Kill Shakespeare #4

The brains behind "Kill Shakespeare" continue their winning streak.  Obviously, these issues are selling out, and Conor and Anthony are creating quite the name for themselves. 

Issue #4 comes out next week - Wednesday, August 4th - and I implore you to pick it up.  If you're not a fan of comic books, I say to you thusly: It's Shakespeare, not X-Men.  If you say that you simply cannot find them at your local comic book store, I say: Demand them, as the Cheerios doth demand the nectar of the cows.  If you're saying that you've read them and you don't like them, well: Don't be an onion-eyed ninny, rather use your mischief and procure them for an enemy.  Then the joke's on them.

I've read the latest issue, readers.  Juliet and Othello are joining Hamlet and Falstaff, and it's really fleshing out nicely.  This is only the fourth issue, but this unique concept gets deeper as it goes.  By this particular issue, you're seeing the boys flirt with creative genius to wonderous results.  Do yourself a favor and demand your copy today.

The Authors Speak: Matt Ruff

The

I have gone through life chatting books with many a person, and just about every fifth one references “Fool on the Hill” as one of their favorites. That’s no surprise – it’s very enjoyable, and it happens to be in my top ten fiction list.

Matt Ruff is an exceptional writer. Not transcendent, mind you (which is a compliment). If this makes any sense at all, he’s as great as he needs to be and not a bit more or less. It’s disgusting how talented a writer Matt is. That was supposed to be my job.

I read “Sewer, Gas, and Electric” first; that was my intro to Mr. Ruff’s work. After falling head over heels in love with it (and him), I went back and read “Fool on the Hill”. Yes, it was as good as people claimed it to be. But where were the other books by Matt? Only two novels? That was a real bummer.

There was a bit of time that passed between his second novel and his third. “Set This House In Order” was released and, chomping at the bit, I devoured it. That was when my brain exploded a little. That was when my mind opened to how truly thrilling this author was.

You see, the genius of Matt Ruff (and, no doubt, the reason it takes a little time between reads) is that he takes each novel and writes it in a different genre, mood, style, humor. It’s weird and brilliant. And, in that regard, it prevents Matt from being compared to any other author, or associated with one particular style. Christopher Moore has a certain style. Carl Hiaasen has a very specific pattern and language. Matt Ruff is a chameleon.

“Bad Monkeys” is the book that’s been on the tongues of many a person here lately. I read it and adored it (no surprise there, with this over-egregious love letter to Matt). So what’s the next project? Well, I was eager to find out. I was – and still am – eternally grateful that Matt agreed to answer a few questions. We chat “Amusing Black Men”, an alternate 9/11, and some very, very cool upcoming projects.

Eric Mays: Thank you, Matt, for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview. You know what impressed me the most about you, Matt? It's the story of your "Amusing Black Men" (the basis for the Electric Negroes). In fact, you're the only person who, I believe, knows exactly how many Amusing Black Men are in the movie "Die Hard". Tell us a little about this revelation.

Matt Ruff: I was a huge Die Hard fan back in the day. As the film that established the “right man in the wrong place” action-movie subgenre, I think it’s still got a lot to recommend it. But because I was also a huge fan of Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, I couldn’t help noticing that Die Hard had an usually high number of what I call Amusing Black Men—comical, stereotyped supporting characters played by African-Americans.


My read on what was going on there is that the producers of Die Hard were making a good-faith effort at diversity, given the constraint that the lead hero and villain roles were already taken by white men (Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, respectively). And in terms of giving paying gigs to black actors, I think they did a decent job. But in terms of giving those actors satisfying roles to play, I think what they mainly achieved was to demonstrate the difference between quantity and quality.

EM: Some would say that this is racist. I don't agree. I've talked about the "Magical Negroes" in cinema for a time (you know, your Bagger Vances, Morgan Freeman, and that guy from "The Green Mile"). Oh, and I totally agree with your theory regarding black female judges. To them, what do you say, sir?

MR: For those aren’t familiar with it, my theory, which may have been truer in the ‘80s and ‘90s than it is today, is that if a movie has a judge in it, that role is very likely to go to a black woman. The reason is that it’s an easy affirmative action nod. It’s a twofer—Look! We cast a woman and a person of color! In a position of authority!—but at the same time it doesn’t require any extra effort on the part of the screenwriters. All movie judges are pretty much the same, and since you never see them outside work you don’t have to imagine a home life for them, or even a complete personality—just a couple of good one-liners. They’re low-maintenance characters.


As for whether Amusing Black Men and Magical Negroes are racist: sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. It depends on the execution. But instead of asking, “Am I being racist?”, I think a better question for novelists and filmmakers to keep in mind is “Am I being lazy?” Even patently offensive stereotypes can have their place in a story, but when the angry emails start flooding your inbox, you’re going to want a better justification than “I didn’t feel like working too hard.”

EM: Sorry to jump on that tangent first. I've been waiting a long time to ask that question, Matt. I was actually introduced to you through Sewer, Gas and Electric, then read Fool on the Hill. Each of your books is in a completely different style, tone, genre, it seems. What's your favorite of all of your works?


MR: I’d have to say Set This House in Order. I think it’s my personal best in terms of storytelling achievement, as well as my first fully mature work. I’m very fond of Bad Monkeys, too, but that was a smaller and less ambitious novel, and a lot easier to write.

EM: If I read correctly, you had some pretty remarkable professors at Cornell. Moment of Truth: Who was your favorite?


MR: There were two. The professor who I was closest to, and who did the most for me in terms of mentoring, was a guy named Bob Farrell. He was both an English teacher and a medieval archeologist—which is to say, a huge Lord of the Rings fanboy—and he served as my senior thesis advisor.


The other was Alison Lurie, to whom I am forever indebted for introducing me to her literary agent, the fantastic Melanie Jackson. Melanie took my senior thesis—the manuscript for Fool on the Hill—and sold it to Atlantic Monthly Press just six months after I graduated.

EM: "Fool on the Hill" was your first book. You've got to have the one of the coolest writer tales on the globe - writer writes masterwork for thesis, it's published and he's an instant success!

MR: Fool on the Hill’s path to publication was very smooth—thanks, again, to Alison and Melanie—but as far as “instant success” goes, there are a couple of major qualifications to that. The first is that I decided to become a novelist when I was five years old, so by the time I got Fool on the Hill published at 22, I’d been writing for almost two decades. The second is that while Fool did find a devoted audience—the fact that it’s been in print since 1988 is a testament to that—it never became a bestseller and certainly didn’t make me rich.

EM: Because you write in very different styles and tones, Matt, how do you keep from going slightly bi-polar?


MR: By only writing one novel at a time and by writing very slowly. It’s not as if I’m constantly switching between styles—just the opposite, I spend years honing one style, for one particular story, so by the time I’m done I’m more than ready to try something new.

EM: Speaking of mental illnesses, how much research did you do for "Set This House in Order" on multiple personalities?


MR: Not nearly as much as people generally suppose. I was interested in multiple personality disorder long before I started working on the novel, so a lot of my research consisted of rereading biographies and case studies I already had copies of. But a lot of it was just empathy—once I’d figured out the ground rules of how Andrew and Penny’s “households” worked, I put myself in their places and let my imagination do the rest.

EM: I hear your upcoming work is an alternate history, yeah?


MR: Yeah. It’s called The Mirage, and it’s a 9/11 novel, but a 9/11 novel set in a different universe. Bruce Willis will not be playing the lead in the film adaptation.

EM: Now, "The Mirage" was being pitched as a television show for Fox, right? But they thought it was too controversial (Fox? No way!). First the Amusing Black Men and now this? You really like to push the envelope (joking).


MR: Something my wife pointed out to me a while ago is that when I praise a book or a movie I really like, I’ll often start by mentioning all the ways the story could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t. I do like risky story ideas, the kind of thing where when you hear the premise, you think, “Well, if that works, it’ll be great, but if it doesn’t, it’ll be really, really awful and embarrassing.” I enjoy a challenge, and the thrill of apprehension that comes from the chance of catastrophic failure. It keeps me from getting lazy.

If you’ve never read Ruff, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Please, please, please, pick up a copy of any of his books. All of them are amazing. Also, stroll by his website, http://www.bymattruff.com/, for more amusing essays (similar to the Amusing Black Man theory). I highly recommend Sewer, Gas, and Electric or Bad Monkeys for summer beach reading (a term I hate, but at least you know what I’m referring to) and Set this House in Order for a more intense, stay in bed sort of read.

The next few weeks are going to be big. Next week we’ll sit down with YA bestselling author AND #1 bestselling crime author, Ridley Pearson. Ridley and I chat about Dave Barry, the Rockbottom Remainders, ponies, and Walt Fleming. Then the following week is a smorgasbord of fun: The Authors Speak: The Good, the Funny, and the Stinky of Horror. We’ll welcome Michael Laimo, Mark McLaughlin, and Jason Wuchenich to the table.

Until then, keep reading.

The Spotlight: Inception's Script. Worst Script Ever? Or Genius?

One of the biggest pet peeves that I have in film, literature, or song, is that ending where the reader/viewer discovers that it was all a dream. Really? Thank you very much. I just invested my emotions in something that wasn’t real. It’s all pointless and one of the biggest cop-out devices around. It’s just loathsome.


Now, The Authors Speak rarely discuss film, but “Inception” is a rare case. Every so often a script needs to be reviewed, and that’s what this is. A review – or a criticism – of a script.

“Inception” is a conundrum of a film. On one hand it’s everything that a summer popcorn muncher should be: eye-popping visuals, insane action sequences, and some heavy suspension of disbelief. Christopher Nolan delivers the goods, no bones about it. However, like most summer movies (and unlike some of his previous films), Nolan gives us another element to the summer movie: awful script.

I’m being very hypercritical, I suppose. It’s a very engaging story. The dialogue is solid. The set-up is really intricate and awesome at the core. These are the makings of an outstanding script. And that outstanding script remains outstanding for exactly half the film. Then the payoffs in the final part of the second act and all of the third act are pointless. I’ve not seen that kind of inconsistency in a film.

I’m not going to spoil the film if you’ve not seen it. It’s certainly worth a viewing in all its big screen glory. I’ll basically say that it involves dreams. Well, when you begin a movie with that sort of premise, you’re actually setting it up to have those “cop-out” moments. The film sets up a very “heist” feel to it. This is a good thing. I was invested all the way through the introduction of Cillian Murphy’s character. After about an hour and ten minutes, though, I had a realization: what the hell is going on. All the things I’d invested in were no longer important. Now it was all about the dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a (possible) dream. The dreamscapes were marvelous to look at. Gorgeous! Stunning! And when you’re in a dreamscape there’s a little danger lurking (the actual possibility of being caught in a persistent vegetative state in reality) there’s really nothing more than a series of anticlimactic events. Not to mention the fact that all of a sudden a masterful story is really not all that important.

Maybe I’m missing something. This is not an indictment of the film. I truly loved it. I did. I just had issues with the writing. But looking back, Nolan’s other films could have suffered a similar fate. “Memento” very easily could have fallen apart had the script not been better. Actually, at it’s core, the story is pretty basic. Though the short-term memory loss makes it shine. “Insomnia” nearly suffered from being bogged down with dialogue. “The Prestige” gets in its own way at points. And the “Dark Knight”…well, that may be Nolan’s best directed script, thus far.

If you’ve seen it, please share your thoughts with me. I’m not the end all be all. I want to hear arguments pro and con for this film’s script. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll post them here.

Speaking of movies, Matt Ruff will join us tomorrow on the Authors Speak.  Wait!  What the heck does Matt Ruff have to do with movies?  Well, if you've read essays (or his books, specifically "Sewer, Gas, and Electric") by Matt, you'll know he has a theroy on "Amusing Black Characters".  We'll get to the bottom of that tomorrow. 

Until then, email us your thoughts on Inception's script and keep reading.

Book Review: A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene

Brian Keene is on top of the horror genre right now, no bones about it.  Even Joe Lansdale, in our interview, referenced Keene as one of the current best in the genre right now.  Got to tell you, I'm excited to hang with the man at the annual Horrorfind convention in September. 

I met Brian Keene at the first Horrorfind in 2001, before "The Rising" and "City of the Dead".  It was cool listening to the man, and hearing him read you just knew he would be a force to be reckoned with.  And he was that.  The Rising and City of the Dead put the zombie genre in high-octane (probably the reason we're bombarded with zombie lit from all corners today).  When he released "The Conqueror Worms", though, I pretty much took Keene from my fluff category to my favorite authors category.  The Conqueror Worms probably remains my favorite of his.

But something changed.  I'm not sure what.  After The Conqueror Worms, I was sort of a hit-or-miss Keene reader.  I never liked "Ghoul", but loved "Dead Sea" (zombies on a boat, hell yes).  "Dark Hollow" and "Ghost Walk" were fair, but still lacked that insanity that I loved so much.  I'm one of the few who loved "Castaways", but felt like "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Urban Gothic" were just kind of blah.  I've re-read them several times, and my opinion wasn't as bad as it was initially, but still, they're not classic Keene.  (Granted, I'm just referencing Keene's Leisure Fiction paperbacks.  To really grab the good, solid, Keene get your hands on some of the limited run stuff.  That still maintains the goods.)

I was hopeful that "A Gathering of Crows" would show me some glimmer of the Keene of old.  I'm pleased to say it does.  It's not a shining ray, but the sparkle is still there.

The premise is not unusual: Brinkley Springs, West Virginia is a little podunk town being ravaged by something.  The something is unique: A murder of crows, who shift into murderous beings who brutally murder and steal the souls of the dead.  Toss in Levi Stolzfus (the Amish powwow magus), some very brutal action, and Keene's ear for dialogue, and you've got the makings of a solid horror story.

What's good: All that I mentioned above is great.  The story is engaging enough, as there is the question of what or who these murderous beings are running throughout the book.  It wasn't until near the end that those pieces fell into place.  Keene's mythos is running strong here, too: the Elder gods, The Thirteen, and loads more mythology.  Also, there are some interesting ideas that play into the long lost colony of Roanoake, which I found the most interesting.  I wished he'd explore that more.

The other good thing is that the reader has no idea who will die or live, as is the case with most books.  Keene breaks these rules from the get-go, and the results are shocking.

What's not-so-good: I love the frenetic action that Keene has here, but it almost happens too fast.  Most of you would say that that isn't a bad thing.  It's not.  The intensity definitely grabs you from page 5 and keeps its grip throughout.  The problem with this is that we've not been introduced to too many characters at that point.  Therefore, as we get the introductions, the reader must revisit the same scene several times.  Another problem this presents is the introductions of characters that die within three pages.  It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but it does stall the pacing a little and forces the reader to endure that same sequence of events like a macabre "Groundhog Day".

Final Verdict?  Pick it up!  Despite the flaws, it's a far better read than "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and right up there with "Urban Gothic".  Plus, you can't beat the price point of these Leisure Fiction books.  And if you've got other books featuring Levi, this is the best showcase of him thus far.

For those that have never read Keene, here's my ranking of Keene's Leisure fiction books (which are probably the most accessible):
1.   The Conqueror Worms
2.   The Rising
3.   City Of The Dead
4.   Dark Hollow
5.   Dead Sea
6.   Castaways (Leisure Fiction)
7.   A Gathering of Crows
8.   Urban Gothic
9.   Ghost Walk (Leisure Fiction)
10. Ghoul
11. Darkness on the Edge of Town

UPDATE: GIANT MONSTER WEEK
A few weeks ago we embraced the giant monsters that we all love and adore.  Godzilla, no surprise, was discussed at great length with authors Jeff Burk, James Morrow, Stephen Mark Rainey, and Garrett Cook.  Well, now, courtesy of attendees at San Diego Comic Con, we learn that there is indeed a new American Godzilla movie set to release in 2012 (hopefully this is not one of the tell-tale signs of the Mayan calendar).  Supposedly this will not bear any resemblence to the treacherous Emmerich/Devlin creation with Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria.  Here's the image of the new Americanized Godzilla.  Thoughts?

The Authors Speak: Kelley Armstrong

Once again I must say how much I love this subgenre of fiction.  We've chatted with Marjorie M. Liu and S.M. DeSilva, but today I'm honored to have one of the heavy-hitters of the genre with us.  Kelley Armstrong has a huge fanbase, an enormous following, and is consistently good.  Sometimes with a series, the longer it goes on, the more watered down it becomes.  This is not the case with the Otherworld series.

Kelley Armstrong wisely switches narrarator protagonists and storylines, which keeps everything fresh and new.  Next week "Waking the Witch" will be released, and in my humble opinion it's one of the best ones that Kelley's written.  I love the new character, and the voice just comes out right.  It's also a great introduction to the series if you've not read any of the Otherworld books.  In fact her website has been revamped, and if you're not familiar with her, stroll over to http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/.

I was honored to get the chance to ask a few questions.  Kelley is one of the strongest writers in the genre and I really wanted to pick her brain regarding the fascination with this genre, her mystery novels, and young adult fiction.  I also got a chance to ask about those campy '60s crossovers that I love so dearly.

Eric Mays: Thanks, Kelley, for joining us. I want to start where it all began (typically a good place). "Bitten". I read it, believe it or not. I liked it. You seemed to have your finger on the pulse that this sort of sub-genre was going to be huge. You sold Bitten in '99. At that time, Charlaine Harris was still known as a mystery writer; Kim Harrison was 5 years from publishing her first book; and Stephanie Meyer had not yet emerged on the scene. How does it feel to help pioneer the field?

Kelley Armstrong: It was odd, because in my early writing years, I chased markets, trying to get a foot in the door. In the meantime, I worked on Bitten, which I was sure had no market, but I loved the story. Not surprisingly, that’s the one that sold, because it was where my passion was. But I worried it wouldn’t find an audience. Then after it sold, I discovered Laurell K Hamilton was already doing something similar, and after Bitten came out, I learned about Charlaine’s series and Jim Butcher’s series. So I actually was tapping into a market—one that was being created just in time for my books to slide into it. It was an incredible stroke of timing!

EM: In your Otherworld books - which really are great - you've got several strong protagonists. Paige, Elena, Eve. Which is your favorite? I'm sure all of them possess little bits and pieces of you.

KA: I don't have a favorite, but some are easier to write than others. Elena is the easiest because I've written the most from her point of view. They all have a trait or two in common with me, though. That just makes them easier to write. Elena is my age and grew up in my geographic area. Paige and I share a common interest in computers. Eve and I both have daughters around the same age.

EM: Now, besides the Otherworld books, you've dabbled, now, in crime fiction. Nadia Stafford is a new strong character on the scene. Between paranormal fiction/urban fantasy, crime fiction, and young adult, what is your personal favorite genre to write in?

KA: All three series provide something different for me as a writer. And that’s really what I need—variety, both between series and within the series itself. As much as I love Elena, I’d have burned out very quickly writing non-stop books with her as the narrator!

EM: Going back to Otherworld, it seems that this sub-genre of paranormal fiction is dominated by female writers. You do get the occasional male (Jim Butcher, Simon Green), but you've got to admit it's pretty estrogen-skewed. Are women better at writing this sort of fiction?

KA: I think one big reason for the skew is the audience. It’s primarily female, and while most women seem quite willing to read a male novelist writing from a male point of view, this subgenre seems to have naturally gravitated to the point of view of the main audience (women) which usually means a female author (though not always!) For that audience, too, romantic subplots are a plus, something you don’t always find with male writers.

EM: If one of your protagonists from the Otherworld series could do one of those campy 60's crossover episodes, what books or shows would you want to see her in? And who would it be? (and, yes, you're welcome for the complete non-sequitar)

KA: For sheer fun, I’d pick an Anne Rice cross-over. I did a subplot in Industrial Magic with vampires who’d rather be in an Anne Rice novel, and it was a lot of fun. I love Rice’s work—she was a huge influence on me—but our worlds really don’t mesh well, and I suspect our characters wouldn’t either.

EM: "Waking the Witch" is upcoming. For those that have not cracked an Otherworld book, why should they do so now?

KA: “Waking the Witch” is a very easy entry point into the series. It might be book eleven, but it’s the first time for this narrator, and the setting and most characters are new. It’s also my youngest narrator (she’s 21 and about to conduct her first investigation) so it’s also a good entry point for older teens coming from my young adult series.

EM: You're Canadian (which I love, since Canada was very kind to my book, "Naked Metamorphosis", where as America was not so great). Maybe it's just a façade, but it seems that Canada isn't facing quite as much of an illiterate crisis as we are in the US. Does the rise of illiteracy concern you?

KA: It does, both in basic literacy and general literacy. I’ve met too many college professors with horror stories of kids graduating high school without basic reading and writing skills. That’s why, whenever I’m around educators lamenting the popularity of books like Twilight, I’ll say that I’m thrilled that teens have those books, because they’re getting them reading. There’s nothing better than getting an email from a teen—or adult—who picked up one of my books, realized reading can be fun, and started seeking out other authors and genres.

EM: You've been writing full-time since 2002, right? You're one of the lucky ones out there who can do that, so kudos! We have a lot of writers that read this site and are facebook friends. Any advice to them?

KA: My advice is incredibly boring. Whenever I speak to would-be novelists, I tell them to write—write as much as they can, as often as they can. Don’t hold onto ideas until they think they’re good enough to write them. We can’t get better if we don’t write. It took me many years and several unpublished novels, but it was worth it!

EM: Now you've got the esteem of having the moniker, New York Times Bestselling Author, before your name. Are you hot-tubbing every night? Eating caviar and sipping champagne?

KA: Oh, I wish. I grew up seeing Hollywood depictions of bestselling authors lounging in their beach homes, working an hour or two a day, then jetting off to glamorous locales… I’m convinced none of those scriptwriters had ever met a bestselling author. It’s definitely a full-time job, but it’s a dream job, too, and I love it.

EM: The obligatory: What's next?

KA: Up next is “Waking the Witch,” Otherworld #11 coming out July 27. Then, between that and the 2011 Otherworld book, I have a couple of novellas, a graphic novella, a YA novel and a slew of short stories coming out. Yes, I like to write!

I'm very serious when I tell you to pick up Kelley's newest book, Waking the Witch.  It's one of the best ones in the series.  Just click the picture to the left and drop it in your cart.  Currently you'll save $10 if you pre-order it.

Next week we'll have quite a lot going on.  For starters, we'll visit with author Matt Ruff, author of "Bad Monkeys", "Fool on the Hill", and "Sewer, Gas, & Electric".  We'll also spotlight a very, very cool new book.  And reviews galore.

If you've not "fanned" us (yes, we're that challenged in the ego department) on facebook, please do.  Also, if you've got authors you want to see interviewed let me know. Further, if you've ever got the interest in contributing to the Authors Speak drop us an email.

Until next time, keep reading.

The Spotlight: S. M. De Silva

This week is all about the women of the night.  On second thought, a different moniker should probably be used.  The Women Of Paranormal Fiction.

The genre is dominated by the female of the species.  I say, kudos!  As one of our facebook followers noted yesterday, women may play a big role in paranormal fiction, but still sit in the minority of lit as a whole. 

Most of you know the big players in the genre - Laurell K. Hamilton, Kelley Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison.  Today's Author Speaks guest is a worthy new addition to the still strong subgenre.  Meet S.M. DeSilva!

I had the distinct honor of reading Samantha's first book "Blood on the Moon" (The Daywalker Chronicles, Volume 1).  I enjoyed it quite a bit, and found Samantha's voice a bright new addition to the genre packed to the gills of talent (and hacks).  If you've not read it, you'll probably get a kick out of it.  (The Authors Speak review: http://www.theauthorsspeak.com/2010/06/review-wrap-paranormal-fiction.html)

In talking with Samantha, though, the interesting thing isn't how talented a writer she is.  It's by far how excitable she is.  She's well versed in many different subjects.  She's a writer who doesn't see a downside to the floundering publishing industry.  She's even complimentary of the "Twilight" saga. 

Eric Mays: Samantha, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. You've written a hell of a vampire tale (actually the first part in an ongoing series). Vamps seem to be all the rage now. What is it about the sexy undead that draws you in?

S.M. De Silva: It’s my pleasure, Eric. I’m always happy to talk about vampires! Will try to avoid saying ‘meta-narrative’ at any point in the interview, as it sends people into an explicable and deadly coma. What I like about the undead is that they are so symbolically rich. They represent the darkest in us – stuff everyone wants to shove under the carpet – violence, sexual taboos, avarice… The list is endless, and evolves as our fears and desires change. The idea of flirting with danger and descending into the world of the undead is in itself seductive because it’s resonant to us, if only on a subconscious level. They clearly represent power – power over death, as well as physical power, with supernatural speed and strength, etc. Power is the most attractive and addictive thing to humans, (apart from coffee) and I think that this is one of the key reasons why we (and I, too) find vampires so seductive. Also, they dress well, and are exceedingly cool, despite being fatally photosensitive. They’re predators, and like all predators, they are mesmerizing.

EM: There are millions of vampire "sagas" and series out there, each one, seemingly, borrowing from the other. You've written one and I like it, I really do. However, there are something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Now's your turn to address the readers of the Authors Speak. Why should people read your vampire tale and fall into your series?

SD: I’m going to toss humility out of the window (gently) and jump right in. You should read it if you like a well-paced book peppered with humour, deranged vampires, and highly entertaining footnotes. I’ve been told by male readers that they love the action scenes, and I dig them too. It’s written in a cinematic style, and Alegria, the protagonist has a very interesting job as a supernatural species consultant – you get glimpses of it in Blood On The Moon, and see much more of her unusual and at times, horrifying job from Volume 2 onwards. Another reason you should read it is Sleet City, the fictitious, psychotic, hyper-real, glamourous city that the series is set in. Even though I would probably get kidnapped/murdered within the first five minutes of being in Sleet City, I still want to live there – and I created it. Blood On The Moon also features Asian vampire revenants (pontianaks) that quite literally eat you.

I’ve written the book so that it can be enjoyed on varying levels; if you just want a good story with supernatural creatures like vampires and wereanimals in it, you should definitely pick it up. For readers who want something deeper, there’s a lot to be discovered. For example, when Alegria rides out on a (borrowed) white Ducati superbike, it’s not just a chick on a bike – it’s a modern twist on idea of a knight riding in on a white horse to save the day; I’m saying something about women, power, and gender myths. Many things in the book, from the villain to the violence, have a coded meaning. Some are Gothic literary devices, others are symbolic, and most of them are not apparent unless you’re looking for them. Whatever level you’re reading at, it’s a fantastic ride.

In Volume 2, which I’m working on now, there’s a new kind of Were that hasn’t really been explored frequently in paranormal fiction – and it brings the scary back to Weres, hooray! I had nightmares just doing the research for that Were. If you really must know, it’s… (SPOILER ALERT) werespiders. Big, mean, hungry werespiders the size of a horse. Good times!

EM: You reside in Singapore, correct? How's the book and publishing industry there? Here in America it seems to be heading the path of the dodo bird.

SD: I think the publishing industry here is pretty much the opposite of what’s happening in America. The industry is still very young, but it’s shown promising growth in the past few years. The vacuum that existed (in terms of local fiction) is being filled, and we’re seeing more co-publishing initiatives with regional and international publishers. It’s exciting to be part of the early days of the publishing industry’s growth here. Five years ago, we didn’t see much from local publishers except for cookbooks and academic titles, but we’re seeing more trade fiction, particularly in the children’s book genre. I think it’s inevitable, actually – we are a very materialistic society in a country that’s been ruled by the same political party since 1963. This, combined with the rich cultural background of Southeast Asia, is fertile ground for a growing need to express oneself – or least, to create great stories that make life a little less miserable. (And I’m not exaggerating when I say ‘miserable’- almost 9% of adults in Singapore suffer from depression.) The gap between talent and support for that talent is also closing; the National Book Council is doing a fantastic job with its publishing initiatives and workshops for writers and publishers. There is definitely much more to come for the Singaporean publishing industry, and it’s pretty damn exciting to be in the thick of it in the early days.

EM: What was it that made you want to write, Samantha? Did you always want to write in the horror genre?

SD: I first started scribbling nonsensical stories in a little brown notebook when I was about ten years old. I don’t recall sitting down and sort of making a conscious decision to write or ‘be a writer’ until I was about 23 or so. I actually wanted to be a vet when I was younger, but soon ditched that urge when I discovered that I had to take advanced mathematics; numbers don’t agree with me. For me, the urge to write wasn’t about prestige, money, or fame. I just knew that weaving stories made me happy. The adrenaline rush when in you’re in ‘the zone’, as I call it – when your pen is dancing across the page furiously and your characters are not just behaving, but surprising the hell out of you (pleasantly) – there’s nothing like it, I think. As a child, I loved words and books; I started to read adult fiction (not ‘adult’ fiction!) fairly early, so writing was a very natural progression in my love affair with narrative. Of course, my writing has improved (somewhat) since then.

I didn’t actually plan to write in the horror genre at first. The first novel that I worked on seriously was a light-hearted, absurdist YA fantasy that has since been shelved. I read a lot of Gothic literature as part of my A-level literature syllabus (that’s the equivalent of the last couple of years of high school, if I’m not mistaken), and that was a big influence, I think. I really fell in love with monsters and spooks, and how much you can say using horror, if you know how to. The fact that I yearn desperately for a garden full of huge, carnivorous plants pretty much sums up my attitude towards monsters – I love em’.

EM: Why write? People are not reading as much, the publishing market is in a weird kind of flux, and seems there's another author right around every corner with a manuscript? When I was a kid, I couldn't imagine anything else I'd rather do (and, I'm doing it, granted). Now, I fear for the industry. Any nuggets of wisdom that you've found along the way for the contemporary hardships of the written word?

SD: I write simply because I am happiest when I am writing. When I was working on the final draft of ‘Blood On The Moon’, Alegria and Joao simply would not behave unless I was sleep-deprived, starving, overcaffeinated, and generally a menace to civilized society. But it was absolutely worth it. There is nothing like coming back to a good yarn after a hard day’s work. If I make just one person’s day a little brighter because they enjoyed the story, because just for a while, it took them to a better place, then I’m happy; I’ve done my job as a writer and storyteller.

Keeping in mind the excellent points you’ve made about the state of the publishing industry and authors popping up frequently – sometimes in unexpected places (I saw a sci-fi writer lurking in a pile of bananas at the supermarket the other day), it does seem a little bleak, from one perspective.

 #1: Now more than ever – if you’re in this for huge vats of money, leave now. Walk away and find a lucrative job that does not, to paraphrase Hemingway, involve sitting down at your typewriter and opening a vein on a daily basis. Writing is a calling; it is a psychotic urge to scribble 90% nonsense and 10% genius… 110% of the time. It’s a harsh, cold reality, but for the vast majority of writers, the monetary compensation does not go anywhere near matching the effort, blood, and accidental murders that go into writing a book. (Don’t ever sneak up on a horror writer when they’re working.)
 #2: (On the assumption that a writer is not writing for money, fame, or free chocolates) The world needs more stories. There will never be such a thing as ‘too many stories’ in the world. People are wired to appreciate narrative. So what if you never become rich and famous? You, as a writer, have done something astoundingly difficult and beautiful; you’ve created a story. You’ve transformed something that started out as a bunch of ideas wandering aimlessly around your neural pathways into an immortal, tangible creation that will entertain, delight, and maybe terrify (in a good way).
 #3: Sorry, this one is boring and practical. Craft. Work on your craft. Read books, good and bad alike. Write daily, and write often. I found that the quality of my writing suffered dramatically when I neglected my daily writing exercises and spent too much time writing in my room, instead of outdoors, in a café. Your story is yours to tell, and it deserves the best presentation possible. Even bestselling authors have to work on their craft continually; I recently picked up a general fiction bestseller at a bookstore and turned to a random page, and was horrified to see a clunky phrase jump out at me. I wanted to stab it with a spork.

EM: Subgenres are interesting things and not always good. Trends tend to be so hot that they're everywhere and then the fold like a flan. Let's face it, within the paranormal fiction, urban fantasy, and horror genres, vampires are a dime a dozen. And the vamps range from teeny-bopper to hardcore Guillermo Del Toro-style killers. What's your take on the vampire subgenre? Has it got mileage left?

SD: In terms of literary value as a connotative device, (sorry, couldn’t help myself) I think that vampires will have mileage as long as humans continue to be imperfect and attracted to power. These two characteristics are pretty much hardwired into us, so I’m not too fussed about vampires suddenly becoming irrelevant. However, if you’re talking about popularity, that’s another thing altogether. Subgenres wax and wane – just look at Pride and Prejudice And Zombies and other books of that trend. Publishers are scurrying to catch up with it, but a) not many classics can be turned into an enjoyable literary mash-up and b) at least here, the trend for that type of fiction has already peaked.

With vampires, it’s quite different. I think that the mass appeal of vampire books has definitely started to wane, but the vampire subgenre is not based solely on a gimmick, so it’s not going to wind down in a great hurry. Vampires in fiction have been around for almost two centuries. They stay relevant because they evolve as society evolves, so I highly doubt that they’re going to vanish completely. I think it’s a pity that some people get tired of vampire fiction simply because there are ‘too many’ vampire novels in the market. It’s a double-edged sword; the popularity of a genre increases a book’s exposure to readers who might not otherwise be interested in it, and that’s great, but there’s also going to be some anti-vampire fiction sentiment from people who might have otherwise enjoyed a book which, through no fault of its own, happens to feature vampires.

EM: Since you wrote a vampire novel - the start of a brilliant series - what inspired you? What are some of your favorite vampire novels, movies, trends?

SD: The book actually began as a NaNoWriMo project about five years ago. It started as sheer, mad determination to make the deadline, then it was shelved. I took it out after three years, read it, cringed at some bits, but realized that I liked the story enough to continue writing and turn it into a novel. At that point, vampires were nowhere near as prevalent in popular fiction as they have been recently. As I mentioned earlier, I love all things monstrous, and the idea of writing about vampires and Weres in an urban setting thrilled me to no end. The thing that really kept me going, though, was the characters. I took a lot of care with crafting the characters, to the extent that they became very real to me, like dear (if fictitious) friends. So it got to a point where I started feeling guilty about being lazy with my writing schedule, because they were waiting for me to tell their story.

My favourite vampire fiction/ TV shows/ movies…the list is long, so I’ll just mention the ones I love most. I really like what Alan Ball has done with the True Blood series; he’s transformed it into something beautifully complex. It’s a much, much darker creature than the books on which it was based, which is a good thing. I also loved (and still love) Buffy. As for movies: Blade I & II, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Lost Boys and Interview With The Vampire.

I was quite into Anne Rice in my early teens, but it was probably Stoker’s Dracula that truly got me hooked on vampires when I was 18. I was sitting by my window late at night, reading the part about Dracula climbing down the wall of the castle like a big… lizard, and it was so very deliciously creepy. I was terrified! I actually moved away from the window before I read on, which is a testament to the incongruity of me being a) a wuss and b) someone who writes about the undead. Other vampire novels I love: Salem’s Lot, Dracula, The Monk by Matthew G. Lewis (okay, I know it’s not a vampire novel, but its outstanding creepiness cannot go unmentioned), and, of course, Interview With The Vampire. I liked the Anita Blake series before Laurell K. Hamilton became trigger happy with the sex scenes.

I quite like it when vampires get a very absurdist and/or wry treatment. I was highly amused by Terry Pratchett’s presentation of vampires in Carpe Jugulum, and I’d really like to see more of that sort of humour applied to vampires in fiction.

EM: Let's take a look at Sleet City. I love it! In fact, in reviewing and reading your book, I thought of the city as a strong central character along with everyone and everything else. It's a brilliant design, Samantha. How did you piece together this dystopian, decadent city? How much is borrowed from contemporary society?

SD: I love Sleet City too! I’m ridiculously pleased that Sleet City appeared as a central character to you, because that is exactly how I envisioned it.

As a city girl myself, born and raised in Singapore, it was quite a natural instinct to gravitate towards an urban setting for Blood On The Moon. In addition to this, I absolutely love the idea of taking mythical, supernatural creatures out of their natural habitats (gloomy castles, dank caves, etc) and depositing them in the heart of a bustling city, just for the fun of seeing how they deal with an urban habitat.

Blade Runner influenced a large part of my initial concept of the ultimate hypercity (in fact, there’s a little shoutout to it in the book). It introduced me to the idea that fictitious cities could be infinitely more than their real life counterparts; more vivid, multicultural, and intensely, dangerously alive than any city in existence. Then it got me thinking about all the cities in the world; what if we took the best and worst of them and turned them into a hyperbolic mash-up of vice, urban decay, chaos, and power? From there, Sleet City started to form itself more clearly in my mind, and it eventually became so vivid that it was a character, in itself.

I think it was a trip to Bangkok that first paved the way – the feeling that I got the second I stepped off the plane was insane; you could feel the history, tangible in the air itself, of days less decadent, and at the same time, there was this amazing, manic buzz, the feeling that this was a place where anything and everything could happen, in the best and worst possible way. I had to step out of the manicured, sanitized safety of Singapore’s spotless, ordered streets to understand what a city truly was. One thing that I did borrow from Singapore is the cult of materialism and status-consciousness. Here, it’s so prevalent and deep-seated that most of the population thinks you’re a weirdo if your ultimate goal in life is not to be very rich, drive a fancy car, and have a country club membership. I took this obsession with money and status a few (large) notches up when I was conceptualizing Sleet City.

EM: Now, I've read your work and seen your picture (I think I even said I "welcomed you to my bookshelf", which isn't as creepy as it sounds) and am happy that I've met you, writer to writer. When you're not writing, what keeps your interest?

SD: You know, that gave me a hilarious mental picture of that episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy kidnaps Lucy Lawless at a Comic Con and adds her to his personal collection of female action heroes after shrink-wrapping her. Hee hee. Sorry, back to the question. It seems a bit…obvious to say this, but I enjoy reading. I’m currently in this phase where I’m plodding through classics that I was too lazy to read when I was younger. It’s easier when they’re on Stanza and you don’t have to lug massive beasts like Anna Karenina around on the train at rush hour. I hate accidentally concussing other commuters with my reading material. I also enjoy painting. There’s something sinful and joyous about messing about with oil paint – it looks and feels like bright, coloured butter. It’s highly therapeutic – just try it and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m a shameless carnivore, and I enjoy eating and cooking meat. There is just something indecently magical about the process of cooking a steak, relying only on your sense of smell, fresh ingredients, and common sense.

When I’m not writing…books, I also write and perform for a local satirical podcast called the mrbrown show. I adore Eddie Izzard, and usually watch a sketch or two of his when I’m destressing from a long stretch of writing. (I would like to add that Microsoft Word’s autocorrect tool changed ‘destressing’ to ‘distressing’. This is the first time in my life that any autocorrect feature has been vaguely accurate, let alone useful.)

EM: Are you caught up in the Twilight frenzy? It's a weird sort of phenomena, isn't it? It seems you like it (devoutly, I might add), or you loathe it (also, devoutly). I'm, personally, not a fan, as I think it promotes reading, true, but poorly crafted writing and a clichéd, overused mold for the vampire/werewolf genre. Any thoughts?

SD: Did you hear about that guy in New Zealand who died while watching Eclipse? This observation has no bearing whatsoever on my feelings towards the Twilight phenomena, by the way. Just pointing it out. Ahem. On a more serious note, I’m with you – I’m not personally a fan either. As a reader, I think that it’s basically a fairytale-mold romance with vampires and werewolves thrown in. And that’s great, if you enjoy that sort of thing, but I’m not a fan of perfect, happy endings. I enjoyed it initially, but then, pesky writer’s brain kicked in and began questioning, with some ire, why a) the vampires are sparkly b) where Edward Cullen was when character development was being handed out c) why Bella is undoing the good work of feminism.

As a writer, I’m happy for her; the Twilight franchise has brought joy to millions. However, the thought of Bella as a role model for teenage girls is truly frightening, as she displays some very unhealthy, self-destructive behaviour when her man…er, vampire leaves her, only to have him return to her and declare undying love later. I don’t know if Meyer did this intentionally or not, but it sends the message that it’s okay for girls to be weak and perpetuate outdated gender notions, because Prince Charming (albeit undead) will ride in and save the day no matter what. I’m not a militant feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but if I had teenage daughters and they were fans, I would be concerned, writing quality aside.


EM: I'm fascinated by cultures and the way small things work into the everyday, ho-hum life. Has there been any ritual, karmic luck, routine, etcetera that has worked its way into your writing practices, living in Singapore?

SD: We have the Hungry Ghost Festival, which thankfully, does not actually involve ravenous ghouls chomping on people’s intestines. It’s a month-long Chinese festival that involves the gates of hell opening to unleash a horde of spirits that walk the earth for a month. A lot of people don’t do certain things during this period, like go running at night, write stories about bloodthirsty vampire revenants, etc. I’m not Chinese, and I’ve never been accosted by spirits on vacation during this festival, so I don’t believe in the Hungry Ghost festival superstitions.

However, there is one rule that I stick to: I never, never write about pontianaks (less charming Asian cousins of vampires) at night. NEVER. Once, I was working on the pontianak scene in the wee hours of the morning, and I heard this weird scratching at my window (according to local lore, pontianaks can fly, and when they’re trying to get into your house, you usually hear them scratching at the window/on the roof). It was truly horrible, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a bug. I put my pen down, got into bed, and quietly freaked out. The scratching stopped after a while. I didn’t dare look at the window directly. I don’t know what really was at my window, but after that, I never, never worked on scenes involving local ghosts/ spirits after sunset. There’s a theory that thinking about these things draws them to you, and I’d rather not take the chance and go into cardiac arrest at the sight of a pontianak at my window. Some people believe in creatures like the pontianak here, and others claim to have actually seen them. We take ghosts a bit more seriously in Southeast Asia, as some of them, like the pontianaks, can actually eat you.

EM: Time for the obligatory...what's next on tap for you?

SD: You know, I had this great idea for a YA fiction series, and then random zombie chickens wandered into my house, and ate my plot plans. Seriously, though, the YA fiction series is in the works. I can safely say that it involves a kickass end-of series twist that occurred to me 6 months after I conceptualized the series. We’ll probably see the first book of the YA fiction series in two or three years. I’m not going to rush that, because it’s going to involve a lot of historical research, and I’ve structured the series plan so that there can be anything from three to thirty books in the series. (Ouch.) I’ve planned all nine books of the Daywalker Chronicles series at this point. Hunter’s Moon (Volume 2 of the Daywalker Chronicles) is taking up most of my time and energy right now, which is, in a masochistic way, quite enjoyable.

Blood on the Moon is available now in trade paper and can be ordered by clicking the link below.

Tomorrow, heavy hitter genre fave Kelley Armstrong joins us.  Her latest book (which rocks) is "Waking the Witch", but fans have been following her for eleven Otherworld books.  We'll chat campy '60's crossovers, vampires among us, conventions, and more.  Until then, keep reading.

The Authors Speak: Marjorie M. Liu

Paranormal Fiction is what it’s called these days. I still refer to it as urban fantasy, and, as most know, I’m addicted to it. The books within the genre run the gamut of good to god-awful, and yet, I will always come back for more. What’s wrong with me?

I like to focus on the good, obviously. I’d not want you to spend your ducats on crap (unless by name was the byline). I’d rather you focus on the solid storytelling, the great characters, and the talent that goes into these works.

This subgenre of contemporary literature is a collection of some great storytelling.  Much like the noir mysteries of Chandler and Hammet, the stories follow the basic set-up: a protagonist trying to uncover a mystery.  Pretty basic, yeah?  Well, it is and it isn't.  There's only so many zombies, vamps, werewolves, demons, fairies, and dryads stories to tell.  These writers have to rely on strong storytelling and touches of originality to succeed.  Felix Gomex is a vampire detective.  Boring!  However, toss in some strong politics, gang wars, and a touch of the X-Files and it works. 

Harry Dresden is a wizard who works for the police (well, and he's kind of a private dick).  Heard it!  Nay, Jim Butcher tosses in sharp dialogue and an assortment of baddies from the NeverNever and voila it works.

There are some good male players in the mix of the paranormal fiction gang – Mario Acevedo, Jim Butcher, Simon Green – but the strange phenomenon is that this genre is populated by the female of the species. Odd? Not really, considering Laurell K. Hamilton kind of sparked a lightening in a bottle effect. Shortly thereafter, Charlaine Harris traded her mystery novels for Sookie Stackhouse and company (side note: when that happened I remember many around her cautioning her against the genre jump.  Who's laughing now?)  That’s when the cookie cutting began. But surprisingly, there are some solid writers who have stepped above and kept things fresh.

Take for instance Marjorie M. Liu.

I’m surprised that more people don’t know her name. I never read her Dirk & Steele novels (which apparently has an enormous following), but I’m an enormous fan of her Hunter Kiss series. I’m also a fan of her work with Marvel. Seriously, the girl can do anything.

The Hunter Kiss books are enjoyable and dark, gritty and edgy without trying too hard. And the concept – which is very, very cool – somehow keeps the action flowing rather than weighing it down (as is oft the case for “concept” pieces).

It’s an exciting time for Ms. Liu right now. I’m sure she’s eagerly awaiting Comic Con (she’s a popular panelist with Marvel) and her next Hunter Kiss book is released in one week on the July 27th. Follow the link below to pre-order it.

If you’re looking for a review, check out the Authors Speak review here: http://www.theauthorsspeak.com/2010/06/review-wrap-paranormal-fiction.html

I was blessed to have a few moments of Marjorie’s time to discuss Black Widow and the Marvel universe, tats, and the dark, edgy fiction of Hunter Kiss.

Eric Mays: Marjorie, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. So, I’ve got to just jump in an start this thing with a personal question. You write comic books now, and have created quite a voice in the Marvel world. How many fanboys do you have following you around?


Marjorie M. Liu: Ha! None I can see! But I have met kind, and generous, readers of my work.

EM: Sorry for jumping on that wagon first, Marjorie. Okay, moving on to your work, you’ve got quite a beast in the Hunters Kiss series. I remember seeing them on the paperback shelf at the bookstore and thought to myself: “Oy! Another urban fantasy rehash”. Sorry. But you’ve created a totally original character, concept, and really added a nice touch to the subgenre. How do you keep things so fresh?


ML: I just write. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I really just sit down and write from the gut. I try to tell the best story I can.

EM: Do you have tattoos, yourself, Marjorie? Do they make up your demon army?

ML: No, no tattoos. I get bored with things. If I got a tattoo, chances are good that in a day, or week, or year – I’d be ready to remove it and get something different. It’s just better not to even start down that road!

EM: Seriously, though, how did you come up with your Heroine, Maxine?

ML: Maxine was originally born from the need to write a novella for the anthology, WILD THING. She just came to me, full bloom. I knew her, in my heart. But that didn’t make writing her story any easier.

EM: I see that “paranormal fiction”, and the whole urban fantasy/horror genre, has nearly taken over the bookshelves at brick and mortar bookstores. Is the abundance of authors (some good, some bad) rehashing and recycling stories good or bad for the genre?


ML: Well, I don’t think any author sets out to rehash and recycle stories. Every writer I know carries a pure intent of originality, though I suppose there are similar themes that might appear across genres. I think the abundance of authors on the shelves is a wonderful thing. It just means there’s an endless supply of worlds to explore.

EM: Okay, coming on back to the world of comics…it seems you’ve quite the following. How does a romance writer get a gig writing for Marvel?

ML: I wrote the novel, X-Men: Dark Mirror! That was my foot in the door, and opened up a thee-year long conversation between Marvel and me. NYX came out of that, and the rest is history.

EM: Now you’re pretty known amongst the Marvel players, right? I want to take a sec and talk the Dark Avengers. There are purists amongst the comic book world. Have any of them been “pissy” about the Dark Avengers? You’ve got some heavy hitters, plus a focal point on Daken. What’s your take?


ML: Honestly, I have no idea what people say, or don’t say, about the Dark Avengers. I stay out of the message boards, and no one ever writes me with their concerns.

EM: And now, you’re writing for Black Widow, yeah?

ML: I did write for Black Widow -- the first arc, which is five issues long. That was all I had time for, but it was a wonderful experience.

EM: Your career is so varied, Marjorie! You’ve got romance on one hand, paranormal fiction on the other, and, now, comics. What’s your favorite?

ML: That’s a hard question. I love writing novels, period. I love writing comics, too, but in a novel I’ve got more room to breathe, more lines I can cross and buttons I can push. Plus, I own the characters.

But man, writing Dark Wolverine? Getting a chance to play with the Fantastic Four, and other X-Men? Working on Black Widow? X-23? That’s incredible.

EM: Since you’ve now been seen at Comic Con, is there one annoying thing fans do that you’d like to address? Go ahead, they’re listening.


ML: No, not a thing. My readers are lovely people, and I’m always so happy to meet them. If anything, I would tell them not to be too shy! Don’t be afraid to come up and say hello.

EM: I know you had a rather interesting publishing story…you know, how you were “discovered”. We have a lot of writers that read us. So many new avenues are opening up for aspiring writers – some are making the biz easier, some are tainting the biz, and some are just plain awful. In these confusing times, do you have one nugget of advice for writers?

ML: I don’t know if the times are all that confusing – as long as you know exactly what you want. And that’s one piece of advice that I would give:


Know yourself.

Know what you want in your life and career, know what you want to write, and don’t be afraid of your individuality. Be gusty, be fearless. Don’t give up, if writing for a living is what you want to do. But be smart about it, too. Don’t be so desperate you lose your good common sense.




Marjorie is an amazingly talented writer. I love her books, I love her answers, and I…well, I’ll not say I “love” anything else…I might achieve creeper status.

Regardless, if you’re looking for a good read, pick up “A Wild Light”, which will be released on Tuesday. You can click the link below and pre-order your copy.


Also, for more information about Marjorie (I didn’t mention anything about Dirk & Steele) visit Marjorie’s website: http://www.marjoriemliu.com/.

Tomorrow, the Women of Paranormal Fiction continues with S. M. De Silva.
Until then, keep reading.

The Authors Speak: Mary Doria Russell

I have the utmost adoration for Mary Doria Russell.  Her book "The Sparrow" is my all-time favorite book (and it trumps all the classics that people typically have on their list).  When I picked it up, I was hoping for light "beach reading"...not the best choice, but a choice I do not regret.  Since that time, I've revisited this book easily fifteen times.  I've bought it as gifts, I've discussed it, I've pushed it.

Discovering Mary Doria Russell was one of my defining moments.  I devoured the sequel, "Children of God", and then I kind of waited.  Where the hell was the next book?  Where did she go?

In '99 when Children of God was released, the Internet was still a new phenom.  But, I remember coming across Mary's website while looking for updates.  I discovered her numerous scholarly accolades, and immediately raced to re-enroll in college to earn a degree in anthropology (nevermind my previous endeavors had been focused on English and Theatre).  I remember saying: "If Mary can do it, so can I.  She's not releasing anything new, but I will write a book that is research heavy and rivals 'The Sparrow'!"

Needless to say, this never happened.  And my book, "Naked Metamorphosis", in no way rivals my favorite all-time read.

In 2004, Mary returned.  I nearly missed it, because I was expecting another Margaret Atwood religious-based sci-fi story.  What I got was "A Thread of Grace", which quickly creeped up into my ten-favorite books of all time.

Regardless of what I wanted to see from Mary contrasted to what I got, Mary Doria Russell was back.  I admire and adore her.  Her meticulous research is something to behold.  And her ability to find humor in the most depressing of moments is to be rejoiced.

The chance to interview her is one of my greatest moments.  I've looked forward to this for years.  And, by far, Mary is one of the most fun interviews I've had.  Enjoy.

**At the time of this interview, Mary Doria Russell's next book was entitled "Eight to Five, Against" (which I quite prefer).  The book will be released under the revised title: "Doc".

Eric Mays: Mary, The Sparrow remains one of my favorite books of all-time, and I think I’ve converted several others to that line of thinking.


Mary Doria Russell: Thank you, dear. I hear that quite a lot, actually. The Sparrow seems to make people's top three and I always try to be very gracious when I'm told that, but inwardly? I'm snarling. It takes iron restraint to look flattered and humble while thinking, “So? What are the first two? Because if either one of them is The DaVinci Code, you are so dead.”

A little window into the inner world of the artist... It's not pretty.

EM: Thanks for agreeing to the interview. Let’s just start off with The Sparrow, shall we?

MDR: I'm beginning to understand how Woody Allen felt in the '90s when everybody told him how much they loved his early comedies... Course, now that he's shacked up with his stepdaughter, even his comedies seem kind of creepy--


Sorry. You were saying?

EM: You took one of the most simple concept pieces – first contact with alien life – and made it transcendent. What was it about the alien life that captivates us so?

MDR: The answer I like best is Stanley Schmidt's: human beings have always told stories about alien life, but in the past, the aliens were called nymphs and centaurs, elves and goblins, angels and demons.


In my opinion, anthropology and religion and alien contact stories share common questions. At heart, those questions are always about what it means to be human in a big, dark, scary universe. Are we playthings of the gods? Are we battling malign forces? Are we the purpose and pinnacle of creation, or just another species on a crowded little planet?


And underlying all those questions is, “Hello? Is anybody home?” Am I all alone in this big, dark, scary house? Is Mom down in the basement doing laundry, or will a bad man jump out of the shadows with a knife?


That said, I suspect that alien contact stories are primarily interesting to American and European readers. I freely admit that I don't know jack about foreign literature, or the lack of it, on this subject, so I am totally gassing off here. However, I have this little theory that alien contact stories reflect lingering cultural guilt and anxiety about what white folks did to red and brown and black and yellow ones during the age of imperialism, the consequences of which we are still unraveling in the 21st century.


Now there's a thesis topic for some graduate student to investigate...

EM: The Jesuit missionaries and the questions of faith are really what, in my opinion, separates The Sparrow and Children of God from the library of other “first contact” stories.

MDR: To me, it just seemed logical to take that approach.


See, God has experienced a lot of mission creep since the old days. (Pun intended, I'm afraid.) Yahweh starts out as a pretty standard thunder god, and then goes along for the ride when Jews begin wandering. The god of Abraham does battle with the gods of Egypt; sets up shop on Sinai; relocates the franchise to Babylon during the exile but declines to get involved when the Romans decide to kick some Middle Eastern ass on the far end of the Mediterranean. Then he sets his son up in the family business and moves to Europe. He changes his name, like a lot of immigrants, and starts getting His personal pronoun capitalized....


So, 3500 years on, it's not Yahweh, the god of that mountain over there, but ADONAI, melech ha-Olam: the Lord God, Ruler of the Universe, and people are writing all this great music for Him and standing up to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, calling Him (or Them, depending on how you look at it) “Wonderful! Counselor! The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace!”


To me, the next logical step in this theological Odyssey is that He is revealed (or recognized or declared) to be the creator of life on other planets, not just ours. That's what I was playing with in The Sparrow.


Seriously: back in 1995, when The Sparrow was already in production for publication, it was announced that a Martian rock found in the Antarctic showed evidence of ancient microbial life. Within five hours, I heard someone on BBC asking, “So, what does this imply about Genesis?”


If we can confirm life on Mars, devout readers of the Bible will have to ask themselves, Was Mars just a rough sketch? Did God screw up there and move the whole idea to Earth? Or maybe Earth the screw-up planet, given that some believe its sentient inhabitants require divine redemption and salvation.


There are still a lot of Christians who are still shaken by the implications of “discovering” two whole continents right here on Earth that were inhabited by people, plants and animals unmentioned in Genesis. (That's what the evolution controversy is really about, not biological science.) Finding life anywhere else in the universe is going to be a WAY bigger theological issue than meeting llamas and Aztecs.

EM: But faith plays a prominent part in your entire body of work, not just in The Sparrow and Children of God.

MDR: In A Thread of Grace, the subject was more ethics than faith. And I got into the history of Middle Eastern religions in Dreamers of the Day. But, yeah, I take your meaning.

EM: Why is faith important in literature? Why should it be?

MDR: Two things exist in all human cultures, around the world, past and present, going back at least 60,000 years: music and religion. Music and religion are, together and separately, more diagnostic of our species than opposable thumbs or bipedalism. Not every human being is religious: there are congenital atheists, just as there are people who are tone-deaf. But the larger culture always has some kind of music and a religious default setting.


So, if you're writing about human beings, religion or a lack of it is an important part of character development. I don't usually write a biography for each character, the way some writers do, but I do need a clear idea of who each character is. Understanding a character's religious background is crucial to developing a character with psychological integrity, one who will come alive and linger in the reader's mind.


Now in entertaining fiction, as in fun movies meant to sell popcorn, you can have an unexplained villain. He can just be bad; she can just be a bitch. But you're asking me about LIT-ra-chur, and in that case, any character who faces an ethical challenge has to be given a moral core. You have to know why that core is strong or weak, or lacking, or poorly thought out, and how it comes to be denied or abandoned, or what it costs the character to act honorably or cravenly.


Why is The Merchant of Venice still so riveting, hundreds of years after it was written? In a poor or even okay writer's hands, Shylock could have been an odious bad guy, ripping a pound of flesh off a hapless aristocrat's thigh, and when Hollywood optioned the story, it would become Saw IX: This Time It's Jewish!


Shakespeare made Shylock enduringly, heartbreakingly comprehensible: all his pain and humiliation and rage and despair are there to be understood. Watching Shylock's capitulation at the end is like watching a magnificent wolf gnaw his own leg off in a steel trap. You feel ashamed to witness it. Shakespeare (and a good actor) can literally change your mind. You start with one attitude, and at the end, you see the world differently.


The greatest challenge I've taken on personally was creating a character who could become a doctor in his youth, and then wind up on the side of the railroad tracks at Auschwitz, pointing right and left. The task when I was developing Werner Schramm, the Nazi doctor in A Thread of Grace, was to make him comprehensible and even likable, to the point where you kind of forget that he is personally responsible for the deaths of 91,867 people. He isn't psychotic. He isn't amoral. Schramm didn't start out being evil. He is mediocre, and he started his journey to Auschwitz doing what he honestly believed was morally correct. He makes decisions that any of us might have made under similar circumstances. I'm not forgiving him. I'm elucidating him.


The essence of tragedy, I think is not that evil people deliberately do detestable things, but that ordinary people -- who mean well – do detestable things for reasons that seem right to them, at the time.


Money may be the root of some evil, but good intentions account for the rest of it.

EM: What do you have faith in?

MDR: Human folly. I count on it. Occasionally, my faith is shaken by someone who fails to make the kind of boneheaded decisions that inevitably lead to tragedy or farce, but that is a rare event. Generally my faith in folly is restored within an hour or two.


As my husband often says, “Never attribute to malice what is easily explained by stupidity.”


Goodness. The aphorisms just keep on coming...

EM: I went back to school, briefly, with the ambitions of studying anthropology and linguistics after reading The Sparrow--

MDR: BWAH-HAHAHAHAHha....That's my nefarious plan: to generate income for my former colleagues by tricking students into signing up for anthro courses.


Wait. What the hell does nefarious actually mean? Got to look that one up…


Okay: it's from the Latin nefas, an offense against divine or moral law. Hmmmm. Good word, but in English it's been co-opted by melodramatic villains who twirl mustaches.

EM: I was determined, because that was your background, that I was going to gain the know-how, and write something that rivaled The Sparrow. Ambitious, right?

MDR: Personally, I recommend stealing from the best. The Bible, Shakespeare, and pretty much anything in Greek is fair game.

EM: I did steal from Shakespeare.  But, while that academic effort did not last, what remained was the desire to create fleshed-out alien races. It’s impressive that you created a race --

MDR: Two, actually. Runa and Jana'ata.

EM: And you created them from an anthropological standpoint.

MDR: Well, of course! What else can you do with a doctorate in anthropology?

EM: What all did you combine to make the environment of Rakhat?

MDR: First off, I recapitulated Genesis. I divided the waters from the dry land. Frankly, I didn't want to deal with marine aliens even though Earth's octupi and dolphins are very bright: too much boring exposition about how the Jesuits suffer from prune-y skin and so on.


I wanted bipedal land animals because freeing up the hands allows for manufacturing (Latin: manus, hands, same root as manual labor) and the development of an interesting material culture. Then I stretched Earth biological history juuuust a little. Bipedalism has developed repeatedly on Earth in widely divergent biological lineages: dinosaurs and their bird descendants; kangaroos and wallabies; and primates.

--SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT--

When II came across Dougal Dixon's notion of predator mimicry, I found it very interesting, and posited two interlocked species: predator and prey. I decided that the predators had long ago domesticated their prey species, as humans have: horses, cattle, sheep, goats, etc. They began to select for a variety of intelligences and relative docility, as we have with dogs. The main difference on Rakhat is that the predator cultures are based on biological and genetic sciences. The Jana'ata don't manufacture their tools; they breed Runa. The Runa are their tools.


The model for the primordial Jana'ata-Runa biological relationship is cheetah and Thompson gazelle. The cultural model is Romanov Russia, where a tiny elite creates a gorgeous high culture of art and beauty that rests on the backs of an immense population of suffering serfs. Both of those relationships are inherently unstable. If anything were to wipe out Thompson gazelles – a plague or something -- cheetah will be extinct within the month. And we know what happened in Russia once the serfs realized, “We are many. They are few.”

EM: When you released your third novel, A Thread of Grace, you shifted gears --

MDR: -- and centuries, and genre, and tense, and style. Sorry. Go on...

EM: This is fiction, but you say that this is based on the accounts of actual survivors of the Holocaust.

MDR: My rule of thumb for readers is that if the anecdote sounds completely impossible to believe (like the Baby on the Bomb episode), it's real. I made up the plausible stuff to hold the narrative together.

EM: Was there one compelling thing you stumbled on that gave you that “I have to tell this story” moment?

MDR: The bare fact that 85% of the Jews of Italy survived the Holocaust.

On September 8, 1943, there were approximately 50,000 foreign and native-born Jews in Italy. After twenty months of a brutal, vindictive occupation by Nazi Germany, 43,000 of those Jews were still alive. That's the highest survivorship in occupied Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Italians were involved in a vast conspiracy to protect Jews, and the penalty for getting caught was not just torture and death for the individuals involved, but often the reprisal deaths of several hundred people in the vicinity. And yet, Italians from all political parties and across the economic spectrum did the right thing. Why?


Italy was a fascist state. Italy was Germany's primary ally for the first three years of the Second World War. Italy had anti-semitic race laws. Italian Catholics heard the same Christian liturgies as those in Germany, Austria, Poland, France... and yet they didn't take home the ugly Christ-killer mythology. Why not?


For sixty years, we've asked, “What went wrong in Germany?” To me, it was equally important to ask, “What went right in Italy?”


The answers to that question are multiple and complex, but historically and ethically important. I'm a scientist trained in Popperian logical positivism, and disproof is the most powerful element of scientific inquiry. So it's significant that so many blanket statements about the Holocaust can be contradicted and disproved by what happened in Italy.

EM: Random House just released Dreamers of the Day, which revolves around the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference.

MDR: Yes. That was when Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence and a handful of British diplomats and oil men invented the modern Middle East. It's their world. We just live in it.

EM: This is a vital piece of history that most people either overlook or were not aware of.

MDR: Ah, “most people” in the West don't know about it, but in the Middle East? The 1921 Cairo Conference is a live issue. It's reality, every single day. In 2001, when Osama bin Laden took credit for the attacks on 9/11, he said it was in part “revenge for the catastrophe of eighty years ago.” Do the math.

EM: If nothing else, what do you want readers to take with them when they read this novel?

MDR: That the Arabs have a legitimate beef.


Somebody recently protested to me that there are almost no Arab characters in Dreamers, to which I replied, “Exactly. There were no Arabs at the table during the conference. Brits drew the lines on the maps and handed out real estate as they saw fit.” Just one example:


Want to know why Iraq has Sunni, Shia and Kurds, when they obviously can't stand one another? To make the world safe for British Petroleum. Gertrude Bell figured the Sunni, Shia and Kurds would never make common cause and throw the British out. So she drew a line around Mosul, Baghdad and Basra and called it Iraq. And it worked the way she anticipated until the 1950s. In pragmatic terms, Gertrude Bell served her empire well.


Dreamers of the Day is the archeology of our present political moment. The conference took eleven days, and Winston went sightseeing for two of them. People have been dying for his sins ever since. There is a direct historical line between the one Gertie Bell drew in 1921 and the fact that my nephew was commanding a platoon of Marines in Al-Anbar Province on the banks of the Euphrates while I was writing Dreamers of the Day.

EM: Now upcoming, you tackle another piece of history – the American West. Why a western?

MDR: Well, I didn't start out thinking, I'll write a Western next. I started out thinking, Let's see, now... I've done a first contact SF novel that's really a courtroom drama: The Sparrow is The Caine Mutiny meets The Mission. Children of God is a three-generation family drama -- with three species on two planets. A Thread of Grace is a World War II thriller. Dreamers is a geopolitical romance novel...

Obviously, I'm a genre slut, so what haven't I done yet? A murder mystery!


That was just a joke I made to my husband, but then a while later, I was watching the movie “Tombstone” on TV and thought, Hey... Doc Holliday was a dentist! What if there was a murder and he had to identify a body from the dentition? It was just a passing thought, but eventually that was the seed for what grew into "Doc".

EM: What has compelled you to write about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday?

MDR: I saw “Tombstone” again a while later and got interested in the history behind it. The movie's remarkably accurate; where it deviates for dramatic effect, I applaud the decisions. And there are so many contemporary issues in it: gun control, armed gangs smuggling contraband across the Mexican border, women's rights, Americans feeling threatened by the Chinese, etc.


What really hooked me, though, was Karen Holliday Tanner's biography, Doc Holliday: a Family Portrait. She had access to her family's private papers and revealed something that was hidden as shameful in the 19th century: John Henry Holliday was born with a cleft palate and a harelip. It was repaired in his infancy by his uncle, Dr. John Stiles Holliday – as far as I've been able to ascertain, that was the first surgical repair of a cleft in North America: 1851.


That was the “I'll be damned!” moment, when I got totally engrossed, but everything about the real John Henry Holliday was compelling and so much more interesting than the characters who've borne his name in movies. Although Val Kilmer's portrayal was very good...


Anyway, I fell totally in love with that boy, and because of Karen Holliday Tanner's research, I was able to write about Alice Holliday's son, not about the legendary Doc Holliday (“a cold and casual killer, always dressed in black, as though for his own funeral”). John Henry Holliday's life was just heartbreakingly sad, and I am hoping that Doc will win him the compassion and respect I believe he deserves.


Bat Masterson is the source of most of the slander about John Henry Holliday, by the way. Bat was a lying little weasel. Just my opinion, of course.

EM: Is this the ultimate historical bromance?

MDR: It's Hollywood's ultimate bromance. In reality, the friendship was between Doc and Wyatt's younger brother, Morgan. Doc and Wyatt were never really all that close – they had very little in common, and were mainly connected through Morgan, the only one of the Earp brothers who made friends outside the family. Morg was just a sweetheart. He was also a reader and he liked talking about books. He and Doc were very close. Doc was shattered when Morgan was killed. Morg was buried in the blue suit Doc bought for him.


After Morgan's assassination, Doc and Wyatt shared one thing: a deep desire to see Morgan's murderers dead in the dirt. When that was accomplished, they split up and never saw each other again -- contra that lovely scene at the end of “Tombstone.” And the Earp brothers split up as well. Morg was the glue who held that family together. When he died, there was no center.

EM: Mary, you are known for your research. I’ve often said that research is why I write. I love it. I can’t get enough of it.

MDR: I agree. That's the best part of the job. I start digging into old sources and period literature, and contemporary reconsiderations, and just get lost in it all.

EM: There’s a bit of a difference between Jesuits making first contact and Jewish faith and Wyatt Earp. What things fascinate you to the point of needing to research and then tell that tale?

MDR: It's generally something in history I learned about as a child and hadn't questioned or thought in decades. I'll stumble across something on The History Channel, or I'll hear something on the radio, or read something in a book, and get curious about the political and historical context and start reading. I like to reconsider things I accepted as a child, now that I've got decades of adulthood behind me.


Sometimes I don't go very far with a topic. For example, when Fess Parker died, I got interested in Davy Crockett. My brother was exactly the right age for the Disney show in the 1950s and he ran around with a “coonskin” cap and all that. I read a couple of biographies and Crockett's own memoir. He had an interesting voice, but it turns out that he was the precise 19th century analog of Sarah Palin. The parallels are just amazing on so many levels. There's a good novel there for somebody, but it won't be me who writes it. I just didn't like him, or anybody around him.


I have to fall in love with somebody if I'm going to spend 3-7 years in their company. I love John Henry Holliday and Morgan and James Earp, and I'm very fond of Wyatt and Kate, even though they were both much more difficult to like. I didn't love David Crockett. Not even a little.

EM: What’s the most fascinating thing that you’ve uncovered – unintentionally or intentionally – while researching?

MDR: I gave the two examples above: 85% survival in Italy, and John Henry's cleft palate. Those two facts just opened up worlds to me. Example: John Henry's mother was a piano teacher, and he played very well, so I while I was writing Eight to Five, Against, I immersed myself in the 19th century piano repertoire. I started out as a big Van Halen and Def Leppard fan, but now I can't get enough of Chopin.


I actually began piano lessons two months ago! Never had any music lessons before, so I'm starting from absolute zero. It's like sounding out Hebrew on the treble staff while sounding out Russian on the bass staff. While juggling. And dancing – I just started pedals this week.


But I'm playing simple little waltzes now and love practicing.

EM: Doc is coming from Random House in 2011.

MDR: Yep. May 3, 2011, to be precise.

EM: Love to have you back for that…and I’d love to review the book…

MDR: I'll have Random House put you on the ARC list.

EM: What else can we expect from you next?

MDR: It looks like I'm doing a follow-up to Doc, entitled "Wyatt". This seems to be my pattern: two novels in each genre. Doc is set in Dodge City in 1878, four years before the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In that one year, Doc met Kate, they moved to Dodge, where Doc made his last serious effort to establish a dental practice, and that was where they met Morgan Earp.


I thought that too much already had been said about the O.K. Corral and the vendetta that followed Morgan's death, so I really resisted the idea of doing a book about Tombstone. Then I came across a memoir by Josie Marcus, who met Wyatt in Tombstone and who lived with him for 49 years after the gunfight.


I generally commit to a novel when I can hear dialog. The dialog comes first, for me. Then character, then plot. Listening to dialog in the middle of the night is how I begin to find my way into the characters. I hear their voices first. Recently I started hearing Josie Marcus's voice... She made me laugh twice -- at two in the morning.


What hooked me was her combination of charm and selfishness. And there was a remark by one of Wyatt's nephews. “You'll never convince me Wyatt was a killer. He lived with Aunt Josie for almost fifty years.” She's never been well-portrayed and I think I can do better by her and Wyatt. 

EM: And after that?

MDR: A couple of spy novels! One set in the American Revolution, but not about Benedict Arnold, and the other set in WWII Germany, Russia and Britain. That takes me up to age 70, when all bets are off.

Ah, I'm going to say nothing.  I'm simply going to bask in the afterglow of such an intelligent mind.  Ah!

Besides her talent, Mary's also extremely down to earth.  She chose a family vacation (much needed, I believe) over meeting Brad Pitt to discuss, in some respect, adaptations of "The Sparrow" to film.  Mr. Pitt just has no luck with authors; he was also turned down by Chuck Palahniuk.

Next week is epic.  Okay, not epic.  Epic in my mind, sure.  The Women of Paranormal Fiction.  The genre is taking the bookshelves in the Fantasy sections by storm.  And, interestingly enough, it's dominated by women.  Marjorie M. Liu, Kelley Armstrong, and Samantha DeSilva join us.

Until then, keep reading.