A big part of what made me want to write The Creature Court trilogy in the first place was the idea of epic fantasy that uses historical influences other than medieval. My Aufleur is a combination of Ancient Rome and the 1920’s, with a whole lot of theatre traditions from 19th and early 20th century Europe along the way — flapper frocks and jazz music, cabaret, British music hall and even a little pantomime.

The visual aesthetic of the 1920’s is the thing I keep coming back to, in explaining to readers how these books work. Flappers with swords! Gin cocktails, loud music and oh, yes, the sky is falling. The 1920’s in Europe is best known for being that moment between two wars, when young people went wild because they were happy to be alive and a lot of old social traditions were kicked to the kerb.

In Aufleur, there’s a whole different tension because there is a war going on, but the daylight people don’t know about it, so they fill their days with festivals, frolics and yes, scandalously short dresses. No more corsets! Let’s go dancing! (all this and half my characters are broken maniacs who regularly change into animals and monsters to fight that invisible war)

For fun, I thought I’d introduce you to some of the Creature Court’s most important characters by casting a 1920’s silent movie adaptation. Time travel is a must with character-casting games, right? (I’m only doing 5 characters per post because… this is epic fantasy, there are a lot of characters)

Livilla is the easiest! This bombshell Lord of Wolves was written with the classic flapper vamp aesthetic in mind: she’s all red and black frocks, cigarette holders and sharply bobbed hair. I may have been first influenced by Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago, but of course if you go back to the actual silent movie era, we have Louise Brooks ready and willing to play this part.

“Of course I can shift into a wolf. Can’t everybody?”

Then Poet, mysterious Lord of Rats who seems awfully charming but… well, no one quite knows whose side he’s on. I wasted a lot of time looking for silent movie actors wearing glasses (there aren’t any that don’t look super goofy!) so you’ll have to imagine the spectacles, but I couldn’t go past a young Rudolph Valentino with such a sinister expression. (He’s a little too handsome really — I was this close to casting young Buster Keaton!)

“Welcome to the show… don’t assume you’ll leave it alive.”

Delphine gave me a lot of options to choose from pretty much every blonde flapper looks like her! And again, Kirsten Dunst in The Cat’s Meow would be a good modern choice, but looking at the entertainment stars of the 1920’s I couldn’t go past Gilda Gray, the Ziegfeld Folly famous for shaking her chemise and popularising the shimmy.

“Put those swords away, I’m going to dance till I drop.”

Topaz, a protagonist who doesn’t come in until Book 2, was a tricky one less because she’s black (there were plenty of POC women working in Hollywood & the entertainment industry generally in the 20’s even if you don’t see quite as much coverage of the ones who weren’t Josephine Baker) and more because she’s TOO YOUNG TO BE IN SILENT MOVIES. If we age her up a couple of years, though, I love this image of Nina Mae McKinney mostly because of her sarcastic face. This is Topaz’ face pretty much constantly through Book 3.

“You’re all terrible people but I work in the theatre, so I’m used to that.”

Finally Ashiol! I went back and forth trying to find the right ‘mad bad and dangerous to know’ actor for my beautiful bisexual sack of angry cats, and settled eventually on Antonio Moreno because of this picture, even though he looks completely unlike Ashiol in ever other single picture I’ve seen of him. I believe in you, Antonio.

“When can I be somewhere else, preferably drunk and also cats?”

Come back next time to find out who I’d cast as Isangell, Garnet, Heliora… and more! Who’s your favourite? Drop suggestions in the comments.