And today, my lovelies, we’re rolling into the holidays with the author of Wicked Women story ‘This Blessed Union’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky, take it away!
Tell us a little about yourself and what you like to write
I’m
that guy who writes about spiders taking over, while rooting for the
spiders. There’s more to it as well – my interests include biological
sciences, historical combat and gaming of all kinds, but they’re going
to put the spider thing on my tombstone. Or you can substitute various
things for spiders – insects, aliens, robots, the next wave of human
evolution, but I am consistently the champion of the other.
How long have you been writing and how did you get started?
I first started writing (terribly) around age 18 after reading the Dragonlance books and realising that here someone had taken a RPG campaign and turned it into a set of novels. If they could do it, I could do it. And of course I couldn’t, but I kept on going and improved with practice.
Which authors have influenced you and why?
Probably the most important writers of my early life were Diane Wynne Jones, Michael Moorcock and Peter S Beagle. Going forward, there are those like Mary Gentle, China Mieville and Gene Wolfe, who I’d love to be able to approach more in my own writing (I actually wrote this to Wolfe once. He replied “You should be trying to write the best like Adrian Tchaikovsky that you can.”)
Both history and fiction are replete with women who aim to misbehave – do you have a favourite wicked woman and why?
I’m going to go way back in time to Inanna, goddess of the Sumerian pantheon. Inanna wasn’t the god in charge, but she seemed to have been by far the deity the people were fondest of. She was a rule-breaker, a trickster, constantly getting into trouble, feuding with her family, having tons of sex and generally living her own life and to hell with the consequences – a genuine kickass fantasy heroine right back from the dawn of recorded storytelling, doing all the things that later on became the province of male deities and heroes.
Your standalone ‘Regency-ish military fantasy romance’ Guns of Dawn has a dynamic and passionate heroine in Emily Marshwic – what influences were behind her creation as a character and what drew you to an echo-Regency setting?
Tell us a little about yourself and what you like to write
How long have you been writing and how did you get started?
I first started writing (terribly) around age 18 after reading the Dragonlance books and realising that here someone had taken a RPG campaign and turned it into a set of novels. If they could do it, I could do it. And of course I couldn’t, but I kept on going and improved with practice.
Which authors have influenced you and why?
Probably the most important writers of my early life were Diane Wynne Jones, Michael Moorcock and Peter S Beagle. Going forward, there are those like Mary Gentle, China Mieville and Gene Wolfe, who I’d love to be able to approach more in my own writing (I actually wrote this to Wolfe once. He replied “You should be trying to write the best like Adrian Tchaikovsky that you can.”)
Both history and fiction are replete with women who aim to misbehave – do you have a favourite wicked woman and why?
I’m going to go way back in time to Inanna, goddess of the Sumerian pantheon. Inanna wasn’t the god in charge, but she seemed to have been by far the deity the people were fondest of. She was a rule-breaker, a trickster, constantly getting into trouble, feuding with her family, having tons of sex and generally living her own life and to hell with the consequences – a genuine kickass fantasy heroine right back from the dawn of recorded storytelling, doing all the things that later on became the province of male deities and heroes.
Your standalone ‘Regency-ish military fantasy romance’ Guns of Dawn has a dynamic and passionate heroine in Emily Marshwic – what influences were behind her creation as a character and what drew you to an echo-Regency setting?
Guns of the Dawn
(out now in paperback!) has a huge debt to Austen. It’s not really
Pride and Extreme Prejudice but my Emily would probably have got on well
with Lisa Bennett before her call up papers came, and equally well with
Sharpe after her time in the service. The not-quite-Regency setting
seemed the perfect point in not-quite-history to set it – not just
because that’s the period where peoples’ everyday lives become so much
more fleshed out, with a boom in people reading (mostly female-written)
novels of manners, but also because of the sort of warfare involved.
Like the sergeant at Gravenfields says, a gun can make a killer out of
anyone.
You’ve said that your SF novel – Children of Time –
is your most ambitious work to date, what kind of challenges did you
find in writing it and are there any plans to revisit that universe in
any form?
I’d love to revisit the Portiids at some point. Children of Time was a profoundly personal piece for me, born of nothing more than a knowledge of the Portia labiata and an interest in exploring what she might evolve into given a free rein. Despite a certain amount of magicianly hand-waving behind the scenes I was determined to make the science as real as I could (which may or may not be very real), and so I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of scientists to try and make it all plausible.
Next year sees the release of a collection of Lovecraftian stories from Alchemy Press – what can you tell us about The Private Life of Elder Things – how did it come about, who’s involved and what can readers expect?
I have always been fascinated by Lovecraft’s creatures. Whether by intent or not they’re often more relatable than his human characters. He was very good at walking that fine line to give something that is alien, and yet just comprehensible enough to remain interesting. The idea of Private Life is to take a few Lovecraftian staples and explore how their worlds touch human experience in new ways.
What’s the appeal of short fiction for you and do you have any short fiction recommendations?
I tend to go back and forth in my reading tastes – I’ll read a couple of long works, then I’ll go back to anthologies. Short fiction is always fresh, gets to the point quickly and then wraps up. It’s a very economical writing form, and it can deliver enormous emotional or intellectual payout. Some of the best short fiction I’ve read comes from Ted Chiang, Chris Beckett, Gene Wolfe (again) and Ursula le Guin.
Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
The sort of plot where the hero is chosen by destiny beforehand. Only He can save mankind. Not you, not any of you rabble, but him. Feh.
What are you up to next?
I’d love to revisit the Portiids at some point. Children of Time was a profoundly personal piece for me, born of nothing more than a knowledge of the Portia labiata and an interest in exploring what she might evolve into given a free rein. Despite a certain amount of magicianly hand-waving behind the scenes I was determined to make the science as real as I could (which may or may not be very real), and so I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of scientists to try and make it all plausible.
Next year sees the release of a collection of Lovecraftian stories from Alchemy Press – what can you tell us about The Private Life of Elder Things – how did it come about, who’s involved and what can readers expect?
I have always been fascinated by Lovecraft’s creatures. Whether by intent or not they’re often more relatable than his human characters. He was very good at walking that fine line to give something that is alien, and yet just comprehensible enough to remain interesting. The idea of Private Life is to take a few Lovecraftian staples and explore how their worlds touch human experience in new ways.
What’s the appeal of short fiction for you and do you have any short fiction recommendations?
I tend to go back and forth in my reading tastes – I’ll read a couple of long works, then I’ll go back to anthologies. Short fiction is always fresh, gets to the point quickly and then wraps up. It’s a very economical writing form, and it can deliver enormous emotional or intellectual payout. Some of the best short fiction I’ve read comes from Ted Chiang, Chris Beckett, Gene Wolfe (again) and Ursula le Guin.
Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
The sort of plot where the hero is chosen by destiny beforehand. Only He can save mankind. Not you, not any of you rabble, but him. Feh.
What are you up to next?
My new book from Tor UK is The Tiger and the Wolf, which is set in a bronze-age tribal society where everyone is a shapeshifter. Also, later next year, I’ve got Spiderlight
coming from Tor in the US, which is best described as deconstructionist
heroic fantasy. A band of D&D-style adventurers are on a quest to
defeat a dark lord, guided by a prophesy. The problem is that the
prophesy requires them to recruit a Mirkwood-style giant spider into the
party. Hilarity ensures…
Thank you for joining us Adrian!
Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of the acclaimed Shadows of the Apt fantasy series, from the first volume, Empire In Black and Gold in 2008 to the final book, Seal of the Worm, in 2014, with a new series and a standalone science fiction novel scheduled for 2015. He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award and a British Fantasy Society Award. In civilian life he is a lawyer, gamer and amateur entomologist. Guns of the Dawn, his new fantasy novel, is out now.
You can find him on at his website here, on Facebook, Goodreads, or as @aptshadow on Twitter.
Thank you for joining us Adrian!
Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of the acclaimed Shadows of the Apt fantasy series, from the first volume, Empire In Black and Gold in 2008 to the final book, Seal of the Worm, in 2014, with a new series and a standalone science fiction novel scheduled for 2015. He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award and a British Fantasy Society Award. In civilian life he is a lawyer, gamer and amateur entomologist. Guns of the Dawn, his new fantasy novel, is out now.
You can find him on at his website here, on Facebook, Goodreads, or as @aptshadow on Twitter.
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