Adventures in the land of fire and ice

(No, I haven't been in Banbridge visiting the new Game of Thrones studio tour attraction.)

... I've been in Iceland! This trip was a long time coming - my wife and I were originally meant to go in April of 2020, which, as we all remember was right around the time that the world went into lockdown and holiday plans went - along with social interaction and seeing people's lips and not carrying around an ever-present anxiety about catching a deadly virus and transmitting it to everyone within two meters of you - straight into the bin. Our trip, therefore, was postponed multiple times and we were finally able to travel again last month.

Straight off the bat, Iceland is incredible. It's got an untouched sort of peacefulness about it, and manages to feel both very old and very new at the same time. There are glaciers and canyons and waterfalls, hot springs and geysers, volcanoes, and mile after mile of barren, moon-like terrain... which although very accomodating to tourists, never felt exploited for profit. Icelanders respect the earth they walk on and seem to have a deep connection to it. We noticed almost no grafitti or litter wherever we went, and even the place of highest population density where we were staying (Reykjavik) felt less crowded than the average UK town. Despite this essential 'rusticness', Iceland is modern, and at the forefront of renewable energy production (97% of the country's energy comes from geothermal hot springs, wind, water and solar.) In the grand scheme of things, Iceland is one of the 'youngest' landmasses the earth has - approx. 20 Million years old - so has no dinosaur fossils (they died out around 66 Million years ago) but some absolutely spectacular natural scenery. We took a bunch of amazing photographs which I wish I could share if I knew how.

One related thing that struck me from a writing point of view - specifically a worldbuilding pov - was when we learned that there are also no archeologically-significant buildings, such as ruins or castles to be found on Iceland. It was explained that this was because the geography of the country meant that there was no forms of rock suitable for building or making bricks, and so construction tended to be comprised of wood-frame and thatched roof - materials which don't hold up as well to the ravages of time. I thought this was fascinating and something that would be worth bearing in mind for future fantasy writing projects. When you're trying to write a believable world that feels real, you have to get right down to fundamentals and consider how things like landscape, geography, and climate all contribute to the formation of settlements, and shape the way society and cultures develop around them.

Still very little word on The Scribes and how it's doing with editors, but I remain hopeful. I did get an amusing rejection from one AGENT to a QUERY that I sent out TWELVE MONTHS AGO which they've just now read, which it a testament to the tectonic** pace at which everything moves in publishing right now.

**This was completely unintentional, but at one point in Iceland we actually drove over the place where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet and ridge above the ground. It was an unexpected surprise but so, so cool to see this clearly defined boundary, like a scar on the surface of the earth.

This week's REC is a song. A sad song. It is a song that I heard for the first time this evening while I was making dinner, and it is a song that had me in tears by the end of the chorus. I recommend listening to it once, and then spending the rest of your life trying to avoid the acute pain that the song references and which threatens to pare open your chest when you so much as think of the title.

The song is 'If We Were Vampires' by Jason Isbel.

Until next time,

RT