Tom English – Bound for Evil
Bound for Evil is a thick and large tome. What made you decide to go with this particular format, in addition to settling for the "book" theme?
Both the format and theme of the anthology grew out of a consuming passion for books. Although I’d like to believe I’m not a bibliomaniac---that it’s I who am in control, and not the thousands of books smugly regarding me from the overstuffed shelves of my library---Bound for Evil could serve as pretty damning evidence in my insanity case. Originally, the book was to be a thin paperback, perhaps seven supernatural tales exploring the power of books. After producing an 800-page hardcover with 67 stories, one might say I got a little carried away. I wrote a psychological ghost story in 2005, about a tormented bibliomaniac who carries his lifelong obsession to the grave (and perhaps beyond the grave). A few months later Barbara Roden accepted the tale for All Hallows, and that was almost the end of the matter. But while flipping through the notebook in which I jot down ideas for future stories, I realized about half of my ideas involved books and writers. Why was that? Writers tend to write about things they know, things that interest them: among those things are books and the creative process. I also realized I love reading stories about strange and forbidden books, ancient texts and lost knowledge. I thought of Lovecraft’s “Necronomicon” and Chambers’ The King in Yellow and several other classics of weird fiction, and numerous bookish stories by Ramsey Campbell and other contemporary writers. Putting together an anthology consisting entirely of such tales seemed like a fabulous idea and I couldn’t understand why no one had done it before. But I put the whole idea on a back burner until early 2007. During this gestation period, I decided two very important things about the direction the anthology would take. First, all the stories needed to flow naturally from some aspect of books, writing, reading and collecting. The book in each tale had to be integral to the story’s plot, and not simply a prop. And the book featured in each story had to be dangerous or somehow involved in a bit of devilry, because I wanted to lure back people who’ve thrown off books for movies and video games. I’m not sure why, but we’re often drawn to things that are exciting, forbidden, even dangerous. Put a warning label on a pack of cigarettes and you’ve just given it the best advertisement imaginable. Print a blazing skull on the package and change the brand name to “Instant Death” and you won’t be able to stock enough packs. Well, the idea behind Bound for Evil is that books can be hazardous to your health (and your bank account). What, are you reading again? Do you want to lose your mind? Don’t go near that book, you’ll put out your eye! So, in this way, I hoped to remind us all of the glamour and mystique of books. And what’s sobering about my little scheme is that books really do have incredible power, not only to effect good in our society but, as history bears witness, sometimes evil.
What was the research and solicitation process like? What was the most challenging experience?
By the time I started working on Bound for Evil I had researched, edited, and written introductions for close to two dozen chapbooks. At least half of these little books contain 3 to 5 stories united by a common theme. So I felt reasonably comfortable tackling BfE. For the most part, I enjoyed reading the slush pile. The majority of the material I received was well written, much of it by accomplished writers who were excited by the theme of the anthology. I think the most challenging aspect of editing BfE was completing the task while not neglecting a very demanding day job as a chemist. By the time the book was finished I was exhausted both mentally and physically. What got me through the last few weeks of editing was the support and encouragement of my wife, Wilma, whose patience should have been worn quite thin during the whole process but instead proved extremely durable. Thank God she’s a book person!
There's a couple of easter eggs in the anthology. How did you come up with them and what made you decide to include them?
Jeff Ryan submitted a piece of flash fiction that worked splendidly as a … well, that would be telling. I asked him if I could use the piece in an unusual way and without his byline. Being just as mischievous as I am, if not more so, he gleefully assented. Since many of the stories in the anthology deal with ancient books harboring dark and terrible mysteries, it seemed only fitting that, veiled within its pages, Bound for Evil should hold a few secrets of its own.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Laird Barron (Interview by Charles Tan)
Laird Barron – “Lagerstatte”
The title of your story is apt. What made you decide to go with Lagerstatte? When did you first encounter the word?
Lagerstätte is a German word meaning “resting place.” Paleontologists use the term to describe areas that are particularly rich in intact fossil records, such as the Burgess Shale and the Le Brae Tar Pits. Lagerstatte is certainly a reference to dual aspects of the story, literal and metaphorical. And to some extent, it’s a nod to Darren Speegle’s work. European titles are one his trademarks.
What made you decide to go for psychological horror? What makes it effective in contrast to other horror tropes?
I’ve been working on a collection that features psychological horror in a major way. Even when submitting to various themed anthologies, I keep in mind how a piece will fit into a larger whole. The Lagerstatte represents what will be the core of the next book. Psychological horror is attractive to me because among other things, it introduces ambiguity. Where does reality end and the nightmare begin? If I want to unnerve a reader, I leave them to their own devices in a dark room. They’ll take that ambiguity and conjure mental images of terrors far beyond the scope of my ability.
Was the story originally intended to be horrifying or was that an element that evolved as you were writing a story for The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy?
I wrote The Lagerstätte in reaction to tragedies loved ones of mine have endured. Danni’s fugue and her survivor’s guilt are details that revealed themselves once I began researching grief and its manifold incarnations, the damage it inflicts. The horrific aspects seemed integral from the first draft, but I envisioned them to be more remote, more emotionally restrained. In the immortal words of Nathan Ballingrud, “you go where it takes you,” and this one took me to far darker places than I’d bargained for.
The title of your story is apt. What made you decide to go with Lagerstatte? When did you first encounter the word?
Lagerstätte is a German word meaning “resting place.” Paleontologists use the term to describe areas that are particularly rich in intact fossil records, such as the Burgess Shale and the Le Brae Tar Pits. Lagerstatte is certainly a reference to dual aspects of the story, literal and metaphorical. And to some extent, it’s a nod to Darren Speegle’s work. European titles are one his trademarks.
What made you decide to go for psychological horror? What makes it effective in contrast to other horror tropes?
I’ve been working on a collection that features psychological horror in a major way. Even when submitting to various themed anthologies, I keep in mind how a piece will fit into a larger whole. The Lagerstatte represents what will be the core of the next book. Psychological horror is attractive to me because among other things, it introduces ambiguity. Where does reality end and the nightmare begin? If I want to unnerve a reader, I leave them to their own devices in a dark room. They’ll take that ambiguity and conjure mental images of terrors far beyond the scope of my ability.
Was the story originally intended to be horrifying or was that an element that evolved as you were writing a story for The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy?
I wrote The Lagerstätte in reaction to tragedies loved ones of mine have endured. Danni’s fugue and her survivor’s guilt are details that revealed themselves once I began researching grief and its manifold incarnations, the damage it inflicts. The horrific aspects seemed integral from the first draft, but I envisioned them to be more remote, more emotionally restrained. In the immortal words of Nathan Ballingrud, “you go where it takes you,” and this one took me to far darker places than I’d bargained for.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
John Kessel (Interview by Charles Tan)
John Kessel – “Pride and Prometheus”
What were some of the challenges in combining Jane Austen with Mary Shelley?
Yes. Though PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and FRANKENSTEIN were published within five years of one another, they are very different types of novels. Austen's book is a novel of manners, a social comedy with serious overtones written from the point of view of a witty omniscient narrator who slyly comments on the action and characters, very unobtrusively. Shelley's is a gothic romance, written by a series of unreliable first-person narrators, indulging all the excesses of emotion and description of romantic literature, but with a critical intelligence and social commentary behind the melodrama.
The two things are hard to fit together. For one thing, no one is wittier than Jane Austen, and though I could attempt her prose style, I am not in her league as a wit. I made some attempts. My story deliberately starts as close to Jane Austen as I could manage, and gradually slips into Mary Shelley style as it goes along and the sf/gothic element comes to center stage. I thought of it as FRANKENSTEIN over PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. But in the end I wanted to pull back from the gothic, too. The climax of the story comes, not with a mortal struggle on an ice floe at the north pole, but with Mary Bennet and the monster sitting at a table talking about marriage. I think of Austen and Shelley as the mothers of the modern novel of manners and of science fiction. As such, it was appropriate for a writer like me, who has been influenced by both, to try to merge them.
In your opinion, what are the strengths of the short story--or in this case, the novelette--especially in light of your writing goals for "Pride and Prometheus"?
I think this kind of pastiche can get out of hand at novel length. The game playing is not enough to sustain a novel. I wanted the story to be more than a joke, more than just a high concept; it had to be a story about real people with serious issues, as much as I could make it. The novelette form works well for me with these situations. I saw the opportunity to insert my story into the narrative of FRANKENSTEIN in the middle of chapter nineteen of that novel. By keeping it to story length, you could imagine all the events of "Pride and Prometheus" occurring between paragraphs of that chapter, after which FRANKENSTEIN moves on to the rest of its plot unaltered. That was one of my goals in writing it. To do as little violence as possible to either PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (my story takes place ten years after it ends, though I tried to make my characters recognizably the same people they were in that book) or to FRANKENSTEIN. This wasn't meant to be PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES.
As an author who's written a lot of material over the decades, does the writing experience become easier or is it more difficult as you become conscious of your own style or attempt something new?
Having written many stories, I guess I have learned a lot of craft that theoretically can help me in writing new ones. But every time I start something new I feel like I am reinventing the wheel. Often with a sense of panic. The one thing I can tell myself is, "you did this before, so the feelings of not knowing how this is going to come out ought to be familiar to you. Stop fretting."
I do try to do new things, so that helps keep me fresh. I don't want to write the same story over and over, though I think it is inevitable that a writer has certain obsessions that come out regardless of his intention. In putting together my recent collection THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, I did notice certain repetitions, and I'm wary now of doing the same things again--time to strike out in a new direction.
But I don't think the writing, for me, has become easier. Or rather, some things have become easier, but different things are still hard.
What were some of the challenges in combining Jane Austen with Mary Shelley?
Yes. Though PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and FRANKENSTEIN were published within five years of one another, they are very different types of novels. Austen's book is a novel of manners, a social comedy with serious overtones written from the point of view of a witty omniscient narrator who slyly comments on the action and characters, very unobtrusively. Shelley's is a gothic romance, written by a series of unreliable first-person narrators, indulging all the excesses of emotion and description of romantic literature, but with a critical intelligence and social commentary behind the melodrama.
The two things are hard to fit together. For one thing, no one is wittier than Jane Austen, and though I could attempt her prose style, I am not in her league as a wit. I made some attempts. My story deliberately starts as close to Jane Austen as I could manage, and gradually slips into Mary Shelley style as it goes along and the sf/gothic element comes to center stage. I thought of it as FRANKENSTEIN over PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. But in the end I wanted to pull back from the gothic, too. The climax of the story comes, not with a mortal struggle on an ice floe at the north pole, but with Mary Bennet and the monster sitting at a table talking about marriage. I think of Austen and Shelley as the mothers of the modern novel of manners and of science fiction. As such, it was appropriate for a writer like me, who has been influenced by both, to try to merge them.
In your opinion, what are the strengths of the short story--or in this case, the novelette--especially in light of your writing goals for "Pride and Prometheus"?
I think this kind of pastiche can get out of hand at novel length. The game playing is not enough to sustain a novel. I wanted the story to be more than a joke, more than just a high concept; it had to be a story about real people with serious issues, as much as I could make it. The novelette form works well for me with these situations. I saw the opportunity to insert my story into the narrative of FRANKENSTEIN in the middle of chapter nineteen of that novel. By keeping it to story length, you could imagine all the events of "Pride and Prometheus" occurring between paragraphs of that chapter, after which FRANKENSTEIN moves on to the rest of its plot unaltered. That was one of my goals in writing it. To do as little violence as possible to either PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (my story takes place ten years after it ends, though I tried to make my characters recognizably the same people they were in that book) or to FRANKENSTEIN. This wasn't meant to be PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES.
As an author who's written a lot of material over the decades, does the writing experience become easier or is it more difficult as you become conscious of your own style or attempt something new?
Having written many stories, I guess I have learned a lot of craft that theoretically can help me in writing new ones. But every time I start something new I feel like I am reinventing the wheel. Often with a sense of panic. The one thing I can tell myself is, "you did this before, so the feelings of not knowing how this is going to come out ought to be familiar to you. Stop fretting."
I do try to do new things, so that helps keep me fresh. I don't want to write the same story over and over, though I think it is inevitable that a writer has certain obsessions that come out regardless of his intention. In putting together my recent collection THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, I did notice certain repetitions, and I'm wary now of doing the same things again--time to strike out in a new direction.
But I don't think the writing, for me, has become easier. Or rather, some things have become easier, but different things are still hard.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Doug Dorst (Interview by Charles Tan)
Doug Dorst - Alive in Necropolis
What made you decide to use San Francisco as your setting?
Alive in Necropolis started out as a short story that took place in Iowa City, where I was living at the time. I got nowhere with it, though, so I put it away for a year or so, until I had moved back to San Francisco. The local newspaper ran a feature piece about Colma and its cemeteries, and I realized that that was the setting I should use for this story (which starts out with a chance discovery in a graveyard). I had lived nearly all of my adult life in the Bay Area, and I felt like I could write both passionately and confidently about it.
Since Alive in Necropolis is your first novel, what was the most challenging process? How did you overcome it?
The most challenging part of writing the novel was following the advice that many friends had given me: on the first draft, just keep going -- even if you don't know where you're going, even if you think everything you're writing is terrible, even if you'd rather do anything but sit down and face the screen. Just write and write and get to the end, without agonizing over the little stuff, because you're going to have to go back several times to revise, anyway. I have a perfectionist streak, which is useful when I'm revising but deadly when I'm trying to generate new material. I spent a ridiculous amount of time polishing my first 50 pages, and guess what that got me? Fifty shiny-brite pages, and the vast majority of a book still to write (and many people not-so-subtly clearing their throats and tapping their watches).
Another friend of mine taught me the trick of setting a timer for 20 minutes and challenging myself to write a draft of a full scene in that time. No backspacing, no fixing things, no pausing-- not even to think. I'd end up throwing away 95% of the actual text that came out during that stretch, but I'd nearly always end up with a detailed map for a scene that flowed organically, felt alive, and had something surprising in it. It's a great way to get un-stuck.
Character is important in the book. How did you get a handle on the characters and what made you settle on the Point of View you used?
Some of the characters revealed themselves immediately, and I understood them intuitively. Others took me much longer to understand, and I had to keep writing (and, in most cases, throwing out) sketches of scenes with them in order to figure them out-- not just as individuals, but also in terms of their relationships with other characters in the book.
As for point of view, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to work in limited third person. I was at first inclined to use only one viewpoint character (Mercer, the cop), but the story kept getting bigger and bigger, and I needed to be able to write scenes that he wasn't in. So I ended up using a rotating third person, which allowed the narrative to range farther afield and also get deeper into the inner worlds of more characters.
What made you decide to use San Francisco as your setting?
Alive in Necropolis started out as a short story that took place in Iowa City, where I was living at the time. I got nowhere with it, though, so I put it away for a year or so, until I had moved back to San Francisco. The local newspaper ran a feature piece about Colma and its cemeteries, and I realized that that was the setting I should use for this story (which starts out with a chance discovery in a graveyard). I had lived nearly all of my adult life in the Bay Area, and I felt like I could write both passionately and confidently about it.
Since Alive in Necropolis is your first novel, what was the most challenging process? How did you overcome it?
The most challenging part of writing the novel was following the advice that many friends had given me: on the first draft, just keep going -- even if you don't know where you're going, even if you think everything you're writing is terrible, even if you'd rather do anything but sit down and face the screen. Just write and write and get to the end, without agonizing over the little stuff, because you're going to have to go back several times to revise, anyway. I have a perfectionist streak, which is useful when I'm revising but deadly when I'm trying to generate new material. I spent a ridiculous amount of time polishing my first 50 pages, and guess what that got me? Fifty shiny-brite pages, and the vast majority of a book still to write (and many people not-so-subtly clearing their throats and tapping their watches).
Another friend of mine taught me the trick of setting a timer for 20 minutes and challenging myself to write a draft of a full scene in that time. No backspacing, no fixing things, no pausing-- not even to think. I'd end up throwing away 95% of the actual text that came out during that stretch, but I'd nearly always end up with a detailed map for a scene that flowed organically, felt alive, and had something surprising in it. It's a great way to get un-stuck.
Character is important in the book. How did you get a handle on the characters and what made you settle on the Point of View you used?
Some of the characters revealed themselves immediately, and I understood them intuitively. Others took me much longer to understand, and I had to keep writing (and, in most cases, throwing out) sketches of scenes with them in order to figure them out-- not just as individuals, but also in terms of their relationships with other characters in the book.
As for point of view, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to work in limited third person. I was at first inclined to use only one viewpoint character (Mercer, the cop), but the story kept getting bigger and bigger, and I needed to be able to write scenes that he wasn't in. So I ended up using a rotating third person, which allowed the narrative to range farther afield and also get deeper into the inner worlds of more characters.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Ann/Jeff Vandermeer (Interview by Charles Tan)
Ann VanderMeer/Jeff VanderMeer - Fast Ships, Black Sails
What spurned both of you to work on a pirate anthology? Did you pitch the concept or was it assigned to you?
A - The good folks at Nightshade asked us to do it. It sounded like a lot of fun, an all-original pirate anthology. We were excited to do it.
J - In addition to the fun aspect, I wanted, following on the New Weird antho, to show that we could also deliver a satisfying traditional good-old-adventure-and-excitement kind of anthology. Thing is, we usually focus on the more surreal stuff because no one's really doing that. But we both love more traditional fiction, too. So in a way we got to satisfy another part of our reading experience with this opportunity. I'd like to do more in this vein, in addition to the more cutting edge stuff.
You mentioned in the introduction that there were some stories that surprised you. Did the fact that you were open to submission for the anthology affect that result or is it more due to the diversity of the subject matter?
A - Having an open reading period is what made all the difference. It allowed us to discover other writers we might not have read before. In addition, I have published some of those writers in Weird Tales, too! So the surprises were delightful ones. I understand the appeal of doing anthologies purely by invitation only, but in doing so you run the risk of all anthologies being exactly the same, with the same writers. Pirates is also a broad theme and we were determined to create a book that showed diversity.
J - We picked about half the stories from the open reading period. Kelly Barnhill's story is amazing, for example. We wouldn't have seen that one otherwise. Even writers we rejected, like Jonathan Wood, wound up getting into Weird Tales because of the open reading period. And Jonathan Wood went on to become a good friend, in part because of that. There's a guy who is going to hit the big time soon. So you also keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on out there by reading slush. Whenever possible, we're committed to that process. We make money on anthologies, but we don't edit anthologies to make money, if that makes sense. I mean, we can do a four-hour workshop and make more than you usually get from anthos, so you have to edit for the love. The Conrad Williams story up for a Jackson Award (which cracks us up, since our cat is named Jackson) was, I believe, by invitation, though. We just thought Conrad would create something mysterious and bloody and weird. He's such a great writer--totally underrated no matter how much praise he gets.
What were your criteria in selecting stories for the antho?
A - Well-written, unusual and unique - first. Then we make sure that the stories work well together. We wanted to make sure that each story was completely different from all the rest. That's why you'll see a traditional adventure story next to a horror story next to a humor story.
J - Yeah, but we also did want to work off of a more traditional model, and some of our favorite writers who are known for being more off-beat delivered in that sense--like Rhys Hughes, whose story is hilarious. We must have done something right, since stories were taken for several year's bests and they continue to be up for various awards. It's very satisfying.
What spurned both of you to work on a pirate anthology? Did you pitch the concept or was it assigned to you?
A - The good folks at Nightshade asked us to do it. It sounded like a lot of fun, an all-original pirate anthology. We were excited to do it.
J - In addition to the fun aspect, I wanted, following on the New Weird antho, to show that we could also deliver a satisfying traditional good-old-adventure-and-excitement kind of anthology. Thing is, we usually focus on the more surreal stuff because no one's really doing that. But we both love more traditional fiction, too. So in a way we got to satisfy another part of our reading experience with this opportunity. I'd like to do more in this vein, in addition to the more cutting edge stuff.
You mentioned in the introduction that there were some stories that surprised you. Did the fact that you were open to submission for the anthology affect that result or is it more due to the diversity of the subject matter?
A - Having an open reading period is what made all the difference. It allowed us to discover other writers we might not have read before. In addition, I have published some of those writers in Weird Tales, too! So the surprises were delightful ones. I understand the appeal of doing anthologies purely by invitation only, but in doing so you run the risk of all anthologies being exactly the same, with the same writers. Pirates is also a broad theme and we were determined to create a book that showed diversity.
J - We picked about half the stories from the open reading period. Kelly Barnhill's story is amazing, for example. We wouldn't have seen that one otherwise. Even writers we rejected, like Jonathan Wood, wound up getting into Weird Tales because of the open reading period. And Jonathan Wood went on to become a good friend, in part because of that. There's a guy who is going to hit the big time soon. So you also keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on out there by reading slush. Whenever possible, we're committed to that process. We make money on anthologies, but we don't edit anthologies to make money, if that makes sense. I mean, we can do a four-hour workshop and make more than you usually get from anthos, so you have to edit for the love. The Conrad Williams story up for a Jackson Award (which cracks us up, since our cat is named Jackson) was, I believe, by invitation, though. We just thought Conrad would create something mysterious and bloody and weird. He's such a great writer--totally underrated no matter how much praise he gets.
What were your criteria in selecting stories for the antho?
A - Well-written, unusual and unique - first. Then we make sure that the stories work well together. We wanted to make sure that each story was completely different from all the rest. That's why you'll see a traditional adventure story next to a horror story next to a humor story.
J - Yeah, but we also did want to work off of a more traditional model, and some of our favorite writers who are known for being more off-beat delivered in that sense--like Rhys Hughes, whose story is hilarious. We must have done something right, since stories were taken for several year's bests and they continue to be up for various awards. It's very satisfying.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Daryl Gregory (Inteview by Charles Tan)
Daryl Gregory - Pandemonium
You're highly-praised for your short fiction. Was it a difficult transition, progressing from writing short stories to a novel? What was the most challenging aspect?
I don't think I've "progressed" from one form to the next, because I'm still trying to figure out how to write short stories, and I'm certainly still struggling with novels! Also, my messy chronology doesn't follow an ascent-to-novels arc. I first published a few short stories in the early 90's, disappeared for ten years while I worked full time, helped raise babies, and slowly pecked out a sprawling, unsellable SF novel. Then I went back to short stories, and realized that the novel-writing process -- and ten years of life, I suppose -- had helped me figure out some things about how to write short fiction. Only then did I start on Pandemonium.
One of the things I had to learn about novels was that even though they gave me so many more pages to play with, they still had to be focused, and I was going to have to leave out much more than I put in. I know that sounds dead obvious, but I went into my first novel with the naive idea that I'd have room to dump every interesting thought I'd have during the course of the writing. That went about as well as you'd expect it to.
I can be a little looser than I am in a short story -- there's room, for example, to tell several characters' stories and show how they intersect -- but everything has to serve the aims of the book. Still, at the end of a first draft of a book, I'm always disappointed by how many ideas didn't make it from my notebooks to the final page.
What is it about the novel format that you couldn't accomplish with the short story, especially in light of the "dark fantastic"?
Even though I learned that I couldn't put everything into a novel, I did enjoy the broader range of effects that are possible. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was being able to shift tone and voice over the course of the work. In the limited space of a short story, I usually take a very Poe-ish policy about unity of effect. I can shift mood at the end if I bring the readers with me, but that's about it.
In Pandemonium, however, I could skate back and forth across that line between light and dark, especially in regard to the horror elements. My first person narrator helped me out here. His first response to terrible events is irony, banter, emotional distance -- but then the irony becomes untenable, banter fails, and he can't keep his distance. I wanted to have that same effect on the readers. My, isn't this amusing! Then hit them with a blind-side tackle.
In your novel, you draw inspiration from various sources. What is it about mash-ups that appeal to you as a writer and as a reader?
Mash-ups are a form of play. When they're done well, by writers such as Kim Newman and Philip José Farmer, and Alan Moore, they're just fun in a way that's hard to define. Maybe it's because mash-ups are an expression of how our minds work. Each of us has a personal collection of pop-cultural fragments floating loose in the brain, and when they slam together in the right way, old familiar things seem fresh and strange. So, one way to consider this book is as a graph of Daryl's Head. Captain America occupies a point just north of Casey Jones, and Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick are next door neighbors. I gave myself permission to include all these references because the idea of the mash-up is one of the themes of the book -- Pandemonium is about a man literally constructing an identity out of all the stories he's read and heard from his family.
That said, pop cultural references or literary allusions are no substitute for character, or story. My rule was that the book had to pass the Thelma test, named after my mom, who's never read a superhero comic or an SF book (except mine, of course). If the reader catches the allusion, then that's a nice Easter egg, but the story has to make sense, and be engaging, on its own terms.
You're highly-praised for your short fiction. Was it a difficult transition, progressing from writing short stories to a novel? What was the most challenging aspect?
I don't think I've "progressed" from one form to the next, because I'm still trying to figure out how to write short stories, and I'm certainly still struggling with novels! Also, my messy chronology doesn't follow an ascent-to-novels arc. I first published a few short stories in the early 90's, disappeared for ten years while I worked full time, helped raise babies, and slowly pecked out a sprawling, unsellable SF novel. Then I went back to short stories, and realized that the novel-writing process -- and ten years of life, I suppose -- had helped me figure out some things about how to write short fiction. Only then did I start on Pandemonium.
One of the things I had to learn about novels was that even though they gave me so many more pages to play with, they still had to be focused, and I was going to have to leave out much more than I put in. I know that sounds dead obvious, but I went into my first novel with the naive idea that I'd have room to dump every interesting thought I'd have during the course of the writing. That went about as well as you'd expect it to.
I can be a little looser than I am in a short story -- there's room, for example, to tell several characters' stories and show how they intersect -- but everything has to serve the aims of the book. Still, at the end of a first draft of a book, I'm always disappointed by how many ideas didn't make it from my notebooks to the final page.
What is it about the novel format that you couldn't accomplish with the short story, especially in light of the "dark fantastic"?
Even though I learned that I couldn't put everything into a novel, I did enjoy the broader range of effects that are possible. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was being able to shift tone and voice over the course of the work. In the limited space of a short story, I usually take a very Poe-ish policy about unity of effect. I can shift mood at the end if I bring the readers with me, but that's about it.
In Pandemonium, however, I could skate back and forth across that line between light and dark, especially in regard to the horror elements. My first person narrator helped me out here. His first response to terrible events is irony, banter, emotional distance -- but then the irony becomes untenable, banter fails, and he can't keep his distance. I wanted to have that same effect on the readers. My, isn't this amusing! Then hit them with a blind-side tackle.
In your novel, you draw inspiration from various sources. What is it about mash-ups that appeal to you as a writer and as a reader?
Mash-ups are a form of play. When they're done well, by writers such as Kim Newman and Philip José Farmer, and Alan Moore, they're just fun in a way that's hard to define. Maybe it's because mash-ups are an expression of how our minds work. Each of us has a personal collection of pop-cultural fragments floating loose in the brain, and when they slam together in the right way, old familiar things seem fresh and strange. So, one way to consider this book is as a graph of Daryl's Head. Captain America occupies a point just north of Casey Jones, and Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick are next door neighbors. I gave myself permission to include all these references because the idea of the mash-up is one of the themes of the book -- Pandemonium is about a man literally constructing an identity out of all the stories he's read and heard from his family.
That said, pop cultural references or literary allusions are no substitute for character, or story. My rule was that the book had to pass the Thelma test, named after my mom, who's never read a superhero comic or an SF book (except mine, of course). If the reader catches the allusion, then that's a nice Easter egg, but the story has to make sense, and be engaging, on its own terms.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Ra Page (Inteview with Charles Tan)
Ra Page – The New Uncanny
What made you decide to collaborate on this anthology together and what was it like working with each other?
As an editor, I've always been interested in crossovers been scientific thinking and literature; my own background is in physics, and my father is a psychologist. Sarah, on the other hand is an artist and photographer, whose work has often delved into uncanny subjects and processes: unnatural interventions, dislocated spaces, foreign bodies. When it comes to re-evaluating Freud and the uncanny, the visual arts have been ahead of the curve for a while now: so when Sarah first showed me Freud's original essay, it was like a discovering Constantinople, a meeting point between two different continents of thought, a bridge for science to enter art, and vice versa.
As such, the editorial collaboration was perfect - an artist and a scientifically minded editor working together - it reflected the interchange going on in the essay itself.
My job was to champion the essay and break it down (if necessary) for the less science-friendly writers. Sarah's was to use her instincts in culling, cutting and tweaking those responses that didn't pass muster, as soon as any they came in. She can tell instantly if a story isn't working, while I have to work out why it isn't, before I can even decide that it isn't. So she works a bit quicker than me!
What is it about the short story medium that appeals to you and to Comma Press?
Oh everything. How long have we got?
First and foremost I think the short story is playful as a form. It encourages the writer to experiment and make something new of the story-shape, and it kind of winks and nods at the reader, too, allowing us to enjoy the fact that we're being, or we're about to be, messed with. It's a teasing form, and it's capable of projecting patterns outwards that are revelatory and wondrous, patterns and epiphanies that are almost impossibly clear. With a novel, it's different ball game - novels are all about detail, context and the wider texture of the characters' histories and backstories, interlocking and moving ever-forwards. With short stories, the image you get is only there for a split-second, but like a flash it burns its shape on the retina in the darkness left after the last line.
Nadine Gordimer has this great argument about the short story. She says, in life truth doesn't come with a capital T, and it doesn't accumulate and build up and up towards a singular monumental viewpoint at the end. Instead it's fragmentary, it's discrete, it hits us in flashes and leaves us ignorant as quickly it arrives, ignorant until our next, contradictory moment of insight. The short story, she says, is better equipped for this fragmented reality (unlike the novel which builds and builds over time), the short story's insights are clear and singular, and only last as long as they do because they're incompatible with any other story, or any other wider 'Truth'. It's like the particle theory of truth vs. the wave theory. We, at Comma, think it's a particle; we're all about the particle.
What was your criteria in selecting the contributors and the stories for the anthology?
Firstly, we wanted to get a spread of authors from different backgrounds; there's filmwriters and TV comedy writers in there, as well as masters of dark fiction and 'literary' big hitters. We wanted to show Ramsey Campbell, for instance, can easily hold his own against some of the best literary writers on the block - as there's a lot of snobbery out there towards 'dark fiction'. A S Byatt was the first author to get on board and, to be honest, her support for Comma has kept us going, one way or another, over the last couple of years. She's been like a fairy godmother to us. Once she was on board with this book it was all systems go.
Our main criteria in selecting stories was to only go for those that freshened things up. The task was to update the examples of uncanny archetypes that Freud talks about, to come up with genuinely new manifestations of them, and thus extend the canon. So we were looking for stories that would both slot into place and push the envelop, stories that respected the greats of the horror tradition and, at the same time, cleared the decks for something new. As a result it's quite interesting to see AS Byatt's 'Dolls Eyes' (which is classic Freud sprinkled with Rilke), alongside Adam Marek's 'Tamagotchi' and Frank Cottrell Boyce's 'Continuous Manipulation' (about the computer game, The Sims). They're all about essentially the same thing: life-imitating playthings. It's Michael Redgrave and the ventriloquist's dummy from Dead of Night all over again... but as you'd least expect it.
What made you decide to collaborate on this anthology together and what was it like working with each other?
As an editor, I've always been interested in crossovers been scientific thinking and literature; my own background is in physics, and my father is a psychologist. Sarah, on the other hand is an artist and photographer, whose work has often delved into uncanny subjects and processes: unnatural interventions, dislocated spaces, foreign bodies. When it comes to re-evaluating Freud and the uncanny, the visual arts have been ahead of the curve for a while now: so when Sarah first showed me Freud's original essay, it was like a discovering Constantinople, a meeting point between two different continents of thought, a bridge for science to enter art, and vice versa.
As such, the editorial collaboration was perfect - an artist and a scientifically minded editor working together - it reflected the interchange going on in the essay itself.
My job was to champion the essay and break it down (if necessary) for the less science-friendly writers. Sarah's was to use her instincts in culling, cutting and tweaking those responses that didn't pass muster, as soon as any they came in. She can tell instantly if a story isn't working, while I have to work out why it isn't, before I can even decide that it isn't. So she works a bit quicker than me!
What is it about the short story medium that appeals to you and to Comma Press?
Oh everything. How long have we got?
First and foremost I think the short story is playful as a form. It encourages the writer to experiment and make something new of the story-shape, and it kind of winks and nods at the reader, too, allowing us to enjoy the fact that we're being, or we're about to be, messed with. It's a teasing form, and it's capable of projecting patterns outwards that are revelatory and wondrous, patterns and epiphanies that are almost impossibly clear. With a novel, it's different ball game - novels are all about detail, context and the wider texture of the characters' histories and backstories, interlocking and moving ever-forwards. With short stories, the image you get is only there for a split-second, but like a flash it burns its shape on the retina in the darkness left after the last line.
Nadine Gordimer has this great argument about the short story. She says, in life truth doesn't come with a capital T, and it doesn't accumulate and build up and up towards a singular monumental viewpoint at the end. Instead it's fragmentary, it's discrete, it hits us in flashes and leaves us ignorant as quickly it arrives, ignorant until our next, contradictory moment of insight. The short story, she says, is better equipped for this fragmented reality (unlike the novel which builds and builds over time), the short story's insights are clear and singular, and only last as long as they do because they're incompatible with any other story, or any other wider 'Truth'. It's like the particle theory of truth vs. the wave theory. We, at Comma, think it's a particle; we're all about the particle.
What was your criteria in selecting the contributors and the stories for the anthology?
Firstly, we wanted to get a spread of authors from different backgrounds; there's filmwriters and TV comedy writers in there, as well as masters of dark fiction and 'literary' big hitters. We wanted to show Ramsey Campbell, for instance, can easily hold his own against some of the best literary writers on the block - as there's a lot of snobbery out there towards 'dark fiction'. A S Byatt was the first author to get on board and, to be honest, her support for Comma has kept us going, one way or another, over the last couple of years. She's been like a fairy godmother to us. Once she was on board with this book it was all systems go.
Our main criteria in selecting stories was to only go for those that freshened things up. The task was to update the examples of uncanny archetypes that Freud talks about, to come up with genuinely new manifestations of them, and thus extend the canon. So we were looking for stories that would both slot into place and push the envelop, stories that respected the greats of the horror tradition and, at the same time, cleared the decks for something new. As a result it's quite interesting to see AS Byatt's 'Dolls Eyes' (which is classic Freud sprinkled with Rilke), alongside Adam Marek's 'Tamagotchi' and Frank Cottrell Boyce's 'Continuous Manipulation' (about the computer game, The Sims). They're all about essentially the same thing: life-imitating playthings. It's Michael Redgrave and the ventriloquist's dummy from Dead of Night all over again... but as you'd least expect it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
