Posts Tagged ‘Q&A’

Interview on The Skiffy and Fanty Show Blog

Over on the blog of The Skiffy & Fanty Show, Paul Weimer has published an interview with me about my Dark Arts series, with a focus on its most recently published volume, The Iron Codex.

We got into some fairly substantial questions about the series in general and the new book in particular. If you have a moment, give it a look.

Here’s an excerpt of one part of the Q&A:

PW: You’ve penned sequels and follow-on novels in the various fictional universes you’ve written in before. What was different about your process in tackling The Iron Codex?

DM: Adding stories to the ongoing literary continuity of Star Trek, as I’ve been doing since 2001, is very different from writing a sequel to my own original novel.

When I write a Star Trek novel, I’m able to take advantage of the fact that many ideas and concepts don’t need to be explained in great detail, because readers of Star Trek novels are already familiar with the series’ setting and characters.

When I started plotting The Iron Codex, I had to deal with challenges that were new to me. One was that I needed to quickly refresh readers’ understanding of the complicated system of ceremonial magic I had developed in the first Dark Arts novel, The Midnight Front. But I also wanted the plot of book two to move quickly, in the style of classic Ian Fleming spy-thrillers.

It’s live now. Go check it out!

#SFWApro

New interview at The Writer’s Pane

Literary blogger Anna Palij has published a new interview with me on her blog, The Writer’s Pane. It’s not a book-pimping exercise disguised as an interview. This is an honest-to-goodness “getting to know you” kind of interview.

Herewith, a small sample of our online correspondence:

Where do you find inspiration?
Wherever I can, to be honest. In the news. In unanswered questions from other stories. In rhetorical questions that spark unexpected connections in my subconscious. In my hopes as well as my anxieties. In my desire to avoid bankruptcy. In my fear of vanishing into obscurity while still alive. In my anger and disappointment that the human species has failed to live up to my lofty expectations.

Which character in literature do you associate yourself with the most?
I’m not sure I could reduce this answer to a single character. When I’m working on a novel, slogging away in unsung solitude for months at a time, I feel not unlike Sisyphus. When a book-release day results in a general yawn of apathy from the world, I feel like Charlie Brown, once again deceived into trying to kick the football. When opportunities for professional success slip away, but I’ve catapulted another writer to glory in the process, I feel like Mad Max at the end of The Road Warrior, left behind and forgotten amid the wreckage, lost to memory. In my best moments, when I am closest to living in accordance with a Zen ideal, free from attachment and desire, I feel like the protagonist of Richard Brautigan’s classic novel In Watermelon Sugar, the character who does not have a regular name.

Head on over to The Writer’s Pane to read the rest of the interview.