The Intel: James Lovegrove

That Sherlock Holmes, aye? A hundred years down the line and authors still can’t get enough of The Great Detective. He’s been reinterpreted, reimagined, rebooted, restyled, and flung through time. Writers have pored over Conan Doyle’s every sentence to find inspiration for untold stories. In Baker Street everyone’s a star. Minor characters have been plucked from obscurity and given their own series – and still readers can’t get enough of his Victorian world.

Now sci-fi author James Lovegrove has given Holmes a steampunk vibe by pitting him against The Thinking Engine. It’s 1895 and Professor Quantock has put the finishing touches to a wondrous computational device that, he claims, is capable of analytical thought to rival that of the cleverest men alive.

Holmes and Watson travel to Oxford, where a battle of wits ensues between the great detective and his mechanical counterpart as they compete to see which of them can be first to solve a series of crimes. As man and machine vie for supremacy, it becomes clear that the Thinking Engine has its own agenda and Holmes and Watson’s lives are on the line as a ghost from the past catches up with them.

James is the best-selling author of The Age of Odin, the third novel in his critically-acclaimed Pantheon military SF series. He was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998 for his novel Days and for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2004 for his novel Untied Kingdom. A reviewer for The Financial Times, he’s also  the author of Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War and Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff of Nightmares, which are also published by Titan Books.

In this intel interview, James talks Holmes and zombies, crosswords, Solomon Kane, our old friend Fu Manchu, and the Darwinian business of writing. It’s fascinating stuff — enjoy!

Tell us about The Thinking Engine…

I’ve set the book in Oxford in 1895, drawing on the reference in the Conan Doyle tale The Three Students, in which Watson states that in the spring of that year “a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns”.

I myself was at Oxford between 1985 and 1988, studying for a degree in English Literature, so I know the place reasonably well and I thought it would be interesting to write a full-blown Sherlock Holmes novel in the City of Dreaming Spires, where he would be surrounded by intellectuals and academics, and also incorporate some of the local history and folklore into the story. I’d done that in Gods of War, which takes place in and around my current hometown, Eastbourne, and enjoyed the process. People tend to associate Holmes with Victorian London, but I think it’s fun removing him from all that’s familiar and giving him a new geography to explore.

The plot of the novel involves the creation of a computation device by a mathematics professor which seems to be capable to solving crimes. The machine is even, its creator claims, the equal of the great Sherlock Holmes. That’s a red rag to a bull as far as Holmes is concerned, so he travels to Oxford to establish the truth and uphold his reputation. There follows a series of mysteries, with the computer, called the Thinking Engine, always one step ahead of the great detective. And I’m not going to say any more than that, so as not to spoil the surprises. Rest assured, though, that all is not as it seems.

Why is the character of Sherlock Holmes as popular now as he has ever been?

A friend of mine, who’s a fellow Sherlockian, once likened Holmes to the ultimate older brother, and I like that description. We all know he’s a younger brother, of course, but he seems to fulfil a fraternal role as far as Watson is concerned, and therefore as far as we, the readers, are concerned, because Watson is our point of identification, the vehicle through which Holmes is mediated. Holmes is smarter, stronger, quicker on the uptake than Watson, always leading him along, goading him, sometimes chiding him, sometimes even bullying. Watson looks up to him, all the same, and we do too.

That, to me, is part of Holmes’s appeal: he feels like close kin. But also, he is resolutely on the side of the angels. He may not be the most patient or empathetic of heroes, but he is nonetheless a hero through and through. He represents certainty, the assurance that things will turn out well, that evil can be overcome through the application of energy and intelligence. That’s a very comforting message.

The analytical Holmes is a perfect fit for a steampunk movie – which director would you like to see adapt your books for the big-screen?

I haven’t really thought about movie adaptations or suitable directors. With all my books, I write them because they’re novels and are meant to be, novels and nothing else. Prose fiction is the medium I work in, the medium I understand best. First and foremost, I want to tell a good story in prose. What I would like to see, though, and be involved in, is a Holmes TV series that injects him into various SF/fantasy/horror situations. The setting would be the Victorian/Edwardian era. Holmes, Watson and all the secondary characters would be exactly as they are in the books. The only difference would be that he has to pit his wits against vampires, zombies, aliens and the like. In fact, I’m making moves in this direction already. Watch this space.

Holmes novels are clever puzzles, and you actually contribute cryptic crosswords to newspapers – do you have to have a logical mind to write The Great Detective?

I’m sure a logical mind helps, especially when it comes to putting together a plot. However, there is plenty of emotion in Holmes stories too, or there should be. He isn’t just a cerebral being, devoid of feeling. He has passions and latent empathy, and it’s important for any Holmes pasticheur to put those across. I love exploring the relationship between him and Watson.

There’s endless possibility for interplay and even humour there. Holmes himself is, in a very acerbic, droll way, funny. Not everyone sees that. He has a very English sense of understatement and irony, and even when he’s mocking Watson or a dull-witted Scotland Yard inspector, he does it with affection. Any novel, but especially a mystery-adventure novel, needs to have strong characterisation as well as rock-solid plotting. Logicality alone would create something that’s dry as dust and no fun.

You’ve written about Holmes as well as the many Gods of the great mythologies as part of your Pantheon sci-fi series – are there any other literary or mythological characters you’d like to get your hands on?

I would love, love, love to write a Fu Manchu novel. I have made noises about this to various publishers, particularly Titan, who are reprinting the original Sax Rohmer stories in lovely new paperback editions. The problem there is partly a copyright issue but also the popularity of the character, which is relatively low, especially when compared with someone as internationally recognisable as Holmes.

There is also the racism issue to address, Fu Manchu being of course the stereotypical “Yellow Peril” villain. I’ve thought of a way of dealing with that, by setting the story in the present day and incorporating the politics of modern China into the narrative. However, I suspect this project will remain forever a pipe dream.

As will my desire to write a Solomon Kane novel. Kane, as I’m sure you’re aware, is one of Robert E. Howard’s lesser series characters, and I feel that Howard could have done more with him outside the handful of short stories and the very bad poems he wrote about him. There was lots to explore there, and the sheer internal contradiction in the concept of a Puritan adventurer is fascinating. Again, there are rights issues to consider here, though, and even the recent movie, which was surprisingly authentic and good, did little to raise Kane’s profile outside genre circles.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

That it’s incredibly difficult to make a decent living in this business. I’m doing reasonably well as a full-time writer, better than many, but that’s largely because I work my backside off and have been in publishing long enough (well over a quarter of a century!) and put out enough books (well over fifty!) to have built up a good roster of professional contacts and, perhaps, a reputation.

It’s difficult realising you’re never going to be in the Stephen King or J.K. Rowling leagues, you’re never going to sell books in those quantities, you’re never going to become a multimillionaire writer and be able to retire to the Bahamas and drink cocktails for the rest of your days. Those guys are the exception. The rule is the mid-listers like me who can just about get by. You have to be content with reaching the readers you do reach and simply earning an income from writing stories. Always you can hold out the hope of the big bestseller, the one that finally makes your name and gets the world to sit up and take notice. But, in an industry as tough and Darwinian as this, getting by is good enough.

Who are the crime authors you admire, and why? 

Other than Conan Doyle? I don’t have many favourites. I tend not to read much crime fiction, and especially not police procedurals, which I can’t seem to acquire a taste for. That said, I always liked Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels. I’m a sucker, too, for a locked-room mystery, which I like to think of as a cryptic crossword in fictional form, as long as the author plays fair with the reader, just as a crossword setter should play fair with the solver.

I have Otto Penzler’s massive Black Lizard compendium of locked-room mysteries by my bedside and am loving dipping into that, and I’m looking forward to his Holmes-pastiches companion volume which is due out soon. I was also a bit of a fan of Andrew Vachss’s Burke series while it lasted, particularly the early ones, while Darwyn Cooke’s graphic novel adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker stories are things of beauty.

Give me some advice about writing…

You have to work. Work, work, work. Never miss a deadline. Never say no to an offer of gainful employment. Some people seem to think being an author is an honour, a privilege. It is, but it’s also a job. You put the hours in. You do it the best you can. You don’t just sit there and think how wonderful it would be if the words just magically appeared. You make them appear, through effort and thought. Once you figure that out, it becomes easier.

What’s next for you?

I’ve just finished the first of a trilogy, known collectively as The Cthulhu Casebooks, in which Sherlock Holmes tackles gods, monsters and madmen drawn from, or inspired by, the H.P. Lovecraft canon. That’s out in late 2016, with the sequels to follow at yearly intervals.

I’ve just begun work on a new Pantheon novel, one featuring the Ancient Greek demigods. It’s something of a murder mystery itself, with a protagonist who’s a semi-successful crime writer – although a long, long time ago he used to be someone a lot more famous and proactive when it came to dishing out justice. That, too, is out next year, late summer I think, coming on the heels of the second of my Dev Harmer outer-space-action series. I’ve a couple of other projects bubbling away on the back burner. Staying busy!

***

Sherlock Holmes: The Thinking Engine is out in paperback and ebook, from Titan Books.

The Intel: Nicholas Kaufmann

One of the joys of being a commissioned writer is that sometimes you get to play in someone else’s sandbox. Nicholas Kaufmann is the author of Hunt At World’s End, one of the popular Gabriel Hunt series.

Created by Charles Ardai, Hunt is a world traveler and man of action, a strapping six-footer who travels with a classic six-shooter in a holster on his hip and has an insatiable hunger for discovery. He’s an old-school Pulp hero, one of those Saturday morning serial guys who travels to far-flung corners to find lost cities and artefacts. All the Gabriel Hunt novels are available right now from Titan Books.

Nick is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer and a member of the International Thriller Writers. He’s kindly agreed to give us the intel on Hunt, the importance of persevering  as a writer and how to travel the world from the safety of your office chair…

Tell us about Gabriel Hunt…

I think Gabriel Hunt could best be described as the spiritual offspring of Indiana Jones, Doc Savage, and Allan Quatermain. Maybe with a little James Bond thrown in, given his contacts and almost limitless resources, thanks to the Hunt Foundation that bankrolls his exploits. He’s a two-fisted, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later adventurer who excels at finding trouble as frequently as he finds exotic artifacts and lost treasure. But he’s not just some dumb bruiser. He’s got a sharp, strategic mind, too, and a great deal of compassion for the underdog. Also, judging from his companions in the six books of the series, he has a way with the ladies.

Why, in this day and age, are we so attracted to devil may care heroes like Gabriel?

That’s an excellent question. I suspect the attraction is less about the devil may care attitude and more about the freedom of Gabriel Hunt’s life. Most of us live very regimented lives. We get up at the same time every day, follow the same morning routine, take the same route to work, do the same things at work that we did yesterday and the day before, then take the same route home, eat dinner, watch some TV, go to bed, and do it all again exactly the same the next day.

Gabriel Hunt’s life is different from ours. If he gets a whim to travel to an exotic location in search of a lost civilization, he does it. For the rest of us that’s just a daydream, but for him it’s within reach. I think that’s why readers are attracted to these kinds of heroes. They live the lives we only dream about. Of course, in the end that’s probably for the best. I don’t think I would personally be very good at swinging on a vine across a bottomless chasm while bad guys shoot at me. I’m much better at sitting at a desk and writing about it. It’s a lot safer, too.

At World’s End is a rollicking action-adventure – what’s the secret of writing action?

Action scenes are my favourite scenes to write. I find them absolutely joyful, even if terrible things are happening, because the momentum speeds up, takes on a life of its own, and keeps going. The days when I write action scenes are the days when my word count impresses me instead of depresses me. But the secret to writing action? I’d have to say the answer would be to plot the scene out first. Even with leaving room for improvisation, which is where the real magic of creativity occurs, you’re going to want to know most of the parameters of the scene before you start. Will it be a long sequence or a short one? Will there be fighting involved, and will it involve weapons or fists? If it’s a chase scene, how much ground do you want them to cover?

But of course the most important consideration of all is this: What do you want the scene to accomplish? A good chase scene is great, but a good chase scene that reveals important plot or character points along the way, or that helps the reader better understand the setting by having your heroes being pursued through it, is even better. For me, it also helps to think of an action scene as a set piece. It’s thrilling to have a shoot out in a dark city alley, but it can be even more thrilling to have it on a swaying rope bridge. Or a speeding train. Or on horseback. Of course, the tone of your story is important in determining all of this, too. If you’re writing a back-alley noir, it’s probably best to avoid rope bridges and trap-filled temples and keep events to shady, urban settings. But even then, set pieces still work great. You’ve got all sorts of seedy locations you can use, from strip joints to dive bars to vacant tenement buildings.

Whatever works for what you’re writing. Just make sure you know 1) where the action scene is going so you don’t write yourself into a corner, and 2) what, besides simple excitement, it is intended to accomplish.

Gabriel travels the globe in his adventures – how do you get the spirit of a place that perhaps you yourself have never visited?

Well, I’ve never been to Borneo, but a good chunk of the novel takes place there. Same with Turkey. The best thing to do, short of spending your savings on a plane ticket, is research it. Research is your friend. Research will tell you a lot more than the population size and major exports of a place. It’ll tell you about the culture, what people do and eat and wear and believe.

The best thing about research, though, is discovering the little gems you never knew about your topic but that work perfectly for the story, or add just the right dash of authenticity to sell the rest of it. It also helps enormously to look at pictures of the place you’re writing about. Technology like Google Image Search makes it easier than ever before to see pictures of far away lands that can give you a real feel for the place.

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

I don’t write all day like some other authors I know, nor do I do much writing in the morning. I can barely write an email before three cups of coffee, let alone a chapter. My best writing is done in the afternoon, or in the evening if I can, though that’s rare these days. I write from home occasionally, but I’ve found it can be very distracting to be home all day. I start thinking about errands that need to get done, or washing the dishes, or cleaning the litter box. Also, when I’m by myself there’s no one around to keep me honest, so I’m likely to spend more time than usual surfing the Internet or sneaking in an episode or two of a TV show on Netflix.

So a few years ago I decided to start leaving my apartment to do my writing in the main branch of the New York Public Library. It’s such a beautiful building, so inspiring and breathtaking and stimulating that I really love working there. I love that lots of other people go there to work as well, because that keeps me honest. I can’t slack off in front of other people! So I’ll write at the library for between four and six hours, then come back home in the evening. I’m one of the only full-time writers I know with a commute, but I’m really enjoying having the brain-adjustment time between home and work. The commute also gives me more reading time, which I appreciate.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

There are so many it’s almost impossible for me to narrow it down to the single hardest! If pressed, though, I’d say the hardest lesson about writing is just how often your work will get rejected. You can’t go into this business with a thin skin because rejection is part of the game. It’s not just a rite of passage; it happens continually throughout a writer’s career. Even the best writers still get their work rejected from time to time. It can be hard, though. I don’t know of any other business except maybe acting where rejection is such a constant cost of doing business. Some writers can’t handle it; they give up and stop writing. Others start making really bad business decisions out of a fear of rejection, such as signing with terrible micropresses that accept anything or just throwing their book up onto Kindle and hoping someone will notice it.

The key to success in this business is perseverance, plain and simple. Just keep writing. I believe that every word you write makes you a better writer, so if you keep writing, keep working at it, you get better and better until finally your work isn’t being rejected nearly as much. Just keep in mind that to be a writer you will have to deal with rejection throughout your career. It’s best you know that up front so there won’t be any surprises.

How do you deal with feedback?

I love feedback, but only from people whose opinions I respect. I’m not going to pay attention to a snotty, one-star review on Amazon, for instance. I wouldn’t even call something like that feedback, really. And that goes double for snotty, one-star reviews where the author can’t spell or doesn’t have even a passing knowledge of grammar. But good feedback—which isn’t necessarily the same as positive feedback—is something I relish. I’ve been workshopping my fiction with a group of other authors in the New York City area for over ten years now. They’re all accomplished authors who work I admire and whose opinions I respect. Without them, I’m convinced I wouldn’t be half as good a writer as I am today.

I highly, highly recommend authors put together their own workshops with other authors they like and respect, or at the very least that they get a first reader or two. Other eyes on your work will reveal plot holes and character issues that your own eyes can’t see. When we write something, our brains tend to think everything important is on the page when in fact it may not be. That’s why first readers are so important. They catch all the missing stuff and the bits that don’t make sense.

In terms of reviews, well, my philosophy is to believe the good reviews and call the very act of reviewing into question for the bad ones. I think I’m like pretty much every other writer that way.

Who are the pulp authors you admire, and why?

I don’t read a lot of pulp, actually. I certainly admire groundbreaking authors like H. Rider Haggard, Robert E. Howard, Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler—especially Raymond Chandler—all of whom were called pulp at one time, but I feel like the term “pulp” has qualitative connotations, as if it is somehow lesser than other kinds of writing. Disposable and unimportant. It’s not. Honestly, I’m just as happy reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita as I am reading Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and though there are obvious differences between the two, I don’t subscribe to the theory that the authors deserve different labels.

Give me some advice about writing…

I’ll start by repeating what I said above: Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance! Keep writing. Keep working at becoming a better writer. Creativity is like any other muscle, it gets stronger the more you use it. And don’t be afraid to submit your work. Agents and publishers aren’t going to come knocking on your door asking if you have anything for them. You need to send it to them. Every agent and publisher wants to find the next big thing. It could be you, but how will they know if they don’t get to see your work?

What’s next for you?

The second book of an urban fantasy-noir series I’m writing for St. Martin’s is out. It’s called Die and Stay Dead, the sequel to last year’s Dying Is My Business. It’s about a thief for a Brooklyn crime syndicate who discovers he can’t stay dead, although every time he cheats death someone else has to die in his place. I’m very excited about the series. I’m working on book three now. If the first two books do well enough, you should see book three, which is tentatively titled Only the Dead Sleep, out in 2015.

As for Gabriel Hunt books, I don’t know if Charles Ardai, the mad genius behind the series, is planning to produce more than the six novels already out there, but if he does I hope he’ll give me a call again. I loved spending time in Gabriel Hunt’s world and I would visit it again.

Nicholas has got a terrific blog full of news and scary stuff. You can check it out right here.