Author interview
with Neal Asher
Author bio:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Neal, welcome
over at The Book Plank and for taking your time to answer these few questions
for us.
BP:
First off, could you give us a short introduction as to who Neal Asher is? What
are you likes, dislikes and hobbies besides writing?
NA: Well I guess I can be defined as Neal Asher the SF writer now. As for
likes, dislikes and hobbies they are all in a state of flux at the moment since
I’ve gone through a life-changing event. This January’s release of Dark
Intelligence also marks one year since I watched my wife die of bowel cancer. A
lot of the things I used to like I just haven’t got back into e.g. I haven’t
read a book for a year. A lot of the things I disliked no longer bother me
much. Also my hobbies have changed. I do a lot of walking now. I spend my life
divided between England and Crete so additional hobbies here are spending far
too much time on Facebook and Twitter – that hasn’t changed. Out there, as well
as tramping round the mountains, I swim, kayak, repair my house and grow all
sorts of stuff in my garden there, but mainly chillies. I like chillies.
BP:
You have been writing for quite a while now do you still know when and where
you decided that you wanted to become an author?
NA: Sort of. My standard answer to is that when I was in my teens I was a
Jack of all trades but master of none – I had many interests including writing.
By my early to mid twenties I decided to concentrate on one of them if I was to
make anything of it. I chose writing because in writing an interest in and
knowledge of other stuff can be incorporated.
BP:
You are one of the leading Science Fiction authors of Britain. Have you ever
thought your books would be turned into such a success?
NA: I of course hoped for that but while spending 20 years running at the
publishing brick wall with my head I had my doubts. By the time Macmillan took
me on I’d decided that I’d been on that course for so long that it was too late
to give up and try something else.
BP:
The book you wrote, Gridlinked, started off the Polity universe. What gave you
the idea behind the Polity universe?
NA: It grew out of the short stories I was writing before Macmillan took me
on. Some of the same elements would appear in different stories, like the
Runcibles, U-space, Polity AIs, the alien enemy the Prador, the Golem androids
and so forth. I naturally came to the decision that I wanted everything in
(kitchen sink and all) so I could have a big enough canvas on which to sketch
out any story I cared to tell.
BP: In
the last couple of years you have written a trilogy featuring a different
universe, The Owner Trilogy. With Dark Intelligence you return back to the
Polity universe. What was the thought behind this?
NA: The Owner universe is not new. I wrote a number of stories featuring
this character that appeared in my collection called The Engineer (later
updated to The Engineer ReConditioned). However, those stories where set far in
the future, while the Owner books tell the story of his genesis. I wanted to do
something different because I was aware that how by sticking to what I was
doing I could become stale. I was also aware that by doing something different
I could end up being pilloried by the fans. I went with it because I would
rather have people complaining about the lack of a Polity book than them saying
my latest Polity book is shite, because I’ve become stale. I returned to the
Polity with Dark Intelligence happily, feeling refreshed.
BP:
Dark Intelligence is to be published this February, if you would have to sell
the book with a single sentence how would it go?
NA: What you expect from the Polity and more.
BP:
Writing a story within an already established universe must have been
difficult, how did you go about planning to write Dark Intelligence.
NA: I did have to do some rereading of The Technician and some other books
to check detail, also a short story called Alien Archaeology that features that
Dark Intelligence – the black AI Penny Royal. But beyond that I planned it like
I plan all my books, which is to say not at all. For me it all happens at the
keyboard.
BP:
Did you encounter any difficulties when you were writing Dark Intelligence?
NA: Nothing beyond the usual i.e. occasionally having to strip out a
proliferation of plot lines or remove the odd character. A story published in
Asimov’s called The Other Gun was the result of that. I cut out a couple of
characters and the plotline involving them and turned them into that story. I
have another chunk of text like that on file which I’ll also turn into a short
story too, or maybe even something longer. But overall I wrote Dark
Intelligence, and the ensuing two books, very quickly. In fact I’d written the
entire trilogy to first draft well before the first book of it was due for
delivery to Macmillan.
BP:
What was the hardest part in writing Dark Intelligence?
NA: The same as it is with any book or series of books: writing a
satisfying ending. I have to tie off all my plot threads and avoid like the
plague a deus ex machina. In this case I had to write such endings for each of
the three books and the trilogy as a whole.
BP:
Besides the hardest part, which scene, chapter or happening did you like
writing about the most?
NA: Well that would be telling too much! But being vague I guess I can say
the last section of the very last book…
BP:
Gridlinked was published back in 2001 for the first time, do you think the
vision of Science Fiction has changed in any way when you look at it now?
NA: Only in that it has continued changing as it has always changed by
incorporating new technologies.
BP: Dark
Intelligence marks a new series, do you have any other projects that you wish
to pursue in the near future?
NA: I am setting forth on writing a follow up to the Owner books.
BP:
Science Fiction is a very broad genre everything and much more is possible.
What do you like most about the Science Fiction genre?
NA: Sensawunda.
BP: If
you would have to give your top five favorite books, which would they be?
NA: I’m guessing you want SF books here so, off the top of my head:
Half-Past Human – T J Bass, Use of Weapons – Ian M Banks, Blindsight – Peter
Watts, Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan and Wyrms – Orson Scott Card. But those
are just the ones that came into my mind just now. Ask me again in a few days
and you’ll probably get a completely different list.
BP:
and last, can you tell us a bit more about what is in store for the readers of
Dark Intelligence?
NA: An intricate story concerning transformation, the effects of memory
editing and war time atrocities, and the redefinition of death. All liberally
spiced with far future technology, grotesque alien life, violence and exploding
spaceships. As ever.
BP:
Thank you very much for your time Neal and good luck with your future writing!
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