‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is written with just two point-of-view characters, Mia and Hurst, so everything that happens is seen through the eyes of one or the other of those two. Nevertheless, there are other characters who have a significant impact on the story, whose actions and feelings and ideas resonate throughout the book. Some of them, like Tella, will always remain mysterious. Some, like Hurst’s Companions and family, are fairly transparent, so don’t need elaboration. And then there’s Jonnor. As the lead husband in the marriage, Jonnor has a very big impact on both Mia and Hurst, and sometimes his actions seem contradictory or unusually volatile. One such occasion is after his first interview at the Ring. Before this, he is openly hostile towards Hurst, but afterwards he makes some effort to reach out to him. This scene explains some of this. It is also written from Jonnor’s point-of-view, […]

Hurst is one of the two main characters in ‘The Plains of Kallanash’. At the time the story opens, he is thirty six years old. Like Mia, Hurst’s father was lead husband at a Karning. When Hurst was born, his father Tanist was already on the fourth line, despite being only twenty five. His mother was the fourth wife, and she and Hurst’s father became a settled couple the moment she joined the marriage. Hurst was their first child. The family moved steadily from Karning to Karning, and by the time Hurst was eleven, had reached the border, the eighth line on the western side. Hurst’s mother died when he was twelve, and Hurst grew closer to his father as a result.

Mia is one of the two main characters in ‘The Plains of Kallanash’. At the time the story opens, she is twenty five, and has been married for ten years. Mia was born into a Karninghold family. Her mother was the second wife in the marriage, and, like all the wives’ children, her official father was the lead husband. In this case, he was also her blood father, for her parents had been a settled couple for many years. Her father was well into middle age when she was born and her mother over forty, a rather unexpected late child for both of them.