Paul Kearney, author of The Monarchies of God and The Ten ThousandThis interview’s been a long time comin’.

Many folk around the Internet will claim that there’s no author that deserves a wider audience than Paul Kearney. He’s best known for his five volume series The Monarchies of God, which is due to be republished later this year in an updated omnibus edition. Paul also has another upcoming novel, The Ten Thousand being published later this year by Solaris Books as well as the concluding volume to his Sea Beggars Trilogy. A pretty hectic year for an author who almost swore off writing entirely.

Paul has been the essence of patience as we’ve tried to get this interview to see the light of day. For some reason the Internet gods seem to be conspiring against us and, despite all of our various efforts, Paul and I cannot seem to connect to get the second part of the interview into my hands! Talk about weird. Instead of delaying any longer, Paul and I decided to run the first part of the interview and, with any luck, we’ll be able to bring you the second half somewhere down the line.

So, without any more delays, enjoy!

The Interview

Paul, it’s an honour to have you here on A Dribble of Ink! Thanks for taking the time to stop by and answer some questions. So let’s get this thing going. Why do you write?
    Whoa, get right in there. I guess I don’t have much of a choice. I write for the same reason other guys covet fast cars, or climb mountains. I don’t have a say in it – it’s just the way I am. Not to get too dreamy-eyed and new age about it, I can’t imagine not writing, even if I weren’t getting paid. I think most writers would probably say the same. When you get stuff down on the page, it’s like you’re preserving a little of yourself for posterity.

So why choose Fantasy?
    It was what came naturally I guess. My first novel was about a guy who loses his wife in a climbing accident that is largely his own fault. It was set in the real world, in a nursing home and on Skye – it was as founded in reality as a book can be. But I just needed to add something to that story in order to really get across what I was trying to do. I needed some extra spice or frisson to play against the mundane elements. I’ve always needed that in stories, I find. I don’t think I have a kitchen-sink drama in me. I need that edge of the fantastical. Later on, when I went into epic fantasy, I enjoyed it because it allowed me to work with themes I found interesting in the real world, e.g Christianity and Islam, or religious intolerance, but I had the freedom to turn them around on their heads, because it was my world I was playing with, and I made the rules. Boy, that can be fun.

Do you remember the first story you wrote?
    It was a full-length novel, God help us. I’ve never been one for short stories. I was sixteen years old, besotted with Tolkien and Stephen Donaldson, and so wrote a standard coming-of-age fantasy set in my own made-up world. I think it was about 125,000 words long, of which perhaps fifty were worth reading. But it taught me a lot. I didn’t try to write another novel for five years, but the experience of handling such a long story stood me in good stead.

Novels by Paul KearneyYour breakup with Bantam was well publicized, even to the point where you were considering stepping away from writing completely. Now with almost a year’s worth of time to contemplate, how do you look back on that time in your career and how have things changed since then?
    That was a weird time. I was proud of the books I wrote for Bantam, and intend to return to them soon. The advance I received for them was pretty big; by my standards anyway. I had great editors, which is hugely important, and I loved the story I was telling. The sales just weren’t there though. When Bantam dropped me I was pretty taken aback. I thought that was it, period, because I’d never known another fantasy author who’d been dropped by his publisher in mid-series. I took a long hard look at what I was doing, and began to wonder if I hadn’t been flogging a dead horse all these years. At that point, not one of my books was being reprinted, and most were in fact out of print in the English language. It shook me; I began to wonder if the loony feminist who e-mailed me a tirade calling me misogynistic and overly brutal might not have a point. Perhaps people just did not want to read the stuff I wrote, simple as that. If it had not been for Solaris, I’d be gainfully employed doing something very different. Publishing has changed so much in the last ten years; it’s a whole new ball game from the rather gentlemanly trade I first encountered in the early nineties. I was beginning to wonder if I were not some stubborn relic, too set in my ways to change. Solaris is the perfect antidote.

Word on the street has it that Patrick St. Denis (from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist) was a big factor in getting you setup with your new publisher; care to elaborate on how you and Solaris got together?
    Mark Newton sent me an e-mail out of the blue, asking if I’d like to write something for him. Apparently, he’d read about the Bantam saga on Patrick’s blog. Patrick, if you’re reading this, I owe you a beer! It was serendipity, manna from heaven, a shot in the arm; pick your metaphor. Just goes to show you – the internet is good for something after all…

Any chance we’ll see another novel in The Sea Beggars sequence?
    Yes. The last book, a long one, will tie up the whole story. It’s provisionally entitled Storm of the Dead, but that may change. I’m actually hoping to get at it this year, and then Solaris want to publish the whole series as an omnibus. It’s just a question of waiting for the rights to revert from Bantam; but believe me, that series will be finished, if I have to scribble it in my own blood.

You’re currently at work revising Ships From The West, the final novel of the Monarchies of God series, in preparation for the upcoming omnibus edition. What kind of work is going into this revision and why did it need to be done?
    I rushed the ending of Ships to meet a deadline, and some of the storyline feels a little truncated Also, some of the major characters within it were dispatched off-stage in a way which I thought was brutally realistic at the time, but which I regret now. Abeleyn, for example. I’m going to add some 10,000 words to the book, and smooth out a few of those wrinkles. However, the rewrite will not change any of the major plot-issues or the fate of the characters. What happened was meant to happen; I just think the way it was portrayed could be smoothed down a little.

Can you speak about the legal troubles that delayed the release of the omnibus?
    It’s pretty much a mystery to me. Berkeley have just been sitting with their thumbs up their asses for the better part of a year now. Legally, they have no right to be sitting on the books the way they are, and they’ve said they’ll revert the titles without delay. They’ve been saying that for quite a while. I think it’s just bureaucratic inertia to be honest. Still, things seem to be moving at last.

What’s something about Paul Kearney that most of his readers don’t know?
    I can’t sail. Despite all the nautical stuff in my books, I can’t sail a boat for toffee. A couple of years ago I was in Israel and my Israeli publisher took me out in his yacht, a great sixty-foot brute of a thing. He naturally assumed I was a good sailor, and so I was put at the helm. I got the thing out to sea without sinking it, but it was a sweaty couple of hours…

What can we expect from your upcoming novel, The Ten Thousand, being published by Solaris this September?
    It’s a military story, basically detailing the life and times of an army, and set in an entirely new world, one which is based on the Persia of the Achaemenids, and the Greece of the fifth century BC. The book deals with racism in some detail, as the Macht and the Kufr are entirely alien to one another. Not to toot my own horn too hard, but there is at its heart the best battle I think I’ve ever written.

Which underread author, in your estimation, most deserves more attention by Fantasy/SF fans?
    There’s a whole slew of them. John Crowley’s Little Big is a masterpiece, as is pretty much anything by Alan Garner. Both of them knock Philip Pullman into a cocked hat. Mary Renault’s Alexander trilogy still makes the hair rise on the back of my neck every time I read it. It’s historical, but makes the society of ancient Greece so alien and strange that it seems more like science fiction. Graham Joyce should also be more widely known. When I think of the fat-backed books that line the shelves of airport bookshops…

Maps are currently a hot topic in the blogosphere/message board scene. What are your thoughts on maps in Fantasy novels. Necessary to the story, extra fluff or somewhere in between?
    I love maps. I am a map-drawer, a cartographic nerd. The first thing I do when starting a new book is draw a map, even if it’s not going to appear in the published work. It helps me sort out my ideas, and slots characters into space and time. If, as I do, you’re writing pretty frequently about journeys, about campaigns and marches, then you have to have some kind of reference tool to hold it all together and make sense of the world. The more the merrier I say. I’ve loved them ever since poring over Treasure Island as a boy.

How did growing up in Northern Ireland affect you as a writer?
    It made religion a major part of my make-up, for good or ill. I’m pretty much an agnostic these days; one of those dithering hopeful folk who would like there to be a God but who can’t quite bring themselves to buy into the whole nine yards. It made me hate organized religion to quite a degree, as people were getting killed over it every day as I was growing up. We used to have Catholic versus Protestant fights at the bus station after school, which was fun at the time, but not really a symptom of a sane society.
   Having said that, I grew up in a rural environment which was largely at a distance from the troubles of the cities. I detailed it pretty faithfully in A Different Kingdom, my second book – still the best thing I’ve ever written. I grew up with horses and cattle and open fields and deep woods a stroll from my back door, and you can’t ask for much more than that in childhood. (Now the woods have been cut down, the fields covered with housing estates, and the cattle have foot and mouth, but it was good while it lasted.)
   It’s odd, but I moved away from Northern Ireland for a good number of years, and when I came back, the ‘war’ was over; yet strangely enough, society seemed more fractured and fractious than ever. Terrorism went down, and drug addiction went up. Go figure. In any case. I’m a product of that country, and would not have grown up anywhere else for the world.
   Well, maybe the Bahamas. That would have been nice.

Discussion
  • thrinidir June 3, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    moar! :)

    I’m waiting for my ARC of The Ten Thousand, any day now, any day…

  • RedEyedGhost June 3, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    Great interview Aidan! I’m ready to read the second part.

    I’m really looking forward to buying these books. I’ve had Hawkwood’s Voyage on my wishlist for a long time. Now I’m glad that I can actually buy it, and put money in the author’s pocket instead of used book sellers. :) I can’t wait!

  • James (Speculative Horizons) June 4, 2008 at 12:59 am

    Good stuff Aidan, I look forward to reading the rest. I’m reading my ARC of TTT next and can’t wait…

  • Li June 4, 2008 at 7:19 am

    Wonderful interview Aidan! I haven’t read any of his books, but I’ve been eyeing “The Sea Beggers” for quite some time now at the bookstore; I hope to pick them up at some point. Looking forward to the second half of the interview! :)

  • Chris (The Book Swede)s June 4, 2008 at 7:41 am

    Really nice interview :) I’m glad Paul got picked up by Solaris; I’ll look forward to reading his new novel :D

    ~Chris
    The Book Swede

  • JT June 4, 2008 at 10:59 am

    Great interview Aidan – I’m just so glad that Mr. Kearney is back putting out books again. The Ten Thousand sounds brilliant, and I can’t wait for the release of the omnibus of The Monarchies of God, as I can finally persuade other readers I know to purchase it too. I’m eagerly waiting for the second half of this interview as well.

  • aidan June 4, 2008 at 7:53 pm

    Glad to see I’m not the only one excited about Paul coming back full force into writing! He’s obviously got a lot to offer the publishing world and it’s great to see that Solaris is smart enough to realize that.

    Paul’s publicist contacted me and is sending me an ARC of The Ten Thousand, which I’m very excited for, so expect a review of that somewhere down the line.

    Also, you guys have really forced my hand and I’m working hard to figure out how to bring the second half of the interview to light. Cross your fingers!

  • […] first part of the interview can be found HERE. The full downloadable version of the interview is available HERE. digg_skin = […]