Posted By Jason on June 29, 2009
Why write?
I write because I always have, since I was a very young child. Not much more to it than that, really. It’s an instinct. The ideas come, and I write them down. Although I suppose it’s also true to say that nowadays I write in part because I get paid to do so: if I couldn’t earn money by writing, I would do a whole lot less of it, just because I couldn’t justify the amount of time it soaks up.
If you didn’t write, what would you do?
If I didn’t write, I’m almost certain I’d be working in nature conservation or some other environmental field – that’s what I was doing before writing consumed most of my time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I wouldn’t be at all heartbroken to go back to it.
If you could hunt any speculative fiction creature ever imagined (except one of your own), would you? Which one, and why?
I’m not a hunting kind of guy, really – unless it’s with a camera rather than a gun. But either way, I guess the monster to hunt would be Godzilla. Never going to be too hard to track down a rampaging giant dinosaur thing, given the trail of destruction he leaves behind, so at least you’d always be able to find him. Of course, once you do find him, you might be in a lot of trouble, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
If you could have any speculative fiction creature ever imagined (except one of your own) as a pet, would you? Which one, and why?
I’m surprised how easy I find this question to answer, considering I’d never even thought about the possibility before. But I can say without hesitation that I’d like one of the dragons from Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, please. One of the big ones. Why? Well, it’s a highly intelligent dragon you can ride through the sky. Why wouldn’t you want one of them?
You are on a holodeck: You’re sitting in an intergalactic bar, sipping your favorite beverage, waiting expectantly for someone to take a seat at your table. Which author from any era does?
Impossible to choose from the vast array of possibilities, but since I have to, I will (so it can’t be impossible, really, can it?): Ernest Hemingway.
Why?
Mainly because if you’re going to be in a bar with anyone, it might as well be someone who can drink you under the table and keep you amused in the meantime with any number of wild stories – truthful or otherwise.
What do you talk about or do?
My plan would be just to sit there and drink in silence while EH talked.
More importantly, which chair does he sit in?
Which chair does he sit in? Whichever one I tell him to sit in. He’s only a hologram, after all, so I’m the boss.
Why Rhuan? What initiated his story and made you complete this particular tale?
The basic idea for the story came before the specific character, so Rhuan grew out of the story rather than the other way round. I needed a central character who could be an outsider, stuck in an environment – the jungle – and facing enemies – both the locals and their magical giant serpent – he didn’t understand.
What appealed to you about being included in Rage of the Behemoth?
The appeal of doing an RotB story was all in that basic combination of elements: the giant monster, the specific environment and the hero. It just sounded like a fun chance to do some traditional, slightly pulpy heroic fantasy, and as soon as I heard the theme the idea of Vikings in a jungle popped into my head.
Do you write/read aloud to/with anyone (family member or friend)?
No, on the whole my writing is a silent and solitary business. I sometimes get invaluable and patient assistance from my wife when it comes to doing a final proofread of a manuscript, but she does that out of the kindness of her heart, since the stuff I write is not, generally speaking, the kind of stuff she reads.
Quick: For each of the below, what’s your first thought in regards to the future of genre fiction:
Publishing: Dying, dead, on life support - or just going through a change? If it’s any of the first three, will it be euthanized or revitalized?
Going through a change, for sure. Likely to be a destructive change as far as some bits of the industry are concerned, hopefully a creative one for other bits. There will always be opportunities for talented and dedicated writers, but exactly what they will be – and how remunerative they will be – remains to be seen.
Reading Formats: Print, electronic, audio, or interactive?
All, with print slowly becoming less dominant but never entirely disappearing. Electronic books are bound to become more widely read as time goes by, and the hardware and software improve. The implications of that for the publishing business are seriously unclear to me. Sometimes it worries me, sometimes it excites me.
Books: Hardcover, trade paperback, mass market, other?
Not sure. I don’t think anybody is sure, if they’re honest. Trade paperbacks are pretty popular at the moment, but all paper and ink formats are vulnerable to changing markets and technologies. Perhaps in twenty years those few high street bookstores that survive will consist entirely of big machines churning out paper copies on demand – they would emerge in mass market format, I suppose. Who knows?
Preference for reading/writing: Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Horror Fiction?
My personal preference? Mainly SF and historical non-fiction and graphic novels, with some fantasy, horror, thrillers and occasional literary fiction thrown in. Preference for Writing: Fantasy, so far, but horror appeals, as does SF (but for some reason I find that last one much harder to write than the other forms of speculative fiction, so may never make any progress with it).
Thank you for joining the Rage of the Behemoth team and for your interview answers, Brian!
“Beyond the Reach of His Gods” appears under the ‘Mysterious Jungles’ theme in Rage of the Behemoth. Brian Ruckley lives in Scotland, and is the author of the Godless World fantasy trilogy, excerpts from which, along with his blog and other info, can be found on his website www.brianruckley.com.
An opening excerpt
An unseen log boomed against Wolfrun’s hull. In the last few days, Rhuan of the Grey Hall had taken to posting a lookout on the prow, to ward against just such events. This great, fat monstrosity of a river seemed at times to carry almost as much debris as it did water. Some of that flotsam weighed enough to punch a hole clean through the planking: mighty timbers, even whole trees; once, a clump of them that drifted on the current, riding upright on their raft of sodden earth and entangled roots. Their uppermost, trembling branches had reached almost as high as the masthead, and a lizard as long as a man’s arm perched amongst the boughs like the captain of that mad vessel. Such a sight would be unthinkable in Rhuan’s cold homeland, but these foul and fetid territories held much that ought to have been impossible.
An arrow clattered against the barrel next to Rhuan and fell beside him. Here was the reason why no watchman could now ride the wolf-headed prow, and why Rhuan himself hunched behind the gunwale of his longship: arrows too feeble to punch through anything but the thinnest hide, yet capable of killing a man if they so much as scratched exposed skin. The savages who loosed them set some dark, tarry matter about the points, and it gave any wounds they delivered a vile potency. Rhuan had already watched two of his men die agonizing, fevered deaths. One, whose hand had been transfixed by such an arrow, had lived long enough to see his arm turning black, stinking of rot, drawing attentive hosts of the flies that infested these jungles. They had cut it off and cast it overboard, and sealed the stump with fire, but still he had died…
Watch for review praise for “Beyond the Reach of His Gods” and Rage of the Behemoth!
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