The Karskoe Assassin: Map and Notes

Reflecting on 'The Karskoe Assassin' I can tell it was quite a naive book, but in some ways that is good and I can see how far my writing has come in the past 20 years. If I was still writing like that, then I guess (if I realised the fact), I would be disappointed. I still think the idea is a good one, starting with a climax and focusing on the travails of a small group over the space of a few days. I also like the political background and the setting of the city. I suppose like many fantasy geeks I was always better at that minutiae and it has taken two decades of writing all kinds of things to be more lucid. My essays written at the time seem very dull and lifeless, but for the fiction I seemed to think terse was mature and yet it just made the text obscure, even for me now looking back at it, so it has needed some editing. The other thing is how derivative it was and though I tried to move away from the West European medieval setting I ended up deriving things from many other cultures and in fact only minimally changing the names of some of them. It has been interesting spotting these things, which I outline below, I wish I could have been more imaginative. Though when I was I did not end up with wonderful things, the Empire of Gala after all does feature!

I am very pleased still with the city I created. This is a map showing the districts and other locations featured in the novel. I am conscious that the characters get around all over the city so this might help with orientation. Some of the features around Tariq's Bridge are rather too tightly clustered to show up, but the safe house that Roske goes to on the First Day is on the eastern side of the bridge close to where it splits.

Map of Ijahg City

Terms Used in 'The Karskoe Assassin' and What They Derived From

The Cantonment - This was an area in cities in India when it was under British rule that housed the British military and officials. It would have its own wall and be able to be closed off from the rest of the city in the case of an uprising.

choora - This is a long, single-edged dagger used on the Afghan-Pakistan border area. I realise now that actually what I meant to call it was a 'kukri' which is a much broader though still long dagger used by the Gurkha forces of Nepal. So even my derivations were not always correct.

coelacanth - These were early fish that appeared on Earth 410 million years ago and were believed to be extinct until one was captured in 1938. Since then hundreds have been captured.

dirk - A Scottish dagger with a straight, two-edged blade, it can be anything from 15cm - 60cm long, though these days the shorter ones are most common. They were typically used in the left hand as a secondary weapon. They were later adopted by officers in numerous navies 17th-19th centuries.

Ikrane - This is derived from the Okhrana, the Russian secret police 1866-1917.

Jezail - This is an ornate musket used in Afghanistan and other Central Asian areas in the 19th century. They had longer barrels than were typical of muskets of the time and some even had rifled barrels. The 'jezaline' was my invention to indicate a firearm which was a jezail equivalent of a carbine.

Karskoe Palace - This was derived from the Tsarskoe Selo palace the Summer residence of the Tsars of Russia from 1708-1917. Unlike the palace in my story it is actually located 26Km outside St. Petersburg.

kris - a long wavy bladed dagger from South-East Asia, coming originally from Java.

matchlock guns - this was a real method of firing guns before the advent of the flintlock and wheellock. The musketeers had a smoldering piece of cord which when the trigger was pulled fell on to the gunpowder firing off the charge. It was difficult to use compared to the locks which came later. This design was notably used in the English Civil War and by Japanese ashigaru musketeers up until the 19th century, because they were cut off from developments from Europe for around 200 years. The strikelock is my own invention substituting a struck match rather than a flint.

Moulays - This derivation is a bit tortuous and comes from slang for the French word for lawyer. The wigs that lawyers wear look like sheep fleeces and the French word is 'moulon' for sheep and moulee, from the French word for moulded refers to features left behind when glaciers have retreated and they are believed to look like sheep. Having studied 'A' level Geography twice by the time I reached university I was quite an expert on glaciation.

Proctors - In this novel they are effectively city police. The name was taken from the university security officers at Oxford and Cambridge universities who wear a distinctive bowler hat. The term also refers to some law court and clergy officials.

qat - A mild narcotic leaf which is often chewed but can be smoked. It is popular in Yemen and Somalia. There are conflicting reports on its effects including everything from suppressing appetite and muddying thinking and increasing aggressiveness or alternatively stimulating euphoria to working to clarify thought and as an aphrodisiac.

The Regent - This position was effectively modelled on the Shogun, the most powerful position in Japanese society from about 1192-1867. He was effectively military dictator of Japan ruling in the name of the Emperor who despite having very high status was politically impotent until the Meiji Restoration ended the Shogunate.

Sanjak - A sanjak was a military district in the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century onwards.

sei - In the story this is a mental force that is used in combat, it was modelled on Chinese 'chi' and Japanese 'ki'. The word came from shortening 'sensei', the Japanese word for teacher. I was studying Aikido when I wrote the novel

spinning bladed disc on chain - This was taken from a Chinese weapon featured in the first episode of the televison series 'The Water Margin'. It is used by a court official to disarm a man. A larger version appeared in the James Bond movie, 'Octopussy' (1983) though I had not seen that at the time I wrote this novel.

Tariq's Bridge - The name, if I remember correctly came from the 1960s activist Tariq Ali. I know of no bridge in the world which splits the way the one in the story did, but one with shops and houses on was inspired by the original London Bridge, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and to some extent the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

trilobite - These were shellfish like creatures which lived on Earth about 540-250 million years ago before becoming extinct as they became a food source for sharks and mammals that were appearing.

The Twelve Score - This political structure was influenced to some extent by the political structures of the Republic of Venice: the Great Council and the Senate (of 200-300) members and the Council of Ten.

Yanisory - This is derived from the Turkish Janissary forces that were in existence from the 14th century until 1824. They were a state-run professional force rather than levies, rare in the world at this time. Initially they were a force of Balkan Christians in the Muslim Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, but became a Muslim force in the 16th century. They wore distinctive elaborate uniforms.