Interview with Tad Williams

Q: Subterranean Press has just released a collection of short-stories and assorted works from you titled RITE? Can you tell us a little more about this book?

I've always thought I had more strings to my bow than most people realized, so when Subterranean Press contacted me I was pleased to do the collection. It gives me a chance to show readers some of the stuff -- the less genre-specific stuff, the humor -- that I also like, and consider to be part of my writing that doesn't always get highlighted in my novels.

Q: Are you still working on A CHRONICLE IN STONE (short stories set in Osten Ard) while writing the current series, or has this project been postponed?

I'm still planning to do it, and I still look forward to it. I kind of got waylaid by SHADOWMARCH, and multi-volume waylayings take a while to recover from.

Q: If you'll pardon the boxing analogy, critics and fans alike have often claimed that you are a notorious slow starter. Is this an aspect you have tried to improve on over the years, or do you simply need time to lay the groundwork that will allow everything to fall into place later on in a novel/series?

That's certainly the reason on my end that my stories often start slowly. I find that if you start a story at high speed, the readers get impatient if you don't keep that pace up all the way through, and for three thousand pages or whatever, it's not very practical. Also, I like readers to get to know the world that WAS so they'll appreciate the drama of what begins to happen to it.It might be instructive to look at some of my shorter works and see if they start slowly too, or if it really is a case of "horses for courses".

Q: How would you like to be remembered as an author? What is the legacy you'll leave behind?

I secretly suspect/hope that people will realize OTHERLAND was a unique story. I'm very proud of it. And I hope that when I'm gone, people feel the same connection with my work that I feel with my favorite writers, many of whom are no longer around. That's the main thing -- the connection with readers. We all seek to connect.

Q: Do you have an idea what project you'll be tackling next when SHADOWMARCH volume 3 is completed? Does the novel have a working title at the moment?

I have two ideas that are currently foremost, a Cold-War-between-Heaven-and-Hell book tentatively titled "And Ministers of Grace" and a science fiction superhero-terrorists-fighting-galactic-war book (with echoes of the Mahabharata) equally tentatively called "Arjuna Rising". But who knows what will be on top of the pile in a year or so?

Q: Honestly, do you believe that the speculative fiction genre will ever come to be recognized as veritable literature? Truth be told, in my opinion there has never been this many good books/series as we have right now, and yet there is still very little respect (not to say none) associated with the genre.

As long as a large portion of the genre is "commercial", meaning bought because people read it for comfort the way they read airport thrillers and romance novels, no. The reason literary fiction is "literary" is that it's not worthwhile to publish the really stupid end of the literary genre because people barely buy the smart end, so the literary folk don't have to have their idiot cousins in the living room when company comes to call.

Q: Anything else you wish to share with your fans?

Just my profound gratitude that people read my work, and the promise that I will never publish a book I don't believe in.

Thanks, Patrick, and sorry again for the delay.

Tad

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Interview by Patrick
fantasyhotlist.blogspot