Malazan Empire: Paul Kearney Q&A - Malazan Empire

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Paul Kearney Q&A

#21 User is offline   caladanbrood 

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 02:11 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Abeleyn:
edit> I have to second caladan, it would be great if you could give 'Ships from the West' a polish... but I guess the chances of that happening are pretty small (please feel free to contradict me Posted Image)


I said that?Posted Image
O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde; keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi.
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#22 User is offline   lfex 

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Posted 17 May 2005 - 07:12 AM

I agree with Fool. Hardcore miltary SF may not han fashionable then, but now situation definitely changed.

As for the ending of The Ships of the West, yes it would be nice to have the things a little bit fleshed out, but you would have to tell us if the Corfe survived the Charibon battle, and that would destroy the effect of the epilogue, wouldn't it?

A lot seems to depend on Corfe's fate, since if he died, Fimbrians look like big-time winners. I mean they are the only one left with intact army, so they can dictate their conditions to the rest of the monarchies. Corfe would probably be able to stop them, but without him it looks rather doubtful. Am I right?
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#23 User is offline   Tenaka Khan 

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Posted 19 May 2005 - 03:00 AM

'The Terran Division' really sounds intriguing... any chance that it will still be published?
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#24 Guest_bluesman_*

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Posted 28 April 2005 - 12:36 PM

Now I really need to buy these then. If an Erikson forum is so totally in agreement of his superiority Posted Image.

BM
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Posted 15 June 2005 - 07:03 AM

As a writer and reader of fantasy the thought that there is a such a resistance to originality depresses me particularly in a genre that should be embracing it.
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#26 User is offline   drinksinbars 

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Posted 20 June 2005 - 04:49 AM

read kingdom was very impressedPosted Image especially liked your style of writing when it came to the sights and smells of the farmhouse. very immersive writing. will look out for some of your other books.
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#27 User is offline   Tenaka Khan 

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Posted 11 June 2005 - 03:52 AM

Here's the lnk to one of the topics discussing the 'crème de la crème' of fantasy books.

My personal 'favourite' is R. Newcomb's 'The Fifth Sorceress'.

Btw, I hope you'll find the time to polish your SciFi novel, it sounds intriguing (I know I repeat myself, but I would really like to see it get published so I can read it Posted Image)
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#28 User is offline   Svaran 

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Posted 05 June 2005 - 02:57 AM

quote:
The big finale is a cross between Arnhem and Kursk - lots of tanks and jump-troops.

Posts: 10 | Location: Northern Ireland | Registered: 22 April 2005 Reply With Quote



Paul,

that finale sounds great, your terran divison sounds like something from Svern Hessel's Novels on the waffen SS except set in space.

And I was only joking about the sequel to "A Different Kingdom" definitely a stand alone novel. Which is a shame as you've created such a fascianting mystical world.

And I love your fimbrians, always had a soft spot for elite troops.
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#29 Guest_corfe_*

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Posted 17 May 2005 - 01:53 AM

First of all, my apologies for the delay in getting back to you guys. The US Proofs of Ran arrived and I had to get them out of the way. Now, where were we?
Ever thought about sci-fi? As it happens, my second written novel was a bloated science-fiction epic called The Terran Division. It was about the last Terrans in the galaxy, who by the time of the story had been whittled down into a body of some five or six thousand consummate soldiers who were in effect mercenaries and who fought for the powers that be from a massive starship, with its own drop-ships, armoured and mobile battalions, the whole heap. But they had mutinied in the near past and had been ritually decimated, and now the galactic rulers had decided that they were too dangerous to keep around and were intent on destroying them. The book was about the last campaign of the Division, and followed them through assaults on several planets, plus a running fight through space. I liked it immensely myself, but the publishers didn’t - they wanted fantasy at that time, not hard-core military science fiction, so I put it in a drawer, where it remains to this day…

Revisions to the last book… That’s actually quite a tough one. I know vaguely where I’m dissatisfied with Ships, but pinning down the actual chapters takes a little more thought. Obviously, the final assault on Charibon and its aftermath should be extended - the Second Empire’s fall should be more closely documented. More of Corfe, basically. I still like the sack of Charibon, and think it’s a good battle, as it were, but the poor old werewolves were despatched too easily, as were the Flyers. It wasn’t quite apocalyptic enough. Plus, I’d liked to have expanded Hawkwood’s flight with Isolla, and their relationship - that was one of my favourite parts of the book. The fall of hebrion could have been drawn out more, and we should have seen more of the workings of the Fimbrian point of view. Another hundred pages would do it, I reckon. But I still don’t think it was a bad idea to have the 16 year gap between books four and five - I needed that time to have Rol and Heria’s children grow up, and to let Rol age a little.

A sequel to Kingdom? No chance! No, that was a stand-alone book if ever there was one. I will say this though. Of all my characters in all my books, my favourite characters are Corfe, Cat, and Rowen, in that order. The Cat/Rowen archetype is obviously very strong, and comes from my adolescence. (Yes, she was real, and the woman I married just happened to be a green-eyed brunette.)
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#30 Guest_bluesman_*

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Posted 29 April 2005 - 02:03 AM

Is it correct to compare these with Neal Stephensons books then? And if not, what are the similarities?

BM
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#31 Guest_Fool_*

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Posted 04 May 2005 - 03:26 AM

"Problem is: Amazon only lists the first and fourth book of the series."

Did you look here?

And another question:
Do you have any hints as to how to interpret the epilogue of MoG? Or are we supposed to try interpreting it at all?

I mean for one thing, surely ramusio cannot be alive unless he is a magician, too, which i guess would be rather ironic. Or my memory is failing me.
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#32 User is offline   ChrisW 

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Posted 20 July 2005 - 06:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Daikon:

Hey, I considered saying I'd do it. And I even would. But then I realized the chances of you featuring something I wrote were somewhat less than non existant.


If it's well written there is no reason why I wouldn't.
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#33 User is offline   ChrisW 

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Posted 27 April 2005 - 04:13 PM

Paul Kearney author of "The Monarchies of God" and "The Mark of Ran" series has generously agreed to answer some questions.

So if you have any questions for one of SE's favourite authors post them here Posted Image.
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#34 User is offline   Fist Gamet 

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Posted 29 April 2005 - 12:22 PM

Like others, I felt Ships from the West was too short and the end felt rushed, but then, you already know this. For me, the size of a book does influence my decision to buy it, and, for a very relevant example (and I pray you are not offended) I did not buy The Mark of Ran when it first came out because the size of the book, for me, did not justify shelling out the full price (got it on Amazon for a bit less).
Perhaps this comes from reading so many epic stories but it is just my own opinion. This is not to say that I did not enjoy The Mark of Ran (see my post in the Kearney thread, where I remarked I felt it was up with your best work)

Thanks.
Victory is mine!
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#35 Guest_corfe_*

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Posted 23 May 2005 - 12:23 AM

By the end of Ships from the West, you're right, the Fimbrians are the big-time winners. The way I envisaged it, they would more or less take over where the Second Empire left off, probably taking over Almark and Astarac at least. Hebrion, I could see regaining its independence, and no-one would mess with the combination of Torunna and the Merduks, not even the Fimbrians.
I've done a little exploration and tidying up these past few days, and I have in fact unearthed the manuscript of the Terran Division and gave it the once over - the first time I've looked at it in thirteen years. After that amount of time I reckon I can be pretty objective about it. Basic plot - fine. battle scenes - pretty good. Underpinning science - abysmal. This is what happens when you start getting into Sci-fi - you have to know your stuff. I have the bog standard Trekkie type sublight and Jump drives. Also , some of the characterisation is weak as hell. The battles are pretty good though, even seen through my older, more cynical eye. The big finale is a cross between Arnhem and Kursk - lots of tanks and jump-troops.
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#36 Guest_corfe_*

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Posted 29 April 2005 - 01:58 AM

My favourite character is Corfe - obvious enough from my moniker in this forum I suppose. Twas not always thus. Hawkwood was meant to carry the main load of the narrative, and in fact as originally conceived the series was meant to take place mainly at sea. When I got about halfway through the first book however, all that was jettisoned - events on land were just too interesting.
The reason I like Corfe so much I think is because he’s damaged - I like characters who have been through the mill, and I like putting through the mill also. And the difficulties he faced in saving Torunna from the Merduks and from itself - well there was just so much material there. When you are in a position to take a character and exert extreme emotional (not physical) stress on him - and you know that the reader is also in on the deal, and has seen the buildup - then that is the essence of satisfying writing. Hence the four book wait before Corfe and Heria were finally face to face again. I’d been planning that for a long time.
I was also very fond of both Golophin and Abeleyn - I liked their relationship, as I did Golophin’s with Isolla. In fact Golophin was a father-figure to just about everyone, now I come to think about it.
And then there’s Murad of course - he was never less than great fun to write.

The books were clearly inspired by history - the fall of Constantinople, the Voyages of Discovery, the ‘Two Popes’, the Inquisition and so on. But while history provided the bare bones of the milieu, once they were in place, I directed affairs as I saw fit, as I needed them to happen - there was never any form of historical agenda. Religious-wise, it was a different matter. The conduct of the Merduks in Berrona was written about the same time as atrocity after atrocity was occurring unpunished in the former Yugoslavia. I based Berrona on the reports coming out of Bosnia. I wanted to show extreme religious and racial hatred, and what happens when it runs unchecked.
Of course, if you want to get down and dirty on the specifics of Normannia, you could say that the Fimbrians were inspired by the Swiss (also feared pikemen), the Hebrians by the Spanish and the Torunnans by the Hungarians/Polish. Certainly the Cathedrallers owe something to the Polish Winged Hussars. I plundered history for ideas, it’s true, but I did not then feel bound to let events unfold in a similar fashion. What puzzles me is when some readers think that by using history in this way I am somehow ‘cheating.’ (After all, Guy Gavriel Kay does it far more blatantly!)

I don’t read as much fantasy and sci-fi as I used to - in my youth I wolfed it down. Nowadays I read a lot of history and historical fiction. Tolkien, Donaldson, le Guin, Silverberg, Leiber, Julian May, Jack Vance, Robert Holdstock - these are the authors whom I rate as ‘classic’ and whose influence will always be with me. But there are others - Patrick O Brian, without whom I could never have written anything believably nautical. Mary Renault, whose Alexander Trilogy still gives me the shivers. Rosemary Sutcliff - in Sword at Sunset she recreated Arthur as he might really have been - a beleaguered war leader at the head of a gallant band of heavy cavalry…
More and more I come to realise that the books we read as children or adolescents are the ones which stay with us - they get into the bones. I could name more - Alan Garner, Susan Cooper. They can convey a sense of weirdness and wonder in just a few sentences. Eric Van Lustbader’s Sunset Warrior sequence - visceral and epic at the same time. Jack Vance’s Lyonesse books - dry, witty, but never pulling a punch. Now that I sit down and think about it I could bore people for hours.

Sea Beggars Two, which currently lacks a title or has too many, is due to be handed in to Bantam in August, and published in Spring 2006. The series will, ultimately, be a trilogy, and all three books will stand alone, though they will obviously be connected also. At the minute, the book is fighting desperately to balloon into something unexpected, and I’m trying to cram it back in it’s box and keep the focus on a very small group of characters - no more epics for me! Well, that’s the plan at any rate. We’ll see.

Corfe’s tactics are indeed somewhat modern - by the end of the series they’re based more on nineteenth century black powder warfare, which I’m very familiar with, having been an American Civil War re-enactor in the States. But some tactics are timeless - the integrity of the line, the protection of the flanks, the provision of an adequate reserve - the existence of a baggage train (which most fantasy seems to overlook). Not to toot my own horn, I like to think that the tactics and strategies in the Monarchies are not modern so much as realistic.
Corfe was not really inspired by anyone specific, historically. As I’ve said, the character grew with the story. I can say categorically however that he has nothing whatsoever to do with that little French runt Napoleon! He might have a little in common with Alexander, or the real King Arthur, whoever he was. He fights for revenge, not for glory, and he believes that he is ultimately doomed. Plus, by the end of the books he is aware that there is evil within him, or at least, the capacity for unredeemed slaughter.

I’m glad you liked Abeleyn’s end. I wanted it to be shocking, and I thought the best way to shock would be to treat it as a thing of little account. I had Abeleyn set up, in a way - I knew that I wanted the West to collapse, so he had to go, and I wanted to save the more dramatic moments for other characters. Hawkwood, also, I sent out in a low-beat way. Death does not have to be dramatic. Sometimes people just slip away, with no famous last words, no neat sense of closure. I’ve been pilloried by several reviewers for the manner of Abeleyn and Hawkwood’s deaths, but I don’t regret them. The only thing I do regret is not making Ships from the West about 100 pages longer.
Which brings me to a question for the members on this thread - does the sheer size of a fantasy novel influence your decision to read/buy it?
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#37 Guest_corfe_*

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Posted 02 May 2005 - 12:26 AM

Great Series I'd Love to Have Written, eh? That's a tough one. As a writer, when you read within your own genre you're to some extent always reading as a critic, and your reaction is twofold; either relief when you realise he (or she) is not as good as you, or grinding envy when you recognise a greater talent. Ugly, but true. The only exceptions to this rule are what I like to think of as the 'Classics' which are so far above criticism that they're practically some form of bible. Tolkien et al. Having said that, I truly love the Pliocene Earth series of Julian May - that milieu would be so much fun to play with, with its gadgets and black humour.I'd have been very proud to have written Jack Vance's Lyonesse series too, and anything at all by Alan Garner. and if I had a real, secret urge to continue on in the same vein as it were, then I'd love to give the Silmarillion the LOTR treatment, really flesh out those rather brief tales into a proper epic story - I think there's incredible beauty in those tales, and I'd love to see it handles at length. Plus the military and political aspects of Beleriand are far more interesting than those of Middle Earth.

Thanks for the kind words Obsoleteresolve. By the way guys, when I first registered with this site, I put my username down as Corfe, but somehow it didn't take, so don't think I thought I'd come poncing around as PK. I meant to be a bit more subtle than that!

As far as getting yourself published goes, the first question is; have you written anything? Is it finished? Do you write often? Is it a compulsion? If the answer to all those questions is Yes, then you've cleared the first hurdle, because persistence is the name of the game.
Get yourself an agent. Get the Writers and Artists yearbook out of the library, grit your teeth and send off copies of your magnum opus to likely agents - that's what I did. Of course, that was before the days of the internet - perhaps it might be worthwhile these days getting the reactions of folk online - perhaps other members of this forum? They seem to me to have excellent taste in books ; )
Anyway keep trying - I can't emphasise that enough. And though it's a hadr thing to do, listen to the criticism as well as the praise. You may think you've written the greatest thing since Ulysses, but believe me, the author is largely blind to many of the defects and out and out howlers in his own work - so get a second, third and fourth opinion, from people you respect, and take their views seriously. Don't let your typescript become some kind of holy cow that can't be hacked about. believe me, I speak from experience here.
Hope that helps!
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#38 Guest_corfe_*

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Posted 04 June 2005 - 01:49 AM

Small world, Drinksinbars. Yes, I am a fellow denizen of the north, though I never thought i'd end up here again after the years of wandering. You should try and get hold of Kingdom - a fantasy novel set in north antrim, now that must be a rarity.
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#39 User is offline   Fist Gamet 

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Posted 28 April 2005 - 04:24 AM

Fantastic (no pun intended)

Ok...

Q. Do you find the comparisons drawn between the story in the Monarchies of God and real medieval european history unfair? Or do you gladly acknowledge this as a source of inspiration?
Victory is mine!
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#40 User is offline   Tenaka Khan 

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 12:49 AM

I've got some questions about your 'craft'...

Do you prefer a certain setting while writing? I mean do you have a certain place where you like to work, do you listen to music, etc.

And at what pace do you normally write? Is there any regularity to it or none at all?

And how long did it take you to get published?

Would be interesting to see 'behind the scenes' a bit.

edit> I have to second caladan, it would be great if you could give 'Ships from the West' a polish... but I guess the chances of that happening are pretty small (please feel free to contradict me Posted Image)
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