stanley Brambles book follow!*
That ship, The Maelstrom, was captained by Ezekiel Chamberlain, former Regent of the Rheddish Empire, and one of the main villains from Stanley Brambles and the Pirate’s Treasure. The other villain on that ship was Nerobius, and although no one knew exactly who he was at the time, he was secretly in command, giving orders to Chamberlain, and manipulating events from the shadows.
Also aboard The Maelstrom was the real Nigel Blake, although he doesn’t appear in the story, and is not mentioned until the second book. The real Blake was indeed assigned to the Maelstrom as the ship’s chaplain, and Nerobius would have known enough about him to impersonate him. The fact that Blake was known to the people of Daruna Abbey suggests that he must have been from there originally.
PBR: The blue crystal was it a computerized system rather than a magical relic?
“Spoiler below”
The blue crystal—and the devices that seem to be attached to it—is actually both—a magical artifact operated by a computerized system: a blend of magic and technology. The people that made the crystal were from a very, very ancient civilization—the same civilization that built the mysterious underground city known to some as Sub-Sphere Three. Blake (Nerobius) was right when he suggested that the crystal and the Lost City belong to completely different civilizations. The Lost City, itself, is actually much younger than the crystal and the high-tech bunker that houses its controls. The stone pyramid outside, and the rest of the Lost City of Quetzal-Khan, would have been built up around the bunker many thousands of years after the builders of the crystal died out.
Arthur C. Clarke is quoted as saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Whoever built the crystal, and Sub-Sphere Three, had progressed to a stage where magic and technology had been merged seamlessly: this wasn’t just advanced technology; it was technology that had been enhanced with magic.
PBR: Which writers inspire you?
The writers that inspire me the most are Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
My first introduction to fantasy was through Tolkien. My parents read me The Hobbit at least three times during my childhood, and I read Lord of the Rings in grade six. I’ve since re-read The Hobbit at least ten times, and I re-read Lord of the Rings every few years.
This early exposure to Tolkien’s books showed me the power of imagination—that one person could dream up entire worlds, with their own histories, peoples, mythologies, and languages.
Like most people, I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. The books are just fantastic, and though I didn’t grow up with them (I didn’t start reading them until, I think, my last year of high school), I was hooked from the moment I started the first one. After finishing the fourth book, I was convinced: I wanted to get in on this. I wanted to write books. By that time I was starting to see the appeal of a book series, particularly one aimed at young adults: a series that starts out with a fairly young audience in mind, but with each successive book, becomes deeper, darker, and more intense. More mature. That is what J.K. Rowling inspired me to do.
I like to think that I get my writing style from Stephen King. That isn’t to say that you’d pick up Stanley Brambles and say “Wait a minute—did Stephen King write this?” No way!
But I am a huge fan of his books. I find that he has a very direct and almost conversational way of writing that is sometimes very blunt, but always effective. I really think he’s a master of dialogue, too, and I try to write my dialogue the way I think he would.
I’m also very inspired by his Dark Tower series, which is another reason why I wanted to write a series of books rather than just one.
Stephen King is known for his horror, of course, but he’s also very good at fantasy. Some of his stuff is very grim and gory, but he also has a lot of material that is scary but not gut-splatteringly violent. This is what I try to emulate with some of the “scarier” aspects of Stanley’s adventures, although Stanley and his friends do encounter their share of violence and scariness on their adventures.
PBR: Where do your ideas come from?
My ideas come from a lot of different sources. To answer in the broadest possible terms, it’s usually a matter of seeing something in real life, or reading something, or thinking about something, and saying to myself “I’d like to see a story about that”. Generally, I’d say that I tend to write about things that interest me—I’ll think of something that evokes in me a certain reaction, and then consider how my characters would react. Being attacked by a gigantic prehistoric fish, for example, would be horrifying—but I bet it would sure look cool!
As I mentioned above, a major factor in coming up with Stanley Brambles and the Lost City was my interest in the Aztecs, as well as jungles in general. I thought about all the things a person might encounter while traveling through a jungle—ancient ruins, strange plants and animals, huge and creepy insects and spiders, local villages and indigenous people—and then added all sorts of fantastic elements to make them larger than life (in some cases, literally).
While I’m not generally bothered by insects, I am absolutely aware that they can be extremely creepy and gross in the right situations. Very large bugs can be particularly loathsome, especially when they drop on you, or crawl over your chest while you’re in bed. Brrrr. I knew that I definitely needed some kind of huge, malicious insects to attack our heroes on their journey, and earwigs are a popular bug to hate. How much worse, though, would be one that’s six feet long? Ugh.
Similarly, I love dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures—especially those that inhabited the world’s oceans millions of years ago. The gigantic crocodile, the “River god” that attacks our heroes as they sail up the river on their rickety little raft is based on giant prehistoric crocodiles like Deinosuchus and Sarcosuchus. The crocodile encountered by Stanley is probably larger than either of these monsters, but it’s still very much based on reality. Stanley encounters similar prehistoric monsters in the first Stanley Brambles book.
And, speaking of prehistoric creatures, the Saurians are my imagining of what a race of humanoids descended from dinosaurs might be like—specifically, dinosaurs like Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and Utahraptor (the Dromaeosauridae).
Some of my ideas come from other books that I’ve read. People say that if you want to write, you first need to read. As an example, Patty the monorail from Sub Sphere Three is clearly inspired by Blaine the Mono from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Blaine is a very memorable character, (and one of my favourites from the series) but unlike Patty, he is mean, dangerous, and very, very insane. Alabaster actually riffs on this late in Stanley Brambles and the Lost City, where he thanks Patty for not killing him, Stanley, and Nell by crashing into the barrier at the end of the track—something that Blaine was planning to do to the heroes of The Dark Tower.
Grey, himself, is inspired by a few different characters from the world of comics. Though he isn’t around for a lot of Stanley Brambles and the Lost City, he does feature more prominently in the first Stanley Brambles book. His personality is based mostly off of the character Wolverine—gruff and taciturn, and very much a loner. His look is inspired mostly by Spider-Man’s foe (and sometimes ally) Venom, particularly his mouth full of sharp teeth that seems to vanish from his face when it’s not open. Grey is, however, much leaner than Venom, and Venom’s teeth are always visible.
Many other ideas just pop up from within my own brain. Nerobius, for example, and the race of creatures that he belongs to, are, I think, an original creation—although there is no shortage of “creatures of darkness” in fantasy, but I think I put a new spin on what they are (which will be covered in much more depth in a later Stanley book!).
Stanley’s mysterious powers come from pretty much my own imagination, although there are a number of characters and superheroes with some kind of strange, perhaps symbiotic powers that they don’t fully understand. Stanley’s powers are a nod to my childhood, when I wished I could have powers like that—the ability to change into something powerful and intimidating. I think lots of kids wish for that kind of fantastic ability.
To learn more about “Stanley Brambles and the Lost City” please read the review at: Pacific Book Review
