![\"Paul](\"http:\/\/www.aidanmoher.com\/blog\/author-pics\/paul-kearney.jpg\")
This interview’s been a long time comin’.<\/p>\nThis interview’s been a long time comin’.<\/p>\n
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<\/strong>, which is due to be republished later this year in an updated omnibus edition. Paul also has another upcoming novel, The Ten Thousand<\/strong> being published later this year by Solaris Books<\/a> as well as the concluding volume to his Sea Beggars Trilogy<\/strong>. A pretty hectic year for an author who almost swore off writing entirely.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n So, without any more delays, enjoy! 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? <\/strong> So why choose Fantasy? <\/strong> Do you remember the first story you wrote? <\/strong> Word on the street has it that Patrick St. Denis (from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist<\/a>) was a big factor in getting you setup with your new publisher; care to elaborate on how you and Solaris<\/strong> got together? <\/strong> Any chance we’ll see another novel in The Sea Beggars<\/strong> sequence? <\/strong> You’re currently at work revising Ships From The West<\/strong>, the final novel of the Monarchies of God<\/strong> 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? <\/strong> Can you speak about the legal troubles that delayed the release of the omnibus? <\/strong> What’s something about Paul Kearney that most of his readers don’t know? <\/strong> What can we expect from your upcoming novel, The Ten Thousand<\/strong>, being published by Solaris this September? <\/strong> Which underread author, in your estimation, most deserves more attention by Fantasy\/SF fans? <\/strong> 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? <\/strong> How did growing up in Northern Ireland affect you as a writer? <\/strong> This 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… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n<\/p>\nThe Interview<\/h3>\n
\n Whoa, get right in there. I guess I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much of a choice. I write for the same reason other guys covet fast cars, or climb mountains. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a say in it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the way I am. Not to get too dreamy-eyed and new age about it, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine not writing, even if I weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t getting paid. I think most writers would probably say the same. When you get stuff down on the page, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re preserving a little of yourself for posterity.<\/p>\n
\n 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always needed that in stories, I find. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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. <\/p>\n
\n It was a full-length novel, God help us. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to write another novel for five years, but the experience of handling such a long story stood me in good stead. <\/p>\n![\"Novels](\"http:\/\/www.paulkearneyonline.com\/images\/home_covers.jpg\")
Your breakup with Bantam<\/strong> was well publicized, even to the point where you were considering stepping away from writing completely<\/a>. 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? <\/strong>
\n 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there though. When Bantam dropped me I was pretty taken aback. I thought that was it, period, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never known another fantasy author who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be gainfully employed doing something very different. Publishing has changed so much in the last ten years; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
\n Mark Newton sent me an e-mail out of the blue, asking if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to write something for him. Apparently, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d read about the Bantam saga on Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog. Patrick, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the internet is good for something after all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
\n Yes. The last book, a long one, will tie up the whole story. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s provisionally entitled Storm of the Dead<\/strong>, but that may change. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m actually hoping to get at it this year, and then Solaris want to publish the whole series as an omnibus. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
\n 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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.<\/p>\n
\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll revert the titles without delay. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been saying that for quite a while. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just bureaucratic inertia to be honest. Still, things seem to be moving at last.<\/p>\n
\n I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sail. Despite all the nautical stuff in my books, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever written.<\/p>\n
\n There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a whole slew of them. John Crowley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Little Big<\/strong> is a masterpiece, as is pretty much anything by Alan Garner. Both of them knock Philip Pullman into a cocked hat. Mary Renault\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Alexander trilogy<\/strong> still makes the hair rise on the back of my neck every time I read it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
\n 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve loved them ever since poring over Treasure Island as a boy.<\/p>\n
\n It made religion a major part of my make-up, for good or ill. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty much an agnostic these days; one of those dithering hopeful folk who would like there to be a God but who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.
\n 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<\/strong>, my second book \u00e2\u20ac\u201c still the best thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever written. I grew up with horses and cattle and open fields and deep woods a stroll from my back door, and you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.)
\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s odd, but I moved away from Northern Ireland for a good number of years, and when I came back, the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a product of that country, and would not have grown up anywhere else for the world.
\n Well, maybe the Bahamas. That would have been nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"