Q: What was it about the setting of The Grand Dark that drew you? It feels as though it came first and then the story within it – or was it the other way around?
RK: All of my previous work had been set in real places, primarily Los Angeles and San Francisco. With The Grand Dark, I wanted to build my own world from the ground up. The character of Largo appeared pretty much at the same time as I was creating the city of Lower Proszawa in my mind. I wanted someone somewhat innocent and with very little power to contrast with the weight and complexity of the city. But he had to be fluent in the streets. Largo could have been a crook, but instead I made him a bicycle messenger. Someone at the mercy of the weather, the traffic, and moody cops.
Q: What fears did you have about moving away from Sandman Slim and into different waters?
RK: I was very nervous. Largo was the opposite of my best-known characters, especially James Stark, aka Sandman Slim. Stark is confident and powerful. Largo is just the opposite. His defining characteristic is the constant fear he lives with because of his brutal childhood. But Largo isn’t a wimp. He finds his strength as the book progresses. Stark, and even Coop in my caper novels, were already strong and didn’t need a lot of lessons. People associated me with that kind of character and I got some pushback at first. But now that the book is out, readers seem to be coming around to Largo and the tough time I give him in The Grand Dark.
Q: Some critics have said that speculative fiction, no matter what time period it’s set in, is about the times in which it’s being produced. Do you think that’s true of The Grand Dark, and why or why not?
RK: Trust me, this book wouldn’t have been nearly as dark if I’d written it at a different time and under a different president. We’re seeing the rise of a cruel, fascist ethos around the country. For me, it feels as if we’re hurtling toward some kind of great calamity, which is what’s happening to Lower Proszawa in the book.
Q: Does having written for comics shaped your novel writing process? Do you have a vision for a graphic novel version of The Grand Dark?
RK: I’ve always been a visual writer, so comics were a natural extension for me. Writing both comic and, now, film scripts has helped me break down stories to their basic components and put them back together again, scene by scene.
Q: What’s coming up next for you?
RK: I’m working on a new Sandman Slim novel and I’ve finished up a new film script that I really can’t talk about right now. I also have some comic proposals out. Because I’m also a photographer, probably the strangest thing I’d like to do is a photo tour of burial sites around the world, and then put them together in a book with a story about each place.
This was a guest blog post. Interested in blogging here?
Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort thatโs related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?
Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, hereโs the guidelines.
Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.
Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, Iโll let you know.
I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but Iโm open to interesting pitches:
Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
A recipe or description of a meal from your upcoming book
Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
Women, PoC, LGBT, or other wise disadvantaged creators in the history of gaming, ranging from very early times up to the present day.
F&SF volunteer efforts you work with
Length is 500 words on up, but if youโve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.
When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (Youโre welcome to include other related links.)
Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if youโd like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. Iโm happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what youโre promoting and its timeline.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2?ย Check out Catโs Patreon campaign.
Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nahโฆ.thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
You may also like...
Guest Post: Author Influences and Aha! Moments: The Evolution of Writing by S.G. Browne
Most writers can probably remember the moment when they realized that they wanted to become a writer. Maybe it was a story someone read to them when they were a child. Or a novel they read in junior high. Or the first time they wrote a poem or a short story for an English assignment in elementary school. Maybe they saw a play or a film and felt inspired to write their own script. Or wrote an article for their high school newspaper. Or took a writing class in college.
Everyone has theirย Aha!ย moment. An epiphany that sends them down a path of words and characters and plots, that takes them on a journey of creativity and self-doubt and soul-crushing rejection. Not to mention years of emotional therapy.
That moment for me happened in the late fall of 1985, during the first semester of my sophomore year in college. I’d been introduced toย The Standย by Stephen King the previous summer and devoured the novel while on a family vacation. I didn’t read much as a kid. I was allergic to libraries and would rather play outside or watch TV. Books were an afterthought or a requirement for high school American and Western Lit classes. Although I did enjoy Vonnegut. Andย Lord of the Fliesย remains near the top of my list of Desert Island Books (irony noted). But after readingย The Stand, I was hooked.
So I picked up a few more of King’s novels, along with novels by Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Robert McCammon, F. Paul Wilson, and John Saul, among others. All horror writers, all the time. I’d fallen in love with reading and I couldn’t imagine my life without books. But there came a moment when I was in the middle ofย The Talismanย by King and Straub that I became so caught up in the adventure unfolding within the pages of the story that the world outside of the novel ceased to exist. It was something I’d never experienced before. Not withย The Standย or any other of the books I’d read. And it was such an amazing and exhilarating moment that I thought:ย I want to make someone feel like this.
So I took some writing classes and I kept reading. When I graduated, I got a job to pay the bills and wrote short stories in my spare time, sending them out to magazines in the hopes of having them published. The stories were all of the supernatural horror variety, of course. And the influence of the books I’d read, especially the novels of King and Straub, loomed large on my writing. They were, after all, the impetus for my wanting to become a writer.
Over the next decade, I wrote dozens of short stories along with three novels. While I managed to get a dozen of the stories published, the pay didn’t amount to much. And although I received positive feedback on my novels, none of them found an agent or a home. Writing soon became a grind, the joy replaced by discouragement, and I started to question whether or not continuing along this path was something that I wanted to do. Cue the self-doubt.
Soon after, in October 2002, I was browsing the books at my local bookstore in preparation for another trip and came across the novelย Lullabyย by Chuck Palahniuk. I’d seen the movieย Fight Clubย and loved it, andย Lullabyย was a supernatural horror-satire with a premise that sounded fun. So I bought a copy and put it in my backpack for the flight.
Have you ever read the first few pages of a novel or a short story and had to go back and reread them immediately because they spoke to you in a way that no story has ever spoken to you before? Suddenly an idea forms in your head. Except it’s more than just an idea. It’s an awareness. A realization that you have this story inside of you but you never knew it was waiting to be told until that moment.
That’s what happened to me in the first five minutes of that airplane flight, reading the opening pages ofย Lullaby. I’d written previous supernatural horror stories with elements of dark comedy and social satire but had never considered expanding any of them into a novel-length form. The idea had never occurred to me. But the dark comedy and social satire inย Lullabyย spoke to me in a way that straight supernatural horror no longer did.
So I read more Palahniuk. Around that same time, I discovered the comedic fantasy books of Christopher Moore (Lambย andย Bloodsucking Fiends). Together, the influence of their books had an enormous impact on my writing. Where King and Straub had made me realize that I wanted to become a writer, Palahniuk and Moore made me realize what I wanted to do as a writer.
When I finally sat down to flesh out my darkly comedic short story “A Zombie’s Lament”ย that I’d written a year earlier, I discovered the joy of writing again. More than that, I discovered my voice. And that voice helped me to writeย Breathers, my fourth novel and first published novel, which came out in 2009.
I wrote four more novels after that, all of them dark comedy and social satire with a supernatural, speculative, or fantastic element. In addition to Palahniuk and Moore, I continued to read King and Straub but added other writers to my diet, including Gaiman, Pratchett, and Hiaasen, who all helped my writing to evolve. But Palahniuk and Moore were the catalyst for the writer I had become.
Then around 2014-2015, I discovered the short story collections of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, specificallyย St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolvesย andย Get in Trouble. This discovery created a third shift in my writing and I found myself exploring ideas and stories and characters that I never would have considered writing about before. Not only did the stories of Russell and Link inspire me to write a number of my own short stories, but they also helped me to bring more balance to my writing.
Although all of my novels and many of my previous short stories included female characters who featured prominently in the plot, none of the women played the role of the main protagonist. Half of the 14 stories in my new collection,ย Lost Creatures, are told from a female POV”โincluding a ten-year-old Japanese girl, a college zombie, and a time-jumping alcoholic. And they are some of my favorite stories I’ve ever written.
Over the course of my creative career, dozens of writers have had an impact on my writing, influencing and inspiring me. And while my writing wouldn’t be the same without the existence of every single one of those writers, the books and words written by these six authors found me at the right time and had the most significant impact on the formation and the evolution of my writing.
BIO: S.G. Browne is the author of the novelsรย Breathers, Fated, Lucky Bastard, Big Egos,รย andรย Less Than Hero, as well as the short story collectionรย Shooting Monkeys in a Barrelรย and the heartwarming holiday novellaรย I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus. He’s also the author ofรย The Maiden Poodle, a self-published fairy tale about anthropomorphic cats and dogs suitable for children and adults of all ages. His new short story collection,รย Lost Creatures, is a blend of fantasy, science fiction, dark comedy, and magical realism. He’s an ice cream connoisseur, Guinness aficionado, and a cat enthusiast. You can follow him onรย Twitter,รย Facebook,รย Instagram, check out his website atรย www.sgbrowne.com, or learn more about his new collectionรย Lost Creatures.
Guest Post: Under-explored areas of writing: Speculative Fiction "โ Dystopian by Erin Carrougher
While I am a sucker for fairytales and magic, one area of writing that I persistently search for is dystopian not-so-distant futuristic novels. Something plausible, and terrifying, that engulfs the reader in the imaginative, but hope-it-won’t-happen world characters live in.
What makes this genre so distinct from the rest of fiction is its possibility. Take The Handmaid’s Tale”โMargaret Attwood created a world where everything was derived from something that happened in history. It is unfathomable to consider the world she created could become possible, but isn’t that the draw? Margaret dramatized real-world situations to tell her story. But the scariest part of the book is that much of the events have happened, or could happen in the near future. To believe something could become reality makes the story that much more interesting. It is fortune telling through a character’s lens.
Augland is such a novel. It takes readers through a not-so-distant future if greed and corporate and political power corruption became too powerful. It would take a domino effect of situations: a Civil War, a corporate giant, and a compelling AI and dream-like consumer product, to happen, but the truth is, its plausible.
The novel asks the question, if corporations genuinely wanted to gain complete control, what would it look like? Major conglomerates gain a monopoly on the corporate market, giant corporations become an essential part of our lives, and companies gain enough power to start a war and take over the government.
Augland expands the current corporate and government dynamic and exaggerates the perimeters of a world that would have the working class “employed”ย in exchange for mere survival within the corporation’s walls.
This dystopian world is not all bad, however. Many want to create a society that benefits the masses. This story shows what greed and power can do in the hands of corporations and AI technology, but it also shows us the damage that can be done when people rebel.
Coming December 6th! Augland, a dystopian science fiction novel that discusses the geopolitical climate of a futuristic corporate takeover. Ashton, an unknowing heroine, rallies against the corporate grain in a theme-park would full of Suits to protect those she cares about”โthe Suit-less.
Erin Carrougher lives in the Seattle area and was more than suited to write about the region as the location of her dystopian novel. She has a passion for storytelling and loves to envision worlds other than our own. Carrougher minored in Creative Writing and currently works as a Sales Manager, and enjoys cooking and the outdoors. Augland is Carrougher’s first novel.
Recently I reviewed Richard Kadrey’s The Grand Dark for Green Man Review. I enjoyed the book and kept thinking about it, so I had some questions. Richard kindly agreed to a follow-up interview. Here’s his answers to those questions.
While I am a sucker for fairytales and magic, one area of writing that I persistently search for is dystopian not-so-distant futuristic novels. Something plausible, and terrifying, that engulfs the reader in the imaginative, but hope-it-won’t-happen world characters live in.
Erin Carrougher lives in the Seattle area and was more than suited to write about the region as the location of her dystopian novel. She has a passion for storytelling and loves to envision worlds other than our own. Carrougher minored in Creative Writing and currently works as a Sales Manager, and enjoys cooking and the outdoors. Augland is Carrougher’s first novel.