Interview with Daniel Abraham

Q: Were there any perceived conventions of the SFF genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out to write the Long Price Quartet?

All kind of 'em. I wanted to do something that had the great big epic feel without being operatic. I wanted to have a magic system that actually integrated with economics. I wanted to set it in an age where trade was as important as war. I wanted a world without a dark lord or orcs or any obvious signs that said "Root for this guy" and "hope that this guy fails."

Oh, and prophecy. I don't think I have a single prophecy that means anything more than your newspaper horoscope.

Q: Any plans for what you'll be turning your hand to after the Long Price Quartet is done?

Several. I don't know which one of them will actually happen. There are a couple other genres I want to play in before I die. As far as epic fantasy, I feel like I've cut my teeth on the Long Price books. I've learned a lot since the first book, both about what readers are looking for and how to structure novels. I'm hoping to get a few people together for a long weekend and have a small symposium on what fantasy is and does, and then really seriously plan out a fairly long project -- like seven or eight books -- with a good solid backbone and benchmarks and timetables and all the homework done before the first word gets written. I guess I want to see if I can write a big fat fantasy series with absolutely no bloat.

Q: Given the choice, would you take a New York Times bestseller, or a World Fantasy Award? Why, exactly?

Sadly, I'd take the bestseller. I know some folks who've won the World Fantasy Award and couldn't sell their next novel. I've got a family to feed and ambitions that I'll need to keep writing if I'm going to meet. I'd love the prestige and the critical consideration of an award like World Fantasy or the Nebula or the Hugo. I'd aspire to any of those. But if I had to choose, I'd take the check because it lets me keep playing.

Q: What authors make you shake your head in admiration? Many SFF authors don't read much inside the genre. Is it the case with you?

I think Ted Chiang hates it when I say this stuff, but he's the best living science fiction writer, just because of The Story of Your Life. The more I stew in issues of craft, the fewer writers I can read without getting distracted in this kind of reflexive dissection. Ted is better than I'll ever be, so I just shut up and take the ride.

Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire's Fall is also amazing and deeply under appreciated. And there have been times that Jack Cady had me sitting in my bathtub until the water went cold. Catherynne Valente's In The Night Garden was also gorgeous, but in a very different way. I was always aware of her craft, but her craft was so good, my dissection of it was constantly delightful. I don't know how it would have read to someone who was just reading it, but I think it's brilliant.

I read inside the genre and outside it too. It's tough, though. If you read a book every week -- along with writing and cleaning the house and taking care of the kid, much less a real day job -- that's 52 books a year. I have over a thousand books at my house, and I have a hard time walking through a bookstore without one or two sticking to me.

Q: Cover art has become a very hot topic of late. What are your thoughts pertaining to that facet of a novel, and what do you think of the superb covers that grace A Shadow in Summer and A Betrayal in Winter?

I think you should see what we got for An Autumn War.

Seriously, though, cover design and cover art -- maybe even design more than art -- makes or breaks us. That don't judge a book by its cover thing is crap. Everyone does it, all the time. Metaphorically and literally. If the cover can get someone to pick the book up and read the first few sentences, I have a chance with them. If it never gets that far, then seriously nothing I've done matters.