On the recent release of Empires: Infiltration and Empires: Extraction, both authors involved (Stephen and Gavin) wrote about their reaction to each other’s work, and the joys and perils of working collaboratively. CAUTION: Some of this may be NSFW.
Here’s the first part of this article – Stephen’s reaction to Empires: Infiltration:
Empires: Infiltration – A Reaction
For reasons that escape now at this time of writing, someone once thought it would be a really cool idea for Gavin and I to both write a short piece on our reactions to the other’s book. It’s possible that the someone was me and that I was fishing for Gavin to write something nice about Empires: Extraction on the grounds that then at least someone would and also I know where he lives. It’s possible I didn’t give much thought to what I was actually asking for, either.
Thing is, I haven’t read the final version of Empires: Infiltration, not from cover to cover, not the final post-proofed finished thing. And if that sounds horrifying, that’s not because I don’t know what’s in it (well, actually… no, never mind). Thing is, we were exchanging poorly plotted typo-riddled half-written drafts way before there was anything resembling a finished product. By the time we both had properly functioning full drafts that were almost close to being ready to go in for edit, we knew the core plot of what was in each book backwards, sideways and inside out.
So here are the three reactions I mostly remember having to Infiltration at various points of it being a work in progress.
1. OH DEAR GOD NO, NOT ANOTHER DRAFT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’VE CHANGED IT AGAIN AND NOW I HAVE TO READ THE WHOLE DAMN MS YET AGAIN STOP CHANGING THINGS YOU B*STARD I HATE YOU I AM SO SICK OF READING THIS THING WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SCREW UP MY PLOT AND MAKE MY LIFE DIFFICULT THIS TIME?
I’m not sure I have much to add to that. If Gavin doesn’t feel much the same (probably worse, in fact), I’ll be quite surprised. Ask him about the clock. I was pretty sick of reading my own MS too at that point.
Infiltration had some extra scenes added late on. I have read them, but I must admit to skimming the rest of the book at that point. Post edit? Who knows…
2. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T TURN THE SHARD INTO A SPACESHIP? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’VE TURNED THE SHARD INTO A SPACESHIP AND IT’S TAKEN OFF FROM THE MIDDLE OF LONDON INTO SPACE WITH ALL MY ALIENS ON BOARD IT?
For a time I was writing ahead of Gavin, which meant I was giving him events which he had to then put into the background of his story. Some of these events weren’t. . . entirely. . . welcome and he made me take them out and do them again. It’s possible I got a bit sulky about this. Then Gav took advantage of the summer break and the fact that he suddenly had a lot more time than I did to rush on ahead so that it was me who had to react to him, and the first thing he did was tell me he was about to launch the Shard into space. I got quite upset about this. Mostly because I wanted to do that, and he knew I wanted to do that, and he got there first and stole it.
In the end we settled on a compromise. Neither of us made the Shard turn into a spaceship. The Shard is still there, waiting for the sequel.
Meh. I guess it’s more Minas Morgul or Barad Dur anyway.
3. Oh WOW.
That was pretty much my reaction to The Pleasure (Gavin’s alien race) almost every time I encountered them, right from the first concept (and they are magnificent) to every scene in which they appear. Particularly Bad Trip. A true psycho’s psycho. Bad Trip is to humans as a curious human child is to ants. I love Bad Trip. I love how The Pleasure are obsessed with image and appearance. I love how Bad Trip does things just because he can and to see what happens. I love how he gets so worked up that he rips apart a Weft drone so completely that he actually disassembles every one of its component atoms. It is my plea to you, dear readers, to go and buy enough copies of Infiltration that it becomes worth Gav’s while to write more Bad Trip.
HAHAHAHAHAAAA. . . . . NO WAY YOU’RE GETTING THAT SCENE PAST AN EDITOR
This goes right back to the very first outline. Hardly a word written in anger, when we were both setting out our stalls, and I was reading through Gav’s outline, and then I get to this. . . thing that happens, and pretty much fell of my chair. Because there’s no way it was actually going to get into the final published script, NO WAY it was getting past an edit, but it soooo fitted with The Pleasure and the way they worked.
There is absolutely no way that Gav was going to get away with that. With an alien. With that character. Graphically. No way. I can’t go into more detail because, well, children might read this. Or teenagers. Or adults with only moderate tolerance to scenes of deviancy. But. . . it was just. . . going to get cut. It had to be. I mean, it’s all very well to portray the vultures of rapacious capitalism as spineless c*cksuckers, but quite so. . . explicitly? No way that was staying in. No way Gav was actually going to write it. No way it would actually make it past our editor and into a printed book. No way.
No. Way.
Right?
EMPIRES EXTRACTION and EMPIRES INFILTRATION by Gavin Deas, is published by Gollancz, 20th November, Hardback, £12.99
