Olivie Blake on emotional vulnerability, love and intimacy in her next fantasy novel

"I think of Masters of Death as a weird book because it comes from a place of play,” says Olivie Blake of her next fantasy novel. She’s speaking over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles while her two-year-old son Henry watches “Up”, in between appearing on-screen for snuggles and juice

Although Masters of Death is Blake’s eighth book to be published by Tor in the UK after acclaim on BookTok for her self-published works rocketed her to stardom, the novel is in fact her début, originally self-published in 2018. “It is amazing how much things can change. Five years in publishing time is crazy. At that time all the agents were like, ‘Do not send me vampires. I’m not going to read it’”, says Blake, reflecting on the bygone Twilight market. But now with 20,000 words of extra content, Masters of Death is enjoying, ironically for the title, a second life.  

I think some people are going to be alarmed by how cosy this book is because I don’t usually do cosy

Among its expansive cast, Masters of Death includes Death and his mortal godson Fox (also nearly the name of Blake’s son), a vampire named Viola, who works as a real-estate agent, archangels, ghostly reapers and a plethora of gods, goddesses, demons and demi-gods hailing from numerous mythologies. Death narrates the story with sinister wit and a lackadaisical attitude. It is a wonderfully refreshing depiction of the figure, not as a hooded skeleton looming with a scythe, but as a shapeshifting entity who approaches his work as the carrier of souls not unlike a begrudging white-collar worker trundling to work on the London Underground.

But now Death has been kidnapped by Volos, a demon king, who is determined to take over both the immortal and mortal world by controlling the “immortal game”. Akin to the battle of wills in Neil Gaiman’s A Hope in Hell, the “immortal game” is a metaphysical battle which tests a player’s ability to judge the emotions and vulnerabilities of the other player in a mental arena. To free his godfather and defeat Volos, Fox must win the game by journeying to the immortal realm with his supernatural entourage: Viola, his guardian angel Mayra, the reaper Cal, a ghost named Tom, a demon called Isis and his ex-boyfriend, a Norse demi-god, named Brandt.

“I think some people are going to be alarmed by how cosy this book is because I don’t usually do cosy,” says Blake whose bestselling title The Atlas Six, the first to be published by Tor, is filled with intrigue and murderous plots. “I don’t do found family; I do found enemies,” she laughs.

But Masters of Death is different, outlining with precision how the characters learn to reckon with their feelings and learn how “you can be changed by someone fundamentally”. Every book “is a summary of what I’m thinking about at the time” and in this novel Blake sought to find a way to honour her feelings, no matter the intensity. It speaks to her observation that “every relationship you have with a person is its own version of a love story and I liked the idea of learning to recognise love in my life and how to do that on the page”.

When I get close to someone, I am one of those all or nothing sorts of people. I don’t do casual very well

Crucially for Fox, the “immortal game” catalyses a self-awakening. He drops his playboy act and reveals his emotional vulnerability: “What was really significant for Fox was the idea that ‘I am going to love you, I am going to love this person whether they hurt me or not’, and that was big for me to put on the page.” As Blake has written previously, “What is love if not the kindling of a fire on which a person’s prior selves begin to burn?”

Thought experiments

Blake depicts Fox and Brandt’s relationship with great delicacy, charting how honesty—and opening yourself to hurt in the name of honesty and intimacy—is a way to live without pretence. Blake admits to being “very allergic to intimacy” and so having Fox become vulnerable meant a great deal: “When I get close to someone, I am one of those all or nothing sorts of people. I don’t do casual very well. I’m either not emotionally invested at all or when I do allow you to get close, then I have given you what, I feel, are weapons.”

Blake’s books “are always an allegory for something”: Masters of Death is a “story about intimacy” while The Atlas Six is a “story about ethics”, late-stage capitalism and consumerism. To be clear, Blake is not writing treatises on political theory or philosophy, but reaching toward “the thinking reader”. She explains: “What I like to think is that I have proposed a thought experiment. I hand a thought experiment to my reader and it is their decision if they play or not. If they choose not to, hopefully they still enjoy the story. And if they choose to engage with the work, ideally they get something even more.”

I don’t like to overly describe things because the reason I like books so much is that I sort of like my imagination filling in the blanks

Having been a writer of online fan fiction “for so long” has meant the reader is “very much a person that is sitting with me that I am paying attention to”. The resonance between reader and writer is one Blake reveres because “reading is communion”, a private and intimate connection where “two minds are actively meeting”. Although it can be said all writers think about their reader, Blake puts faith in hers to follow and mine the story’s deeper meaning beyond the magic systems and supernatural characters. It is one of the reasons, she tells me, that “I don’t like to overly describe things because the reason I like books so much is that I sort of like my imagination filling in the blanks”.

Keeping up the pace

Blake will continue to publish adult fantasy books under her pen name—Olivie Blake—and her YA novels under her real name, Alexene Farol Follmuth. Known to the publishing industry by both names, Blake explains she originally adopted the pseudonym to combat assumptions made about her writing because of her Filipino heritage: “Just being a woman of colour means people always assume that I write YA, but it’s not like the stuff I write for adults is never intended for teens. Sure, there are teens who can read it [but] l like to be clear about the intended audience.”