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Interview with Steve LibbeyMay 7, 2007 by Michael Eastham Okay, let's start off basic. Name, rank, serial number? Steve Libbey, author/musician/entrepreneur, Number Six. What did you do before you started writing? It depends on how you define “writing.” As a child, I created superhero, apocalypse, and urban street gang universes with my friends. I probably had enough crayon-colored paper superhero dolls to populate a mid-sized comic company. My friend and I would create “shows,” which were dual-narrated by us, sometimes in consultation, sometimes off on a tangent. A few times I drew comic books, but I preferred the multimedia approach of dolls and mouth-generated sound effects. Strangely, despite my voracious reading diet and my assertion that I was going to be a writer when I grew up, I never bothered to write anything until high school, as far as I can remember. So I suppose the proper answer to this question is “acquire an education.” However, if you only care about my recent oeuvre, it is fair to say that I played a whole lot of rock and roll from 18 to 35, with a three year break in the late nineties to move to Atlanta and nearly get hitched and start a family. Luckily that was a passing phase. I was saved from marriage and a career by 9/11. Word of advice to the fellas out there: if you are in a serious relationship with a beautiful and ambitious Chinese woman, do not wait until a recession to inform her that you are quitting your job and trying to make a living playing rock and roll. You will be unpleasantly surprised at how unwelcome such news is. So, what got you started writing? Throughout the early to mid nineties, I had written short fiction and a few novellas for small literary magazines, plus published my own literary mag, Evil Dog, with Jeff Wilson. I had a laundry list of novel ideas, and a few false starts, but the novel writing process – that which separates the men from the boys in the book world – still intimidated me. After I broke up with my longtime girlfriend, I rededicated myself to grownup activities like writing. I remember the turning point came one evening, sitting in my rented room with a new laptop, when I dove into the first few chapters of what would become The Inspector. The goal was to develop a setting that would be a literal depiction of a psychedelic Richard Powers cover painting. I let myself write in a florid style rather different from the stripped-down approach I take now, and it gave me a sense that I was indeed capable of sustained narrative. So I refused to sign any major label contracts, quit the band, and planned my move to Portland, Oregon, to be a writer. Once I did move, I got to know Mercedes Lackey through online games. She gave me piles and piles of encouragement and advice that most aspiring authors would pay thousands of dollars for in a workshop taught by writers less renowned. It was serendipitous and bracing; I resolved to make sure her time investment in me wasn’t wasted. So here I am now, a literary genius. Whew! Mission accomplished. Next? What were some of the major themes that you worked on prior to your novels? Wow, let me test my shoddy memory. I always retained a childhood fascination with escapist stories and settings. A little of my early fiction was typical of a twentysomething artist/hipster: punk rockers, frustrated boys, alluring girls, a little magic realism here and there to correspond with the sensibility of that period in one’s life. The Flaming Lips said it best: “It’s all so huge when you’re twenty-two.” I had a very tolerant writing professor, the late Austin Wright, who seemed to find much to applaud in my work. Either I showed promise or he was a very, very good teacher who could disguise his annoyance. I tend to think the former, and his example convinced me never to teach a writing class, since I lack that patience and forbearance. I was a notorious crank in those workshops. Not my best behavior. So major themes that found their way into my writing were of a portentous nature: alienation, existential quests for meaning, sexual frustration. Let’s be glad I got that stuff out of my system early on. I probably got my start on current themes in lyric writing for my various nineties bands. I leaned towards the evocative, vaguely science-fictional approach, a la Brian Eno or Robert Pollard/Guided By Voices, who I used to sell records to before he hit it big. Music has been a huge influence on the atmosphere I try to portray in my books. Since I mentioned novels, I will turn now to The Blood Baths. Where did you find your original impulse to write this novel? It’s a little embarrassing! As a teen, I wasted a lot of time that could have been spent getting drunk and making out with girls by gaming in basements with sweaty, overweight boy-men. It was just too easy, and girls were scary, and I lacked self-confidence, so I hid in the roll of polyhedral dice. Silly silly, but such are teenage choices. Later, I averred that if my adult friends ever dragged me into another tabletop roleplaying game, my character would be a medieval plumber. Who else would be so useful in a classic dungeon? The idea stayed with me: our handymen get all sorts of access to the inner recesses of our homes. What if the plumber worked for evil warlords and other such owners of large, high-maintenance castles? That’s where Crixus was born. From this premise I searched for reasons for an everyman to go on a quest that would put him in the employ of grandiose and vile personages. Why leave the house, unless it’s for high stakes. Since the ancient Romans had the greatest affinity for plumbing, I chose them as the model for my world. Was the process daunting? Some writers find it difficult to flesh out a new world. Were there any hurdles you had to overcome? Have I mentioned yet what a rotten student I was? I still am. The research for this book blew my mind. I even resorted to writing a long, detailed letter to a professor of archeology for help in learning about Roman aqueducts and plumbing techniques. There simply isn’t much information out there in plain sight. She never wrote back! I was heartbroken. I decided the best approach to worldbuilding, the one that would work to my strengths, was to adopt Gene Wolfe’s technique of delivering facts in a non-expository manner. The enigmatic nature of them would force the reader to invent a context for the fact, sparing me work! Also it results in a vivid world that I don’t have to shove down someone’s throat. Maybe Gene has reams of background behind his light touch, but I’m cheating. There’s a system to it, but when I am found shot dead in a Thailand brothel, there won’t be any Simarillion left in my office for posthumous publication. Is there any of Steve Libbey in Crixus Oraan? He’s strong and handsome! No, seriously though, I think there’s a lot of Crixus in me, and vice versa, but it’s not deliberate. I realized, halfway through the book, that I had a firm grasp on what he would do in a situation, but I couldn’t summarize his personality off the top of my head. Thus he must be coming from some reserve of self-reflection. Crixus has many positive traits that I aspire to with varying success; but he also has some serious flaws that I lack, though I recognize when the opportunity to screw up that way has crossed my path. Are you considering a sequel? I just shot the photos for the second book. So if I am to make that naked model’s time worthwhile, I’d damn well better finish it. It’s called The Quartz Odalisque, and I don’t want to spoil it for you. What can I say about it? Hmm... only that it will be followed by the final book, The Good King’s Tomb. Thanks, Steve. Let's go on to another of your projects, the Secret World Chronicles, which you co-wrote with Mercedes Lackey. How did you and Mercedes get involved in this project? As I mentioned, we met by geeking out in MMORPGs, specifically City of Heroes. For both of us, it was a welcome relief from our usual settings: hers being fantasy fiction, mine being rock and roll band matters. I had started to write a little fiction about the characters – which, let’s be honest, was merely an attempt to grab the spotlight, and I have to think it was a little annoying to some of the other players. But I stuck it on a very attractive website for the Soviet Communist themed supergroup that I built, so folks took it seriously. Over the course of a year, Misty and I roleplayed and wrote together, and she must have decided she liked my approach to fiction, because she agreed that we could take these characters, “file off the serial numbers,” and give them a setting more sympathetic to their themes. Thus, through endless chats and emails, we built the Secret World and the gears churning inside it. I was delighted that she took even my most absurd suggestions, like a cybernetic Nikola Tesla and secret science cities and space Nazis, and ran with them. Though she did balk when I tried to create a villain named after a nickname for my dog. The world of SWC is not typically superheroic. Was this intentional, and how did you two come about it? I have an aversion to geek culture, even though most of my creations are entrenched there. I can cite Joseph Campbell, dammit, who unleashed all sorts of academic hoopla to justify the cardboard and tinfoil storytelling in Star Wars. Fantastical, escapist fiction is rooted in our subconscious, yada yada. So I am not pandering to cheap adolescent male wish fulfillment. I swear! That said, SWC was from the first a clear eyed, science fictional approach to the superhero myth – which is really where the myth started before the kids got hold of it. I’m most fascinated with plausibility of extraordinary people. What did Superman have for lunch, and why? And if you are capable of bench-pressing a bus, how will someone feel about shaking your hand? That, to me, is irresistible. We get to enjoy playing with the results of physics-bending powers, too. I just wrote a scene where one of Misty’s creations, Victoria Victrix Nagy, buries two hoods in piles of stone and dirt. A comic book would settle for showing them get buried and then move on to the next bit of drama. I saw it as an opportunity to play a bit: those guys are suffocating in there. One of the other characters comes upon the scene and doesn’t realize she’s a few feet away from dying men until a pile shifts of its own accord. Then she digs them out and performs CPR to save one. This is why, in our world, governments have the Extreme Force Law: metahumans can’t use their powers against normal people except in life-or-death situations. How did the character of Red Saviour come about? As a prank! I joined the City of Heroes beta and came up with the most surreal, offputting and confusing character I could think of: a devout authoritarian Communist who was also a hot chick (and thus possibly a hot chick gamer, omigosh!). I was amused by the reactions I got. But as I started to write about her, I realized how fun she was, like a bull in a china shop. Was she so far removed from “real world” do-gooders like our president - who has issued hundreds of signing statements that the law he is authorizing doesn’t apply to him! - or his neocon puppetmasters, who are willing to kill thousands of innocent people to protect “our way of life.” The thing is, these people truly believe they are the heroes, despite the evidence around them. That is paramount to authoritarian thinking. And not to equate cops with authoritarians, though they are often the tools of authoritarians, but this mentality exists in them in the same way. If you are a perpetrator, or a potential perpetrator, they will come down on you as hard as possible, in the spirit of “doing good.” If they think you are a victim, they will (usually) be the most supportive and nurturing people you could hope to know. It’s fascinating, two facets of human nature taken to extremes. And politically speaking, I have my assortment of lefty ideas, so I amuse myself by putting these ideas in the mouth of an extremist. To say that Red Saviour is a reflection of my political ideology would be quite incorrect, as it would be to say that my flatulence is the literal depiction of my lunch. Okay, that was gross, but true for me and possibly other writers as well. We’re all human. SWC was first presented as a podcast, which was an interesting way of presenting the project. What difficulties did you have with it? Noise floors. Scheduling readings by actors. Learning RSS and XML. Updating my recording gear (i.e. Replacing what I had sold). Now that Veronica Giguere is the “voice of The Secret World Chronicle and Subatomic Books,” life is much, much easier – and sounds better too. The only ongoing challenge is to have copy for her on a weekly basis. What's the future hold for SWC? Are you going to continue the podcasts now that the first book is complete? June 1st, baby! Book Two: The Hunt. Supervillains, treachery, urban chaos, secret science cities, the works. Besides SWC: Book 2 and The Quartz Odalisque, anything else looming on the literary horizon? The project closest to my heart is tentatively entitled “The New Frontier”, and it’s currently slotted to be four books. I’ve been researching peak oil and global warming at length, with an eye towards the sort of society we’ll have when the oil is gone. Virtually every economy on the planet depends on the availability of cheap, plentiful energy, i.e. Oil. That’s running out fast. The result will be (I predict, as do others) all sorts of ugly societal collapse, which is great fodder for a near-future novel. The main character, Commie Cowgirl, originally was to appear in The Secret World, but she has been reassigned to this world. Every day a new idea hits me as to how our country will look without oil. It will be a sea change for us, one that a lot of folks won’t survive as we devolve into a morass of localized resource wars. I write this book as science fiction and hope to hell it isn’t prophetic. But believe it or not, it’s intended to be light-hearted and fun. I also just figured out how to take an idea I'd been fooling around with, and make it work as an erotic fantasy. It hit me in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. Whoa, that came out all wrong. ººº |