Home Literature Stories Movies Games Comics Blogs News Discussion Forum Art Gallery
  Science Fiction and Fantasy News
MORE AUTHORS CONFIRMED FOR DISCOVER FESTIVAL (01-27)
Angry Robot's Open Door Month returns (01-25)
New Event, Leicestershire, England (01-08)
Dark Hall Press - new Horror Fiction imprint, (11-03)

Official sffworld Reviews
Juggernaut by Adam Baker (02-12 - Book)
Necropath by Eric Brown (02-06 - Book)
Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds (02-06 - Book)
WOOL by Hugh Howey (02-02 - Book)


Author

Site Index

Interview    Bookmark and Share

Page 3 of 4

Interview with Alastair Reynolds


By Patrick St-Denis (2008-03-31)


- The Revelation Space universe is a huge and fascinating achievement of world-building and I was particularly struck by how you established its complexity in the trilogy and then used Chasm City, The Prefect and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days to fill in some of the blanks in the history of that universe. Can we expect to see more of this in the future, or will there be direct sequels to Absolution Gap taking us further into the future? Or anything about the older history of the universe, such as the wars on Mars? Or indeed, any kind of companion book to the setting?

Well, I certainly hope that there'll be more. At any one time, though, I typically only have one idea in my head. Clearly, there's a limit to how much you can say about a certain fictional universe before the narrative space becomes too clotted. But I hope that day is some way off. I could envisage a sequel or two to The Prefect, maybe a book set after Absolution Gap, but I don't think I'll do anything set really early in the sequence. The later stuff is more exciting to me as a writer - the Melding Plague era, when it all starts getting a bit seedy and gothic. As for a companion book - maybe, one day. There are some extremely tentative moves in that direction, but we're talking about a very long term project.

- Were there any perceived conventions of the science fiction genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out to write those different novels?

Not as such. I think to go about twisting or breaking conventions, you have to have a very confident overview of the genre, a sense of its boundaries and operating principles - and I've never had that. SF has always felt to me to be this vast, amorphous thing, extending in all directions, with a very vague and ever-shifting border - it's a bit like being stuck in an amoeba. I did have a conviction that one could do a big, space-operatic type novel without invoking FTL travel, but that wasn't a completely new innovation.

- The Prefect was a very interesting novel for the way it constantly subverted the expectations the reader had of it, particularly regarding the Clockmaker, which may be one of your most interesting creations. What was the idea behind that novel? And was it challenging to write a tension-filled story where a society is in jeopardy when the ultimate fate of that society is already known from later novels?

The originating impulse for The Prefect was simply to do a book set in the Golden Age. I had a number of sketchy ideas before I settled on the basic outline of the book, with the prefects, Aurora, etc. I was - and am - a fan of the TV series 24, so I was also intrigued by the notion of doing a 24-like storyline in the RS universe. By which I mean, a story that starts out with a small crisis, and rapidly escalates to the point where an entire society is (as you say) in jeopardy, and in which there are only a couple of people who can save the day. I dealt with the issue of tension by avoiding it completely - I just took it as a given that people would accept that something survives. But how much, and at what cost? We can still watch a film like Casablanca with enjoyment, even though we know that the "good guys won" in the end.

- Are we going to be seeing the Clockmaker again?

I think it would be more a less given that the Clockmaker would need to play a role in any future outings for Dreyfus, although not necessarily as the central plot device or threat. It might feature the way Lecter does in Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs - a kind of goading, teasing presence.

- Given the choice, would you take a New York Times bestseller, or a Hugo Award? Why, exactly?

Tough one. On a day when I badly need the money, I'd take the NYT list, thanks very much. On another day, a Hugo would be lovely. Of course, they're not mutually exclusive, as I'm sure Neil Gaiman would confirm.

Bookmark and Share

Copyright - Patrick fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

 

Latest

Juggernaut by Adam Baker
02-12 - Book Review
Necropath by Eric Brown
02-06 - Book Review
Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds
02-06 - Book Review
WOOL by Hugh Howey
02-02 - Book Review
Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue by Hugh Howey
02-02 - Book Review
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
02-01 - Book Review
Interview with Hugh Howey
02-01 - Interview
Tau Ceti by Kevin Anderson
01-31 - Book Review
Well of Sorrows by Benjamin Tate
01-31 - Book Review
Dead in the Water by Sandy Mitchell
01-31 - Book Review
Interview with Myke Cole Part 2
01-29 - Interview
MORE LEADING AUTHORS CONFIRMED FOR DISCOVER FESTIVAL
01-27 - News
Interview with Myke Cole
01-25 - Interview
Angry Robot's Open Door Month returns
01-25 - News
Rise of Empire by Michael J. Sullivan
01-24 - Book Review
Empire State by Adam Christopher
01-21 - Book Review
Control Point by Myke Cole
01-17 - Book Review
Seven Princes by John R. Fultz
01-11 - Book Review
The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams
01-10 - Book Review
New Event, Leicestershire, England
01-08 - News
SFFWorld Review of the Year 2011: Part 3
01-06 - Article
The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell
01-03 - Book Review
Zombies: A Compendium of the Living Dead by Otto Penzler
01-02 - Book Review
SFFWorld Review of the Year, 2011: Part 2
01-02 - Article
SFFWorld Review of the Year 2011: Part 1
12-30 - Article
SFFWorld Review of the Year 2011: Part 1
12-30 - Article
Seed by Rob Ziegler
12-28 - Book Review
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell
12-27 - Book Review
Conan the Indomitable by Robert E. Howard
12-24 - Book Review
The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown by Paul Malmont
12-24 - Book Review

New Forum Posts




About - Advertising - Contact us - RSS - For Authors & Publishers - Contribute / Submit - Privacy Policy - Community Login
Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use. The contents of this webpage are copyright © 1997-2011 sffworld.com. All Rights Reserved.