Chris Wooding on Skein of Lament

Chris Wooding has been writing for a number of years in the children's fantasy market with a string of novels behind him already, including The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray and Poison. Now, he's breaking into the adult market with the release of The Weavers of Saramyr, and The Skein of Lament, volumes one and two of The Braided Path.

"After Alaizabel I determined to stop mucking around and write an adult fantasy book," said Wooding. "I was determined to finish it even if it meant I ended up back in the student-level poverty that I had just about got out of by that point.

"The Cold Road was the result. I won't tell you the plot, since I may use it again one day and I thought it was pretty good. Suffice to say that towards the end of the book, the protagonists came across a land where the Weavers lived, a horribly corrupt race who used masks to gain supernatural powers. But the masks ate into their sanity and befouled their bodies every time they used them, and were narcotic in effect, trapping them in a cycle of addiction. Power at a terrible price.

"I sent it to my agent, unbelievably relieved at having finally completed it. She didn't like it. I was mildly crushed. But she did like the Weavers. 'Couldn't you get more of them in?' she suggested. Trouble was, after I got over my initial reluctance to change anything about the book, I agreed with her. The Weavers were the best thing about it. Unfortunately I'd constructed the story in such a way that it was impossible to bring them in any earlier without rebuilding it from scratch.

So I did. I tossed the original concept and rewrote the whole story with the Weavers as a starting point. Writing-wise, I think that's the hardest thing I've ever done, and probably also the smartest. The process itself wasn't hard: that was surprisingly easy. It was the decision to scrap a whole novel without ever showing it to anyone except my agent. I believed I could make it better, but I knew I couldn't do it through any amount of editing. Nothing short of a total rewrite would suffice. So I had to start again, and that was a tough call to make, to just lob eight months of work like that. But I knew that first impressions were all-important as far as my debut into the adult market went, and the choice was vindicated in the end."

Wooding's determination to write fantasy (or in this case, re-write fantasy) goes way back to his childhood. "I've always wanted to create a fantasy sequence because they were the first books I remember falling in love with as a teen," he said. "They were the most traditional Tolkien-esque fantasies that everyone seems to find execrable nowadays (I dunno, they still occupy a warm place in my heart), but they were so damn immersive. You could really lose yourself in that world. No genre does immersion like fantasy/SF, in my opinion. That's why I like it, and that's why I write it.

"With The Braided Path I wanted to take the things I liked about that kind of fantasy and discard the things I didn't. For instance, the only reason it's a trilogy is because it's far too long to be one book; I'm not a big fan of trilogies for the sake of trilogies. If I couldn't justify three books, I wouldn't have done it that way. But with The Braided Path the idea was always to give it the classic dramatic three-act structure, and since each act is separated by several years it made sense to break it up into three books that way.

"As for the story and world of Saramyr itself, I was bewildered by the adherence to elves and dwarves and the Tolkien/D&D structure prevalent in fantasy - if you're gonna spend years writing a story why use someone else's ideas? - so I was determined not to do anything like that.

So if the elves and dwarves were out, what other creations came in?

"Let's start with the background canvas of Saramyr. It became a blend of whatever mythologies and historical flavours I thought suited the world; while aspects of them are recognisable, it's not based directly on one or another. The idea when creating the mythology, spirits and gods and so forth was to slant off established mythology rather than stealing from it. Almost all of it is made up, but at each point it had to seem credible, to sound as if I might have taken it from some old and archaic system of legend and belief.

"To tell you the truth though, when creating Saramyr it was ninety-nine percent intuition as to what went into the pot and what was discarded. I don't really reason these things out; if it feels right, I go with it.

"I also wanted to give myself scope to be inventive with the characters and monsters, hence the Aberrants [people born with strange abilities and deformities]. And magic has been way overdone, so I wanted something different that didn't follow the usual rules: the Weave. I took the things I'd loved as a child and changed them, then left out the parts that I didn't like.

"Then I wanted to create a fast paced story, because too many fantasy books are twice the length they need to be and most of that is padding. And the jingoism and black/white good and evil inherited from Tolkien never really sat right with me either. I'm far too politically cynical so I was never going to go down that route. Obviously, having one of the heroines as a shape-changing pseudo-lesbian serial killer helped in the old ambiguity department.

"The battles I depicted as graphically as I could make them, just to make the point that it's not much fun being hacked/shot to pieces, no matter how noble you might think it is! Plus, like any decent fantasy I guess, it had to hold up a mirror to real world – it had to have a point to the telling - and my world is nothing like it was in the day when the template was established fifty years ago. Though there are some concerns from those days that still exist (or have got worse) and could do with reiterating occasionally, it's really a different planet now.

Running around in Wooding's detailed fantasy world are a host of entertaining characters getting slashed with swords, fighting for their beliefs, manipulating and betraying each other. "They just kind of introduce themselves when they feel like it, I suppose," Wooding said. "Generally as long as I can see the character in my head then I don't need to worry about how they'll act. It's a cliché, but they really do sort themselves out without much help from me. They get defined by their experiences and their reactions to those experiences, and pretty soon you just know how they would handle any given situation.

"I think the reason they evolve that way is because I try to make the plot fit the characters rather than vice versa. I tend to find that in some fiction the characters get diluted as they go along. They start off interesting, but the quirkier they are, the more problems they cause the author since it's not really believable that they will cooperate with a nice straightforward plot. For instance, a particularly thorny character is going to resist being manipulated by outside forces on principle; this makes it hard to get them to do what you want them to. So they lose their edge and become cyphers, worn down by the flow of the story. But I like that edge. If I don't think a character would do something I change the story to fit how they would react. And if you get a few characters with an edge together, they naturally start cutting each other. That's when the fun begins!

A lot of the character conflict in The Braided Path arises out of one basic principle: everyone is selfish. It's human nature. There are no heroes in the trilogy; with the odd notable exception, they're all just trying to get what they want, or simply to survive. Traditional fantasy often plays with themes of great heroism and sacrifice for liege or country, but I can't identify with that. Nobody is pure good. Everyone has failings, everyone has a dark streak (some wider than others) and it wouldn't seem right to have a character, even in a fantasy, that didn't have that.

And those failings can lead to some stupendous plot twists. "I do extract a malevolent glee from messing with the reader's expectations," Wooding grins. "I like to keep 'em on their toes! Seriously though, especially in a story three books long, you have to convince the reader that anything can happen: that they're never safe. Otherwise I think you lose some of your grip. Similarly, no character is sacred. When they're in danger, the reader has to believe that they might die, that the author is prepared to do that. There's no death-by-merit: even the least deserving character could get it. The twists are planned and spontaneous. Most are worked out long in advance, since they have to sit right with the rest of the plot, but others just happen in a flurry, and in the aftermath I end up saying: 'Wow! Now how is this going to affect everything afterward?' and rewrite the plot from there. I need it to be dynamic, so I keep myself interested; I do change things as I go along. But everything in the end has to fit into the overall scheme.

The overall scheme will be coming to fruition in the final Saramyr volume, The Ascendancy Veil, due out in May 2005. "And the plot is a secret!" Wooding said, before conceding slightly. "Actually, it's difficult to even discuss it without using spoilers that would give away great big chunks of volumes one and two, but I suppose I can share some of the plot. The Ascendancy Veil sees the situation in Saramyr reaching crisis point, and with that comes the most potent threat the Libera Dramach have ever faced. The Weavers have a new weapon, capable of levelling cities, utterly unstoppable. Nothing can stand in their way. But somehow, someone has to; for the secrets of the Weavers are coming to light at last, and there is more at stake now than anyone has dared to dream...

"And as far as I know The Ascendancy Veil is the end for Saramyr," revealed Wooding. "The most fun I have about writing is world-building, and I like to start on a blank canvas. Unless anything changes between now and then, my next book will not even be close to epic fantasy. It's going to be very, very unusual indeed. But at that point I draw a theatrical shroud over the stage, and depart with a cackle..."

Copyright © Sandy Auden, 2003

Steve Aylett on Accomplice

"So this is Accomplice?"

Steve Aylett nods sagely.

With Jericho Bridge and the reeking Swamp of Eternal Enmity / Degradation behind us, we take in the view of the settlement. We are both covered in rubber seaweed and poison barnacles but Aylett assures me this is a normal side-effect of the trip. The skyline here is low, punctuated only by a domed roof, a square tower and a church building. Most of the houses appear to be sunbleached wood and suit their rural surroundings. It all looks pretty normal really, but there's a frisson of strangeness in the air, the taste of something unpredictable. There's going to be more to this tour than I'd expected, methinks.

"This way," says Steve, leading off to the right at a brisk pace, walking parallel to the oozing swamp. This is Aylett's world. Accomplice - town on the edge of nowhere - and its denizens have been the subject of four of his novels. Steve kindly volunteered to show me around and so here we are, walking to the edge of town.

"This is Ladderland, Barny's house," Steve says. It looks a bit like a kid's adventure park - multiple levels with ladders connecting the decking terraces outside and an almost tree-house simplicity. "Barny's a bit of a simpleton really. He got a job as an exterminator once and used to clean the flies and that, getting the gunk out of their compound eyes, and polishing the roaches. He loves the winged and stepping animals of the earth, and that will be his undoing, Tom."

I remind him that my name isn't Tom, but he's already indicating an Aztec-style pyramid structure several hundred yards behind Barny's. "See that building?" Closer to, some buildings are ribbed and chalky, grown from bone. "That's the Bata Motel, Edgy's place. He can't pay, so he stays there by pretending to be a ghost and scaring the landlady. He sets fire to rubbish, then directs the smoke in a way that looks a bit like a floating ghost. Actually the landlady just thinks he's a bloke who's always setting fire to rubbish and she's scared of him for that reason. It goes to show, there's always a way."

We walk past Barny's front gate and down the street towards the centre of Accomplice. The buildings close in on either side and there's the smell of something exotic sizzling on the air. It's not long before we reach the source of the aroma - Snorter's Cafe. Just inside the door we can see two customers eating enthusiastically (and a little messily) at a small wooden table.

"And there's Edgy himself, with Gregor," says Steve, introducing the pair. "Looks a bit like a dead firework, doesn't he? Hello Edgy, how's the gullet? He's laughing at that. The bloke with him, the one who looks like a potato, that's Gregor."

Gregor looks up from his food and starts giving me the eye. Breaking into a lecherous grin, he waves at us. "He thinks you're a failure, and that turns him on. Time to go," says Steve before Gregor can finish his meal and come over.

Before long the street opens out onto a large public square dominated by a grandiose building. "Yeah, the Mayoral Palace," says Steve. "Home to Mayor Rudloe. He distorts every fact he can get his hands on." Aylett laughs, looking up at the mayoral balcony. "Went to the glass hospital a while ago. There was a beak at the middle of his heart which nipped the surgeon. Staff embarrassment and smirks in the observation window. One of the students called through the glass 'Chest snout eh? Chlorine fixes that.' It doesn't of course." Steve slaps the side of the building. "It's called Rudloe Manor now."

There are many different streets leading off the town centre, but Steve takes us across the entire length of the square to a small street where a plain building sits, austere and functional.

"The Sorting Office," says Steve and the soft sound of crying floats up from the basement. "As Jeff Lint said, 'Employment is atrophy speeded up.'"

Continuing up the street we pass a variety of colourful shops selling everything from blood corn to abasement trolleys. One strange, dark shop-front has a loud cawing sound coming from it and, having an interest in feathered pets, I go over for a closer look. 'The Shop of a Thousand Spiders', it says above the door. I turn to frown at Steve but he's already moving past me to hold the shop door open. I dubiously murmur some thanks as I enter, then pause a few steps in to let my eyes adjust to the dim interior.

"You can find all sorts of weirdware here," says Steve closing the door. "It's a bit dim," he warns, guiding me through the murk. "And slimy. But by god, the bargains - look at this." He picks up a a pentagram skillet from a dusty shelf. "A Vanta grid. And here's an october switch for making visible what is invisible, betsy lamps for attracting ghosts and irreversible trauma, a benthic brace, a bottle of bone, a cathay claw, a cornercage, skull sandpaper, mole pearls and umbilia." Reaching among the shelves of lethal novelties, he picks up a book bound in glass. "The Tao Te Jinx, a collection of Bingo Violaine quotations. Listen to this: 'Government is like domestic abuse - it manages to make the victim feel guilty.' And this one: 'Infinity has so much structure, it has no structure.' And then: 'Insanity happens when all your adjustments to the world meet up by accident' And here's an old favourite: 'Pity the spectators of revolution... its success is not their success, and nor is its failure.'"

I gaze around at the other artefacts, especially those on the wall behind the counter. With a start, I realise that the sales assistant in the half-dark behind the till is actually a rigid goat, perhaps stuffed or made of wood, observing and weighing its judgement. Uneasy, I look for the door.

We emerge blinking into the light and I pause to take a deep lungful of fresh air. The movement brings a tall square tower into view as my gaze swings upwards. I'd seen the tower from a distance when we'd first arrived and, grateful for anything to distract me from the contents of the shop, I ask Steve whether it is the tallest building in Accomplice.

"Wesley Kern thought so, and chose it as the vantage from which to fire on the Mayoral Palace. It also supposedly houses the Moral Fibre, but I suspect that's just a bit of ham." We put the tower to our backs and walk away from the town centre,

"C'mon," says Steve, "the gardens are lovely this time of the day." And off he strides. I catch up with him at two large stone posts that stand either side of an opening in a six foot high wall. "Scardummy Garden," Steve says as I follow him through the entrance to be greeted by a host of sculpted statues.

"Why's that one wearing a donkey jacket and bobble hat, Steve?"

"Because it can. Every citizen in Accomplice has a statue born here. Doomed Eddie Gallo's is covered in mushrooms, I think. And look at that one, with its chin knocked off. I wouldn't want to go out with her."

We wander north onto some fallow fields. Here and there are cacti skeletons and the bleached bones of carnivorous pianos. Next to a dead shed, a hole in the air radiates a sickly light. Aylett walks toward it, kicking through gems. A grandfather clock lays nearby like a coffin. "I forgot about this - it's a creepchannel entrance."

"What?"

"Demonic subway system - nightmare network. Smells like vomit doesn't it? Let's go in a way."

Aylett pulls me up the diamond-strewn slope into the warping gap and my head is filled with a scramble of migraine static. I dimly recall Aylett gesturing to a briefcase-clutching lawyer embedded in a cavern wall, ants pouring from its eyesockets. Aylett is saying 'No reason for the interval between death and death,' or something like that. Corrosive yellow light is blasting across us.

The next thing I remember, we are back at the entrance to the Scar Garden and Aylett is showing me a trick with some barbed wire and an egg.

I catch the metallic tang of the sea on the breeze. Face to the wind, I can just make out the liquid horizon, undulating gently in the distance.

"Baffling Ocean," Steve explains. "Completely baffling. Moves forward, then back, parts of it are dark, others light, it gets all frothy at the edges..." He shakes his head slowly. "Madness. Absolute madness."

"And that chimney over there?" I ask, indicating a pencil-like structure out of town, towards the coast.

"The boneseed factory - it produces the spore mix used to grow some of the more stupid buildings around here. It was discovered when King Verbal accidentally spilt some sort of experimental fertilizer in the graveyard - that's what made the Bone Coast, ribbed for your pleasure." He points at the twisted wall of calcium which rears against the west horizon.

We move off down an alleyway between the houses to the next street, emerging near Spacey's Gas Station. Opposite us, the huge domed roof of an observatory rotates and the slats begin to open. An armoured demon crouches on the telescope like a dried spider. "I've arranged irredeemable errors to the cardinal points of your life, hope you don't mind," the creature calls out.

"Not at all," Aylett hails in response, waving. He turns to me. "The demon Dietrich, hell defector. But old habits die hard."

Opposite the observatory is Spacey's Gas Station. The sleeping, inert form of Spacey lies sentry. "Look at the car here," says Aylett, approaching a rusted red chassis. I touch the hot tin roof. "Feel the radiator grille." I do, and it's gilled like a mushroom. "This a Ford Vimana, a scarcar. To travel through the creepchannel it has to be part-organic."

We hurry on through a gap in the hedge before Spacey spots us. We find ourselves in the grounds of a large glass lattice structure.

"Here's where some useless vegetative heads are grown. Most of the heads are shipped to the courthouse for jury use, the idea being that since it's the only time their opinions will be listened to in a way which will affect anything, their decisions come out weird and distorted, informed by a lifetime of grudges and resentment. Look at the face on this one." Aylett pulls a weird bole from the ground, its underside a drift of wooly roots. The shallow impress of a face is detectable on the cabbagy surface.

With the hydroponics on our right, we walk on. The smell of cooking wafts over us again.

"Snorter's already?" I ask.

"Snorter's is a bit further over there," says Steve, pointing over the rooftops to the left. "We're close to the Chef school and Ultimatum Restaurant here. The chefs worship a sort of frilled seahorse in a painted cabinet. Wouldn't we all, if we could? Look inside - see the large slimy padlocks of stuff on the plates? Pasta: the lowest of detritus redefined as food. Look at the customers. There they sit like farmers, aching for the end. This is a terrible place."

Passing through a small cobble courtyard and between houses again, I see a building covered with ladders and realise we've some full circle. Barny is out in his garden playing with his pet lion. He looks up with a smile and a wave. Steve waves back then turns to me.

"Well, there you have it. The town that stole my eyebrows. Don't step on that snail, they use those as lightbulbs around here."

He raises an arm to indicate the way back, away from Accomplice town. As we get back to Jericho Bridge I look back over my shoulder. I was right, it has been interesting and not without its horrors. I look forward to seeing what happens to Accomplice's denizens in Steve's next book, Karloff's Circus...



...which is currently available from all good bookstores, 48.2% of the lousy ones, and the online literary emporium Amazon.co.uk. More about the author (if you dare!) at www.steveaylett.com.

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Copyright © Sandy Auden, 2003

Sandy is currently working as an enthusiastic reviewer for SFX magazine; a tireless news hound for Starburst magazine; a diligent interviewer / reviewer for The Third Alternative magazine and a combination of all the above for The Alien Online. She spends her spare time lying down with a cold flannel on her forehead.

A New Era Begins

Greetings All!

Please come in and make yourself comfortable.

You may notice that this website isn't your typical blog. Rather than post lots of detail about what I've been up to recently, I like to share information about what my favourite authors are doing instead.

So you'll find an index on the right hand side of my blog that'll take you to an author interview of your choice.

And every now and then, I'll pop up an entry with some recommendations for a damn good read.

I hope you enjoy finding out more about some great writers. I know I certainly did.

Keep well everyone,
Sandy

ps. You can contact me via The Alien Online website but please be patient when waiting for replies.