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truepenny1.
Q: What epic or long poem do you recommend reading next?
A: Well, it depends on what you've read so far. After The Odyssey and The Iliad and The Argonautica, there's The Aeneid and The Metamorphoses. Then there's The Divine Comedy, Jerusalem Delivered, Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso. Then of course you've got Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Piers Plowman is awesomely weird. The Faerie Queene is magnificent. Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Hero and Leander, The Complaint of Rosamond, Scylla's Metamorphosis, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Endymion and Phoebe: Idea's Latmus, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image. You can always look for The Mirror for Magistrates.
If you're willing to branch out slightly, you might find Renaissance romances worth your attention: Sir Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia and New Arcadia and Lady Mary Wroth's Urania are all very weird, especially from modern standards of storytelling, but I found them immensely rewarding in many of the same ways long narrative poems are.
2.
Q: You keep tripping over books about the Salem Witch trials, along with other Puritan new England topics--has a story idea started kicking around in your head, or is there a chance you'll take a stab at your own history of the trials, to fill in the historyfail that irks you in this area?
A: There is a story that I may eventually write, an insanely ambitious AU novel about an America in which angels and devils are real.
I am unlikely to write a nonfiction book about Salem unless a reputable publisher offers me a contract.
3.
Q: What led you to create Felix and Mildmay?
A: I think I need this one narrowed down slightly.
4.
Q: As evidenced in the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, you seem to have an exceptional grasp on both D/s and SM mentalities. Are you comfortable sharing how you came by your knowledge of said realm?
A: I read a lot and I used my imagination, specifically the quality of empathy. I know that's not a very satisfactory answer, but I don't have a better one.
5.
Q: Will A Reckoning of Men be as sexual as A Companion to Wolves?
A: No.
6.
Q: Having followed your first lines meme for some time now, I am wondering if your new novel, The Goblin Emperor, is the one that was originally entitled The Emperor of the Elflands. If it is, I am curious to know (if you're able to tell me without spoilers) whether the novel was always about goblins, or whether it was originally about elves. If it was originally about elves, I'd be interested in the reason for the change.
A: Yes, it's the same novel, and it's about both goblins and elves. The emperor of the title is the son of the previous emperor of the elves and his fourth wife, the daughter of the goblin king.
7.
Q: How (and when, I guess...) did you come up with Corbie? Was she always going to be a part of Corambis?
A: I knew before I started that I had to confront Felix with an apprentice, but Corbie herself emerged from the process of writing the story. I had to talk myself into making her female, but once I did that, she told me about herself very willingly. (Unlike, for instance, Mehitabel, who persisted in lying to me until the third draft of The Mirador.)
8.
Q: I was wondering (I asked you this in Twitter sometime ago, sorry for the pestering) what you think of the gay fiction shelf in bookstores? Is there a need for them? Are they more a convenient way to find books that interest the gay-fiction-reading public, or a way for bookstores to keep the "normal" shelves clean?
A: The goal of marketing categories is to enable people to find the books they want to read. It sometimes goes badly wrong and I personally disagree with a lot of the philosophy demonstrated, but at the bottom of things, bookstores want people to buy books, and they make the decisions they do because they think it will make that happen.
9.
Q: I just recently got my copy of Corambis, and I'm loving it just as much as I loved the previous installments in the series. However, Corambis feels a bit different. I can't really put my finger on it, but the feel of Corambis certainly is different from Mélusine, Virtu and Mirador, which all share a very similar atmosphere. Any ideas as to why, or is it just that Felix isn't quite as batfuck crazy or verbally abusive anymore? Or rather, is the change of mood, feel, atmosphere, whatever you should call it, intentional?
A: For me, Corambis is the book in which Felix really grows up, and I think that does make a difference in the book's atmosphere. Also, it takes a tremendous weight off all of us (me and Felix and Mildmay) to have gotten away from the Mirador and all its history and madness and mikkary. The Mirador is a very claustrophobic book, and Corambis is what happens when you throw the doors open and run out into the morning. For me, anyway.
10.
Q: I was really intrigued by what you wrote in Storytellers Unplugged about finding the story in the story- I started to think about the interior story of many of my favorite books. What would you say the story-in-the-story is in Doctrine of Labyrinths?
A: The triggering subject of the Doctrine of Labyrinths was Felix's fall from grace--quite literally. The first scene I ever wrote was his argument with Shannon and the ensuing plunge into the Arcane. The real subject, I think, turned out to be whether he could learn to be . . . "a better person" is too facile, but if he could learn not to be so destructive, both of himself and of the people he loved.
11.
Q: Do you go to any cons where cos play/dressing in character wouldn't look kind of crazy? We've been working on being Felix and Mildmay..
A: Um. Wow. I think that's kind of cool, but I have fourth-wall issues, and the idea of coming face to face with people dressed up as Felix and Mildmay seems to trigger them. I don't at all want to stop you doing it if you're having fun; in fact, I think that's awesome. It just feels really weird for me personally.
12.
Q: I am suddenly possessed of the desire to see what you have to say about the ghost story at the beginning of "A Likely Story" (dS season 4)
A: I think it is very very odd. To say anything more useful, I'd need to watch "A Likely Story" again. I am going to do write-ups of Season 4; I will keep your desire in mind when I get there. :)
13.
Q: Have you thought about calling Donatello "Dante?"
A: Yes, actually. (I've also been tempted to call him Virgil.) He's not a Dante.
Q: What epic or long poem do you recommend reading next?
A: Well, it depends on what you've read so far. After The Odyssey and The Iliad and The Argonautica, there's The Aeneid and The Metamorphoses. Then there's The Divine Comedy, Jerusalem Delivered, Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso. Then of course you've got Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Piers Plowman is awesomely weird. The Faerie Queene is magnificent. Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Hero and Leander, The Complaint of Rosamond, Scylla's Metamorphosis, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Endymion and Phoebe: Idea's Latmus, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image. You can always look for The Mirror for Magistrates.
If you're willing to branch out slightly, you might find Renaissance romances worth your attention: Sir Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia and New Arcadia and Lady Mary Wroth's Urania are all very weird, especially from modern standards of storytelling, but I found them immensely rewarding in many of the same ways long narrative poems are.
2.
Q: You keep tripping over books about the Salem Witch trials, along with other Puritan new England topics--has a story idea started kicking around in your head, or is there a chance you'll take a stab at your own history of the trials, to fill in the historyfail that irks you in this area?
A: There is a story that I may eventually write, an insanely ambitious AU novel about an America in which angels and devils are real.
I am unlikely to write a nonfiction book about Salem unless a reputable publisher offers me a contract.
3.
Q: What led you to create Felix and Mildmay?
A: I think I need this one narrowed down slightly.
4.
Q: As evidenced in the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, you seem to have an exceptional grasp on both D/s and SM mentalities. Are you comfortable sharing how you came by your knowledge of said realm?
A: I read a lot and I used my imagination, specifically the quality of empathy. I know that's not a very satisfactory answer, but I don't have a better one.
5.
Q: Will A Reckoning of Men be as sexual as A Companion to Wolves?
A: No.
6.
Q: Having followed your first lines meme for some time now, I am wondering if your new novel, The Goblin Emperor, is the one that was originally entitled The Emperor of the Elflands. If it is, I am curious to know (if you're able to tell me without spoilers) whether the novel was always about goblins, or whether it was originally about elves. If it was originally about elves, I'd be interested in the reason for the change.
A: Yes, it's the same novel, and it's about both goblins and elves. The emperor of the title is the son of the previous emperor of the elves and his fourth wife, the daughter of the goblin king.
7.
Q: How (and when, I guess...) did you come up with Corbie? Was she always going to be a part of Corambis?
A: I knew before I started that I had to confront Felix with an apprentice, but Corbie herself emerged from the process of writing the story. I had to talk myself into making her female, but once I did that, she told me about herself very willingly. (Unlike, for instance, Mehitabel, who persisted in lying to me until the third draft of The Mirador.)
8.
Q: I was wondering (I asked you this in Twitter sometime ago, sorry for the pestering) what you think of the gay fiction shelf in bookstores? Is there a need for them? Are they more a convenient way to find books that interest the gay-fiction-reading public, or a way for bookstores to keep the "normal" shelves clean?
A: The goal of marketing categories is to enable people to find the books they want to read. It sometimes goes badly wrong and I personally disagree with a lot of the philosophy demonstrated, but at the bottom of things, bookstores want people to buy books, and they make the decisions they do because they think it will make that happen.
9.
Q: I just recently got my copy of Corambis, and I'm loving it just as much as I loved the previous installments in the series. However, Corambis feels a bit different. I can't really put my finger on it, but the feel of Corambis certainly is different from Mélusine, Virtu and Mirador, which all share a very similar atmosphere. Any ideas as to why, or is it just that Felix isn't quite as batfuck crazy or verbally abusive anymore? Or rather, is the change of mood, feel, atmosphere, whatever you should call it, intentional?
A: For me, Corambis is the book in which Felix really grows up, and I think that does make a difference in the book's atmosphere. Also, it takes a tremendous weight off all of us (me and Felix and Mildmay) to have gotten away from the Mirador and all its history and madness and mikkary. The Mirador is a very claustrophobic book, and Corambis is what happens when you throw the doors open and run out into the morning. For me, anyway.
10.
Q: I was really intrigued by what you wrote in Storytellers Unplugged about finding the story in the story- I started to think about the interior story of many of my favorite books. What would you say the story-in-the-story is in Doctrine of Labyrinths?
A: The triggering subject of the Doctrine of Labyrinths was Felix's fall from grace--quite literally. The first scene I ever wrote was his argument with Shannon and the ensuing plunge into the Arcane. The real subject, I think, turned out to be whether he could learn to be . . . "a better person" is too facile, but if he could learn not to be so destructive, both of himself and of the people he loved.
11.
Q: Do you go to any cons where cos play/dressing in character wouldn't look kind of crazy? We've been working on being Felix and Mildmay..
A: Um. Wow. I think that's kind of cool, but I have fourth-wall issues, and the idea of coming face to face with people dressed up as Felix and Mildmay seems to trigger them. I don't at all want to stop you doing it if you're having fun; in fact, I think that's awesome. It just feels really weird for me personally.
12.
Q: I am suddenly possessed of the desire to see what you have to say about the ghost story at the beginning of "A Likely Story" (dS season 4)
A: I think it is very very odd. To say anything more useful, I'd need to watch "A Likely Story" again. I am going to do write-ups of Season 4; I will keep your desire in mind when I get there. :)
13.
Q: Have you thought about calling Donatello "Dante?"
A: Yes, actually. (I've also been tempted to call him Virgil.) He's not a Dante.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 03:13 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 03:14 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 03:20 am (UTC)I find Paradise Lost unreadable, and recently failed another attempt at it. I haven't run across The Complaint of Rosamond, and I haven't found a modern edition of either The Mirror for Magistrates or Wroth's Urania.
Completely concur about Sidney's Arcadia -- I even started posting a reading of it in my LJ, but didn't finish. The posts, not the reading, I mean. I prefer the Old Arcadia, FWIW. For another prose work with a feel akin to narrative poetry, there's the The Tale of Heike.
Thankee, though -- that gives me places to point at next.
---L.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 03:32 am (UTC)I hate Milton myself, but it wasn't like I could leave him out. However! The first book of the Urania is available in An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Fiction (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780192839558-1), edited by Paul Salzman (Oxford: World's Classics-Oxford University Press, 1991) ISBN 0-19-282619-0. The second book, so far as I know, is still only available in an insanely and prohibitively expensive edition (http://www.amazon.com/Countess-Montgomerys-Medieval-Renaissance-Studies/dp/0866982531/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277868348&sr=1-3). I don't know of any modern editions of The Mirrour for Magistrates either, but The Complaint of Rosamund shouldn't be too terribly hard to find. I have it in Elizabethan Verse Romances (http://www.amazon.com/Elizabethan-Verse-Romances-English-Texts/dp/0710045182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277868616&sr=1-1), edited by M. M. Reese (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968) ISBN 0-7100-4518-2.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 05:20 am (UTC)Especially given what I usually write, in years other than this one.
ETA: I've met a couple stories from The Mirrour for Magistrates in anthologies (plus of course the intro-thingy all over), at least. Enough to make me want the whole.
---L.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 05:22 am (UTC)Q: What led you to create Felix and Mildmay?
How did you come up with Mildmay?
(Hope this is narrowed enough.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 07:53 pm (UTC)That is exactly the feeling I got from it. After all that pain, Felix finally got his redemption and Mildmay got some peace.
A few chapters into Corambis was also the point at which I finally, finally stopped wanting to push Felix down a flight of stairs. *g* He really did grow up in that book and became a person I could like without ambivalence (I always liked the character, but for a long time he was *just* the sort of person that in real life I'd trust about as far as I could throw him and have screaming matches with).
no subject
Date: 2010-07-04 10:59 pm (UTC)Gillian A