| A Conversation With John Betancourt | ||||||||
| An interview with Jayme Lynn Blaschke | ||||||||
| August 2002 | ||||||||
|
First of all, I have to ask why write a book based on the works of Roger Zelazny? Zelazny remains one of the giants of the field, even years after his death. 
Unfortunately, Zelazny is fading in the public's memory. I have a feeling that, if not for new projects such as
The Dawn of Amber, he will be completely out of print and forgotten in 20 years. I note that Zelazny's regular publishers
have let most of his titles go out of print. It's a sad fact of publishing, but new books from authors keep their older titles in print
and selling, even in the case of classics. Compare Roger Zelazny to classic authors of the 60s and 70s who died 20 years ago, and
the future for Zelazny isn't looking pretty. Leigh Brackett, James Blish, etc. published scores of great titles... and they're
gone now. Then look at series which have continued beyond their original author's death -- Robert E. Howard's Conan
leaps first to mind. Would Robert E. Howard be remembered today if writers like L. Sprague de Camp hadn't created new Conan books? I don't think so.
I think it's rare that an author creates a universe capable of generating the kind of fan following necessary to keep it going
beyond his or her death. Robert A. Heinlein didn't do it; Isaac Asimov's publisher tried with the Foundation series,
but I don't think it generated much excitement... I haven't seen any real sign of it moving on to be the sort of
mainstream phenomenon that Conan was.
Frank Herbert's Dune series seems to be heading that way, and I think Anne McCaffrey's Pern could, too.
I'm sure there will be a lot of criticism. It's inevitable; it's expected. There are a lot of fanatical Amber
fans who simply can't abide the idea of someone continuing the series.
And, to be fair, the first Amber series is a true classic. Not even Roger Zelazny himself could write a sequel that
lived up to it. What I'd like readers to do is approach the new books as stories that just happen to be set in the Amber
universe. They aren't written by Roger Zelazny; but that doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable in their own right. The handful of
reviews I've seen have been universally good so far.
One small publishing company, ibooks, inc., is fortunate in having a knowledgeable and perceptive man in charge, Byron Preiss. ibooks
reprinted a bunch of the classic Zelazny novels and short story collections because Byron Preiss liked them and still believed in
them. That gave him an ongoing relationship with Zelazny's estate, and when he suggested finding a writer to do a new series of
Amber novels for ibooks, they agreed. That new series ultimately became The Dawn of Amber.
I'm a big fan of Roger Zelazny's work, especially the Amber series. And I was fortunate enough in being at the right
place at the right time -- I did some of the production work on ibooks' Zelazny reprints. I know I'm not exactly a major name in the
field (yet), but I've published more than 30 books over the years, and I truly do enjoy working in other people's universes
(whether Star Trek, Star Wars, or comics-based, like Spider-Man, Superman,
or Batman). And if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it.
So, when Byron Preiss had to find a writer for The Dawn of Amber, I said I wanted to do it. And he gave me the chance to audition for the project. I wrote a detailed outline and a sample chapter, and everyone loved them. It was actually fast and fairly painless as this sort of project goes.
Well, they are derivative -- quite literally. The Dawn of Amber is derived from a set of works by Roger Zelazny, and
happily so; my books wouldn't -- couldn't -- exist without the original Amber series. Is this a bad thing? No. I
bring my own thoughts, ideas, and writing style to the project, and the end result is something of a synthesis... hopefully taking
the best of both Zelazny's work and my work and creating something new and special which couldn't have been created otherwise.
Byron Preiss had already signed a contract to do three prequels books when I came on board, so I don't know if the idea came from
him or from the estate. Working backwards from the original 10 books, I found ample source material to construct a strong plot for
the prequel series. Readers who take the time will enjoy finding all the intersections between the original Amber books
and The Dawn of Amber -- there are a lot of little bits and pieces that mesh between them.
I have a largely transparent style. I did not try to match Zelazny's prose -- though I borrowed a few phrases from him, here and
there. I wasn't trying to create a pastiche so much as a continuation of the story.
From a fan standpoint, I'd have to say Nine Princes in Amber -- I think it's the best of the Amber books, as
the reader begins to find out all about this other world that Zelazny has created. I think one of its true strengths is that it
starts in our world and then moves into fantasy, much the way the Harry Potter books do. This is a bridge for mainstream readers
who probably aren't familiar, or prepared, to just dive into a completely made-up fantasy world. And it works on many levels, not
just as an adventure story. There is philosophy, psychology -- lots of Jung -- poetry, and real mystery as well.
It's always a little constraining; I have to keep within the lines already sketched out. Several hardcore Amber
fans have been quick to point out everything they consider an inconsistency between The Dawn of Amber and the 10 Zelazny
books... but they don't seem to realize that they haven't read the whole story yet, and many of their complaints actually won't prove
valid in the end.
One example is the character of Oberon -- who some readers have seen as too weak. But he's 20 years old in this book, and he has many, many years of intense politicking and fighting ahead of him. The beginning of his evolution into Zelazny's character -- a consummate ruler and master manipulator -- is the personal story within The Dawn of Amber. I also think that, as the hero and viewpoint character, he needs to be sympathetic. Let's face it, Zelazny's Oberon is not a nice guy. Luckily he doesn't end up that way until thousands of years in the future! I did go over many of these "inconsistencies" in great detail on the Zelazny newsgroup on Usenet, and I confess I revealed a number of spoilers about books two and three as a result. Anyone who's curious can look them up. Much of what they thought inconsistent is due to a major character being a compulsive liar. Readers conveniently forget how many inconsistencies Zelazny himself committed. If I do miss one or two things -- and I'm trying not to, with detailed notes and advance readers who are trying to spot this sort of stuff! -- it's well within the spirit of the original series.
I'd like to say it didn't, but of course it did... just a matter of slowing everything down a bit. I'm caught up now, though,
so when I begin writing the second book next month, there shouldn't be any problems keeping on top of my publishing business.
It's been pretty wild -- three World Fantasy Award nominations for my wife and me as publishers, plus two Hugo and four
World Fantasy Award nominations (and one win!) for books we've published; the bankruptcy of one distributor that left us pretty
broke for several years (and forced me to write media tie-in novels -- and everything else I could get a contract for -- to pay
the bills). Right now, things are pretty stable financially, and I'm still working with many of my favorite writers -- Anne McCaffrey,
Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick -- so I'm pretty happy.
Picking the wrong distributor... twice! The first ones were crooks; the second ones went bankrupt.
That's hard to say -- there are so many great books we've published. Probably the books I'm happiest with are
the Lucifer Jones novels by Mike Resnick. The Wildside Press editions are amazing -- the first one was bound in an imported
French leopardskin-patterned cloth, and the second one was bound in imported Spanish cork. If you didn't like the book, you could
always use it for a bulletin board! Neat stuff, unlike anything ever published in the SF field before.
The distributors. I would have gone with bigger players, like Baker & Taylor and Ingram -- those are the two I now use.
Actually, I think I've brought more to being a publisher from the writer's side. I know how writers ought to be treated, how they
want to be treated, and how they deserve to be treated. I do my best to make sure we do everything right. Page proofs, cover proofs,
approval of cover copy, fast payments of royalties, easy-to-understand royalty statements, etc. I've even sent royalty money early
to several authors to help with things like honeymoons and repair bills for cars. You never hear about Pocket Books or Del Rey
doing stuff like that.
Yes, definitely. Wildside Press started as a hobby; I was trying to collect signed, limited edition books -- but I found them so
overpriced as to be largely unaffordable to someone of limited means, like myself. Wildside Press has produced some truly beautiful
books, but I deliberately priced them less than half of what other publishers were doing. $35 for a 300-copy signed, numbered
edition is much more affordable for collectors than $75 for a 1,000-copy edition... and I dare say Wildside Press books seem
to be appreciating in value on the used book market, whereas many of the "collectible" bigger printings aren't.
Right now, I think it's preservation. The small press is putting into durable form many stories and novels that might otherwise
be forgotten -- and it is the primary venue for short story collections from new authors.
Sure; that's just business. And it's not limited to larger publishers -- there are lots of small publishers, too, who get
involved. Any market that's profitable is going to have competition. At the moment, however, Wildside Press is the big fish
in the print-on-demand pond with regard to the science fiction field. Gross revenues this year will be around $400,000. That's
tiny by New York standards, but excellent for a small press. Revenues have increased 300 percent per year for the last three
years, so we're obviously doing something right!
I think that's true with certain authors, especially as more companies produce hardcovers aimed at the library market. But for the
average author, no, there is little or no chance that a large publisher will do a short story collection.
Yes, in many ways. Print-on-demand has evolved rapidly into a viable book printing technique. And when you think about it, it's
not so different from what I was doing before -- very limited print runs of books. Only now I'm doing one at a time instead of 100.
It's not an easy fix; incremental costs are too high for it to work for mainstream publishing. It's simply another printing tool.
Business mingled with pleasure. I watch and enjoy the various Star Trek TV shows and movies; I enjoy writing
books based on them; the publisher pays me enough money to make it worth my while. If I wasn't getting paid, I wouldn't write
these books... but I'd still watch Star Trek. I'd simply write something else, either my own fiction or something set
in another universe I enjoy. People don't seem to realize it, since the media fiction I've published is so widely visible, but I've
actually written about twice as much original fiction as media fiction.
In some ways, yes -- but it's the nature of the beast. You keep writing and keep writing, and eventually something works, something
takes off -- if you look at some of the biggest writers in the field, they went through years of publishing marginally successful
books before hitting it big. That's happened to everyone from Piers Anthony to Dean Koontz, from Jerry Pournelle to George Alec Effinger.
It's very carefully outlined, since everyone involved in the show, from the editor to the guardians-of-all-things-Trek at Paramount
have to sign off on it. When I'm writing short stories, I prefer to write with just an idea in my head -- whether a scene, a bit of
dialogue or action, or an idea -- and see where it leads me.
For me, it's purely a vanity thing; I wanted to have them available, whether they sold or not. For other authors -- it varies from
person to person, and you'd have to ask them about their motivations. I gather it's everything from wanting favorite books available
to the public to the desire to have copies that they can sell at conventions.
That's hard. I get very caught up in whatever I'm writing; perhaps a bit too emotionally intense, as I get into the characters'
heads. I'm probably happier when I'm writing fantasy or SF than when I'm writing horror -- but I think some of my best work is horror.
These days, I write in the evenings, when everyone else in the house is asleep. Luckily I don't need much sleep -- five or six hours a night is plenty. I'm finding it's made me more productive than I've been since we had kids.
That's an odd novel for me. It was written about 10 years ago as an entry for the Turner Tomorrow Award, which had a million
dollar prize. I took an old story of mine, and Linda Bushyager and I changed and expanded it to give it an ecological theme. It
doesn't read like anything I've written, nor like anything Linda had written previously. We hadn't done anything with it after
the award process (it lost, by the way!), but when I moved back to Pennsylvania and we got in touch again, we decided to release
it as an electronic book through Fictionwise. The readers there seemed to like it, so it's going to be a Wildside Press book this fall.
I was working full-time at Byron Preiss Visual Publications as their science fiction editor, and I really didn't have enough time
to write it before the deadline. Linda had the time, so I suggested we collaborate. She agreed. We worked out an outline, she
did the first draft, and I did the final draft. After it didn't win the Turner Tomorrow Award, she tinkered with it a bit more.
I think she brought a lot of her voice to the story; Linda was a very talented fantasy writer, and had she kept at it, I
think she would have achieved the kind of following Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey had. Her voice is naturally very close to theirs.
The original books to watch for are coming up. I'm currently finishing Master of Dragons, which will be published
in November 2003 by ibooks. Then after that will be Horizon, the epic SF novel I've been working on -- off and on -- for
about a decade. Horizon is the best thing I've ever written. The editor who bought it, Howard Zimmerman, called it a cross
between A.E. van Vogt and Frank Herbert -- it's galaxy-spanning, intelligent, humanistic SF.
I've been quite happy with it, overall. It's an emerging market, and the audience seems to be slowly but steadily expanding. We've
only been releasing ebooks for about a year, but sales are steady. I'm quite pleased with all of our ebook publishing
partners -- Fictionwise, Palm Digital, etc.
It's a fantasy novel set in my world of Zelloque. The Blind Archer is another, and there are perhaps 15 or so short
stories -- nine of them were collected in Slab's Tavern and Other Uncanny Places about 10 years ago. There's a novel
which could be assembled quite easily from one long novella and a couple of the novelettes, but I doubt it will ever be
published -- I ended up using bits and pieces from those stories in a couple of other books.
Master of Dragons is a Errol Flynn-type swashbuckler with lots of magic. It
was originally published as Rogue Pirate by TSR about 15 years ago. They -- to put it kindly -- butchered the book, adding
things like cannons (which makes no sense; it's a fantasy world without gunpowder!) and changing things like sea-serpents to
sea-crustaceans (I imagine giant lobsters!) plus so many word and line-by-line changes that the text was hopelessly muddled. I
was glad to have it go out of print. Now I'm rewriting it to bring it to my current level of craft, putting everything back the
way it should have been. The book is a lot of fun. I think everyone will enjoy it.
It's a complete sentence-by-sentence rewrite and expansion. Few would recognize it as the original work, beyond the plot and some of the dialogue.
I'm probably not the best judge of my work, but it's how I feel about it. It has an epic scale, and it conveys my thoughts
and feelings about family, human evolution, and the nature of God better than anything else. I'm very close to the characters.
Not really; I keep rewriting it, tweaking here and there, and it reads very smoothly. No one can pick it up and
say, "this part was written 10 years ago, this part 5 years ago, this part yesterday." It's seamless.
Overall, I like it. I think SF veered too sharply away from its roots, perhaps because space opera is viewed
as "kid stuff" and the very best SF editors and writers wanted to the genre to be viewed as literature. I think there's
plenty of room for adventure and fun in SF. Space opera can be literature. Perhaps packaging has something to do with it,
or the commercial success of true back-to-the-genre's-roots space opera, like Star Wars.
Jayme Lynn Blaschke graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in journalism. He writes science fiction and fantasy short fiction and has several in-progress novels lying around in various stages of decay. His non-fiction articles and interviews have seen publication in the U.S., Britain and Australia. His website can be found at http://www.exoticdeer.org/jayme.html |
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