Gareth Ward, bookseller, magician and now author, loves all things steampunk.
The Traitor and the Thief
by Gareth Ward
(Walker Books, $20)
If you can't do real magic - Harry Potter-style - the next best thing is to write about it, says magician, bookseller and now published author Gareth Ward.
Fifteen months ago, Ward, aka The Great Wardini, won the 2016 Storylines Tessa Duder Award, which included a publishing contract from Australia's Walker Books as part of the prize. The Traitor and the Thief, Ward's fourth book but the first he's had published, is out this month and it's brilliant. Depending on your point of view, you could see it as derivative of Harry Potter or a worthy successor.
I'm opting for the latter. It's a steampunk adventure in which the Covert Operations Group (COG) is determined to stop a vicious conflict fought with the high-tech weapons of an industrial war machine like no other.
Discovered pickpocketing at Coxford's Corn Markets, 14-year-old street urchin and petty thief Sin is offered a way out of his hand-to-mouth life of crime: train to become a COG spy. Sin learns spycraft while trying to stay on the right side of the school's Cast-Iron rules and is helped by the marvellous Zonda Chubb, a teen whizz-kid who's far from a token girl stuck into the story to make Sin look good.
But there's an enemy within COG and Sin and Zonda must work hard and fast to unmask a traitor. This sees Sin pushed into an uneasy alliance with school bully Velvet Von Darque, another kick-butt and complex female character.
There are shades of Oliver Twist, James Bond and Harry Potter in there, all seamlessly combined to make for an adrenalin-filled escapade. Fittingly, Ward celebrated the book's launch with family, friends and colleagues at a steampunk ball in Hawke's Bay, where he and wife, Louise, run two bookshops.
"I think the Victorian era is a wonderful time, with all sorts of new inventions and discoveries, to set stories in and if you go down the steampunk road, you don't have to stick to reality but can bring in even more weird and wonderful technology."
He sees The Traitor and the Thief as on the boundary between junior and young adult fiction: "I like the kids' and the YA stuff; it doesn't mess around. It dives into the story, gets it told and gets it done without too much navel-gazing."
Ward has incorporated aspects from the various lives he's lived. Born near Oxford in the UK, he loved writing from childhood but studied biology and computer science at the University of York. He likes to joke that if you want your cat reprogrammed, he's the man for the job.
Not that Ward ever worked in those areas; after graduating, the last thing he wanted to do was be stuck in a 9-5 office job. In a complete about-turn, he joined the Royal Marines. If it hadn't been for a serious ankle injury 15 months into his training, Ward might well be writing taut military thrillers. Instead, he joined the police force, spending eight years on the beat.
It means there's a strong military element shot through The Traitor and the Thief. He got into magic, eventually becoming semi-professional, by doing tricks at his children's birthday parties.
Then came the move to New Zealand, a happy accident. The family came to visit Louise's brother, with no intention of moving here, but returned to live because they loved it. His kids are now 18 and 20 and Ward doesn't have a lot of time for tricks these days, but he says there are similarities between magic and story-telling because most involve making the most of one's imagination.
The bookstores, Wardini Books and Wardini Books Napier, are named for his magician persona because reading and books are magical, he says. Working in the trade involves reading a wide range of books, a useful way to discover and reflect on what works and what doesn't when it comes to story-telling. Robert Muchamore's Cherub series, anything by Philip Pullman, Jonathan Stroud and Terry Patchett are among Ward's favourite writers.
Then there's J.K. Rowling. Not surprisingly, he says the Harry Potter books have been hugely inspirational since he started reading them to his kids: "I think they're brilliant, just wonderful, wonderful stories and anything that brings so much enjoyment to people, of all ages; well, that's what books should be all about."
Ward completed a creative writing course and, once Walker Books accepted The Traitor and the Thief for publication, was more than happy to take any advice offered to him. What next? Ward says he isn't done with Sin and his friends just yet and would like to write another book or two in a series.