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Mar
8
Joe Abercrombie on new novel Before They Are Hanged
Posted in: UKSFBN Talks To on 8th March 2007 by UKSFBN admin
Joe Abercrombie's debut novel, The Blade Itself[Amazon] made quite an impact when it was first published this time last year, and with the sequel, Before They Are Hanged [Amazon] hitting the bookshelves on March 15th, courtesy of UK publisher Gollancz, we thought it was a good time to drop the author a line and quiz him on his follow-up novel.
UKSFBN: I realise it could be difficult to do so without committing an act of spoilerage, but could you start with a quick synopsis of Before They Are Hanged?
Joe Abercrombie: The further misadventures of Inquisitor Glokta – crippled torturer, Logen Ninefingers – infamous barbarian, and Jezal dan Luthar – sneering nobleman. There's action, there's adventure, there's pithy dialogue. You'll laugh, you'll cry. If you're a rival fantasy author, you'll cry a LOT.
UKSFBN: The response - particularly on review websites - to The Blade Itself seems to have been generally very favourable indeed. Do you pay much attention to the sort of feedback you see online, or do you try to avoid it wherever possible and not let in influence you?
JA: The response has, in general, been very positive, which is very heartening, apart from that girl who said on her blog that I write like an eight year old. Especially annoying, since I feel that I have reached at least a ten year old standard.
You can't take any of it too seriously, of course, but that can be hard when you spend most of your time trawling the internet obsessively for anyone making the slightest mention of you or your work. I have made a rule that I cannot Google myself more than five times an hour, but I have trouble sticking to it.
You'd be amazed how many other people called Joe Abercrombie there are out there, and some of the exciting things they get up to. And then, to further complicate matters, some other guy has written some other book, an edgy thriller in fact, called... wait for it... The Blade Itself. It's a crazy world.
UKSFBN: There's an incredibly dry sense of humour that saturates both The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged - it's as if someone managed to cross-breed Steven Erikson and Jimmy Carr - yet in no sense are either of the books comic fantasy novels, in the Pratchett / Holt / Rankin sense. Have you ever done any stand-up comedy, or does the humour just come from your writing style, or your outlook on life?
JA: Give me a moment to banish the image of how some mad scientist might go about cross-breeding Carr and Erikson...
There we go.
I don't feel as if I set out to be funny. I'm not sure you can, really. The humour was just something that happened as I wrote, as I tried to imagine how these characters would talk, or think, or try to make sense of their (generally rather unpleasant) lives.
" I feel very strongly that things can be funny and dark, and indeed that if you can achieve one it only intensifies the other."Having said that, I'm very pleased it did happen. I think an author's first aim should be to entertain and if you can get people to laugh you're most of the way there. I feel very strongly that things can be funny and dark, and indeed that if you can achieve one it only intensifies the other.
Of course, hitting the right note is the challenge, and one man's funny is another's embarrassing, just as one man's touching, moody, or tragic is another's risible. All you can really do as an author, I think, is try your hardest to entertain yourself, and keep you fingers crossed that you bring a few readers along with you.
UKSFBN: Likewise, the general atmosphere of the novels is somewhat dark, despite the dry humour. Far more Steven Erikson, George R.R. Martin, Glen Cook or Paul Kearney than Terry Brooks, David Eddings or Terry Goodkind. Do you read a lot of dark fantasy yourself? And who have been your major fantasy influences?
JA: I will now show my embarrassing ignorance of the current state of the genre in which I write by saying that, of the seven authors that you have named, I have only actually read two – Eddings and Martin. My brother bought me a book by Steve Erikson a couple of years ago for Christmas, but on reading the first page I realized that is was the fourth in the series and never got round to getting the first one.
Not that I didn't read a lot of fantasy in my misspent youth. I guess I'd count four fantasy authors as big influences: Tolkein (you may have heard of him, he bestrides the genre like a colossus), LeGuin (Wizard of Earthsea is a masterpiece of brevity in a landscape of intensely bloated works, a couple of them now written by me), the aforementioned Mr. Martin (made me realize that fantasy could be dark, ruthless, and unheroic, my favourite character traits), and Michael Moorcock (for refusing to be bestrode by Tolkein, and coming up with some really crazy names for things).
"I try to take in as little written fantasy as possible these days..."This may sound bizarre, but I try to take in as little written fantasy as possible these days, lest it pollute me. I find that the genre can sometimes chew on its own tail a little too much. I tend to get a lot of my inspiration from elsewhere – I read a lot of history, watch a lot of cop shows, play a lot of computer games (it's for work).
As for the darkness, I guess it's a reaction to a lot of the light and fluffy fantasy that I read as a kid. I thought it was time for me to single-handedly redress the balance. Of course, unbeknownst to me, dark has been the new light in fantasy for about the last fifteen years.
Hmmm. Maybe I should have read some more of it...
UKSFBN: You also seem to delight in subverting as many of the classic fantasy tropes as you possibly can. Is this something you've deliberately set out to do, or is it purely a by-product of the narrative?
"...sticking to clichés for a while can make it all the more shocking when you suddenly do something unexpected..."JA: Deliberate, definitely. I love surprises, I love twists and turns, and sticking to clichés for a while can make it all the more shocking when you suddenly do something unexpected. The trilogy has a kind of mystery structure – the shape of the plot isn't immediately obvious, and a lot of it doesn't pay off until the third book. The risk, of course, is that you're playing kind of a long game there, and in the meantime people might just see a plotless book full of clichés.
It's not. Honest. You can trust me. I'm an author.
UKSFBN: You seem to really have a knack for both character and dialogue. Do you think your professional skills have given you an advantage there?
JA: First of all, thank you very much. That's particularly gratifying since I feel character and dialogue are much the most important parts of any story, and they're often the elements that seem to be given least attention in fantasy. Usually, when I write a scene, I start with the dialogue and construct everything else around it.
As for the Film Editing, it's definitely had an effect on how I write, but perhaps more in the way that the books are paced and structured, and in the way the different stories interact with each other. It may seem rich from a man who writes 200,000 word books, but I always try to make sure that there's no dead time, that everything moves on quickly, building effortlessly to a thrilling climax...
You get the picture.
UKSFBN: Which of the characters so far have you most enjoyed writing, and why?
JA: I enjoy them all, and it's nice that different readers seem to warm to different characters. I make a big effort to write in a different way with each of my six narrators, to use different style and vocabulary, so that each one is a slightly different experience to write and (hopefully) to read.
Having said that, the chapters with the Dogman and his crew I found particularly easy to write. Most of the time I need to go over and over things before they come good. Those chapters I just vomited up onto the page pretty much intact.
UKSFBN: There was quite a short interval - by the standards of quite a few fantasy authors at least - between the first and second volumes. Was the second already written when the first was published, or do you just write that well, that quickly? And if so, how soon can we expect to see the third in the series?
"The third book, Last Argument of Kings is nearing completion..."JA: I must confess that the second book was half written when Gollancz bought the first, which meant I enjoyed a considerable head-start on getting it finished. In short, I cheated. I try to do that whenever possible.
The third book, Last Argument of Kings is nearing completion, but will need a fair old bit of going over once it's done. Tying off. Polishing up. You know the drill. It should definitely be ready for its release date of March '08, though. Barring disasters of course. No disasters, please.
UKSFBN: And what's next, after that? Is The First Law going to be a trilogy or will there be additional volumes? What else do you have lined up that you could let us know about?
JA: The First Law is a trilogy, yes. Three books seems like a good number to me. I don't think I'd have the patience to carry on with the same central characters for any longer than three big-ass books.
"I'm going to write a couple of stand-alone fantasy books, set in the same world as the First Law..."Of course, when my experimental fourth book turns out to be rubbish and everyone's clamoring for more of what I did before (or at least, five or six people are) I'll probably end up doing another fifty of these, of steadily diminishing quality, and in interviews I'll say, "Yes, there were always intended to be fifty-three books. I could not do justice to my incredibly epic story arcs in less than fifty-three massive volumes."
We'll consider that a Plan B. In the meantime, it looks as if I'm going to write a couple of stand-alone fantasy books, set in the same world as the First Law, but with some different characters and settings, and some shorter, more focused stories. I'm working on some ideas for the first one now, in fact. Let me only say this:
It's about revenge.
There's a good chance that Before They Are Hanged is in the shops already, in advance of the official March 15th publication date, and is definitely available to order via Amazon.co.uk.
Source: Joe Abercrombie
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joe, any news of any signings to come,, either in the UK or Ireland?
Loved the first book ( a refreshing change in the fantasy field) , looking forward to the second.
Joe will be signing at Forbidden Planet in London this coming Saturday (March 17th) - details in this news item.