The Write and Wrong Podcast | Writing Tips, Book Publishing and Literary Agents
Oct 26, 2026 · 34 min · 13 segments
Epic fantasy author Marvellous Michael Anson joins the podcast to discuss *Heir of the Shadow*, the highly anticipated sequel to *Firstborn of the Sun* coming out on November 26th. Marve breaks down…
When it comes to, you said you kind of start with world building.
So the world building and presumably the magic system, this is sort of evolution of that.
Is that also something that you're figuring out as you're writing these or are those things that are a little bit more set and you've kind of figured out what, what the kind of limitations of the magic are?
Um, the, the first thing that was solid is I want heat energy and cold energy and I use Yoruba.
So the, the, the magic system is referred to as Akbar, which just directly translates to about like strength or power in Yoruba.
And so you have Agbara Uru, which is heat energy and Agbara Tutu, which is cold energy.
And that's just kind of very loose, very, very loose translations for any Yoruba person listening, saying that's not it.
And so the heat energy is quite literally heat energy as opposed to fire.
And the kind of cold energy works a lot more with like shadow magic, a little bit of ice because you need that.
but it's more steeped in about in like shadow magic and kind of the coolness of that.
So I spent a lot of time watching and reading clips from anime shows, which my husband really helped with because he's a huge fan.
And there's a superpower wiki website that I am permanently on, just kind of seeing all the ways you can play around with this.
But when then it came into the world itself and how the characters use that, it came as a result of what I needed them to do.
So in a world where everyone has the ability to harness the sun and Of course, there'll be warriors and fighters and things like that, but I wanted people to use it in their day-to-day because if you just imagine it as having hands and breathing.
Um, and so when I was thinking about my kind of main character, uh, I'm looking at her as someone in this world who has to pretend that she has this.
And so the part, the kind of, she has, the world has two magic systems where everyone has the power of the sun, they're born with it, they can use it.
When it comes to, you said you kind of start with world building.
So the world building and presumably the magic system, this is sort of evolution of that.
Is that also something that you're figuring out as you're writing these or are those things that are a little bit more set and you've kind of figured out what, what the kind of limitations of the magic are?
Um, the, the first thing that was solid is I want heat energy and cold energy and I use Yoruba.
So the, the, the magic system is referred to as Akbar, which just directly translates to about like strength or power in Yoruba.
And so you have Agbara Uru, which is heat energy and Agbara Tutu, which is cold energy.
And that's just kind of very loose, very, very loose translations for any Yoruba person listening, saying that's not it.
And so the heat energy is quite literally heat energy as opposed to fire.
And the kind of cold energy works a lot more with like shadow magic, a little bit of ice because you need that.
but it's more steeped in about in like shadow magic and kind of the coolness of that.
So I spent a lot of time watching and reading clips from anime shows, which my husband really helped with because he's a huge fan.
And there's a superpower wiki website that I am permanently on, just kind of seeing all the ways you can play around with this.
But when then it came into the world itself and how the characters use that, it came as a result of what I needed them to do.
So in a world where everyone has the ability to harness the sun and Of course, there'll be warriors and fighters and things like that, but I wanted people to use it in their day-to-day because if you just imagine it as having hands and breathing.
Um, and so when I was thinking about my kind of main character, uh, I'm looking at her as someone in this world who has to pretend that she has this.
And so the part, the kind of, she has, the world has two magic systems where everyone has the power of the sun, they're born with it, they can use it.
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