What drives your art? What forces you, rides you, hustles you, controls you until its latest needs have been met? What really drives you to create speculative fiction art, be it words or images?

I think what drives people to write (and read) fantasy is the urge to expand their scope of action beyond the range of the possible. So, it’s possible that what drives my art is mere frustration (or even darker impulses). But I think of it as being something more positive–perpetually testing in our thoughts what’s possible and what’s not possible is what enables us to see new possibilities.

If there was the possibility of becoming any speculative fiction character ever created (except your own), would you? Who? Why?

Probably not. It would mean leaving behind the people in my life, for one thing. Also, I wouldn’t be crazy about living in the constraints of a life imagined by someone else.

If you could only take one author’s works compressed on an e-book reader on a “one-bag-only” one-way trip to another galaxy, whose works would it be and why?

I just want to point out that ebooks make this question a little obsolete. I’ve got a flash drive that enables me to carry a library’s worth of text in my pocket. (But I realize that’s not what the question is really about.) It would have to be someone with lots of re-readability, I guess: Dante, Vergil, or Shakespeare would be candidates. Among sf/f writers, I’d probably pick Fritz Leiber. He’s at least three or four of the great genre writers of the 20th century, all by himself.

Why Morlock? What initiated his story and made you complete this particular tale?

Morlock is a surly bastard with poor social skills, and consequently fun to write about. It’s part of the backstory of Blood of Ambrose (due out from Pyr in early 2009) that he’s a dry drunk and has a certain affinity for crows. I wanted to write a couple of stories to fill out this background, and “The Red Worm’s Way” turned into one of them.

In the privacy of your favorite writing nook, do you act out your protagonist’s actions? Do you know how to use his weapons? Do you wear his clothes? Do you talk like him?

I did a little fencing in high school, so I have some sense of how some parts of a sword fight might work. On a couple of occasions I’ve walked through part of a fight, just to have a sense of whether the footwork was possible. But I try not to over-identify with my viewpoint character: my job as the storyteller is very different from his.

Quick: List your first thought as your answers to these questions about the future of genre fiction:

Printing Methods: Offset or Print-on-Demand?

POD. It’s where all publishing is headed (if it’s smart).

Reading Formats: Electronic or Print?

Print (with increasing amounts of electronic, especially for short fiction).

Book Tours: Physical or Virtual?

The one virtual book tour I was involved with didn’t seem to get anywhere, so I’m pretty sceptical. Online promotion is obviously going to be a big deal for small presses, but I don’t know if the book-tour thing is a good model

Reading Habits: Dead, Dying, Alive, Growing?

I think there will always be readers.

Length: Flash, Short, Novella, 1970’s novel (60k), 1980’s novel (80k), 1990’s novel (120k), 2000’s novel (150k)

[Declined to answer]

Robert E. Howard, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, Louis L’Amour, Frederick Faust, Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini . . . the list could go on. Some lived long lives, some flared and burned out young. All lived life hard. All wrote pulse-pounding action-adventure, often dipping into the many different genres they share, yet each eventually establishing their name within a specific one. What do you believe you have in common with these authors, and what makes you so sure speculative fiction – heroic fantasy fiction to be precise – is your genre? Or is it?

I’m not sure why I’m sure that I’m a writer of heroic fantasy. But I am.

Thank you for your answers, James. Congratulations on Blood of Ambrose!

James Enge’s stories about Morlock Ambrosius have been appearing for a few years now, mostly in Black Gate; his novel Blood of Ambrose will be published early in Spring 2009 by Pyr. Find out more on his website.

Review Praise for “The Red Worm’s Way”

“…a clever tale with an unusual twist…Morlock…is truly a unique character in literature, let alone heroic fantasy.” ~ Dan Nelson

An excerpt

…Morlock thought idly about knocking her down, taking the coin and running away with it. But his conversation with the woman had drawn a crowd of interested listeners; he doubted he would get away clean. Besides, stealing magical gold often had unintended consequences. On the other hand, he could just say No and walk away. But it occurred to him that he wasn’t going to do that.

“All right,” he said. “Keep the others; I just want that coin with the crow.”

“I will give it to you tomorrow morning.”

“If I keep your husband’s corpse intact.”

“Oh no. Not at all. If you stay on watch through the night I will give you the coin, even if the Unnamed Ones violate poor Thelyphron. But . . .”

“But?”

“Our law says that whatever parts are missing from a dead body after a vigil must be made up by the watcher.”

“So if poor Thelyphron’s nose is missing in the morning, he will be buried with mine? Likewise liver or testicles?”

“Yes. That is only fair, wouldn’t you say?”

Morlock considered the question briefly. “No. Where do I stand, or sit, this wake?”…

Enjoy this interview and excerpt?
Read more like it from other members of the anthology here on RBE.
Better yet – buy your own copy
of Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure today!