Interview with Steven Erikson

Q: Cover art has become a very hot topic of late, especially in the wake of the uproar caused by the release of the US cover for THE BONEHUNTERS. What are your thoughts pertaining to that facet of a novel, and what do you think of the various covers that have graced your books? Do you have a personal favorite?

I very much liked the new Reaper's Gale cover. The ones with TOR certainly started out on the wrong foot and I think virtually everyone agrees on that. It can be difficult in that, even when I am asked for direction, and when I respond by describing what I'd like to see, an artist's interpretation can often prove very different. As for my ultimate favourite, I'd have to say the UK cover for Deadhouse Gates.

Q: M. John Harrison recently wrote this post on his blog:

"Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid."

Needless to say, a multitude of people disagree with Harrison's postulation. What's your take on Harrison's post and the concept of worldbuilding in general?

I wrote my response to that question some time ago and have pasted it here:

Two observations come to mind. The first is that, with forty years of reading in the genre of fantasy and science fiction, I cannot recall one instance of a writer committing the flaws as described by Harrison, so either I have been extremely lucky or he has been profoundly unlucky. It is unfortunate he cited no examples to support his assertions, making any effort at rebuttal all the more difficult. In fact, the only writer who comes to mind who might be said to have gone overboard in his world-building is James Michener, and of course he set his novels in the 'real' world.

The second observation is this. Every writer world-builds. In every genre, including contemporary literary fiction; and indeed, when writing non-fiction as well. World-building is nothing more or less than the selection of details surrounding the characters, establishing a setting and with it a place in which to immerse those characters and the story of their lives. It is necessary, essential to story-telling. Further, is he asserting the notion that there is something uniquely flawed when world-building in the fantasy or science fiction genre, suggesting perhaps that the process is somehow purer when electing to write tales set in our contemporary world? If so, that would be an extraordinary, laughable conceit.

I generally read nonfiction while writing fiction; among the recent books I have read were two titles that do well to illustrate my point (that world-building exists in all writing); the first is the biography of a child soldier from Sierra Leone. The setting exists, as real as any other in this world, yet the narrative relating the author's harrowing life there is anchored in the details he relates, scene by scene, event by event. Is this a 'perfect' rendition of life in Sierra Leone? We can presume it is close; but we also accept that it is selective (founded on personal experiences): it is a world built exclusively on relevant details recollected by one person at one time and in a sequence of places. It is a rendition of experiences and memories and neither can be said to be purely objective, in that we are all subjective creatures. If this story had been fiction, set on another planet rather than Sierra Leone, and containing all the 'background' information required to give the tale its necessary context, would this be, in Harrison's eyes, yet another example of obsessive, extraneous world-building?

The other book also concerned Africa, and recounted a lifelong exploration of the continent and its peoples by a Polish journalist. Once again, he builds a world, selects his details to support his various interpretations of places, events and cultures. This too is selective and subjective. This too is world-building.

The point is, as far as I can see it, Harrison is beating a straw dog. In the narrow definition of world-building he provides (in the quote given and granted, it may be out of context with further elaborations deleted to the detriment of the author's argument), he ends up in effect railing at something that does not even exist, and if it does, is exemplified so rarely that attacking it is pointless. For what it is worth, I see this as yet another example of how the internet can legitimize virtually anything anyone chooses to say, even when, with a moment's thought, it becomes clear that what is being said is at best irrelevant, at worse nonsensical and fatuous.

Now, I am responding to the quote. I have not read Harrison. If he does not world-build in his fiction then he is unique in the history of literature and should be canonized.

I am not interested in joining some ferocious debate, not with Harrison and not with anyone else with an opinion, so I hereby conclude my commentary on this subject. Don't bring it up again.

Q: Anything you wish to share with your fans?

Thank you all for reading this series.

Cheers,

Steven Erikson

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Interview by Patrick
fantasyhotlist.blogspot