Welcome back!

Hi there!

After reviewing Thomas Emson’s novel Skarlet last month (you can read the review here), I asked Emson if he wouldn’t mind an interview. Luckily, he agreed and has been most gracious in answering my questions.

Q) After reading Skarlet and reading the excerpt from Maneater, I was struck by what might be a shared world in your novels. As a roleplayer, I was exposed to the “World of Darkness” setting from a company called White Wolf back in the 1990s which had a similar approach to a shared setting for a variety of creatures from the dark. The first two series of game books they published were for vampires and werewolves, which is why the parallels struck me. Have you considered doing crossovers between your own series? Or do you consider them to be linked?

A) I don’t think I would do a crossover – I can’t see Laura Greenacre doing battle with Kasdeja and Kakash. I regard the novels to be linked in so far as they take place in real settings. Both Maneater and Skarlet exist in a modern Britain that is real. There are scenes in both books which take place in London, the same London, but there would be no reference in one novel to the other. What I try to do is put very unreal monsters into a very real world and see what happens. I don’t want the characters in my real world to be comfortable with monsters, I don’t want them to know they exist and then make an effort to live with them – having vampires and werewolves appear on your street would be utterly shocking and unexpected.

Q) In addition, I’m quite fascinated by the resurgence of urban fantasy these days in the fiction market. I’m an avid reader of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, another author who mixes magic and the supernatural worlds to create a compelling setting. Do you have plans to expand beyond your The Vampire Trinity and Maneater series? If so, what might be on the horizon for your fans?

A) I have an eight-book deal with my publisher Snowbooks, and the books include standalones which are not part of The Vampire Trinity or the Maneater series. After I hand in Prey (the sequel to Maneater) I’ll be writing Zombie Britannica – I think you can guess what that’s about. There’s also a Jack the Ripper novel called Pariah, and a book about a massive shopping mall in London where terrifying creatures dwell. That’ll be called Colossus.

Read the rest of the interview here…

Again, I want to thank Thomas Emson for agreeing to answer my questions and turning around this interview so quickly as he finishes up Prey. I for one look forward to his future books and need to go read Maneater before Prey is released so I’m caught up!

–Fitz

p.s. Be sure to pick up Skarlet and Maneater at your local bookstore or on Amazon!

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• Book Review: Skarlet by Thomas Eason (writer.fitzhome.com)

Hi there!

I try to read as much as possible. My reading ranges from technical computer manuals and books to short stories. The books I most enjoy reading are fantasy and science fiction. I am usually asking my friends for ideas for trilogies or great books. There are a few things about fantasy books that really tend to turn me off to buying new books, including those series that take years to finish.

In a podcast I heard quick review of a new book called The Way of Shadows. This was the first book in the night angel trilogy about assassination and magic in a fantasy setting. I looked up the book at Amazon and saw that even though it was out October 2008 the next two in the trilogy were already out (book two – Shadows Edge, book three – Beyond the Shadows). These were release one month apart, and all in soft cover. What a concept! It sounded fun, all released, and in soft cover so I decided to by the whole trilogy.

I started reading and with all good books I was up late and night and did not want to go to bed. I managed to get through half the book in one sitting (the book is 688 pages). The next day I did not get a chance to get to the book. During that time I was thinking the whole time what was happening and how was it going to turn out. When I got to the book a day later, I powered through it and enjoyed every word.

This is a story about kids growing up in a harsh city. It starts dark and the kids in the city go through some pretty bad situations. The author does not pull any punches. However, he does it in a way that you see hope and are rooting for them the whole time. This initial story starts out as they are kids and moves as they grow and find ways to get through the rough streets and moves into them becoming adults. The main character becomes an apprentice to the top wetboy (special assassin) in the city.

But there is more to this wetboy and during this time the young trainee finds out there is much more to the city, the wetboys, the politics than he sees. There is depth in the characters and is a great story to really show good and evil is just not black and white. There are “evil” people that really show good character choices, and good people who you see stab people in the back. I am just starting the second book and really excited to see where the trilogy goes.

If you like fantasy, a quick fun read, and don’t want to wait years for the trilogy to finish and find out what happens, this is a great book to pick up. I really hope the trend of soft covers and full trilogies being published in a short time continues with other series.

Andrew

p.s. Here is the short description from the book:

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city’s most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly – and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics – and cultivate a flair for death.

p.s.s. If you want to pick up the books in the series, click here:

Hey all!

We’re always excited to find new childrens’ books at my house. And to find a book that celebrates the things that make each of us unique is a boon. Boosting a child’s self-esteem can be tough at times as they learn to navigate the pitfalls of peer pressure and finding their own identities.

Too Tall Alice is a new book by author Barbara Worton and illustrated by Dom Rodi. It focuses on Alice, an eight-year old girl who is four inches taller than all the other girls in her class and having a hard time being different.

And as if being taller than the rest of her class wasn’t enough, she overhears the grownups talking about her during a card party, calling her a string bean. This didn’t sit well with Alice, who wanted nothing more to be the same height as all the other girls in her class. She cried and cried, eventually crying herself to sleep.

And in a dream, she went on a grand adventure to the place where all the tall girls lived. Once there, she saw basketball superstars, supermodels, circus show girls… and she didn’t want to be like any of them. In the dream, one of the girls tells her that she has to find her own way and be what she wants to be — which is anything at all.

When she woke up, she felt much better about herself and was fine with being tall — and she could be whatever she wanted to be, string bean or not.

It is a great story with a lesson that all kids need to learn… we’re all unique and we all have to find our own way in the world, regardless of whether we’re tall, short, have big ears or a big nose, wear glasses, or simply see the world in a different way than everyone else. Even adults sometimes need to be reminded of this lesson sometimes.

As we read this book with my two daughters, I have to relate a very cute story about my youngest. She is infatuated with Ariel, the mermaid from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. And when we came to find out that Alice had a “super-fluffy Ariel the mermaid bed,” she got very excited and was immediately riveted for the rest of the story.

Be sure to check out Too Tall Alice!

–Fitz

p.s. Pick it up at your local bookstore or at Amazon!

Hi all!

A while back, Orson Scott Card was kind enough to leave a comment on one of my posts about his story “Stonefather”. We had a short e-mail conversation after that and he graciously agreed to let me interview him.

…

Q: What was the inspiration for the “Stonefather” short story and your upcoming book The Lost Gate?

Image via Wikipedia

OSC: I invented the world of Westil back in 1976-1977, at the time I wrote my story “Sandmagic,” set in that world. I created a series of maps showing the history of the world; I invented a magic system that I loved and wanted to use.

What I didn’t have was a story. Now I do. “Stonefather” was a plunge back into the world, to see if there was a story that was not so dark as “Sandmagic.” I think it worked exactly as I wanted it to. Meanwhile, the story I’m going to tell in “The Lost Gate” and its sequels is set in the interface between Earth and Westil (and, as will be revealed, yet a third world).

Q: Most of your books seem to have common themes, such as everyday magic and redemption. Many of them also involve characters in difficult situations making tough choices. What draws you to these themes in your writing?

OSC: I don’t think of these as themes — certainly I don’t plan them. To me, the thing that makes stories interesting is tough choices. I’m drawn to good people having to choose between bad alternatives. (Maybe that’s why I feel so much in harmony with K.J. Parker’s writing – long, deeply detailed human stories about people who are really trying to do good things and always ending up causing horrible ones.)

But what you said about “everyday magic.” I never thought of it that way. But since magic is always a ’supernatural means to power,’ it occurs to me now for the first time that maybe I’m unconsciously extrapolating the way we Mormons live our religion into the way my fictional characters use their magic. That is, we live our religion in a practical way, and believe that our daily work is a natural part of our connection with spiritual things. Indeed, our concept of what is “spiritual” has zero mystical content. It’s just a fact of life. So maybe that attitude inadvertently shows up in my fiction. Certainly I feel no affinity with fantasy novels that get all mystical about magic. To me, it never feels “real” – as even fantasy must feel real in order to engage our concern and belief.

Q: With all your successes, are you more careful with what you publish these days for fear of offending your fans? Or are you still experimenting and exploring writing and stories for the fun of it?

OSC: I have very good readers: With the exception of Empire, I’ve never had any kind of heated response. And even with Empire, it wasn’t my fans, it was those who have declared themselves my political enemies who chose to detect political bias in it. (There wasn’t any – I simply created the characters as I believe they would be, and the overall “message,” insofar as there was one, was absolutely non-partisan.)

So I never write with any kind of fear of offending. My readers may not care equally for all that I write, but neither do they condemn. Some books sell lots of copies; other books sell less; but I have to write the stories I believe in or care about. I wouldn’t know how to write any other way. Each book and story then must find its own audience.

Of course, I’m not an idiot. If I can think of a story in the Ender universe and write it well, it will go a lot farther toward feeding my family. But I can’t write endlessly in that universe – I need to write other things, too, or my soul would dry up. So I write those. And I have such wonderful publishers that all the different stories get published.

…

For the rest of the interview, please click here.

I’d like to thank Mr. Card for being so gracious to answer my interview questions. And I’m very excited to read The Lost Gate when it comes out from Del Rey in Fall 2009. Mr. Card was nice enough to let me read a chapter of that book that I will hopefully get a chance to review very soon!

–Fitz

p.s. Be sure to check out “Stonefather” in its novella form that was just released! And if you’ve not read his other works, check those out as well!

p.p.s. Check out some of the books that OSC recommended:

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Hi all…

When I reviewed Nancy Kress‘ recent novel Dogs, I was offered a chance to interview her and she was kind enough to respond.

Q: It’s quite obvious that you are a dog lover from the way you handled the dog owners in “Dogs”. And you, like one of your main characters, Tessa, have a toy poodle which figures prominently in your life. Was it difficult to approach the crisis in the book from the perspective of a dog lover as well as someone wanting to take a more hard-nosed avian flu approach?

A: Actually, it was not difficult to kill off all those dogs, no (although you notice that I did not kill off Tessa’s toy poodle). I guess that means I’m either calloused or able to remember that — ahem! — these dogs are imaginary. However, I will say that I was flabbergasted at how much other people minded this idea. Three different publishers — count ‘em, three — turned down the book because “the content would offend dog lovers too much.” And my cousin Sue, who has three dogs she loves passionately, won’t read the book at all.

Q: As a follow-up question, how does Cosette (under the pseudonym Minette) feel about being written into a biological threat-themed thriller? Has she accompanied you to Europe while you’re teaching in Leipzig?

A: Cosette, although very smart, is illiterate. I’ve tried to remedy this, but she has simply refused to learn to read (also to roll over and to stop barking frantically at the pug down the street, Sadie). A willful beast. No, she is not in Germany with me. She’s staying with a friend, which she loves to do because he takes her to McDonald’s for a hamburger.

Q: You tend to focus on common themes of biological or genetic engineering in your stories. You also tend to inject characters into situations allowing you to explore a given issue from multiple perspectives. What draws you to those themes in your writing?

A: I have no idea. What makes anyone interested in any particular thing? I could say (and do, often) that biological engineering is the future and we need to come to grips with it, and that’s true. But it’s also true of many other phenomena that don’t have the same grip on my imagination. So why this? I don’t know. It just does.

Q: You’ve explored many different aspects of manipulating mankind through biological and genetic engineering over the years. The common tie in your stories always seems to be the human element. For mankind, where do you think the greatest benefits of this type of science will come from? Changing our own genetic code? Creating sustainable crops to thrive in the harshest of conditions? What about the greatest pitfalls of this type of science?

A: The short-term benefits will indeed be in crop engineering, if we can get past the horrendous political and legal problems (patent issues, trade protectionism, alarmed public ignorance, etc.) Right now scientists are working on genemod crops that can increase yield, reduce blight without pesticides, grow in marginal areas (such as brackish water). For much of the Third World, this could mean the difference between starvation and life.

The long term might or might not include modifying the human genome. Certainly it’s possible — we could do some of that with current technology. But SF is not a predictive literature. It portrays not THE future but many possible futures, positive and negative. So I don’t know what the benefits of germ-line tinkering will be until we get there, nor the actual dangers. Most likely, however, dangers will include unexpected side effects, tragic accidents, and social prejudice.

Q: Even while you’ve continued your career in fiction, you’ve been helping other authors learn their craft by contributing articles to Writer’s Digest and a series of books on various aspects of characters, viewpoint, and plot development. If you could boil down your experience into tips for budding writers, what would be your top three?

A: Boy, you ask a lot! But, okay, the top three:

1. Write. Do it regularly, not only when you feel “inspired,” and do it on as regular a schedule as you can manage. The unconscious cooperates better that way. Countless writers have noted this: Flannery O’Connor, Norman Mailer, Richard McKenna.
2. Read. Everything — nonfiction, genre fiction, non-genre fiction, news, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes. You need to stock the mental storehouse.
3. Don’t get defensive when you are critiqued, rejected, or reviewed. This is hard, but learn to sift through the negative stuff so you can separate stupid comments from ones that will improve your writing. There’s useful stuff among the chaff.

Q: With all your successes, are you more careful with what you publish these days for fear of offending your fans? Or are you still experimenting and exploring writing and stories for the fun of it?

A: I never think about offending my fans. If they’re offended by what I write, then they’re not my fans. I do think about pleasing them, in the sense that I am not writing just for myself, but to tell a story to someone else, the mythical Ideal Reader in my mind. But yes, I write mostly for the joy of writing. It’s too much work, for too little money, to do it for any other reason.

Q: With the Internet in all its forms (blogs, websites, Twitter, wikis, etc.), what role does it play in how you pursue your writing?

A: Not very much (I don’t even know what Twitter and wikis are). I do have a blog, and I enjoy blogging about writing and the teaching of writing. I have a website but am negligent about updating it. Some of my stories have been podcast. I guess for me, paper is still the “real” mode of communication. It’s a generational thing, maybe.

Q: If you were going to tackle the adaptation of one of your works as a television series, mini-series, or movie (on television or on the big screen), which of your works would you attempt and why?

A: STINGER was almost sold as a movie. I think it would work well So would DOGS, because both have a lot of action and externalized conflict. But the work most optioned is BEGGARS IN SPAIN, which baffles me a little. What are you going to film — people not sleeping?

Q: I’m guessing that as prolific a writer as you are, you have precious little time for pleasure reading. However, I’m wondering who some of your favorite authors are currently?

A: Actually, I read all the time. I’m a full-time writer (as my mother points out, “without a real job”), so I can afford this luxury. In mainstream fiction, I like Anita Shreve, Anne Tyler, Phillippa Gregory. I’m rereading all of Somerset Maugham. I read popular science — Matt Ridley is a favorite. In SF, I just finished HUNTER’S RUN (Dozois, Martin, and Abraham) and enjoyed it a lot. I read ASIMOV’S regularly.

Q: Based on your website, I’m guessing you’re already in Europe for your Picador Guest Lectureship. How do you find teaching at the University of Leipzig? It sounds like a fascinating experience to broaden not only the minds of European students, but to broaden your own experience as you live and work in a new place for an extended amount of time.

A: I’m enjoying it a lot — and blogging about it every day. Go to http://nancykress.blogspot.com/

Q: Finally, what’s next on your horizon? I saw that “Steal Across the Sky” will be available in February 2009, and it appears to have a very interesting science fiction twist. Beyond that, are there any new writing books or novels you’re working on?

A: I’m writing a YA fantasy, a thing I thought I’d never do. But this scruffy kid hung around in my mind for several months, insisting, “Write me! Write me!” You really can’t argue with these people.

I would like to thank Nancy Kress for agreeing to the interview and Matt Staggs for arranging it!

–Fitz

p.s. Check out some of Nancy Kress’ great novels and writing books:

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