The author
Alex H. Levin
Physicist. And someone who builds worlds where other laws apply.
Why a physicist writes fantasy
Physics is the art of giving a world its rules and then living with what follows. You do not get to pick the laws after you have seen the result. That discipline is what I carry into writing.
Magic does not interest me as an escape hatch. It interests me as a system: What does it cost? Who is allowed to use it? What happens when someone does it anyway? Magic that can do anything tells you nothing. Magic with conservation laws immediately tells a story about power, access and prohibition.
How I work
The world comes first: geography, peoples, economy, the rules of the supernatural. Then the characters who want something this world is not willing to give them. The plot comes last — it is the result, not the starting point.
I write in two languages. The Soul Dagger is written in German, Chobo Year in English. Both are carried across into the other language — not word by word, but so that the rhythm survives.
Recurring motifs
People who have a gift and cannot control it. Institutions that administer knowledge and forget what for. Borders between worlds that are far more porous than the authorities admit. And again and again: the moment someone breaks the rule, because the rule is killing someone.
Next door
The author also makes music
When I am not writing, I sing. Filk, my own songs, lyrics somewhere between science fiction and a campfire. That lives on a site of its own.