# Katherine Rundell's impossible creatures revealed > The bestselling author shares how ancient myths, Renaissance archives, and childhood wonder shaped her epic five-book fantasy series. - Title: Katherine Rundell's impossible creatures revealed | Shortify - Summary: The bestselling author shares how ancient myths, Renaissance archives, and childhood wonder shaped her epic five-book fantasy series. Rundell built… - Keywords: katherine rundell, impossible creatures, fantasy series, children's literature, disney adaptation, mythology, john donne, oxford university, five-book saga, british author, waterstones book of the year, Katherine - Source: Woman's World — https://womansworld.com/entertainment/books/impossible-creatures-author-reveals-her-epic-fantasy-series-secrets - Author: Ed Gross - Published: 2026-09-18T22:30:21+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: katherine rundell, impossible creatures, fantasy series, children's literature, disney adaptation, mythology, john donne, oxford university, five-book saga, british author, waterstones book of the year ## A flying girl sparked everything In 2016, Rundell imagined a girl with a coat that let her fly when the wind blew. She wrote a short story and filed it away, waiting for a world big enough for the character to inhabit. ## Impossible Creatures launches a saga Published in the U.S. in 2024, the first novel introduces Christopher Forrester discovering the Archipelago, a hidden island collection where mythical creatures have survived. Disney acquired theatrical rights, with Rundell writing the screenplays. ## Three books became five The Poisoned King and The Neverfear followed the debut. Rundell always knew the ending and mapped out exactly five books to tell the complete story, though she originally pitched it as at least three. ## Fantasy speaks to what makes us human Rundell traces fantasy's power back thousands of years through The Odyssey, Beowulf, and The Faerie Queene. She loves how fantasy explores power, grief, yearning, discovery, and above all, love and endurance. > You can turn to fantasy to find stories about power and grief and yearning and discovery and violence and, above all, care, endurance, doubt, love. ## Oxford archives held impossible beasts While researching Renaissance poet John Donne, Rundell found references to fantastical creatures in old manuscripts and books. She collected accounts of sixteenth-century griffins, debates about unicorns, and the legendary Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. ## Monsters reveal what we fear and hope Rundell sees impossible creatures as engines of joy, tools of control, and expressions of human power and dread. They let us talk about what we fear and what we hope for without saying it directly. > Often they are a way of us talking about power and fear, about what we dread, about what we hope for. ## Each book roots in classic literature Book one draws from John Donne's 1601 poem Metempsychosis about soul transmigration. Book two adapts Shakespeare's Hamlet. Book three pulls from The Labors of Hercules and The Iliad and The Odyssey. ## Nighthand learns love is the greatest weapon The berserker who never experienced fear opens himself to love across five books. His romance with scientist Erian Gwyn unfolds as he discovers that love, not fearlessness, makes a fighter strongest and bravest. ## Christopher grows through wonder The boy from our world serves as the reader's eyes into the islands of Glimouria and its impossible creatures. His emotional journey unfolds across the five-book arc as he discovers the strange alongside us. ## Anya discovers her berserker blood Born a princess, Anya renounces her throne in book two. By book three, she realizes she was taught to be pretty and polite and quiet, but was actually born to be brave. Her journey explores what that means. ## Each book stands completely alone Rundell designed the series so you could start with The Neverfear and understand it fully. Each novel has its own coherent story, though a villain threads through books four and five, and characters grow older across the arc. ## The Neverfear features kidnapping and tasks The third book's central adventure involves a kidnapping and ransom forcing characters to complete a series of tasks. This structure lets Rundell indulge the fantastical scenarios she longed for as a child. ## Magic apples and giant desserts await Rundell fills The Neverfear with childhood fantasies: hiding in giant custard, bouncing on enormous marshmallows, biting apples that taste exquisite or turn into rats or catch fire. She wanted to offer the wonder she craved as a kid. > I would love to hide in a giant bowl of custard or step into a giant candy floss or hide in the pit of a giant olive. ## Books must grip children now Rundell writes with urgency because children read less than they did five years ago as technology competes for their attention. She packs her books with danger, delight, feasting, witty conversation, and downtime to hold their imaginations. > We must grip children with everything that we can possibly offer them to delight them. ## Jokes build trust with young readers Rundell deliberately includes humor because jokes are how young people know they can trust an author. She believes a great joke honors everyone and puts her best jokes into every book. > A great joke honors everyone. ## Parents and children should read together Rundell writes for both children and adults, hoping parents will read her books aloud to their kids. She remembers being read to throughout childhood and wants to recreate that deep pleasure and emotional bond. > There is such joy, just deep, deep pleasure and potential for strengthening the intellectual and emotional bond. ## Success brought enormous responsibility Rundell feels powerful responsibility to her young readers who trust her with their imaginations and time. She knows children have read relatively few books, so her work has outsized impact on what they believe books can do. > You have an outsize impact on the understanding of what books can do. ## Never let young readers down Rundell refuses to offer children anything less than her best work. She sees writing for children as a sacred trust, especially in series where readers return to familiar worlds they feel they own. > I feel a great deal of responsibility not to let my readers down. ## Key takeaway Rundell built Impossible Creatures on centuries of mythology and literature, deliberately crafting five complete books to grip children's imaginations in an age of digital distraction.