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Mar
7
Michael Marshall on new novel The Intruders
Posted in: UKSFBN Talks To on 7th March 2007 by UKSFBN admin
British horror, science fiction and, latterly, serial killer thriller writer Michael Marshall (Smith)'s seventh full-length novel, The Intruders, [Amazon] will be published by Harper Collins on April 2nd. The book features all the elements of a classic Michael Marshall novel - a stone-cold killer, a desperate fight for survival, shoot-outs, pursuits, shadowy secret societies... you name it - and the novel plays on some of Marshall's favourite themes: the thin line between life and death, what makes us who we are as people, mental and social paranoia and decay.
We dropped the author a line to ask him a few questions about the new book and its place in his growing canon of work:
UKSFBN: Can you give us a quick overview of The Intruders, a flavour of the book's premise and main themes?
MM: The Intruders kicks off by following Jack Whalen, an ex-LAPD patrol cop now at somewhat of a loose end. His wife goes missing on a routine business trip to Seattle. When he heads up there to search for her Jack starts to realise even bigger issues are stake, and before long he's drawn into... Well, you'll have to read the book...
I think the book is mainly about people's hidden sides, and the difficulties of making sense of others and oneself - along with an attempt to explain certain features of what it's like to be human. Like most of my theories it started off just as an idea, but now I'm fairly convinced it's true...
UKSFBN: The Intruders isn't set in the same narrative space - in the sense that there are no direct crossovers or cameo appearances - as the Straw Men books, but there are tantalising hints that it might be part of the same milieu after all. Would you like to comment on whether this is in fact the case?
MM: I guess the bottom line is that the two stories are distinct, but perhaps happening in the same world. As to whether there's a direct connection... Only the future will tell.
UKSFBN: As with the Straw Men series, The Intruders is saturated with the same atmosphere of barely-suppressed menace; the idea that the 'ordinary' world is a far more threatening and sinister place than we might imagine. Given that you've explored this general theme over the course of your last four novels, what would you say is the source of your interest in the concept of secret cabals of hidden power-mongers who can so easily and so devastatingly intervene in the lives of ordinary people?
"...we've always done something like this, conjured our gods and monsters to make sense of the strange and confusing and frightening things..."MM: I think we're fast becoming a world of conspiracy theorists. I don't think this is a new phenomenon - Heraclitus said 'A hidden connection is more powerful than an obvious one', and that's what lies at the heart of many conspiracy theories - but the internet has enabled it to really take off in recent years.
Every man/woman and their dog can throw up whatever zany connections they've made onto the web, with no peer review or having to go through a 'is this person barking mad?' test - and so there's a flattening of intellectual affect, and no-one really knows what's true any more. But we've always done something like this, conjured our gods and monsters to make sense of the strange and confusing and frightening things that happen outside our control: the only difference is now the demons are human...
UKSFBN: Jack Whalen seems a classic Michael Marshall protagonist: an ordinary man, albeit one with slightly above-ordinary survival skills perhaps, who finds himself flung into an extraordinarily perilous situation and has to deal with it as best he can. Do you think that it's fair to say that this sort of narrator-character is fast-becoming a hall-mark of your writing, and if so, is that something you're comfortable with?
MM: They're my version of everyman, yes: a (fairly) ordinary man or woman thrown into extraordinary circumstances. This is the basis of every story worth reading: one person's struggle against the fates and their own limitations. I actually base all my heroes on myself - though obviously I make them less whiny, more capable and far better-looking.
UKSFBN: There's a slightly stronger element of mystery - in the 'unexplained', if not quite out-and-out 'supernatural' sense - to The Intruders. Is this something you set out to cultivate for this book, or did it just grow out of the narrative as it was being written? Are you deliberately bringing the two 'flavours' of your writing (Smith and non-Smith) closer together, and is this something we can expect to see more of in the future?
"...only when we start to forge explanations for the strange do we start to create our own world..."MM: Yes - it's deliberate, in that I decided to stop stopping myself from introducing this kind of element. I've very much enjoyed writing the Straw Men books, and the challenge of operating within a wholly consensual reality has been part of what's made it interesting. But I came out of horror, and have written some odd science fiction, and it's hints of the otherworldly that keep me going.
The Intruders, though I don't think it's going to disconcert readers of crime or thriller fiction, takes another step into the 'Unexplained', as you put it. It's the unexplained that makes life worth living. Without it, the world is a dry, dull place - only when we start to forge explanations for the strange do we start to create our own world.
UKSFBN: It's a busy year for you on the convention front, with Guest of Honour appearances at World Horror Con in Montreal at the end of March and then Fantasycon in Nottingham September. Do you have any plans for further convention visits in-between or afterwards?
MM: Well, it looks as though I may be turning up to the Harrogate Crime Festival toward the of July, too, just to keep my hand in with the crime folks. Apart from that I'm going to be locked into my study, I think... It's shaping up to be a very busy year.
UKSFBN: Do you have plans to write a sequel to The Intruders at any point? And if you're not already writing it, then what else are you working on at the moment?
MM: At the moment, I'm about to start a television adaptation of a Stephen King short story, and am co-writing and co-producing a feature adaptation of my short story 'Hell Hath Enlarged Herself'. But there may be other major plans for the year too; information on which will hopefully be forthcoming in the next week or so... Watch this space...
In advance of publication, to whet your appetite for the main event, Michael Marshall has made a pdf sample excerpt from The Intruders available to download, and has very kindly sent us a copy, which you can grab and read by clicking on the following link:
Intruders SamplerMore information on The Intruders is available on Michael Marshall (Smith)'s official website, where you can download both the UK pdf and an equivalent excerpt from the US edition. Ordering information is available on Amazon.
Source: Michael Marshall
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