The Spiral Horizon Blog Tour: Guest Post and Giveaway!

Today it's great to have the author of the amazing The Bad Tuesdays here with us, telling us all about the bad guys! I don't know if you've read any of the books in the series, but they're all awesome. Over this month, expect all my reviews of the books to be popping up!  Check out the website, too: The Bad Tuesdays. Oh, and also: the lovely people at Orion have given us 2 copies of the latest book - The Spiral Horizon - to give away (UK & Ireland Only)! So don't forget to enter at the bottom!  Anyway, I'll stop my blabbing and let you get to the brilliant guest post!

Why Do People Do Bad Things? Bad Guys Have Their Reasons.

In the early mornings, and sometimes late at night, I’m a writer.  For the rest of the time I’m a criminal lawyer.  In my life of crime, I spend a lot of time with the mad, the bad and the sad.  I’ve met plenty of people you might call ‘mad’.  Whatever else you might feel, all of them deserve sympathy.  But there aren’t many people who are insane on such a scale that they really don’t know who they are or what they’re doing: even amongst the truly mad, only a handful think they’re Napoleon Bonaparte.  But one thing I’ve observed is that for most other people who do things we’d call BAD, they have their reasons for doing so.  Whether it’s a grudge, a score to be settled, a misunderstanding, a spiked drink or just the need for hard cash, people who do bad things can usually justify why they’ve done them.  That doesn’t make it right, but it has taught me this: that people who do bad things have their reasons.  Doing bad isn’t random.

Back to the early mornings and late nights.  The Bad Tuesdays books are full of extraordinary creatures, weird science, and a number of villains.  But I wanted to write bad guys who didn’t want to destroy the universe just because they were bad.  I’ve never understood villains who do that.  You must have met the type – the characters who promise to destroy the hero or heroine by lunchtime and the rest of the world by supper.  What’s the point?  Where will our villain live if he destroys the entire world? And if he’s got such a monumental temper, why hasn’t he destroyed the universe before?  If he laughs ‘Ha, ha, ha’ whilst howling mindless destruction, I have to close the book.

I wanted my bad guys to act like real bad guys, to have reasons for what they do.  It makes the characters more realistic and drives the plot with greater focus.  Right from the first book in the sequence, Twisted Symmetry, The Inquisitors want to wreak havoc.  But as Chess and her brothers, Box and Splinter, discover more about the chaotic mulitverse in which they become embroiled, they learn that the Inquisitors have to cause pain to obtain the energy they need if they’re going to live forever.  There’s some cunning science behind this, but never mind the science: who wouldn’t like to live forever?  Now that’s a pretty good reason for the infliction of mass suffering, if you don’t mind the casualties.  And plenty of people don’t: do the history.

Crime and writing have this in common – usually, motive is everything.  It comes down to that old chestnut of whether the end justifies the means.  That’s why even good people do bad things.  And bad people can do good things.  By the final book in the series, The Spiral Horizon, I was cheering on one of the major villains (obviously, I can’t say who) because he was doing the right thing.  Now he had his reasons, and he would be disgusted to hear me apply the word GOOD to him, but what he does is crucial if disaster is to be averted.

That’s the thing about good and bad: do they apply to people or to the things that people do?  Are the Tuesdays bad?  Some people might think they are at the start: after all, they’re street children who spend their days, stealing, fighting and hiding.  But the things that make them bad also make them able to cope with the incredible challenges they face as the stories progress.  In the end, everything depends upon Chess, Box and Splinter. 

So in The Bad Tuesdays, good and bad aren’t always easy to spot.  Just like our world.  And even the bad guys have their reasons for doing what they do.  Their reasons for doing it might be greedy, or misguided, or cruel.  But always, there are reasons.  It’s not just megalomaniac madness.  It’s far more calculating than that.  And that’s what makes it all the more sinister to read.  


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Thank you so much for stopping by, Benjamin!  It's been great having you!  Guys, if you live in the UK or Ireland, don't forget to enter the competition!  You really don't wanna miss this series!  
Oh, and keep following the tour!  It's really cool!


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Synopsis From Goodreads:

The time when the twelve suns become one is drawing closer and it could mark the end of all things. Only Chess Tuesday can prevent destruction - or make it happen. She has a choice to make, but there are powerful forces trying to influence her decision and Chess isn't sure who the enemy is any more. Is it Splinter, who betrayed her, and who is now falling for ever through time and space? Or could he hold the key to everyone's salvation?

The Bad Tuesday Stories...