Scala Radio Book Club: Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

On Thursday 9th June, Mark Forrest invited J. M. Miro into the Scala Radio Book Club to discuss his brand-new novel Ordinary Monsters.

1882, North of Edinburgh, on the edge of an isolated loch, lies an institution of crumbling stone, where a strange doctor collects orphans with unusual abilities. In London, two children with such powers are hunted by a figure of darkness - a man made of smoke.

Charlie Ovid discovers a gift for healing himself through a brutal upbringing in Mississippi, while Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight, glows with a strange bluish light. When two grizzled detectives are recruited to escort them north to safety, they are confronted by a sinister, dangerous force that threatens to upend the world as they know it. What follows is a journey from the gaslit streets of London to the lochs of Scotland, where other gifted children - the Talents - have been gathered at Cairndale Institute, and the realms of the dead and the living collide.

As secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities and the nature of the force that is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts. The first in a captivating new historical fantasy series, Ordinary Monsters introduces the Talents with a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world and the gifted, broken children who must save it.

Mark was interested to know where J. M. Miro drew his influences from. ‘In this novel, there are lots of Dickensian descriptions of Victorian London. You touch on fantasy as well. People have talked about Dickens, X-Men, and Northern Lights, but where do you draw your inspiration?’

‘Oh, gosh, that's such a great question,’ he said. ‘Well, you know, I hail from Canada and for me, in some ways, Victorian London feels like another world. I find myself comfortable dreaming up places that are very different from the circumstances of my own life. For inspiration, I turn to film, as much as to literature and books. I will pretty much-read anything that you put in front of me, including cereal boxes!’

Mark asked, ‘There are many characters and plot lines in this almost 700-page book. How are you keeping track? Is it on a computer? Is it on the wall with post-it notes, or do you have it all in your head?’

‘You know, it's all of those things! It's so difficult for some of the complicated scenes, where there's a lot of shifting of points of view and people moving around. I would actually take little chess figures and set them out on the floor of my office, and move them specifically as they're moving through the physical space, just to keep track of who is where at any particular moment.’

Mark was interested to know why he writes under the pseudonym J. M. Miro.

‘I was trying to sit down and write some fantasy writing, and there was something stopping me from doing it. It was like I wasn't giving myself the permission to imagine the stories, the way they needed to be dreamed up. Something about writing under a pseudonym allowed that block to go away, and sort of gave myself that permission. So, when I was writing this particular book, before I even knew that it would be published, I hadn't even figured out what it was or what I was going to do, I was already writing with a pseudonym.

So when it came time to publish the book, my publishers and agent and I had some excellent conversations, and everybody was very supportive of whatever I wanted to do. I felt that it was useful as a way of distinguishing the two kinds of writing, but also in an important way, I felt like it was honouring the second person that I was, that had written this book.’

Find out about more Scala Radio Book Club guests here >>

Discover more Science Fiction from authors who have visited the Scala Radio Book Club

Listen to Scala Radio

Listen to Scala Radio on DAB nationwide, on our free app, online or via your smart speaker (“Play Scala Radio”).