Stephen Deas 2009

What made you decide on writing about Dragons, or for that matter fantasy? You have a fascination with rockets too, you could just as well have been writing science fiction?

I have been writing fantasy stories for nearly twenty five years. It's so long ago that it's hard to remember, but I think it all started with Dungeons and Dragons. I think I wanted to play a game with a certain story to it and I'd devised the story, and then my players decided to do something completely different (this is a thing that D&D players very often do, I have since discovered, as though they have some sixth sense for the direction you want them to go in and an irresistible instinct to go in the opposite one. But I digress). I started to write the story I'd wanted to play. I had a borrowed type-writer and I wrote about fifty pages before I decided it wasn't good enough and started again. I think I must have written those fifty pages about ten times before someone finally showed me a word processor. Although that was never finished, characters from that story are still around in the parts of my world that I want to introduce after the first dragon trilogy is finished.

That's how the writing started. Why fantasy? Because I was exactly the right age for Star Wars when it came out and I fell in love with it. Now you can call Star Wars science fiction if you want, since it's got space ships, but to me it's archetypal fantasy. It's got wizards and magic swords for pity's sake. Perhaps because I am a physicist, I have views about science fiction. I don't mind having blasters and hyperdrives and psionics, but to me it's all fantasy. I don't like dressing up magic in pseudo-scientific clothes. Don't get me wrong – I love Hyperion and The Neutronium Alchemist and Consider Phelebas and books like that where the technology is so advanced that no attempt is made to explain it. The science fiction I have trouble with is the science fiction that tries to explain itself and makes fundamental errors (Dan Brown's Angels and Demons ruined itself for me fairly early on, for example, by completely failing to understand thermodynamics). Modern physics is so complicated that it is very hard to have an idea that's accessible and yet hasn't been done before. That's one part of why I write fantasy instead of science fiction – because it's easier! And if your science is indistinguishable from magic then what, exactly, is the difference? I also think magic gives scope for a more personal engagement with its practitioners. Super-technology tends to become 'cool tools'.

On your webpage you list quite a few finished novels, is there anything else in the pipline than the adamantine trilogy?

At the moment all of my time and effort is focussed on the dragon trilogy and right now I am hard at work on the last of the three books. There is another story I would like to tell, however, one that is much bigger and grander than this one, and some of the books I've written in the past could become a part of that with a little rework. The books I'm writing at the moment will serve as a prologue to that, but first I need to convince my publisher that this is a good idea. We've been talking about how to make it work on and off. It's looking good so far, but for now I'll have to wait and see how successful my dragons are.

Did you have any specific ideas or themes that you wanted to explore when you started to write this trilogy?

I wanted dragons without any compromises. Proper monsters. And then I wanted to explore what dragons like that would mean to the world they lived in. I wanted to explore what it would be like to live in a world where dragons like that existed. It's a very dragon-centric trilogy. All of the lead characters have lives that are touched by dragons to quite a significant extent. I found myself wondering what it would be like to be part of the ruling class when the principle weapon that gives you your status is something like a nuclear bomb that can think and wants to explode if given half a chance. When even at the best of times, an accident can happen at any time – a careless step, a thoughtless flick of the tail and you're dead. What's it like to live with that constant threat? That can go all sorts of ways: there's a certain air of 'live every day as though it's your last' that certain characters have as a result of this while others are immensely cautious, but I think means that even naturally impulsive characters are always considering the consequence of their actions. Spontaneity would be frowned upon, but on the other hand, quick and decisive action with an understanding of the associated consequence would gain social kudos. I think it would breed people with a strong will and a strong sense of purpose simply because you'd need those to avoid being paralysed by the permanent threat of catastrophe. (This also naturally spawns people who are dedicated to doing absolutely whatever it takes to make sure that the bombs don't explode, but you see a lot more of them in books two and three than in book one). Most of the characters are quite physical - I saw that as a result of working with dragons, and yet it also levels out physical differences. Anyone can ride a dragon, and once you're up there on the back of one, how strong you are makes no difference to anything.

Most of the characters have both good and bad sides. It’s not so black and white as it often is in fantasy, was that a conscious decision on your part. No farmer boy who is the chosen one, and no evil overlord.

Yes definitely a conscious decision, and one that came from thinking about the world in which the characters lived, as noted in the previous answer. It's the way fantasy is going, I think.

Do you get any ideas from your role playing that finds their way into your writing?

Yes, some. Nothing in The Adamantine Palace, though. Usually it's little bits and pieces, maybe the odd secondary character. I try things out sometimes, but the result depends too much on the type of players you have.

Do you have any authors that inspire your writing? You mention Anne McCaffrey on your website, and Gollanz compares you to Abercrombie and Martin on the back of your book.

Oh, lots. I rather like my lone wolf heroes, so I look to Elric and Conan for inspiration rather than Middle Earth. I'd also point to Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion. KJ Parker showed me the difference between putting humour into fantasy and 'funny' fantasy. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle may have inspired an entire novel if I have my way, but we haven't got to that yet...