Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors

Genre Flash 4  has been released and it's a great big, fascinating list of local books and authors.

To download your own copy (for scribbling on and taking off to the bookshop - or to buy from the sites mentioned in there): 

Regular catalogue of Great Australian authors and books.

Thanks to Lindy Cameron for the great effort that she puts in on this listing - it's fantastic to have such a great resource to make darn sure that we're keeping up.

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--TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT certainly appealed to this extremely infrequent science fiction reader, a large part of that appeal was undoubtedly a good set of characters, particularly Spider Webb (all the current / near-future / far-future / past incarnations of him).  Do you feel that this book is going to appeal to hard-core genre readers as much as it would people just looking for something highly entertaining and engaging?

I'm sorry for not getting back to you sooner with answers to these questions. Am on holiday in seaside Mandurah with my lovely wife, and having to rely on spotty wifi access to check mail, etc. Last night I tried twice to answer them, and lost them to the ether both times.  This time I'm in a McDonalds, with wifi that supposedly won't quit on me, so I'm hoping for good things.

Thank you for your interest in my book, despite its sf-ness. So far the book has done well, appealing to sf readers across the spectrum, and was also shortlisted for the uber-prestigious Philip K. Dick Award for excellence in sf first published in paperback anywhere in the world. The award is usually won by Brits and Americans, so to even get considered was a huge deal for me, and for my Canadian publisher. It gives the book huge credibility in the hard sf community. I've also had good reports from people not interested in sf who have read the book and enjoyed it, too, very likely because they're responding to the characters and their very human, very relatable problems.

--TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT has a rather complicated central point - parallel / convergent / concurrent timelines, yet it's not a confusing book to read.  In fact it's quite a fun book to read.  Did you find it was a fun book to write or where the time shift requirements tricky to explain / keep track of?

It was a marvellously fun idea that became a very difficult thing to actually write. There was an awful lot to keep straight in my head, and with the help of extensive and detailed notes. And then after I submitted it to the publisher, he sent it to an editor (another author, a Canadian mystery writer), who wrote back with some very serious concerns that had to be addressed, and which pretty much meant rewriting most of the last half of the book. Which is fine with me: it made the book much better, it made everything make sense, and that's the important thing. So, yes, dreadful slog, but worthwhile result. :)

--TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT has been described as a book that would appeal to readers who like complicated plot lines, murder and amusing dialogue.  Did a science fiction / futuristic setting bring something in particular to the book, and did the use of a suspicious death provide you with a particular impetus or plan?

The suspicious death was the part I liked best. I've always loved mysteries and crime novels, as well as the sf, and as it's turned out three of my four books have had mystery elements to some degree. I'm now planning a sequel to Time Machines, and sure enough, it needs to be another mystery, which means another body (at least one), and a new brain-hurting mystery to solve for poor old Spider.

The single detail of the future setting--the ubiquity of time machines--presented enormous difficulties in working out the details.  Because if everyone, including the cops, have time machines, then catching murderers should be pretty easy: you just go back to the time of death, and catch the murderer in the act, or in the act of dumping the body, etc. Either way, it should make murderers much easier to catch. So, how to avoid that? How to still have a story and a puzzling mystery, despite this? The mystery story structure provides the bones of the book, the structure, and the various cast positions that have to be "staffed": (victim, suspects, the sleuth, the killer, etc). It gives you the opening (finding the body), and a path to follow to the ending (the solution, and the big finish, and the downbeat ending).

--Despite the futuristic setting for TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT the people are still dealing with the boring bits of life - traffic jams; relationship breakdowns; longing and desire; horrible coffee.  Do you have a feeling that the more things change for the human race, the more some elements stay the same?

I am inclined to think people will always be people. I remember reading some ancient Roman and Greek history, and being really struck by how very "modern" the people seemed, with their preoccupations with aging, jealousy, "these kids today", love and loneliness, with wondering how to live a good life, worried about what other people think of them, and all the other all-too-human concerns we recognise so well. I figure that in the future, no matter how technologically enhanced, or modified, people get, even if they get all disembodied and live inside computer networks, there will still be people worried about these same issues, though somehow twisted because of the unique location and setting. And I figure that even in the far future, people will still find cause to say, "we can upload our minds to computers, but we still can't get decent cups of coffee?", "these kids today!", and, "do I look fat in this?"

--And the great unfair question - which authors do you recommend / admire / would you say have greatly influenced your own writing?

This is easy: William Gibson, Jorge Luis Borges, Alan Furst, Connie Willis, HP Lovecraft, Elmore Leonard, Sue Grafton, Charles Stross--and many, many more besides. These are the names that come immediately to mind, because I love their work dearly, struggle to emulate it, and re-read it again and again for sheer pleasure. They each are at the top of their respective games, doing their particular thing with a quality, and wit, and lack of apparent effort that makes this writer extremely envious, and has, in low moments, tempted him to give up the whole hopeless thing, and leave these geniuses to it. But I don't, because I can't. It's what I do, because it's all I can do.

Technorati Tags: Book Discussions / Chats Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait What We're Talking About Australia K A Bedford Crime Fiction Science Fiction Western Australia 2009 Fremantle Arts Press Aurealis Award for the Best Australian Science Fiction Novel 2008

Adrian was kind enough to take some time out of his busy life to answer a few questions about FIFTY GRAND which I was lucky enough to review recently.

 
AustCrime:  FIFTY GRAND takes you into a slightly different place from THE DEAD trilogy in particular, having said that, there are also some similarities.  Do you have a particular interest in the outsider taking control, stepping into the unknown without fear or favour?
 
Adrian:  Hmm, that's interesting. I suppose its because I've always felt a bit of an outsider myself. I lived in England for six years, but I was always an Irish guy living in England. And then seven years in New York and again I was a guy from Belfast in New York. And in Denver, Jerusalem and now Melbourne, I haven't really felt that confident about saying this is my city. So I suppose these characters are a reflection of me and my insecurities about place and belonging.

AustCrime:  Revenge / an evening of scores is an interesting subject for crime novels.  What is it that appeals to you about that scenario in general, and in particular, the way that family, no matter how fractured, is defended in FIFTY GRAND?
 
Adrian:  I have a lot of theories about revenge. I feel that the contemporary world creates such a level of anxiety in people because there are basically too many of us trying to live in too small a geographical area. It's a massive and uncomfortable disconnect for a biophilic species from the African savannah. For forty or fifty thousand generations modern humans lived in small groups and dealt with things like murder or affront themselves; it's only in that last four or five generations that we have given over our notion of tribal revenge or natural justice to complete strangers i.e. the police, and we're still trying to cope with that. Revenge is a very powerful idea and it hasn't completely left us sociologically and never will. 

AustCrime:  You interweave a number of fictional and real-life characters throughout the book.  Whilst the "Hollywood star" component stands out, it's the cameo by Raúl Castro that was the most fascinating - probably because I know so little about the man.  It gave the story an immediacy and perhaps a legitimacy that fictional characters may not have imposed - is that what you were aiming for?

Adrian:  The Castro brothers are everywhere in Havana. Everyone has a story about them, has met them or has someone who has met them so I felt as if I knew them and they were such a presence in people's lives I couldn't  ignore it. Basically Raul and Fidel have ruled that country as their personal fiefdom for half and a century and, incredibly, they are still going. I loved putting Raul in there and I think I captured him quite well, although, of course, I never actually met him in real life.

AustCrime:  Having said that, did you have any second thoughts about the interweaving of the real-life people into the story / did the publishers have any particular qualms?
 
Adrian:   I did go too far. I had to remove quite a bit of the book for legal reasons. I had a few conversations and emails with libel lawyers who explained to me that even if something is true, the burden of proof is on you to prove it. It caused quite a few headaches for me in the editing process and although I was going for verisimilitude in my depiction of Fairview (really Telluride) I probably should just have chilled a bit more and given myself an easier path to publication.
 
AustCrime:   Are you happy with the way that Mercado is developed?  Is that character somebody you enjoyed writing and will anybody in this book be returning in a follow-up?
 
Adrian:   I felt she took a lot of risks for a non risk taker. I'd be surprised if she ever did something like that again. Saying that though, I'd love to see her in a police procedural or something along those lines, a case which is a lot less personal. I dont have any plans for book 2 at the moment though. I've really got to get back to Cuba, have a few drinks, a few conversations with cops and the like...
 
AustCrime:   And the great unfair question - which crime authors do you recommend / admire / would you say have greatly influenced your own writing?
 
Adrian:   Perfectly fair question. The four biggest influences on me as a crime writer are Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith. Probably Jim Thompson is the biggest influence, but the one I admire the most is Chandler. His prose is so clean and effortless - the kind of effortlessness that requires tons of effort. In the contemporary scene I'm a convert to the dark church of James Ellroy and I love the Celtic New Wave writers: Rankin, Bruen, Burke, Hughes, McGilloway, McNamee, Downey, Neville etc.  
 

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