Keith Brooke’s novel alt.human (published in the US as Harmony) was shortlisted for the 2013 Philip K Dick Award. We’ve talked to him about this and his new novel Riding the Serpent’s Back.
First of all can you tell us a bit about your new novel, Riding the Serpent’s Back?
The origins of this one go back several years to a short story of the same name, published in Interzone in 1995, and reprinted in my collection Memesis. The story was set on an island-continent set in a sea of molten lava on a colony planet; as sometimes happens, a story doesn’t lose its grip on my imagination even when it’s been written and I started to realise there was something bigger here, and that this world with its molten sea would make a terrific setting for an epic fantasy. Once I’d made that leap, the rest of the world started to fall into place, and increasingly I found myself thinking in terms of an end of era story, with the world and its people heading relentlessly towards catastrophe.
Can you give us some insight into your main characters?
The original story revolved around the dynamic between two main characters, Leeth Hamera, the son of a wealthy merchant who has run away to escape the pressure of expectations, and Chi, the enigmatic leader of a small band of renegades living beyond the reach of the law on the island-continent. In the novel Leeth becomes the trusted sidekick of Chi, who turns out to be the son of an aging mage who, in his final years, decided to pass his Talents on to a new generation. Set against a backdrop of impending disaster, the mage’s children come together to resist a rogue church leader who is trying to use ancient earth magic to strengthen his grip on power – with potentially devastating consequences. It’s a big book, with lots of twists and turns, and lots of history and conflict between the siblings and those around them.
Can you tell us a bit about the cover and do you think the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
A: Covers have always played a key part in the book-buying process, and I’ve been lucky enough to have some fantastic ones over the years (and only a couple that really sucked…). As book-buying shifts online, that hasn’t really changed, although some of the specifics have: now it’s vital that covers work as tiny thumbnails as well as full-size – a cover that grabs attention as one thumbnail among many on an Amazon search page really is doing its job! I was delighted when I saw the cover image for Riding the Serpent’s Back (by an artist who goes by the name of Breaker213). I love the sense of space, the two small people in a vast, mysterious landscape – particularly as the novel is full of strange settings. I like the broad brushstroke feel, too: it’s not one of those photo-realistic images and a lot is done by suggestion, making it very atmospheric.
Can you tell us a bit about your other books? alt.human / Harmony was shortlisted for the 2013 Philip K Dick award. That must have been exciting?
The first thing I knew about that was when I logged onto Facebook one morning to find a message from Jeff VanderMeer congratulating me. I had to search around to find the shortlist and in the meantime there was a deluge of congratulations coming in. It was a real thrill, and totally unexpected.
Three or four years ago I was editing an academic book on science fiction, Strange Divisions and Alien Territories, where a dozen top writers contributed a chapter each about a sub-genre they had worked in. This set me thinking about sub-genres I hadn’t tackled in my twenty-plus years in the field, and I realised the three big ones were time travel, alternate history and aliens. So Harmony (published as alt.human in the UK) was a conscious attempt to put two-thirds of this right. My issue had always been that I simply couldn’t sustain belief in aliens for the length of an entire novel: I didn’t want to write the kind of aliens who were really just humans in rubber suits, but how do you portray an alien that is truly alien and still understand it enough to make the reader care? My solution in Harmony was to write a world crammed full of all kinds of aliens: while some would be closer to us in body and psychology, others would be truly weird and different. This brought me to the Fermi Paradox: if aliens are out there, why haven’t we seen any evidence? In the universe of Harmonythey are out there, they always have been, and humankind has grown up surrounded by them – and so, for me, Harmony is also my attempt at the ultimate alternate history, too.
And what of time travel? I went on to tackle that in my fifth young adult novel, Tomorrow (published under my Nick Gifford pen-name). This one centres around a fifteen year-old whose recently deceased father turns out to have been a key player in the on-going War Against Chronological Terror, where a somewhat limited form of time travel is used to send information from the near future to try to prevent the world descending into chaos. As the tagline says, it’s the story of three teenagers who may have the power to save or destroy a world that is yet to be.
How did you start writing? Was there a particular book or moment in your life that spurred you on?
I’d always read lots and written my own stories when I was young, but a very rainy holiday in Yorkshire when I was seventeen was pivotal. The local village shop had a rack of cheap paperbacks and I read lots that week. Some time during that period I started to become aware that these books were written by real people and perhaps I should take it seriously.
What sort of challenges, as a writer, might you have faced over the years? Any insights you would be able to share for those aspiring writers seeking advice?
In many ways, my early career was the wrong way round. I wrote my first serious story when I was a student and sold it to a semi-professional magazine. I took a year out after university to write and immediately sold my first story to a professional magazine. In that year out I wrote my first novel and sold it to a big commercial publisher. It was hard work, but everything did seem to fall into place. Other friends getting their breaks in the business around the same time had been slaving away for ten or more years, and I often wondered if I could have stuck at it without those initial successes to spur me on. What then happened was that after my third novel came out my publisher was taken over by a dictionary publisher (yes, I know…) and slashed their fiction list. I then had several years where I learned that I did, indeed, have the determination to stick at it when the going got tough.
Insights for aspiring writers? I’ve taught a lot of writing courses and one of the key messages has always been that successful writers do stick at it. A writer’s career often depends on lucky breaks. You can’t control this, but what you can control is putting yourself in the right position to make the most of those breaks: keep writing, keep trying different things, be professional, be ready. It’s no good sitting back and waiting. When I was dropped by my first publisher I wrote more novels, but also I kept writing and publishing short fiction and non-fiction. Not only did that keep me visible, it led to all kinds of opportunities, and eventually I was back with another book publisher. These days I write, edit, design, run a small publishing company, proof-read, teach, review, and more, and the balance of my professional life is constantly shifting as opportunities present themselves. It’s hard work and sometimes it’s scary, and I bloody love it!
Have you ever struggled between what you would like to happen to a character and what you considered more sensible to occur? Can you tell us when and what did you do at last?
Ooh, good one! Yes, that does happen, and nearly always I go with the character. I do plot things out fairly carefully before I start work, but rather than stick tightly to those plans I feel more like a sheepdog: I know where I’ve started and I know where I need to end up, but it’s more a case of steering characters and events rather than dictating them too closely; their own choice of route is nearly always the more interesting one. There’s a danger that this sounds a bit precious, but for me it’s where some of the greatest satisfaction comes in as I witness events that have somehow sprung from my imagination.
One example is from my VR novel The Accord. In this book people are uploaded into a virtual heaven when they die. One scene takes place in a refugee camp where voluntary workers are using portable devices to record the personae of the refugees, with the very worthy aim of making sure that everyone is entitled to a place in the Accord, not just the privileged. As I was writing this scene, the logic of what was happening suddenly unfolded before me: a mother watches as her small daughter is recorded, seeks assurance that the process is complete, then sweeps the child into her arms and tries to storm out of the camp, knowing full well that the armed guards will shoot her – and her daughter. For her it makes perfect sense that she and her daughter will have a better life in the virtual heaven than they will in the camp, and for me it’s still one of the most heart-stoppingly poignant things I’ve ever written. And it was a complete surprise.
How do you feel you have evolved as a writer throughout your career?
I’ve always followed the ideas, rather than having a career plan, much to the frustration of my agent! So I’ve written all kinds of SF, a fantasy novel about the death of magic, horror, thrillers, and now epic fantasy. I’m not sure that’s evolution, but I’d far rather be the kind of writer who is endlessly fascinated by characters and ideas than one trapped into a particular mode.
What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?
I really like the good ones! To be honest, it’s often hard to deal with bad reviews, but it goes with the territory: if you stand up in public then someone out there is going to take issue with you.
How do you define success as an author?
In a hundred and one ways. For me, though, the bottom line is that twenty-five years since my first professional publication (that was in August 1989) I’m still writing and editing full-time. This means that I must be finding a substantial audience for my work and that out there are at least a few people who really appreciate what I’m doing. That’s pretty cool.
How do you market your book?
One big change I’ve seen over my career is the amount of marketing authors are expected to do. Back when I started, it still wasn’t unusual for a writer to just write, and not take part in the PR at all, but it’s not like that now. I’m active in social media, I have websites and a blog, I do interviews; I should do more at conventions, but that’s never been one of my strong suits, and a pretty stressful couple of years have dented my confidence somewhat.
For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I made the transition a couple of years ago to the extent that now when I get a physical review copy I usually ask the publisher for an ebook version if I’m actually going to review it. When I’m buying books, it’s almost exclusively ebooks. I still love books as objects, and being surrounded by them in my house, but the practicality of ebooks means I read far more now than I have done in a while.
What kind of books do you read, any favourite authors?
All sorts. I’ve just finished a couple of early Roddy Doyle novels, The Commitments and The Snapper, wonderfully funny, warm stories set in Dublin in the 1980s/1990s. At the same time I’m reading the memoirs of forensic psychologist Paul Britton. I review for the Guardian newspaper and New Scientist offshoot Arc, and recent highlights have included Alison Littlewood’s wonderful haunted house story The Unquiet House, Andy Weir’s The Martian and Simon Ings’ Wolves. Another fabulous book I recently finished is Neil Williamson’s The Moon King, a charming and creepy literary fantasy of the very best kind.
What do you do when you’re not writing, any hobbies?
Cooking, playing guitar badly, running, spending time with friends and family. I’m incredibly lucky that not only do I love my work but it’s also very diverse – I’ve been lucky enough to make not just one of my hobbies my job, but most of them.
What’s next, what are you working on now?
In that diverse portfolio of things I call work, my current focus is publishing. I run infinity plus which, for ten years, was one of the biggest SF and fantasy websites, and ended up publishing more than two million words of fiction from most of the big names in the genre, including Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson and more. Infinity plus has now transformed into a small publishing company, with more than fifty titles available – all as ebooks, and increasingly in print, too. This month we’re publishing Eric Brown’s collectionDeep Future, and next month we have Garry Kilworth’s The Iron Wire, a historical novel about the people who built the first telegraph line through the heart of Australia. In my own work I’ve moved towards fantasy and horror this year and among other things I’ve just placed a horror story with Postscripts. Then, as it’s always tended to be with me, it’ll be a case of wherever I’m taken by the next big idea that grabs me and won’t let go.
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Interview by Dag Rambraut – SFFWorld.com © 2014
