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Interview with Chaskor News
In July 2010, Ksenia Shcherbino interviewed Tad for a special section dedicated
to contemporary writers at Chaskor News Agency, Russia’s largest online network
delivering world news to the Russian public. Chaskor acts as a kind of cultural
news agency, with the main goal of providing people in Russia with information on
the most important and relevant cultural events all over the world.
Here is the full interview in English.
Questions to Mr. Tad Williams
Tsvetan Todorov described the fantastic as being the hesitation of characters and
readers when presented with reality they do not fully believe. What is your definition
of the genre, if any, or what makes a book fantastic for you?
Anything that says to the reader, “This is not the world you know. Let me show
you the differences.” I’m not sure hesitation is what I want to create, but rather
a sort of childlike willingness to be shown a place that feels real, though the
reader knows it is not.
Between the two fantastic branches, fantasy and science-fiction, what is the difference?
Is it difficult for you to work in both genres? In Otherland, you blend
sci-fi futurism with mythological motifs. Was that a challenge?
No, I grew up reading both sorts of books without worrying about whether one
was science fiction or fantasy. It’s mostly modern commercial marketing that chooses
between the two. What makes The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury science-fiction?
It’s basically magic realism using science as magic – Bradbury never explains much
of how anything works. I’m very happy with any approach that works, that makes us
feel.
Who was the main influence on you? What sort of things inspire you?
Ray Bradbury, Tolkien (of course), Michael Moorcock, Phil Dick, Fritz Leiber,
Ursula Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, to name a few SF folks. Barbara Tuchman
and Hunter S. Thompson, to name a couple of non-fiction writers.
Behind Tolkien’s The History of Middle-Earth there was a wish to create
an Anglo-Saxon (English) mythology and a negation of “all things Celtic.” What is
your attitude towards Celtic heritage?
I certainly don’t have Tolkien’s loathing of something that was very trendy
in arts culture during his time, namely Celtic Twilight – W. B. Yeats and the rest.
In fact, I’m probably more influenced by Yeats and his versions of Irish fairytales
than I am by Tolkien’s favorite sources, but I am moved by both.
Why cats, in Tailchaser’s Song? It’s one in a kind, being a fantasy about
animals, and a good one. And, continuing with the natural theme, why flowers in
The War of the Flowers?
Two different things. I had just started living with cats for the first time
when I began TAILCHASER’S SONG, so it was a genuine reaction to a new and amusing
situation. The flowers of WOTF came from deepening and expanding the background,
and following where it led me, namely into flowers and flower names, etc.
Where did you get inspiration for your Shadowland series? The Qar reminds me of
the old, uncanny Celtic myths, is it the source?
There’s no one source for anything. SHADOWMARCH is mostly about exploring some
of the ideas of epic fantasy from a different direction. And I always have my own
hobbyhorses, as we say – my little obsessions. Anyone who knows my work will expect
(and usually get) at least a few lost-in-the-tunnels scenes, and some encountering-the-new-culture
bits, and so on. But I think I tried to go deeper into family in this one, since
that’s the part of my life I’m in now – father of a growing family. There are strong
elements of children having to take on their adult roles, and rethinking their relationships
with their parents, and so on. And how the wounds of history keep troubling the
present, of course – another of my little fascinations.
In many of your books the initial opposition comes from two brothers (in the League
of the Scroll series, between Joshua and Elias, in Tailchaser’s Song, between
the firstborn god-cats). Why?
I’m interested in the getting and keeping of power, of course, and in monarchical
societies that means the ruling families. There are no “ruling families” as such
in OTHERLAND, at least not that kind, but there’s plenty of power grabbing and power
realignment. I think it’s more that the subject matter of fantasy is often pre-industrial
societies, and those tend to be monarchies. I don’t personally give a damn where
the power lies, I’m just interested in seeing how people grab at it.
Do you have any recurrent themes, any issues you put to question every time your
write a book?
Oh, my, yes. I mentioned a couple above – ancient civilizations, forgotten tunnels
– and I’ve got lots more. Parents and children. Being exposed to new and strange
cultures. Learning to master oneself. The effects of cultural overlap. The way history
is changed to reflect the prejudices of those who transmit it. Lots of them.
How do you conceive aesthetic principles of different races in your books? It was
quite an intriguing idea to mix Asian traits with Celtic Heritage, how did you come
across it?
To me, all these differences are fascinating and fun to think about. I don’t
think any earthly culture is superior to any other, just as I don’t think humans
“rule” the planet and animals are here to be used by us. I’m an evolutionist, and
I think it’s much more fascinating to discover the way evolution acts on things
than to imagine there are fixed “truths” about who or what humans can be. As far
as mixing Asian traits with Celtic, if you mean the Sithi, I just wanted to make
them DIFFERENT from the main character so that he’d have to learn to understand
them better, and this would help the reader understand them a little more, too.
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is quite an epic book. Did you get the plot since
the very first sentence or was it evolving gradually? What’s the most difficult
thing in writing such a long epic? And what are the most important elements in creating
a new world?
I never conceive of the whole plot all at once, even after I’ve begun to write.
Sometimes the full plot doesn’t become clear to me until the very end of the process,
especially in a multi-volume story. The most difficult thing about such long books
is to keep the reader moving forward, anxious to know what’s next. The most important
things about creating new worlds is what I call “the keyhole effect”, which means
that you give the readers tiny glances (as if through a keyhole) at all kinds of
things that you don’t actually explain, so that they have the feeling of an entire
world behind the main action.
You were compared to Tolkien (at least, in Russia) in your Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.
Is it a pro-Tolkien or an anti-Tolkien world? Do you think he has a presence in
every fantasy book ever since, or is it possible to out-Tolkien Tolkien?
Any modern epic fantasy writer who doesn’t consider Tolkien every time he or
she starts a work is deliberately ignoring something they shouldn’t, because even
if he or she doesn’t care for Tolkien, most of the readers will. I happen to have
fallen in love with Middle-Earth early, but I also understand why Tolkien was Tolkien
and I’m not. Some writers don’t seem to understand that a lot of Tolkien’s world
was created by conscious choice, and that dwarves and elves don’t have to act that
way or look that way – JRRT just wanted it that way. And of course, he had an eschatological
view that was different from mine, so I’m not going to imitate THAT.
Do you think that Tolkien wrote in the fantasy genre, or it was a wild guess of
literary critics which is easily disseminated now?
Tolkien created the other half of the fantasy genre, the quest fantasy, which
existed before him but was not generally recognized by most people. (The half he
didn’t invent was what we call “sword-and-sorcery” or “heroic fantasy” – that is,
Conan and his warrior ilk.) So it’s hard to say Tolkien “wrote in the fantasy genre”
when his part of it barely existed before him. LORD OF THE RINGS was such a force
that it formed the new parameters.
There are a lot of mythological elements in your work. Which among the ancient lores
is the most appealing to you?
I pretty much love mythology in general. I had a great time playing with Bushman
myths and ancient Egyptian folklore in OTHERLAND, and with various Eastern European
and Mediterranean myth systems in SHADOWMARCH. I really couldn’t pick out any favorite
folklore – I like pretty much everything, because it shows us how people used to
think about the world (and sometimes still do.) Also, most myths are great, satisfying
stories. That’s why they’ve lasted so long.
Social and geographical parallels with our world are evident in your books, especially
in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Is it by chance, or on purpose?
It was very much on purpose in the MS&T books, because I wanted to give readers
some hooks to remember all the names and cultures. Thus, I made the Hernystiri seem
more Celtic and the Rimmersgarders more Scandinavian so that my readers, already
overwhelmed with information, would find it easier to make mnemonic associations
and feel a little better grounded in the world of Osten Ard.
Your books are very visual. It would have been easy to film them with all the details
stated clearly. Any painters that are important to you and whose visual heritage
influenced your writing?
Trying to describe favorite artists or musicians for me is very hard, because
I like so many different things. I like Bosch and Brueghel, but I also like Paula
Rego and Anthony Gormley and several Australian artists such as Emily Kngwarreye.
My wife and I collect folk art and the work of several modern painters. Rather than
having been influenced by a specific painter, I think I like visual art because
I’m very visual (I also paint and draw myself) and that influences my work in a
general way.
What is the book that is most close to you among all those you wrote and why?
Another question that’s very hard to answer, because they’re all important to
me, and I haven’t really written that many: three long, multi-volume stories, and
a couple of one-volume tales (TAILCHASER and WOTF) and a few shorter works and maybe
two dozen short stories. So far I think my best thinking and most ambitious work
has probably been OTHERLAND.
What do you think about film adaptations of fantasy? Is it possible to transfer
a fantasy story to the screen, and are there any good examples?
I thought Peter Jackson et al did a good job with LOTR, and Guillermo Del Toro
has done a very good job with Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY. In general, the epics don’t
work as well because they need to develop and expand as well as use a big canvas.
They might work better as a TV miniseries. I’ll be very interested to see what happens
with George RR Martin’s FIRE AND ICE when it shows on HBO.
Could you name other fantasy writers of your generation you like?
Well, it depends on how narrowly you’re drawing the lines. There are a ton of
comic book writers whose work I enjoy – Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Gail Simone, Grant
Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Mignola, lots of others, including guys like
Dan Clowes who don’t fit into any normal conception of “Fantasy Writer.”
As far as people doing work more like mine – in books – Moorcock’s still doing
excellent work, and I’m very fond of George Martin, Dan Simmons, Steve Brust, and
a ton of other folks. But these days I’m reading less fantasy than I am other things,
like history and detective fiction (because of my next set of stories) so I’m sure
I’m forgetting a ton of contemporary people whose work I like.
I always hate having to pick favorites, especially contemporary stuff, because
a few months later my answer might be different. Certainly there will always be
additions to the list.
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