15 Questions for Ian Irvine - Viewfromthemirror.com August 2005

 

What question would you like to be asked by a fan and what is the answer?

It’s not a question I've ever thought about, actually, but the best questions are ones that I haven’t been asked before (non-fans always ask ‘Where do you get your ideas from? Grrrr!) and ones that raise questions in my own mind about the meaning or the progression of what I've written previously, or will write in future. Your questions are great ones, so thanks for all the thought that’s gone into them.

After they’re published do you re-read your books?

Only where it’s necessary to check a fact, date, name or whatever for something I’m writing. I’m usually so exhausted from the constant rewriting that I can’t stand to look at the books, and with The View from the Mirror, which I would have read at least 80 times during the writing process, I vowed that I wouldn’t open it until ten years had passed. That’s in 2009, incidentally.

Would you consider posting an excerpt of one of your forthcoming books online?

I would. I generally put the first chapters up on my website before the book is published, and I’ll be putting up some stuff from my new fantasy, Runcible Jones: The Gate to Nowhere, in a couple of months.

If someone wanted to make The View From The Mirror into a movie/series of movies, would you agree to it?

Yes, if they were professional and knew what they were doing. I guess most writers would want to see their work filmed although, realistically, the chances of that happening are small. Even The Lord of the Rings took 40 years from when the movie rights were sold and there are an awful lot of other popular fantasy series out there. So, it’d be nice but I’m not expecting it.

How many hours a day do you spend writing?

I do stuff that’s related to writing full time, about 48 weeks a year and about 50 hours a week, though of course a lot of that is business stuff, like contracts, communicating with publisher, editors and all sorts of other people, promotion, writing talks, cover blurbs etc etc. So actual book writing and editing is probably more like about 35 hours a week.

Do you write even when you don’t feel like it or do you always feel like writing?

I love the whole business of writing so much that I want to do it most of the time, and my frustration is all the other activities that come between me and actually doing the writing. However, there are occasional times when I don’t want to write that second, or even that day. If I need to write (ie to meet a deadline), I write. But if not, and I really don’t feel like it that day, I do something else, or just lie on the lounge and read a book, or go for a walk.

When you are writing do you discuss it with other people such as your family or do you prefer to keep the story a secret?

I don’t discuss it with anyone until it’s finished and generally not until I've done three, four or five drafts. It’s not that I like to keep it a secret, though. The story isn’t real to me until I've done the first draft, but even then I see so many ways that I can improve it that there doesn’t seem any point in seeking advice or comment from anyone else, who wouldn’t be nearly as far into the story as I am. However, once the story is reasonably polished it’s really valuable to get a fresh perspective on it.

Can you tell us something about the Song of Tears trilogy? Please?

It takes up Nish’s story ten years later, when his prison sentence is up and his father, who now styles himself the God-Emperor, offers Nish the choice to be his right hand man again. By this time J-N has concentrated all power in himself and the tears, and tells Nish that every one of his old friends are dead, though this may well be a lie.

 And it’s also the story of Maelys, a young woman whose old, proud family has been crushed by Jal-Nish, because of their rebellious attitude and because they had minor magical talents. Her little sister, mother and aunts have only survived because of her little sister’s ability to fool Jal-Nish’s wisp-watchers and loop-listeners, devices linked to the tears which spy on people in every village and every street because he doesn’t trust anyone, not even his most faithful retainers. Maelys’ conniving aunts, however, are determined to restore their family to its ancient position, and hit upon a plan to send Maelys and her little sister to rescue Nish, spirit him away, and then for Maelys to seduce him to bind him forever to their family. The objective is for Nish to lead the resistance which has grown up in his and Irisis’s name and overthrow his father.

 Unfortunately Maelys is a shy, bookish dreamer, not a bold adventurer, and she’s horrified and terrified at the thought of doing this. Besides, she knows that no one can overthrow Jal-Nish, who holds all the power in the world. But her mother and aunts are determined and she has no choice. Maelys has to do this to save her family …

Is it even remotely possible (after much studying of the books) to work out who the Numinator is from what you’ve told us so far. Ie. Have we met or heard of him/her? Or is the character completely new?

It’s not possible, as I haven’t provided enough information, deliberately (cruel me!). You have met or heard of him/her/it and that’s all I’m going to say. I had intended for the Numinator’s story to be woven into The Well of Echoes, but the story had already become too big and, reluctantly, I had to carry it over. I hated doing that, because I believe that all issues raised in a series should be resolved in it, but it would have taken another volume to do so.

Is Gilhaelith a blending of the four human species? Tetrarch …

I had intended him to be a blending when I was doing the initial planning and writing of the series, but that aspect of the story never felt right for him and I subsequently gave Tetrarch another meaning. I think he was a blending of some kind, but I decided not to explore that aspect of the story further at the point when I discovered that Gilhaelith wasn’t going to be as important a character as I’d thought, but Nish, Irisis and even Ryll were going to move closer to centre stage.

Will anyone be able to use the Secret Art after what happened at the end of Chimaera? (‘The Death of Magic’ doesn’t sound promising.) If the Secret Art is gone, will it come back?

There are older powers than those that relied on fields and nodes (people like Yggur and Malien can use them, you may recall), and these haven’t been completely destroyed by the destruction of the nodes, though they have been greatly weakened. So our doughty heroes will have some magic at their disposal, though it will be terribly weak compared to J-N and his tears, so they’re going to have to be very crafty …

 Will it come back? I don’t know, and probably won’t find out myself until I’m well into writing the second book. I imagine there’ll be some, at least.

 In Geomancer Gryste locks up Muss, and then Ullii says it was Gryste who was the traitor because she recognised his knot in her lattice, but then in Chimaera we find out that it was Muss. Was Ullii lying or could Muss manipulate his knot to trick her?

It was Muss all along, and after he escaped from his cell he manipulated things to shift the blame because he couldn’t afford to be interrogated or studied closely by great mancers who might see what he really was and wonder about him.

In View from the Mirror, Nadiril mentioned this prophecy, ‘Not until the sea of Perion once more thunders against the jewelled shores of Katazza Mountain will Zile rise again.’  In Chimaera Jal Nish made the sea once again flow. Will the prophecy come true?

It may do, though whether it has any part to play in the current story, I couldn’t say at this stage.

On Triune, Robyn said that you had confirmed the presence of a character that sounded like May-leez. Could you tell us anything about her or at least the proper spelling of her name?

It’s Maelys. See the first dot point under The Books, above. I read Chapter 2 of the first book of the Song of the Tears at Worldcon in Glasgow, which tells the story I've briefly summarised above.

Are any characters in The Well of Echoes or The Song of Tears related to the characters from the View From the Mirror? For example, (this is one of my hopeful theories) is Tiaan a descendant of Maigraith?

I had intended Tiaan to be a descendant of someone from the first series, and she could well be, but again, this was an aspect of the story that I’d planned initially that wasn’t working out, so I abandoned it.