Interview

Interview: Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie is interviewed today on Fantasy Book Critic. They talk about The Blade Itself, the whole of the First Law trilogy and beyond, movies, books, video games and much more. Many words of wisdom and mirth.

Words of wisdom: “What’s more important to you? Your family and friends or your house? One’s your life. The other’s the setting for it. That’s a no contest in my book. Worldbuilding’s great, in its place, I just don’t feel that it should ever cramp the characters or the story. It should always be revealed in passing, as the background for the action, never be the focus of anything.”

Words of mirth: “You’ve got to change and develop, even if that’s going to mean some wrong steps along the way. But never say never. Dead horse flogging can be a surprisingly profitable business and daddy needs a swimming pool…”

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Adventures in the Multiverse: Michael Moorcock Podcast

Shaun Farrell’s always magnificent podcast, Adventures in Scifi Publishing, has just uploaded his extensive interview with fantasy master Michael Moorcock, discussing his imminent work, The Metatemporal Detective.

Almost the entire 45 minute podcast is devoted to Mike, who talks about the origin of the Sir Seaton Begg character, all his literary allusions, his connection to the Pyatt novels, etc… He also discusses classic science fiction writer Alfred Bester, contemporary literary writer Michael Chabon, the origin of his multiverse, the differences in how he is published in the US and the UK, and much more besides.

Listening to it now myself. My favorite quote: “Tom Paine, addressing the Americans before the Revolution said – I think it’s in Common Sense – that it was unseemly that such a large nation should be ruled by such a small one. And I think that’s true of the science fiction and fantasy world, that it’s such a very large nation indeed being to some extent ruled by a very small nation of critics. Because in terms of sales, you know, there are a lot of literary writers I know who would give a lot to have the kind of sales that many science fiction and fantasy writers have.”

It should be noted too that Shaun is holding a contest to give away three copies of The Metatemporal Detective. Entry details are on his website.

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Interview: Michael Moorcock on the Wire

John Joseph Adams interviews Michael Moorcock on SciFiWire today. They talk about the history of The Metatemporal Detective, and the book’s connection to Victorian detective Sexton Blake, New Worlds magazine, and the Pyat quartet. Speaking of Elric in his Count Zenith guise, itself modeled on Blade adversary Zenith the Albino, Mike says:

“Zenith was an influence on my character Elric, so in some ways these stories are homages. But there are many other homages in the stories, too. For instance in ‘The Affair of the Basin des Hivers,’ there are characters from French pulp fiction and movies, as well as a victim from a Balzac novel.”

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Moorcock Interview: The Making of a Metatemporal Detective

Jeremy at The Fantasy Review has posted an interview he conducted with Michael Moorcock, in which they discuss, among other things, the genesis of the Sir Seaton Begg character and The Metatemporal Detective’srelationship to the Elric saga.

When asked about the direct connection between Elric and the book’s villain, Count Zenith, Moorcock says, “through it I could add a dimension to the Elric stories, as I’ve tried to do in the most recent trilogy beginning with The Dreamthief’s Daughter(which of course also dealt with the Nazis). I’ve always been wary of what I consider to be the fascistic elements in certain sword and sorcery stories. I feel that I want to make those elements manifest and use Elric/Zenith to question and oppose those elements.”

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An Extended Family of Adventurers and Heroes

Chris Roberson talks to Sandy Auden on the UK SF Book News site. He’s chiefly talking about his just released nautical fantasy, Set the Seas on Fire,but as always, he explains the interconnected nature of his canon:

UKSFBN: Will Set the Seas on Fire be a stand alone or part of a series? Is it necessary to read Paragaea before this one?

Chris R: “Seas is part of a series of stand-alone novels which can be read in any order. The series revolves around an extended family of adventurers and heroes, the Bonaventure-Carmody family. Paragaea: A Planetary Romanceis actually a sequel to Set the Seas on Fire, if you want to be specific about it, since the events of this novel predate those of Paragaea. But that said, either can be read on its own, and both can be read in any order. The same is true of my other Bonaventure-Carmody novels, Here, There & Everywhereand End of the Century. If you like one of them, chances are you’ll like the others. If you don’t like one, though, you still might like the others, as they’re all quite different.”

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Not Your Average Joe

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Aidan Moher interviews Joe Abercrombie on his website, A Dribble of Ink. They talk about his debut fantasy novel, The Blade Itself,out this September from Pyr. And the lack of the obligatory fantasy world map.

“I wanted my readers to feel like they were right there with the characters – right inside their heads, if possible – part of the action rather than floating dispassionately above it. I wanted to tell a story as close-up as possible, so you can smell the sweat, and feel the pain, and understand the emotions. I want a reader to be nailed to the text, chewing their fingernails to find out what happens next, not constantly flipping back to the fly-leaf to check just how far north exactly Carleon is from Uffrith, or whatever. The characters often don’t know what’s going on – they don’t have a conveniently accurate map to hand, why should the reader?”

Meanwhile, check out Joe’s new website, and lookee here, we’ve put the first 63 pages of The Blade Itself online!

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Chris Roberson and Zombies

Chris Roberson talks to Sci Fi Wire about his latest book, a nautical adventure with zombies called Set the Seas on Fire,and explains how it ties directly into his two Pyr novels, Paragaea: A Planetary Romanceand Here, There & Everywhere. Which is, of course, through the person of Hieronymus Bonaventure, who also appears in Paragaea and who is of the same family line as H,T&E star Roxanne Bonaventure. As to similarities between himself and his protagonist, he says, “Both of us, I suppose, are fleeing from boredom and looking for stimulation to keep our brains working. The difference is that I don’t have to live on a boat, eating weevil-ridden biscuits and trying not to get scurvy.”

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Interminable Ramblings

Chris Roberson’s forthcoming Solaris title, Set the Seas on Fire,is the subject of John Berlyne’s latest review over on SFRevu. Set the Seas on Fire is actually a direct prequel to Paragaea: A Planetary Romance,which John reviewed last year. He references Paragaea again here, calling it “a hugely enjoyable pulpish adventure.” Meanwhile, he finds the new book “adds another very competent and confident story to Roberson’s ever-growing, increasingly impressive interconnected cannon – one can expect more from the characters one has met in this novel, and not necessarily in the same kind of setting.”

As John says above, Chris’s novels occur in one big, interconnected multiverse, much like those of his influences Michael Moorcock and Philip José Farmer and his contemporary Kage Baker. Chris himself expands on the relationship between these two particular novels on his blog, Roberson’s Interminable Ramble. Meanwhile, he is also interviewed over on Heidi’s Pick Six, a blog that asks an author to pick six out of fifteen standard questions. How standard? Question number three is “coffee, tea, or milk?”

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Eternal Vigilance

Michael Moorcock is the subject of a big, eight page interview in the second issue of the new SF media magazine, Death Ray. Among other things, Mike talks briefly about his forthcoming novel, The Metatemporal Detective.

“We have to keep struggling in order to maintain justice — the Balance,” says Mike. “The price of freedom is to quote again, eternal vigilance. My next book, The Metatemporal Detective (due in October from Pyr), might otherwise be different from anything I’ve done before, but ultimately that’s the same message it offers.”

Meanwhile, over on his blog On the Front, John Picacio talks about the cover, posting the final front cover image, the image sans type, and the spine/back cover wrap. Elsewhere on John’s blog, he discusses the Death Ray issue and – for Elric fans – he gives a glimpse of one of his interior illustrations for the upcoming Del Rey reissue, Elric The Stealer of Souls. Together with the image on the right, these represent the first look at “the Picacio Elric.”

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