Answers
Q) Ian from Waterford, Ireland wrote: Hi Ian, I've read your book Monument twice now and greatly enjoyed it. I'm going nuts here waiting for your second book! . . . All I really want to know is are you almost done with your new novel?
Dear Ian,
Hi there. Thanks for the nice words. I've still got a lot of work to do on the new book, but it is going terribly well. I am over halfway through the first draft - which usually takes longer to produce than subsequent drafts. I tend to work with only the vaguest of ideas where the story is going, so there's a lot of thinking and planning-on-the-hoof to be done. Nonetheless progress is, by my standards, fairly swift. Try not to go too nuts . . .
Cheers!
Q) 'J. G. Thomas ' wrote:
Hello Ian!
You have no idea how happy I am that I found this website! I read Monument waaay back in 2002 when it was published and loved it. Ever since, I've been (like many others, by the looks of it) waiting for Blood Echo. As the years passed, I started to wonder what was happening. I emailed Orbit a few times and was informed on every occasion that Blood Echo would surface at some point, but it never did and I started to give up hope.
I'm therefore delighted to find that you are actually alive and well (even if Blood Echo isn't!). While I thought Blood Echo sounded great, I'm really excited that you are re-visiting Ballas and can't wait to see the end product.
By the way, there were many things I liked about Monument, but you know which scene has stayed in my mind all these years? So vivid even though I've not read it for a long time? The marsh with the eels. I just thought you captured the feel of the eels and the water amazingly well. It is a very visceral scene.
So, thanks and I look forward very much to reading your new work. I also write a fantasy blog (http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/) where I do book reviews and interviews and other genre-related things, so when the novel's done and the ARCs are ready to be shipped out, it would be great if you could bear me in mind.
Cheers!
Dear J.G.,
Thanks for the message - and for staying interested for such a long time!
The eel-sequence is possibly my favourite part of Monument, too. I've always lived near boggy, marshy areas - all be them populated by nothing more threatening than frogs, toads and leeches. Interestingly (for me, at least) the eels are the only entities in the story whom Ballas cannot contend with. Humans and Lectivins - fine, he can fight them easily enough. But the eels are simply too in harmony with their environment. Ballas's helplessness is, perhaps, akin to the helplessness experienced by many of the big man's land-dwelling adversaries . . .
I don't know what Orbit's policy is regarding ARCs. But I will keep you in mind, of course.
Excellent blog, by the way - and thanks for your support!
Q) Steven McKay wrote: Ok, come on now. 6 years! I only discovered "Monument" last year and it was the best fantasy book I've read since I discovered "The Sword Of Shannara" as a 14 year old. Where's the next book?! I'm fed up seeing all these watered down fantasy books, it'd be good to read more about Ballas. Thanks for a good read
Dear Steven
I know - 6 years is way too long . . . But I can promise you, the prequel is proceeding nicely. As always, Ballas is a joy to write. In the current tale, he possesses many of the traits exhibited in Monument: he is surly, arrogant and contemptuous. But he's also much younger; alcohol has yet to soften his brain: he is cunning, a touch more introspective, and intelligent, in a rough, unschooled fashion. He is in better physical health than in Monument; and he is working for the Pilgrim Church. Cheers, Steven. Stay patient!
Q) Christopher Solis, of Texas, wrote with some extremely welcome compliments - and the mildly disturbing revelation that Ballas reminds him of himself . . . He then asked, "Have you got any other books - or are you working on any?"
Thanks for the interest, Chris. Monument is my only published work to date; and, as stated elsewhere, I am currently partway through a prequel to that title. I envisage writing a sequence of Ballas tales, describing his life from early adolescence onwards. I don't know if I'll produce these tales one after another, until the sequence is complete, or intersperse them with other novels; but writing about Ballas is enormously pleasurable, and I'd be loathe to abandon the character before his life is fully chronicled. Cheers!
Q) Alex B. from Canada wrote: I'm very pleased to hear that you are writing a prequel to Monument. I truly enjoyed it, and its harsh realism was something new in the genre. Anyway, here are my questions: what books would you say have inspired your writing? And are there any books in the fantasy genre that you would recommend to a reader while he eagerly awaits your next book?
Alex,
Thanks for the kind words; I am pleased that you enjoyed Monument. The books which inspired me are also the books I'd recommend to someone as a good read. David Gemmell had a substantial impact on my writing - in particular his pacing, and his psychologically authentic characterisation. Anything in his oeuvre is worth reading - but I have particular fondness for Lion of Macedon: it is one of the books that I encountered at exactly the right time in my life, and I can't recall enjoying a novel quite as much as I enjoyed Lion. I was also hugely taken by Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy; Williams' prose is stunningly evocative. Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood is a strange, beautiful and brilliant fantasy - and a novel to read slowly, with great care . . . Now and again, I enjoy dipping into the Conan tales; the Conan of Howard's stories is a remarkably different character to the lumbering, lead-witted brute of the motion pictures . . .
There are a few writers you might be keen to try, if you fancy something which, though not really genre fantasy, is nonetheless fantastical. Lovecraft is wonderfully unsettling; Jorge Luis Borges' short stories stretch the mind as well as create a powerful sense of wonder. M R James is the master of erudite spooky tales; Sheridan Le Fanu's yarns, in particular the famous Green Tea, are terrifically well written, and marvellous fun . . . There are, no doubt, other writers that I ought to recommend, but for the moment they elude me. No matter. I hope the list provides at least a few titles you can enjoy. Cheers!
Q) Sarah Rees asked: what was your inspiration for Monument?
Many years ago - 1992, if memory serves - I attended a week-long creative writing course. The organisers suggested that each writer should bring a piece of work to be critiqued by the writer-in-residence. I had only just begun toying with the idea of writing. Consequently, I had nothing substantial to show. So, the night before the course began, I sat down and wrote a single scene, a couple of pages long, which began with the sentence, "There were fresh heads nailed to the tree that morning." I then asked myself the obvious questions: What tree? Whose heads? From these musings, the idea of the Penance Oak emerged and, by extension, the notion of a country governed by a brutal, ruthlessly pragmatic theocracy . . .
I didn't do anything significant with these ideas until I started Monument, much later on. In the meantime, other ideas had occured to me. I had written about a Ballas-like character in a couple of earlier, unpublished novels. This proto-Ballas differed from the Monument-Ballas in two ways: he lacked courage; and he wasn't utterly repellent. As an experiment, I altered these traits. Ballas became untroubled by physical danger. And he lost every remotely endearing attribute. I realised then that I had created a character that - perhaps - was interesting enough to carry a novel . . .
The locations in Monument are distortions of genuine places. The moorland landscapes are an amalgam of the Lake District - particularly the Southern Fells - and the West Pennine Moors. The low taverns frequented by Ballas are inspired, to varying degrees, by ale-houses I've drunk in from time to time. And I've a dreadful suspicion that Keltherimyn, the marshland where Heresh dwells, is an extrapolation of a patch of boggy, frog-prowled ground bordering the playground of my secondary school . . .
It is worth noting that, in my case at least, inspiration provides something tiny and nebulous that must, through effort, be coaxed into something large and workable. Few ideas arrive fully formed. It has been observed by others that a writer who relies solely on inspiration is unlikely to complete a short story much less a novel . . .
Hope that answers your question! Cheers.
Q) Luke Clifton wrote: Hi Ian - like most of your readers, I enjoyed Monument immensely, especially the "world" that you created for Ballas to live in - so I am very happy to learn that you will be returning to it with the prequels.
My question relates to your statement that you made many (if not all) of the mistakes that authors make in attempting to pen your second novel, Blood Echo. Out if interest, what were some of those mistakes?
Luke, thanks for the compliments and the excellent - if harrowing - question ...
Writing a second novel is a far more pressurised business than writing a debut. Much of this pressure arises from an awareness that whatever is written will be read, by a few people at least. This can lead to a certain amount of nervousness and an excess of self-criticism. In such circumstances, it's easy to stop trusting your instincts. I can diagnose a few mistakes which lay at the heart of Novel #2's problems. I had a protagonist who, though interesting in principle, failed to come alive on the page; the plotting was a touch forced, and the narrative seemed to lack the vigour found in Monument; and I tried to write a story which was Monument-esque - that is, I tried to employ the same approach for #2 as I had for #1, even though the story required a considerably different treatment ...
There are, I suspect, other flaws. I am certain that I'll write about this subject in greater detail in the future; whereas the difficulties of producing a first novel are often discussed, the hazards of the second are rarely examined . . . It is pleasing to note, however, that in writing the prequel to Monument, I have not yet encountered any of the perils described above. Cheers, Luke - hope this helps!
Q) Keith Beavis
Keith Beavis submitted not a question but a few compliments - which were, of course, gratefully received. Cheers, Keith - glad you enjoyed Monument!
Q) Lyn Toll wrote: I'm a bit puzzled by your publication history. Did you not publish a book called "Blood Echo" in 2004?
Hi there. Blood Echo was scheduled for release in 2004 - but it never saw the light of day (see my response to Ian Collins' question below). Inevitably, a few websites still carry the defunct publication date. Thanks for the question; I hope that clears things up!
Q) Ian Collins: I was considerably impressed with your debut novel Monument (it was a refreshing turn on typical fantasy, I particularly liked the anti-hero concept of the central character!).
I have in fact been waiting patiently for Blood Echo to hit the shelves ever since. Can you please explain why there has been such a delay in its publication?
Many thanks and keep up the good work!
I am pleased to that you enjoyed Monument - and sorry that you've been waiting so long for Blood Echo. After a while struggling with Echo, I decided to abandon the piece and write a prequel to Monument (see Dave's question below for details). Second novels are notoriously tricky, and I made many - perhaps all - of the mistakes common to such an endeavour. No matter; it was, as they say, a healthy - and rigorous - learning experience.The prequel is going terrifically well. It is enormous fun, writing about the forces which transformed a young Ballas into the grotesque brute of later life . . . Cheers!
Q) Dave asked: I am about 1/4 of the way through Monument and loving it. When is your next book coming out?
I am glad you have enjoyed the first 1/4. I hope the remaining 3/4 proves equally entertaining . . . I am currently working on the first of a series of prequels to Monument, charting Ballas's life from adolescence to the events described in Monument. It is proving to be an immensely pleasurable venture - and much of Ballas's early life is turning out to be a surprise, even to myself. His past is more varied than I could have predicted . . . As for a release date - as soon as I have anything definite, I'll get the webmaster to post it on the website. Thanks for taking an interest. Cheers!
|