 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
 
|
  |  LAST UPDATED: 24 October 2000
 VZSciFi Live Creator Event Transcript: Author Mary Gentle Part Three
Tuesday 27 June, 7.00am VZT (PST) 3.00pm GMT, Space City Conference Centre
HereÕs the third part of our transcript of the Mary Gentle event, held on 27June 2000. This has been edited slightly for spelling, with repetitions removed, and to add additional information where appropriate. Special thanks to Mary for going over it again for us! The event was moderated by Caretaker Cuz.
The librarian: There was a story in Interzone some time ago featuring Ash - where does this fit in with the eventual novel?
Mary Gentle: Which Interzone story? Do you mean A Road to Jerusalem?
The librarian: That's right -- or do I disremember?
Mary Gentle: OK -- that was my first attempt at doing an alternate history
Burgundy, but that has essentially late 20th century warfare in it... But I suppose that in some ways, the story is a try out for Ash. The heroine is a soldier, although she's not Ash herself; she lives in the early 21st century. Ash is set back in 1476 and not in that alternate 21st century, when the history of Europe was at a cusp point.
The librarian: Could you please explain Renaissance Hermeticism? (Editor's note: an aspect of the Ash story)
Mary Gentle: I'd love to! No wonder they kept the Corpus Hermeticum secret for so many years! I used it as a background for the White Crow short stories and novels Which look like fantasy, but are science fiction -- it's just that the science is Hermetic science...
It's an animate universe, in which everything is connected to everything else and it is possible to aspire to the status of a demiurge [In the dualistic Gnostic theology, the creator of the material world, which is evil by nature. Hence it was identified by the early Christian Gnostic heretics with Yahweh]. That appeals to me, because a demiurge is kind of creator.
The librarian: Like a writer?
Mary Gentle: Yes.
(Editor's note: The Gnostic Society library describes the Hermetic tradition as representing a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The central texts of the tradition, the Corpus Hermeticum were lost to the West in classical times. Their rediscovery and translation during the late-fifteenth century by the Renaissance court of Cosimo de Medici, provided a seminal force in the development of Renaissance thought and culture. The complete Corpus Hermeticum is comprised of 18 tracts. For two detailed online resources about alchemy, try: An Alchemy Resource; or J.R. Ritman Library: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, the Library of Hermetic Philosophy in Amsterdam)
Caretaker Cuz: You clearly take research seriously, has it ever proven more fun than writing the books?
Mary Gentle: There are two main kinds of research I did for Ash... One was a Masters degree in War Studies. That was interesting, but kind of heavy.
The other main area was joining societies that did historical re-enactment and fantasy live roleplay...
Caretaker Cuz: Such as the Society for Creative Anachronism?
[Editor's Note: The many UK societies are less organised than the SCA, and tend to play out their favourite authors, rather than an ideal of the medieval period.]
Mary Gentle: So I got to learn sword fighting, and how to wear and make armour.
Beverley: That's a lot of research
Mary Gentle: Some of it was like the SCA, and some of it is more like living history... and it is fun and I don't plan to give it up now I have finished the book!
Caretaker Cuz: This question may be redundant, but other than the writing itself, what has been your biggest thrill while writing/researching for a book?
Mary Gentle: Oh... that was probably some flying lessons I took for researching a different story with helicopters in. For Ash, it was probably being second in command of a rubber sword battle with 1500 people on either side! That's a lot of rubber!
The librarian: Sounds surreal
Mary Gentle: It feels surreal
Linsue: -- and a lot of fun!
Mary Gentle: Wonderful fun...
Librarian: One of the wonderful things about Ash is the way there are different explanations about just what is going on. Could you say more?
Mary Gentle: OK... Ash starts off and you think you are reading a collection of historical documents. There are some odd things in them, which the 'editor' puts down to legends. Not long after that, he starts finding evidence in our world for those legends being true.
The reader then has versions of history, and a complicated puzzle about which one is real... and the end of the book answers that! (No spoilers!)
Linsue: <smiles>
VaBelle: (darn)
Caretaker Cuz: So we should not read the last chapter first? How long is it?
The librarian: Well, it's not short -- 1120 pages, but it reads shorter!
Linsue: I hear it will keep me busy for a few days LOL
Caretaker Cuz: Sounds like a rainy weekend project.
Mary Gentle: Just a little -- don't plan to do anything else and do be careful when you lift it!
Caretaker Cuz: Are you taking a breather now or are you busy on your next project?
Mary Gentle: I'm at synopsis stage of my next one, which I won't say too much about except that it is a scene I have had in my head for a long time... a thug, and a disguised woman, walking along a beach in France in the early 1600s, and they find a shipwrecked man washed up -- he's a Japanese samurai. It's sort of Shogun meets The Three Musketeers!
Linsue: Another 1120 pages?
VaBelle: Do you feel you're looking at another five-year project?
The librarian: Don't -- I can't take the suspense!
Mary Gentle: No, this one is a lot shorter... and I'm hoping it will be
finished in a year…
The librarian: Phew
Mary Gentle: -- But I could make it longer if you like :)
The librarian: :-(
Mary Gentle: With Ash, I was trying to make it shorter, but the plot took over...
Caretaker Cuz: She was possessed!
VaBelle: Not always a bad thing
Caretaker Cuz: Would you ever like to see Ash in motion pictures?
Mary Gentle: Yes I would love to see Ash in a film, because I see it very clearly in my mind when I write. But I expect they would get the armour wrong and have her played by somebody sweet and cute.
Caretaker Cuz: Nooo… that would suck!
 Mary Gentle: Yes, I would see maybe... the woman in The Fifth Element, the heroine in it, what was her name? She just did Joan of Arc?
Caretaker Cuz: I am clueless
VaBelle: If you hadn't asked…
Beverley: I know this, just can't remember it
Mary Gentle: Prize if you get it before the end of the talk!
Linsue: The red head?
Mary Gentle: Yes, I like redheads
VaBelle: With good reason
Mary Gentle: Yes kinda: I am a born again redhead.
Linsue: [The actress is] Milena Yokowich I think?
Mary Gentle: Yes!
Caretaker Cuz: Was it Milla Jovovich?
Caretaker Cuz: lol -- oops
Mary Gentle: Sorry, Linsue beat you
Linsue: Thanks
Caretaker Cuz: I was typing and not looking
Linsue: LOL
Beverley: I was rummaging through my papers in the office.
Linsue: You need a daughter like mine!
Mary Gentle: Oh well, anyone who commissions the film can have a better reward! The budget is about $100m…
Caretaker Cuz: That's out of my price range
The librarian: You'd need lots of special effects! Have you finished forever with Valentine White Crow (Rats & Gargoyles etc.)
Mary Gentle: Yes, I probably have... There probably would have been a long book about them, but I was in a traffic accident so I ended up training myself to write differently in shorter bursts and I ended up doing Grunts, instead, which is a black comedy.
Linsue: Do you find yourself walking around making notes at strange times when you get ideas or do you work to a pretty strict schedule?
Mary Gentle: I carry a small notebook at all times, because I will get a piece of conversation or the solution to a plot problem but otherwise I am pretty disciplined, at the desk every day, probably 4 hours typing every day and the rest planning.
Caretaker Cuz: More disciplined than me…
VaBelle: How much of the typing you do is final -- and stays in the writing?
Mary Gentle: I did two drafts for Ash and because it is on screen, I revise as I go on anyway so probably about 50 per cent of that first draft is in the second...
Regarding discipline, it didn't come naturally to me, I had to learn it because I realised I wouldn't get anywhere as a writer if I didn't.
So I counted every day's word output, so I would know if I was working fast enough. That's actually much easier on a typewriter than a PC, because you fiddle with things on a PC screen.
Caretaker Cuz: A deleted word on a PC doesn't count as having been typed!
VaBelle: I'm afraid I'd be constantly rethinking myself...
Mary Gentle: That's the way I think of it when I do it -- I am constantly re-thinking myself!
Special thanks to Liz Holliday for helping us out with background reference for this event. Liz conducted an interview with Mary Gentle which appeared in in Science Fiction World magazine #1.
Mary Gentle Event Transcript Ends here. Go back to: Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
Mary Gentle links on the web:
British Science Fiction Association Bibliography: Go
Baroquon: Gargoyles, Architecture and Devices Or: Why write science fiction as if it wasn't? Go
The Bactra review of Ash: A Secret History (Book One, US edition, released in 1999): Go
Mary Gentle books on sale via Amazon.co.uk: Go
Mary Gentle books on sale via Amazon.com: Go
Infinity Plus interview: Go
Infinity Plus: Short Story: The Road To Jerusalem: Go
Tempus Fidgets article -- Machiavelli, Marx And The Material Substratum: Creating Worlds for Fun and Profit: Go
Tempus Fidgets article --Hunchbacks, Sadists, And Shop-Soiled Heroes: or "SF Author's Hunchback Fetish -- The True Story": Go
Links: SF Authors on the Web | VZSciFi Events Page | Buy a copy of Ash
|
|
|