Shadow and Betrayal

writer thinks through a story. My first draft is how I think the story through. Other people think it through by writing detailed outlines. I suspect it’s the same process with differences in style more than substance.
    What was the inspiration behind the names of your characters and your setting? There’s a very Eastern flavour to the books; was it your intention to rebel against the Fantasy’s traditional Western setting, or did it evolve during the writing?
That was there from the start. I wanted to do something to reset people’s expectations. I wasn’t trying for a traditional epic fantasy, and I thought that would be one way to alert readers that this one might be a little different.
    The poses concept is really interesting. What inspired you to develop it as an integral part of the characters’ communication with each other?
I stole it from a Walter Jon Williams short story. It’s okay, he knows I took it, and he’s cool with it. He had a far future setting in which people used mudras as inflection. I thought it was a brilliant touch, so I took it and expanded on it so that it stood as almost a second language. And then S. M. Stirling took it from me for use in a novel called In the Court of the Crimson Kings. But it’s okay. I know he took it, and I’m cool with it.
    Do have a personal theory on why Fantasy is so popular these days?
I do. It’s pretty involved, but the short form goes like this: Fantasy is, at heart, involved with nostalgia and the (sometimes imperfect) healing of the world. We are in a place as a world community in which nostalgia and healing are profoundly comforting ideas.
    Do you see any particular trends in recent SF/Fantasy?
A couple, and they bother me. First off, I think there’s a strong trend toward emotional darkness. I can even make an argument that I’m part of that. I think it’s a mistake to equate violence and ‘grittiness’ with realism. The other is the infinitely postponed conclusion. I believe that good stories end.
    Do you find it frustrating that so much excellent work is currently being produced in SF & Fantasy but that by and large it is still ignored by the literati?
Not really. I know a lot of folks who are, but I really don’t understand what the brass ring is that we’d be reaching for. It isn’t fame or money, or even cultural influence. J. K. Rowling has proven that. If recognition by an elite doesn’t get you anything other than recognrtion by that elite, that’s an argument that the elite is becoming inconsequential. That we are part of a living, vital, popular literature is why folks like Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, and Margaret Atwood have started borrowing our ideas. Literature qua literature is in real danger of going the way of professional poetry.
    Do you have any particular favourite authors who have influenced your work?
No end of them. David Eddings as read by my sixteen-year-old self. George R. R. Martin. Dorothy Sayers. Camus, WalterTevis. Scott Westerfeld. Enrique Anderson Imbert. Robert B. Parker. Jane Austen. I could go on for days, really.
    What do you enjoy reading in your moments of leisure? Do you stick to the SF/Fantasy market as a rule or enjoy other genres too?
I usually read something other than what I’m writing at the moment. So when I’m busy with epic fantasy stuff, I’ll read mystery or horror or mainstream literature or history or science. I enjoy the genre, but I read like an omnivore.
    Do you chat about your books with other authors as you’re writing them, or do you prefer to keep in your own head until the first draft is complete?
I’m lucky that I live in a community with a lot of working writers. The group I hang out with talks about our work with each other, up to and including having planning sessions to work through structural issues and brainstorming plotlines and characters for work at the very beginning of its life. I don’t think I do my best work in isolation. Having other minds to spark against makes me better.
    What would you do if you weren’t a writer?
I have fantasies about going back for a Masters degree in Public Health. I’m too old now to go to medical school, but public health is where MDs go when they burn out and want to do something that actually makes a difference. Epidemiology in particular turns me on.
    So, what’s next for you?
Well, I have a new fantasy series that I’m getting ready to pitch, an urban fantasy series that I’m writing under pseudonym, a mystery