Access the Animus - Interview with Mathiew Kirby

Interview with Matthew Kirby

With the upcoming print release of Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Geirmund's Saga, this is an exciting time for the novel's author Matthew J Kirby. Familiar to franchise fans as the mind behind the well received Last Descendants novels, he is fast becoming a well known creator in the transmedia of the IP.

Thanks to Aconyte Books, we recently had the opportunity to interview Matthew and gather his thoughts on his new release.

Q: Hi Matthew! Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions. Can you please introduce yourself to our fans that might not know you, and a little about your career beyond Assassin's Creed?

A: I’d be happy to. I actually just recently realized that last year marked a decade for me in writing and publishing. Most of my books until this point have been aimed at middle grade and teen readers, and I have a dozen or so titles out there. I gravitate to stories with a speculative quality, so my work generally falls in the realm of fantasy and science fiction, though one thing I’ve enjoyed about writing for young readers is the fact that they don’t discriminate based on genre. They just want a good story, which is great for me as a creator, because my interests vary and jump around quite a lot. I think it was about five years ago that Ubisoft approached one of my publishers, Scholastic, about a potential Assassin’s Creed series for teens. I was fortunate enough to be entrusted with that project, which is how I came to write the Last Descendants series. I had always planned to write for adults when the time was right, so when Ubisoft asked me to write a book connected to the newest Assassin’s Creed game, Valhalla, I jumped at the opportunity.

Q: How would you describe Geirmund's Saga as an overall story and what do you think are its strongest elements to a new fan?

A: I think of Geirmund’s story as a classic saga in the tradition of the old Norse tales, but set within the context of the Assassin’s Creed universe. When Ubisoft approached me to write it, they specifically did not want a novelization of the Valhalla game, which I was honestly relieved to hear. Eivor’s story had already been told, and in the ways that only a videogame can achieve, so a novelization wouldn’t have interested me, anyway. Instead, Ubisoft wanted an original story that would connect to the events and characters in the game, while also providing a new perspective on that world. I hope that means someone who is new to Assassin’s Creed can pick up the book and enjoy it as a story on its own, but if a reader is already an AC fan, or they’ve played Valhalla, then hopefully they find it a new and interesting addition to that universe.

Q: How much research did you have to perform on the Viking era? Did your work on the Fate of the Gods novel of the Last Descendants series aid you to a degree?

A: I had already done quite a bit of research to write Fate of the Gods, and I definitely drew from it. But that story takes place entirely in Scandinavia, and Geirmund’s journey takes him to England during the Viking invasions at the end of the 9th century. That meant I had to do a lot of additional research into the Anglo-Saxon world, but I didn’t mind it. Historical research is something I thoroughly enjoy. One major difference between the research for Fate of the Gods and Geirmund’s Saga was the existence of written records. The Vikings had a rich and robust oral tradition, and they wrote down very little until a few centuries after the so-called Viking age had come to an end. In writing Fate of the Gods, I had to extrapolate from later accounts and the archaeological record to write a story that hopefully feels authentic and believable. With Geirmund’s Saga, however, we have extensive written records from the

Anglo Saxons, which presented me with new resources, but also new challenges. The Anglo Saxons weren’t exactly writing about their invaders from an unbiased perspective, so my task this time around was to try and infer a more objective truth. But like I said, I enjoy that part of the writing process.

Q: Have you travelled to Norway or England in the past? Was there any particular inspirations to your descriptive writing of locations?

A: I've travelled to England a couple of times, and to Scotland and Ireland. I would say those trips helped to some extent, but the countryside of England has been changed quite dramatically over the centuries by agriculture, industry, and large-scale engineering projects. The great forests of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms reached a much greater extent back then, forming natural barriers to travel and war, and wetlands like the great Fens north of Cambridge, or the Somerset Levels, look very different today than they did in Geirmund’s time. In writing about that world, I had to take my personal experiences and imagine a historical overlay (and I literally added overlays in Google Earth to map the terrain). Specifically, I love Winchester, Bath, and Oxford, and much of Geirmund’s story takes place in the regions surrounding those cities. As for Norway, I have not had the chance to visit yet, but it is at the top of my travel list. I daydream about it often. Getting to play the gorgeous Norway segments in Valhalla certainly helped with that.

Q: Geirmund himself was of course based on a real person. Did you find creating his character more challenging than normal, or was there little of actual accounts to base his personality upon?

A: He is based on a historical person. There are some brief accounts of him, primarily the origin story he shares with his twin brother, and there are a few accounts of his later involvement in the settling of Iceland. But it doesn’t seem that he was ever given the full saga treatment, despite his prominence as a “sea king.” What we do have doesn’t offer much by way of his personality or give details about his character. That was something I had to imagine for him, and to do that I drew from the sagas of Geirmund’s ancestors, such as the tale of Half and his Heroes. I found a lot of fascinating and exciting elements in those stories, including adventure, betrayal, an encounter with a merman, and even two figures named Rook the Black and Rook the White, who inspired Geirmund’s companions, Rafn and Vetr.
I tried to imagine what it would be like for Geirmund to carry the burden of that ancestral legacy, in part because the concept of genetic ancestry is a central theme in the Assassin’s Creed universe. But I also think the pressure to live up to someone else’s expectations of us, and especially the expectations we place on ourselves, is an experience many people can identify with, and that’s why I chose to echo some of the mythic elements from the lives of Geirmund’s ancestors in his saga. He has to confront those memories directly, to move beyond them and find his own place in the world. It also helped that some of those elements can very easily read as Isu-related, though of course Geirmund doesn’t understand them as such.

Q: Did you have the same degree of freedom in writing this series compared to when you wrote “Last Descendants”, as this time you had to implement Eivor and other characters into the story in places?

A: I suppose I did have less freedom in some ways. With Last Descendants, I was able to pick the historical settings and events that I wanted to explore, and that’s why I set Fate of the Gods in Viking Sweden (I have wanted to see Viking Assassins for a long time).

With Geirmund’s Saga, I knew going in that I would be confined to the game’s general time period and location, but I didn’t feel any squeeze from those constraints. With everything going on in England at the end of the 9th century, I don’t think that I could ever run out of stories to tell there.
The challenge for me was to give Geirmund his own story, with his own heroic journey, within the context of a game where Eivor is obviously the hero. I did not want Geirmund to feel secondary in his own book. His saga had to connect with Valhalla, which meant that he would cross paths with some of the same characters, and he would have his own experiences with some of the same events. I didn’t want those connections to feel random or cheap, so I tried to make sure they all had a personal importance to Geirmund, sometimes even a different importance than those same characters and events had while playing the game (such as Geirmund’s involvement with the infamous Sons of Ragnar).
The writing process felt like a juggling act and a tightrope walk at the same time, but I tried to embrace the opportunities it presented. Constraint can be jet fuel for creativity.

Q: Without going into too much detail for those looking to purchase the book, do you enjoy writing about the Isu?

A: Oh, absolutely. I often say that the AC universe has everything I want as a writer and storyteller. I love history, and I have always enjoyed secret histories, in particular. I find the philosophical and metaphysical questions inherent in concepts like free will and genetic memory to be endlessly fascinating. And when it comes to the Isu, I’m a total sucker for lost civilizations. I thrills me whenever we discover something like Göbekli Tepe that completely upends the story we’ve been telling about the history of our species on

this planet. That said, I am always a bit nervous when I write about the Isu. A part of what appeals to me personally is how unknowable and mysterious they are, so I never want to have the curtain pulled back so far that the Precursors cease to be a source of awe and wonder in the AC universe.

Q: Has it been difficult for you to have to keep up with the lore of the franchise in general? Did you use something specific to help you with it, like the Assassin's Creed Wiki for example?

A: I owe a debt of gratitude to all the passionate fans who keep the AC Wiki updated, because yes, I have made extensive use of it, particularly when writing Last Descendants. The nature of Geirmund’s Saga meant that I wasn’t drawing from the wiki as much for this project, but I have no doubt that I will return to it. With a lore as deep and rich as Assassin’s Creed, which continues to grow, the wiki is an invaluable resource.

Q: Several of the characters from the novel also appeared in the game. Have you had a chance to play the game and see them?

A: I have played the game, but in a way, I felt like I already knew those characters. I was writing the book before the game released, so Ubisoft kindly sent me images and information about all the people and locations to help me write them in a way that would be consistent with the game. What has been interesting as I play is seeing some of the characters through Eivor’s eyes, rather than Geirmund’s, especially figures like Guthrum.

Q: Was there any particular scene, or dialogue in the novel that you are most proud of?

A: That’s a bit hard to answer without getting into spoiler territory. I’m also not sure I ever feel “proud” of a particular scene. There are some days when the words are flowing, and things are clicking and coming together in ways I didn’t consciously plan, and during those times, I think what I feel is deep satisfaction, rather than pride. While writing Geirmund’s Saga, I also had many instances of serendipity where something I had planned for just happened to line up perfectly with something I discovered in my historical research, but again, it’s hard to talk about those without spoilers. I guess I can safely say that Geirmund’s conversations with John the Old Saxon were some of my favorite to write.

Q: As you are becoming a bit of a veteran writer for the franchise now, can we expect to see you working on another AC project with Aconyte soon? Any teases you can provide?

A: My experiences working with Ubisoft have been very rewarding for me, both personally and creatively. I love the way they handle the collaborative process, and over the years many of the folks there have become my good friends. I’ll gladly return to the Assassin’s Creed universe whenever I’m a good fit for the project, but I don’t have anything on the horizon with them that I can announce at the moment. My next book will likely be a non-AC science fiction novel that I’ve been working on for about three years, and which is finally almost finished.

Thank you for your time, Matthew!

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Geirmund's Saga is available for purchase now as a printed novel in all good stockists, as well as digitally. If you happened to miss it, do please check out our review as well.

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