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[Max Gladstone] In which we geek on Craft and palaver
Authors have it rough. Fungibility seeks to infect you at every turn of phrase, every scrap of dialogue, every edit, red slash, and cut scene. To be common is to flicker as a pixel in cold television static. The effective writer is in a constant and thrashing dance of disruption. They flee from comfort, and often sensibility, in their quest to flip genre convention while simultaneously honoring it. It’s a barefoot dance on broken glass: one misstep and blood swamps the floor.
When an author’s feet remain unharmed (save for a knick here and there) and arrive at the dance floor’s opposing end, it is like magic. Like the first time you witnessed a magnet swirl iron filament and alerted you to mysterious invisible forces that defy common sense and alter reality’s potential.
Max Gladstone is kinda like that.
It was my sheer, selfish pleasure to interview Max Gladstone in Episode 10 of Bleeding Ink. My intent was to bask in the glow of an author whose line-level polish would make proud any literary snob and whose world-building powers would make any geek swoon. His work has burrowed a unique hole in the Fantasy genre, taking from Pratchett and Zelazny, and mashes necromancy with some unlikely companions: economics and corporate politics. In his Craft Sequence series he writes of necromancers that work in something akin to a law firm responsible for the resurrection of dead Gods rather than dead companies submerged in red ink. (Damn it, just writing that last sentence brought me a fit of joy—such is the miracle of bearing witness to the birth of a beautiful, genre-merging literary chimera.)
I digress. I’m a geek. Give me fantasy and business in a single book and I’m sold.
You’ll enjoy this episode. Rarely do we gain insight into minds that that are equal parts science and art. Max and I discuss his background, his present and his future. We talk about his creative process. Max is a brilliant guy and, like any good magician, loosens the tight shackles of reality’s hold with a dash of awe-inspiring magic. Enjoy.
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By [email protected] (J.S. Leonard)Authors have it rough. Fungibility seeks to infect you at every turn of phrase, every scrap of dialogue, every edit, red slash, and cut scene. To be common is to flicker as a pixel in cold television static. The effective writer is in a constant and thrashing dance of disruption. They flee from comfort, and often sensibility, in their quest to flip genre convention while simultaneously honoring it. It’s a barefoot dance on broken glass: one misstep and blood swamps the floor.
When an author’s feet remain unharmed (save for a knick here and there) and arrive at the dance floor’s opposing end, it is like magic. Like the first time you witnessed a magnet swirl iron filament and alerted you to mysterious invisible forces that defy common sense and alter reality’s potential.
Max Gladstone is kinda like that.
It was my sheer, selfish pleasure to interview Max Gladstone in Episode 10 of Bleeding Ink. My intent was to bask in the glow of an author whose line-level polish would make proud any literary snob and whose world-building powers would make any geek swoon. His work has burrowed a unique hole in the Fantasy genre, taking from Pratchett and Zelazny, and mashes necromancy with some unlikely companions: economics and corporate politics. In his Craft Sequence series he writes of necromancers that work in something akin to a law firm responsible for the resurrection of dead Gods rather than dead companies submerged in red ink. (Damn it, just writing that last sentence brought me a fit of joy—such is the miracle of bearing witness to the birth of a beautiful, genre-merging literary chimera.)
I digress. I’m a geek. Give me fantasy and business in a single book and I’m sold.
You’ll enjoy this episode. Rarely do we gain insight into minds that that are equal parts science and art. Max and I discuss his background, his present and his future. We talk about his creative process. Max is a brilliant guy and, like any good magician, loosens the tight shackles of reality’s hold with a dash of awe-inspiring magic. Enjoy.
Snippets
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