Deb has made a point of weaving history and myth through the All Souls Trilogy. She has mentioned on several occasions in interviews, speaking engagements and in online interactions, that she has intentionally done so as part of her secret plan to teach and inspire her readers. The series is riddled with moments, people, facts and asides designed to make the reader think "did that really happen, or is she making it up?" and hopefully, get on Google and Wikipedia and delve a little deeper. References to "Easter eggs" are to these little hidden gems of history and literature. Being daemons, we've taken the "delving deeper" admonition to a ridiculous extreme - and will be sharing those results as an ongoing feature. We'll title it 'Weekly Geek!' Stay tuned!
In writing fiction, our author admits that she never completely takes off her historian's hat. What that means is that she won't change any known historical fact, but she's not above exploiting gaps in the historical records. As far as we Daemons are concerned, the gaps are where the magic happens! Whether they be in the historical record, or the de Clermont family history, we have been exploring the questions created by these gaps, formulating theories, wildly speculating and occasionally getting confirmation from the author over the past few years. When we talk about these kinds of issues, we will be sure to let you know whether our conclusions have been confirmed by Deb, or it's just daemonic speculation! Oh...by the way, there's lots of 'daemonic speculation'—there may or may not be a 'Work-in-Progress' or WIP timeline for Matthew and his family amongst the crazy projects we've started. We've started many! We aim to attempt to explore them all.
Also, so you know, Deb holds her readers to pretty high standards when it comes to formulating theories. She admonishes us to stick to the evidence whether it be from the text itself or the historical record. Expect to see a lot of book quotes, citations and links. We go a little crazy in laying out our theories (this Daemon admits to being an extra-credit glutton in grade school).
"Names are important" is an AST mantra. Ysabeau says it repeatedly, and Deb loves to remind her readers of this. Names can be important for one, some or all of these reasons: the meaning of the name; a real life person who shares it, or a family connection.
Some of these name may lead to real people or mythic figures. In these cases, keep in mind that our characters aren't actually the person the name may be connected to. Rather, in the case of a real historic person, our vampires may have assumed the identity for some period of time. Think "I'm not a doctor but I play one on T.V." In the case of mythological beings, our vampires' "real" lives may have inspired some, or all of the myth. In AST, we will delve into Greek, Roman and Celtic mythologies to name a few. Dust off you Hamilton's mythology, and find your copy of Homer!
In conclusion, know this—in our discussions/mad ramblings about the All Souls Trilogy, we will try our best not to lead you down too many rabbit holes without warning you ahead of time. That doesn't mean that we'll avoid them though! Over the years, some of our rabbit holes have been the most fun and we hope to find new ones with you. Sometimes, being wrong is the most fun of all! Get ready to 'feed your daemons.'
