Sketchley and Meaney on & in the Matrix

Martin Sketchley is the author of the Structure Series, a fast-paced and gritty military SF comprised of the books The Affinity Trap, The Destiny Mask, and the forthcoming Liberty Gun (November). The Agony Column describes the series as, “just the sort of dense and intense science fiction space opera that we really love to read – a great combination of shameless entertainment with thought-provoking literature. This is clearly wide-screen, far-flung future science fiction with all the attendant baroque complexity in place.”

Now, writing for the news magazine of the British Science Fiction Association, the Matrix, Martin Sketchley interviews acclaimed author John Meaney, whose Nulapeiron Sequence (Paradox, Context, and Resolution) has drawn comparisons to Frank Herbert’s Dune books and racked up critical praise. (Paradox was chosen #2 in Barnes & Nobles’ Top Ten SF&F Books of 2005, and won an IPPY award).

In this interview, they talk mostly about martial arts and its intersection with science fiction, with a few words about that famous movie of the same name as the magazine:

“I asked Meaney whether there are any SF books or films in which martial arts featured, and which he thought were particularly well executed? ‘You know I’m fond of a good paradox…,’ he says. ‘I liked the wirework antics of The Matrix, because they’re supposed to be inside VR, and it works like a video game. Otherwise, I detest wirework movies.

‘There have been flashes of authentic martial arts in some SF books. Um, Hardwired and Angel Station by Walter Jon Williams, who’s a kempo fourth dan, and Tricia Sullivan’s Someone To Watch Over Me. And there’s the occasional microsecond of fighting in Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s novels. Those moments work because he is the most stylish writer in the world.'”

John Meaney’s To Hold Infinity makes its N. American debut this September.