INTERVIEWS

I can understand that attitude but I don’t really agree with it, unless you’re saying that immortality, time travel and faster-than-light drives are more valid propositions than magic or mythical beasts. I suppose I’m saying that I’ve come down on the side of the argument that regards science fiction as a branch of fantasy.

Part of fantasy’s current boom, obviously, is down to the popularity of Harry Potter, Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett - though I’ve always thought of him as a humorous writer who works with fantasy themes rather than as a fantasy writer par se - and Peter Jackson’s excellent film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. Whether Potter and the Rings movies have a permanent impact on the popularity of fantasy fiction remains to be seen. I think a more fundamental reason for the spreading interest in fantasy is that the form’s coming of age, similar to the way sf started to mature with the ‘60’s New Wave. In fact, people are beginning to apply the label “New Fantasy” to some of the fiction being published now. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but it’s certainly true that the genre’s grown up enough to tackle subject matter that wouldn’t have featured in it just a few years ago.

Does this have implications for science fiction? Only insofar as the two forms have been joined at the hip for years and anything that affects one is presumed to have some kind of bearing on the other. Sf’s doing pretty well too at the moment. Perhaps not in terms of sales overall, but certainly in respect of the achievements of a new generation of writers, many of them British. 

Are you saying that fantasy stories have relevance to real life, rather than being purely escapism?

Why can’t they be both? Fantasy’s always been a broad church - think of Robert E. Howard and China Mieville, Robin Hobb and Jonathan Carroll, Tolkien and J.V. Jones, to grab a few names out of the air. But I believe that breadth’s now being matched by depth. In terms of the themes modern fantasy feels confident to handle, and the general level of writing expertise, things are definitely on the up. It’s long been said that much science fiction, no matter how far-flung a future it’s set in or how bizarre its concepts, is actually about the here and now, and that’s a self-evident truth. It seems to me fantasy’s starting to do the same, and that many of its preoccupations mirror contemporary issues. It’s something I’m trying to do myself.

My publisher, Jane Johnson - someone I respect for her editorial and writing skills alike - came out with a statement a few months ago that caused a bit of a stir in science fiction circles. The Voyager imprint, of which Jane’s the Editorial Director, commissioned market research to identify the fantasy reading public, and to discover what attitudes general readers have towards the genre. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before, and it yielded some interesting facts. Some of it confirmed what a lot of us already suspected - that even fantasy devotees are growing weary of standard, generic covers, for example. One major finding, again no great surprise to many of us, was that there are people out there who’ve never sampled fantasy but would be prepared to give it a try if it was presented in a more accessible way. This lead Jane to tell the trade press that maybe fantasy should be separated from science fiction in bookstores. There were two reasons for that opinion. One is simply that fantasy isn’t science fiction. The other is that people’s preconceptions about one genre are rubbing off onto the other. This seems to have hit a raw nerve with some people in the science fiction community, but I think that in commercial terms she was absolutely right. It seems perfectly logical to me that someone who wouldn’t be interested in a novel featuring, say, space exploration, might on the other hand go for a fantasy set in a medieval type world that contained an element of magic. As I read it, Jane wasn’t saying that science fiction was pulling down fantasy, and implying that sf was therefore somehow inferior. She was making the entirely sensible marketing point that a reader who might like Tolkien wouldn’t necessarily get on with Stephen Baxter, excellent an author as he is. When you think about it, there’s no rational reason why the two should be racked together. In fact, you could argue that it’s to the potential detriment of both. Okay, the water’s muddied somewhat by crossover titles that have a foot in each, but I think the general principle holds. 

What Jane didn’t say - this is solely my opinion - is that there’s another reason why we should consider separating fantasy from sf, and it might sound contentious. Because science fiction and fantasy have historically been wedded, and sf is the older discrete form, most of the forums for assessment and criticism of fantasy are first and foremost sf-oriented. Most of the people who review fantasy are coming at it from a science fiction perspective. And, I have to say this; a lot of science fiction enthusiasts just don’t like fantasy. Whatever the reason for this - maybe it’s the perception of it lacking scientific plausibility - these critics tend to approach the field with hostility, or at least skepticism. It seems to me that expecting a science fiction person to objectively evaluate fantasy is like asking a member of an Old West appreciation society to review crime novels. The two forms have grown apart. Now, I abhor the idea that there should be this kind of animosity between these genres - and it can be two-way because there are fantasy readers with just as much prejudice about sf. I see all fantastical fiction as part of a spectrum, so this sort of animosity feels pointless to me anyway. In fact, I veer towards the notion that there shouldn’t be categories at all, and that fiction should be judged on its merits rather than the pigeonhole it’s forced into. But here in the real world, it ain’t like that. Actually, I find the whole thing rather depressing. It’s like, I remember when I was a teenager and meeting socially a black man who ten minutes into the conversation revealed himself as an extreme
anti-Semite. He was really vehement in his hatred of Jews, and in my youthful naivety I was saying, “How can you be like that after all your people have been through?” It sounds like an OTT comparison, but that’s sort of how I feel about sf people being disdainful of fantasy. Or the Doctor Who fans hating the Star Trek fans, or people who read books showing contempt for film enthusiasts. We’re all miserable outcasts, for God’s sake; the least we can do is stick together. 

When you see the unchanging attitude of the literati, there’s good reason for us to be mutually supportive. Their ridiculously elitist prejudices, traditionally so hostile to sf, are just as sneering about fantasy. I loathe the mindset that says anything labeled science fiction or fantasy should be ignored or at best ridiculed, but a novel with a mainstream writer’s name on it, no matter how much it derives from our genres, can be lauded. The most recent example of this, of course, was the desperate verbal gymnastics Margaret Atwood went through to distance herself from any hint that her novels might be sf, when they so obviously are. When Philip K. Dick wrote a novel about time running backwards, published as sf, he received no “serious” critical attention at all. When, decades later, Martin Amis published something strikingly similar he was praised for the originality of his idea. The list of so-called literary fictions “inspired” by concepts familiar to sf readers grows ever longer, and there’s no need to go into all that here. But it does seem a shame that we pour buckets of shit over each other when we’re already covered in the stuff courtesy of the literary establishment. I’d better shut up about this or you’ll have to burn a feather under my nose. 

Why do you think magic is such a popular mythology even in the technological wonderland of the 21st Century?

Maybe it’s increasingly popular because we live in such a technologically-driven age. Technology brings lots of benefits, but a downside is that it can leave people feeling a bit overwhelmed and even alienated. That could be one of the reasons why the notion of magic catches the imaginations of so many people. It might be a contributing factor to the current popularity of fantasy fiction in general. The idea of magic is quite seductive, and of course its appeal isn’t new; it’s been an abiding fantasy for a very long time. It’s especially attractive to children. That’s partly because younger minds tend to be more open to accepting fantastical propositions. But there’s also the empowerment aspect. What bullied kid wouldn’t love to be able to turn their tormentor into a slug, or set a fire-breathing dragon on a rotten teacher? Another fascination is that magic’s usually presented as exclusive - its practitioners are a fraternity, a brotherhood - and that kind of elitism is a powerful daydream. There are times when most of us feel like outcasts, whatever our age, and the possibility that we might have or could acquire magical powers can be kind of cheering. Undoubtedly a good deal of J.K. Rowling’s success can be put down to the fact that she understands this. If you accept the proposition that many adults are just kids in disguise - and that certainly applies to a lot of writers - you can see why magic has such a hold.

You significantly change your magic system with each set of novels. How easy do you find it to re-invent the magical wheel every time? Do they get easier to invent or harder, the more you do it?

I have ideas for three or four magical systems I haven’t used yet - fairly complete ideas - and several more at a notional stage. These are ideas that have occurred to me over a period of time, in some cases, years ago, and weren’t tied to any specific story. The magical system in my new novel, Quicksilver Rising, wasn’t taken from any of those existing ideas - none of them really fitted. The one I used occurred to me when I was working-up the plot. There was always going to be magic in the Quicksilver trilogy, I just wasn’t sure what form it would take or how integral it was going to be. That was a worry, because I’m a firm believer in all plot elements having a relevant function, and I didn’t want magic just for the sake of it, or because it was expected of a fantasy. Essentially, what I came up with was a world where magic was all-pervasive both in the sense of its abundance and as a social signifier. Magic as commodity, currency, technology, and, most importantly, as the prop for a class system. A culture where you quite literally get the magic you can afford; where your social status is reflected in the quality of the sorcery you pay for. So I kind of turned that elite idea of magic on its head, because in this world everybody has access to it. Only, human nature being what it is, there are still elites, based on material worth. I already had the main thrust of the story, which concerns a world dominated by two equally matched empires and the efforts of a diverse Resistance movement to oppose their tyranny - I suppose you could call it a utopian fantasy - and I knew all the characters that were going to populate the story, and the relationships between them. But layering-in that particular form of magic crystallised everything, and nicely illustrated the value system of the world. Obviously, it also acts as a kind of political analogy. None of this necessarily leaps into your head fully-formed, so yes, you have to work at it

How does a new magical system evolve for you?

Like any other element of a story. I guess it’s true for most writers that ideas come in fragments - it’s rare to have a completely formed outline drop on you, though it does happen. The trigger might be a phrase, an image, even a single word. Mostly it’s a concept, which you try massaging into life. Most stories, fantasy or otherwise, tend to start with “what if?” Basically, the question’s “How would the world be if ... ” I’ve written quite a few stories based on the “what if” principle. Examples? Let’s see, I’ve used how would it be if a fatal disease appeared that only infected people who believe in God. What if children were regarded as vermin, literally. Suppose every living creature on Earth woke up one day incredibly fat. What if money was really an alien lifeform. Those are random examples, but you get my drift. The point is that it’s a process of extrapolation. You take an idea like any of those and ask yourself some fundamental questions about it. Perhaps having been a journalist kicks in here for me, because the questions are the classic who, what, where, when, why and how. Take Quicksilver Rising. Once you’ve thought of a magical system like that, all sorts of ramifications occur. For example, in a world where magic has a monetary and social value, people are going to do what they do with currency in our world. So you’d have counterfeit magic. Bootleg magic. Fabulous magic that aggrandises its rich owners or meagre magic as a comfort for the poor. You make your concept evolve. One of the great clichéd questions asked of writers is “Where do you get your ideas from?” I reckon most writers dread that question not just because of its familiarity but because we often don’t know. What we do know is what we do with them once they arrive. Actually, I think it’s a bit strange that people should ask where our ideas come from, because everybody has ideas. I’m not being arrogant, but I already have more than I’ll live long enough to write. 

Why do you think magical systems need to be logical to be successful? This is magic after all!

Because an underpinning of logic is essential to all elements of fiction. To make it plausible. If you have some kind of magical system in your story it has to be as believable as the culture you invent to house it. It must have internal logic, just like your political set-up, the social order, the flora and fauna, or the behaviour of your characters. I try to make the magic like science in the real world, with rules and boundaries. But I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m besotted with magic as a real possibility. I don’t believe in it - I’m sceptical about a lot of things - but it’s a damn good story device.

How does magic in a story affect the plot? Are you tempted to use it as an easy way to solve a difficult plot situation?

It can entirely determine the plot, of course, if it’s central to your story. At the very least it should be integral, or else why have it at all? But it can’t be an end in itself; it has to be one of the factors that affects your characters. There has to be some interplay between it and them, because stories are about people. In my previous trilogy, Orcs: First Blood, for example, one of the McGuffins is that the magic’s going away. The power’s being trashed by marauding incomers - who happen to be humans - as they despoil the land. Which means all the indigenous races are having to adjust to the chaos of a post-magic world. Except the orcs, who never had the ability to command magic in the first place. So the threatened absence of magic is creating a power shift. 

I tend to see magic as a neutral energy, a bit like electricity. And in the same way that electricity can be used to power a kidney dialysis machine or an electric chair, the magic’s coloured by the intent of its users. It isn’t good or bad; its a positive or negative force depending on the characters it filters through. It’s back to people again, in other words. 

I think it’s a terrible cheat to use magic to resolve difficult situations, and I try hard to avoid the “with one bound he was free” syndrome. That short-changes the reader and indicates a lack of imagination on the writer’s part. 

Your books always seem to contain some element of humour. I’m thinking of scenes like the dragon at the door of the inn in Quicksilver Rising. Why use humour in otherwise serious stories?

I don’t seem capable of writing anything that doesn’t have at least a bit of humour, even if it’s of the gallows variety. I don’t apologise for that. Humour’s one of the range of emotions people display in any given situation, even dire ones. Especially dire ones, very often. It’s as essential a part of the human psyche as love, hate, compassion, revenge, stupidity, strength, weakness or any other facet, and as such it’ll always feature in my writing. The other thing, and I know I run the risk of sounding pretentious here, is that my attitude to the conventions of the genre is to both respect them and to try subverting them. Fantasy’s robust enough to have the piss taken out of its tropes; to have some of its cherished assumptions questioned, twisted or gently sent up. I don’t do this cynically - the challenges are built on affection. The actual function of the scene you’re referring to - where two characters with differing views of magic are confronted by one of its animate products - is to show a little bit more about the world the story’s set in, as well as illustrating those characters’ personalities. 

Do your characters arrive fully formed? At what point do they start acting with a mind of their own?

Sometimes they arrive complete. But it’s rare for even a fully developed character not to change once the writing starts. The thing about characters “taking over” really is a truism, for me at least. Sometimes they start doing it quite early on, other times they hang back before letting you know the way they want to go. It’s wise to listen to them. Even if they seem to be pulling you in a direction you hadn’t anticipated, they’re more often right than wrong. It’s a strange thing, and it sounds a bit crazy, but I’ve long accepted it. 

Did you get any unexpected chemistry happening when you put your characters together for the first time? Or do they always behave impeccably?

I’d hate to think that my characters might behave impeccably! There are always surprises when your characters first meet on the page. I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t. It’s the “suck it and see” aspect of writing - no matter how meticulously you might have planned things, you don’t really know how it’s going to go until you start mixing it. A writer must be responsive to the unexpected; in fact, it’s to be welcomed. A novel that went exactly to plan would be lifeless, I think. 

I know you don’t base your characters on real people, but I can't help but think that Kinsel Rukanis, the classical singer in Quicksilver Rising, might be based on yourself. How much of yourself have you written into him?

I’m quite taken aback at the very idea. No, Kinsel isn’t based on me. Not consciously anyway, because there’s always the argument that every character contains some shards of the author. Actually, I’m quite flattered at you thinking it might be autobiographical. Kinsel’s a much better, more principled person than I am. He’s a militant pacifist, prepared to suffer greatly for his belief in non-violence, whereas I’m pacifistic to a point, and certainly nowhere near as brave. He’s a renowned singer and I can’t hold a note. I suspect the only thing we have in common is our collar size.
It’s not strictly true that I don’t base my characters on real people. I’ve done it once or twice. In a previous book I based a real low life, snivelling little scumbag on somebody I once worked for who treated me quite appallingly. The physical description of this unpleasant character was the real person to a t, and I even gave the character practically the same name. Funny thing is, I happen to know that the person I drew from read the book and didn’t recognise himself. I gave him a horrible death, of course. The character, that is! 
Jennesta, the sexual sadist witch queen in the Orcs trilogy, was based on a composite of two real women I knew. Not that either of them were murderous despots with a predilection for eating fresh human hearts and ruling the world, I hasten to add. Well, they didn’t eat human hearts anyway. That was a case of taking various character traits from both these real people and melding them. I think that’s something I do a fair bit - a dash of somebody from here, a jot of someone else from there. The characters Serrah Ardacris and Tanalvah Lahn, in Quicksilver Rising, are blends of four or five people I’ve known. 

When members of royalty appear in your stories they’re often depicted as stark raving bonkers or just plain nasty - Queen Jennesta raping somebody with a unicorn horn in the Orcs books or Prince Melyobar trying to literally outrun death in Quicksilver Rising, for example. Are you trying to tell us something about your attitude to the monarchy? 

I don’t always depict royals in a negative light. I had a noble, benign king in my Nightshade trilogy, for example, though I did end up killing him. And his wife, come to think of it. Admittedly I’m a republican, and would much prefer to be a citizen than a subject, so maybe my attitudes are creeping in without me being fully aware of it. Mind you, you’d be hard put to find a crazier bunch than most royal families. All those centuries of inbreeding, I expect. 

How long does it take you to create a new fantasy world?

Ah, the “How long is a piece of string?” question. Sometimes it can be quite fast. The setting for the Nightshade trilogy, which were young adult novels, I worked out in a couple of days. Admittedly that wasn’t a particularly complex world, though it did require inventing a number of different lands. Usually the creation of a setting incorporates bits and pieces you already have hanging about - those fragments we spoke about earlier - and fusing them with new material as the story demands. And writing does tend to be a process of mutation, with everything changing and developing as you go along. It’s a question of work beforehand and during, so to speak. As a matter of fact I probably spend a lot longer on the characters than the world. They’re the most important and complex entity in a piece of fiction.

Which elements arrive first? Are these always the elements to arrive first?

There’s no hard and fast rule for this. As I said, the first thing to occur is often a concept, and it can be fairly nebulous. It’s not uncommon for a character to come knocking on my mind’s door, and only later perhaps do I find a story to put them in. The creative process is something like a giant, multi-levelled jigsaw puzzle, some of which you don’t even put together consciously. That’s part of what you might call the magic of writing, and not all of it is obvious even to the writer. 

What do you find the easiest pieces to create? What are the hardest?

It sounds paradoxical, but I find writing gets both easier and harder the more I do it. I’m currently on my twenty-second book, Quicksilver Zenith, and it’s still a marathon. I think it gets easier in the sense that you learn certain techniques and tricks that move things along. It’s harder mainly because you’re always conscious of wanting to do better than you did last time, in terms of the story you tell and how well you tell it. I have a fairly visual imagination, and generally speaking I can make a scene work if I can “see” it. Likewise, I can put over a dialogue exchange once it sounds right to my inner ear. In respect of the latter, like a lot of writers I’m constantly listening as much as people watching. Almost everything that goes on around you can be grist for the mill. It’s true to say that the more you enjoy what you write the better it goes - I believe it reads better, too. That’s self-evident, I suppose; if you aren’t captivated by what you write, you can’t expect a reader to be either.

How much background/historical/political detail do you create and how much of that detail actually makes it into the stories?

Increasingly I make lots of notes about all aspects of a book. But when it comes to the actual writing I employ the iceberg principle - I generally know ninety percent more about what’s going on than I tell the reader, and that’s especially true of the characters. It’s the old “less is more” rule - another bit of writing magic. A temptation that has to be resisted is cramming in everything - all your research, all your ideas, every tiny detail of a character’s life. You don’t even necessarily have to go to town describing a character; it’s much more effective conveying their traits through what they do and say. Respect the intelligence of your reader and leave them to fill in the gaps. It’s a bit like radio in that respect - the best pictures are the ones the reader has in their own heads. You just hand them a brush and canvas, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors. 

How do you develop the geography of a new world?

You’re talking to someone who once offered to navigate on a car journey from London to Devon and got us halfway to Portsmouth. A person who for years thought north was whichever way I happened to be facing. I’m not kidding. A sense of direction, let alone geography, is not my strong point. So when I’m planning a book I take especial care to get the geography right. I work out where every location is in relation to the others, and I might even draw a crude map for myself. But I don’t very much care for maps in fantasy novels, and if I’m given a say I ask not to have them. They remind me a bit too much of school textbooks, I suppose, and I can’t help feeling that if a writer’s done their job properly the reader shouldn’t need a map beyond the one you put in their head. I’d go and bring you some examples of what I mean, but I’m not sure I could find my workroom ...

How do you achieve that “lived-in” feeling?

I don’t see any reason why fantasies shouldn’t be written like contemporary novels. I try to write fantasies as though they were thrillers. I believe in clean, uncluttered language, and I definitely try to avoid archaic dialogue. I can’t stand all this “thee” and “thou” and “verily, my lady” stuff. That doesn’t make for authenticity, as some people believe, it just reads daft. I work on making my characters easy for readers to empathise with. Like real people, my characters bleed, spit, swear and break wind. We’ve already established that they laugh. They get unexpectedly pregnant, have mood swings, act contrary and display obstinacy as much as kindness and heroism. At least I hope that’s how they come across. The aim is to avoid putting unnecessary barriers between readers and what you’re trying to say to them. In that respect I’m a little down on overly long, densely written fantasy tomes. I tend to think that most of those doorstops would benefit by being cut by at least a third, and maybe the authors’ Thesauruses shouldn’t be quite so near to hand either. Keep it clear, keep it moving, cut the crap.

© 2003/2007 Sandy Auden/Interzon