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| An interview with Tim Powers, by Ken Rand (10/4/05) |
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An Interview with Tim Powers
by Ken Rand
Note up front that Tim Powers speaks ironic
with the same fluency that he writes fantasy. Note too that, when speaking, he
never tells you when he switches from the serious to the not-quite-so (although
the occasional laugh might be a hint; listen for it). If you misplace the
border between irony and fantasy, you're on you own. You Have Been Warned.
Powers says he knows exactly why he
writes--and why not. "Ultimately," he says, "the motivation to
write is not to improve people, it's not to educate readers, it's not to change
their minds about anything, or call their attention to some oppressed
population. I think ultimately the main reason to write is to show off, so that
when people come over to your house, you can say, 'Why don't you move that crap
so you can sit down? It's copies of my new novel.' At that point, you've
accomplished what you became a writer for."
No, you don't clean up for company.
"You leave it out," Powers says. "That's the whole point. You're
not getting the reward if you're not leaving these things underfoot."
There are other rewards for writing.
"They pay you, of course," Powers says, "but the other things, I
think they all could be boiled down to showing off. You want people to think
you're more intelligent than you actually are, better read than you actually
are, funnier than you actually are."
Powers got hooked on writing when he was
about six. "I read a book called Timothy Turtle [by Alice V. Davis,
Harcourt, 1940]," he recalls, "in which this turtle winds up tipped
over on its back and all his animal friends have to tip him back upright again.
I remember thinking 'The coolest thing a person could do would be to write
these things.' I suppose I've just stuck with that ever since. It would be very
cool to be a pope, president, astronaut--but the coolest thing would be to be a
writer. And I've done that."
Science fiction hit Powers soon after.
"A big thing at age eleven was my mom giving me a copy of Heinlein's Red
Planet, and that polarized me for life, really. I'm still polarized from
that. By that I mean, rotated forever in pointing in one direction, that
direction being science fiction-fantasy. I don't actually read all that much of
it anymore, but anything I write inevitably is going to be science
fiction-fantasy. It imprinted too hard back then."
Powers attended his first science fiction
convention in 1971. "I've been consistently going to conventions ever
since," he says. "Even before that, I had poems in Jack Chalker's
fanzine Mirage and drawings and limericks in George Scither's Amra. Excellent
fanzine. I'm a fanboy myself when it comes to all this stuff."
By the time he was 20, in 1972, Powers was
"already totally under the spell" of Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon,
Lovecraft, Heinlein, "and I'd already been getting stories rejected for
years."
In 1972, while a student at Cal State,
Fullerton, he met Philip K. Dick. "Phil Dick was the first working writer
I knew," Powers says. "Luckily when I met him, I hadn't read any of
his books yet, so I was not speechless with awe as I would have been if I'd
read him. So I was able to chat normally; and then gradually, one book at a
time, I would start reading his stuff and have to kind of squint sideways at
him and think 'Geez, this guy's a genius!' But since it was only one book at a
time, it didn't render me mute.
"He was an influence, certainly.
Effective scary stuff. Effective characters. The fact that characters have
ordinary lives and have to have jobs. These were certainly things I picked up
from him."
Dick died in 1982.
That year, Powers also met James Blaylock.
"We had a friend in common and she said, 'Let me introduce you to this
guy, Blaylock, who is also trying to be a writer.' When I first saw Blaylock,
he looked all wrong to me for trying to be a writer because he was obviously
some kind of surfer guy, which in fact he was. He didn't come to this through
science fiction-fantasy the way I had; he came through Mark Twain, Robert Lewis
Stevenson--William Gerhardy, of all the obscure writers. But we both did arrive
at the same sort of thing and we were collaborating on stuff real early--and
still do."
K.W. Jeter also arrived on the scene in
1972. Powers recalls: "Somebody had sent Phil Dick a copy of Jeter's Doctor
Adder and Phil was impressed with it. Very soon, Jeter had sold a novel,
which was just dazzling for us. And he told us that it was a brand new company,
that they were hungry. They paid very little. There wasn't likely to be
dangerous competition as there would be if we tried Ace or Putnam or something.
"So we scrambled and sent portions and
outlines to Laser Books. Blaylock got rejected because Roger Elwood said he
thought Blaylock was making fun of him, but I managed to sell two novels to
Elwood before Laser Books collapsed."
The first novel was The Skies Discrowned
(1976). "That was before I figured out that you should have titles that
people can understand. People would say 'This Guy's The Ground?'"
The second was Epitaph in Rust (also
1976). "Then Laser Books folded," Powers recalls, "and all of us
were thrown right back into the cold pool pretty much in the same state we'd
been before we'd sold at Laser Books; Laser was not a real prestigious thing to
have on your track record."
Powers says, while Jeter has gone his own
way, he and Blaylock are almost a collaborative team to this day. "We've
always read each other's stuff and commented on it and collaborated. We have a
very similar perspective all together, cumulatively. Jeter has not always lived
in comfortable proximity to Blaylock and me so we haven't consistently seen him
as much over the years as we see each other.
"I don't know where Jeter's influences
are from. He has a kind of a bleak pessimism to his writing that I'm not easily
able to track. I don't think Blaylock and I have that."
Perhaps the most significant writer to
emerge from that portentous year, 1972--more than Powers or Blaylock or
Jeter--maybe more than Dick--is William Ashbless.
"Ashbless will probably outlive us
all," Powers says. "It's fun to google William Ashbless; there's just
hundreds of things." (I just googled William Ashbless and got 1340 hits.)
Who is William Ashbless? Powers explains:
"Blaylock and I decided in college that the poetry that the college paper
was printing was so stupid that we could write totally meaningless but kind of
heavy-sounding portentous poetry and that they'd publish it. I'd write a line
and pass it to Blaylock and he'd write a line below that and pass it back and
we'd simply pass the paper back and forth till we got toward the bottom of the
page at which point, whoever's turn it was would bring the thing to a heavy
close. The paper printed it.
"So ever since then, every time we've
needed some kind of crazy, bearded poet in our books, we've always used the
name William Ashbless. In fact, now, I just use the name Ashbless like a good
luck charm. I just think it would be bad luck at this point to have a book
without Ashbless in it somewhere."
While he writes fantasy, Powers asserts
that a firm grounding in real science is important, "and it might be some
kind of requirement. I don't think being a fantasy writer is an excuse for, for
example, not know why there's two high tides a day in spite of the fact that
the moon's overhead once a day. I think if you have an invisible man who can
see, you should realize you've got a problem there logically.
"And I don't think the mere fact of
writing fantasy excuses you from knowing these things, on the one hand. On the
other hand, knowing something about science--for me, it's really hardly more
than having read all of Asimov's "Fantasy and Science Fiction"
columns on science--gives you gorgeous ideas. If you're trying to think up
magical effects, then looking at actual, real, truly occurring effects, such as
photosynthesis, or what did vacuum tubes do in radios and how do silicon chips
do it now--it can give you gorgeous stuff for fantasy. Of course, you don't
have to have understood it perfectly, because after all, you're talking about
ghosts."
To describe Powers as a research junkie is
not an overstatement. "I do have to do a heap of research," he says,
"because, if, for example, I decide that this Kim Philby character--who
was in British secret service in the '40s and '50s--that he'd be a good figure
to hang a book on; well, all right. You'd have to read a bunch of biographies
on him, then you've got to read a bunch of books about the secret service then,
and England then, and it branches out very rapidly. His father was a noted
Arabist and so I had to read about his father and then about Arabs and then
about Islam and then the Empty
Quarter in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and airplanes at the time. There's just no
end of possible research and there's hardly any end, it seems like, of
minimally necessary research.
"I have to stop myself after about a
year. You think, 'That's enough. Are you ever going to write a book?' But I
need to do it because--say I've read all that stuff. What I'm looking for in
all of it is things that are too cool not to use. And obviously, if you read a
whole bunch of the stuff, you're bound to find things that are too cool not
to use in a book you're intending to write. If I can find 12 or 15 things that
are too cool not to use, then by definition, I've got 12 or 15 things that are
going to be in my book.
"And therefore, all I've really got to
do is arrange them in the right order and connect the dots and I will wind up,
God willing, with the outline of a plot and I didn't make anything up; I simply
selected and arranged.
"Now, of course, when it gets down to
plot details, you find you do have to make some stuff up, but to the biggest
extent possible, I try to get all of my stuff from the actual research."
Powers says he spends more time doing
research than writing, "because if I get the research all theoretically
finished, and then arrange the plot elements, add more to fill it out, make a
totally thorough outline which leaves the absolute minimum possible to chance,
at that point, writing the book seems like the easy part at the end. You'd
think: 'Whew! God, that was hard. I'm glad that all that's left now is just to
write the damn thing.'"
Powers also teaches a lot. "I'm
teaching at a high school with Blaylock," he says, "which is
fascinating. Last semester, I was teaching at the University of Redlands; I may
be again next semester--part time, you know. At least it's an entertaining sort
of job. I mean, I could be washing cars."
Powers travels some three or four weekends
a year. An upcoming trip: Israel, possibly, in October.
"Theoretically," he says, "I'm going to be a guest of honor at a
convention there; we're still kind of figuring it out. But that would be
terrific. It's kind of weird; the book I'm writing right now involves Israel
but I'll be done with it before I go to Israel, which is a bad arrangement of
things."
Does Powers rewrite a lot? It depends.
"If I still have it," he says, "I rewrite it. Once I've sent it
off, I don't much. Generally, even after I send it off, a few months later the
editor will send it back and say, 'Do you really think these last three
chapters are as good as they could be?' and I'll say, "Oh, gee, no. Sorry.
Of course not.' And I'll fix them up.
"But that's so consistent in fact that
a lot of times, I don't wait for the editor. I'll let a couple of weeks or a
month go by, look at those last three chapters unprompted, and find that they
need rewriting."
Powers writes to contract-imposed
deadlines. He says it helps, but he admits that he's often late delivering the
book. "And the editor will yell at you at conventions--actually editors
only gently scold. But guilt certainly is a valuable thing. In fact, if it
weren't for guilt, I wouldn't get anything done. I don't think I'd get out of
bed in the morning if it wasn't for guilt. I like to think I work more from the
authority of guilt and fear."
Powers fans, take note: Tachyon
Publications is scheduled to publish Strange Itineraries, a collection
of his complete short stories, in July.
Of his next novel, Powers says "I have
sworn will be finished by the end of this summer--it really, really should be.
"It takes place in 1987, the year of
the Harmonic Convergence, and it has to do with consequences of Albert Einstein
having lived in Pasadena in the winters in the early 30s. I say that he left
stuff there that in '97 becomes important. Several crowds are trying to get his
stuff and our poor hero is in the middle of it without knowing what's going on
and so forth. And it will involve Israel."
William Ashbless--at least his name--will appear.
The possibility that Hollywood will one day
make a movie of one of Powers' books continues. Anubis Gate (Ace, 1984) Last
Call (Perennial, 1996) and Declare (HarperTorch, 2002) have been
optioned.
"I think they're all lapsed at the
moment," Powers says. "But I'm always grateful to those people for
the time they keep it on option. I figure they have vast idealism and optimism.
They're looking forward to an actual movie occurring and I'm content with
simply the option occurring."
Some writers fret over the
"Hollywoodization" of their work. Powers doesn't. "I would be
happy with whatever they did," he says. "They could tell me, 'Powers,
we're going to do Last Call but instead of a 40-year-old male
protagonist, it's going to be a nine-year-old girl. Instead of Las Vegas, it's
going to be Atlantic City. Instead of poker it's going to be--' I'd say, 'Don't
even tell me. I don't care. Do whatever you want. It's yours now. Don't--not
that I imagine you're doing this--but don't trouble yourselves worrying about
how this will strike Powers.'
"I always think of something James
Cain is supposed to have said. Somebody once asked him, 'Mr. Cain, what do you
think if what Hollywood has done with your books?' And he pointed at the
bookshelf and said, 'They haven't done anything to them. Look.'
"If somebody was to propose making a
movie of one of my books, I'd say, 'I have three non-negotiable demands. This is
my book. If it wasn't for my creativity, we wouldn't be having this
conversation. Therefore I feel free to demand the following three things, which
are not negotiable. If you make those jackets for the crew with the logo of the
movie on the back, I get six and Serena and I get to have a free lunch at the
commissary and, if there's a big crowd scene, Serena and I get to be in it.'
After that, I don't care.
"That would be totally fulfilling. And
then of course if they happen to make a good movie too, that would just be
gravy. But I'd have those jackets."
If you're unacquainted with Powers' body of
work, he suggests you consider starting "objectively speaking" with Anubis
Gate. "That seems to be the one people like best, cumulatively,"
he says, "so I would trust them and say probably that's a good place to
start. And after that, I'd just say, 'Well, here's one about poker in Las Vegas
and tarot cards [Last Call]. Here's one about Soviet and British spies
and genies [Declare]. Here's one about pirates and voodoo [On
Stranger Tides]. Pick whichever flavor looks like the most fun."
Powers personal favorite is Declare
"just because it's the most recent. As my books get older, I look at them
and see stuff I should have done differently which I was not able to see at the
time I wrote it. And it's been so recent really with Declare that I
still am not able to see any things I should have done differently. Five years,
ten years from now, I probably will. But right now, I just think--unimprovable.
I know that in fact as they recede, you notice some kinks and dents and patches
where the wall doesn't meet the ground and things like that."
Still, Powers is fully aware that, for
writers, there's always something more to learn. "The one nice thing about
all of this is it doesn't hold still," he says. "I think whether we
write it or read it, it takes enough sharp curves to kind of keep us awake,
keep us from subsiding into senility--at least keep us from doing it as rapidly
as we otherwise would."
And the best way to learn what's next?
Powers says, write what's next. "It's always the case that you
think, 'I should try to do this. Let's see if that is possible.'
Because, after all, the previous ones can still be consulted. It's not like
we're working live on stage with no cameras where you had to be there. The old
stuff is still there, consultable, and so if we kind of try something new over
here and it's a total failure, at least those old things are still there."
How would Powers like to be remembered a
hundred years from now? "For one thing," he says, "it won't
matter to me at all. I'll be dead. But if I could somehow be a ghost haunting
bookstores--I suppose it would be nice if people would read my stuff and think,
'I bet he was an interesting guy. It's too bad I can't have a beer with him.'
Which is what I think about dead writers whose stuff I read. Such as
Lovecraft. Well, of course, Lovecraft wouldn't have wanted to have a beer
with me, but I hope he would have been happy to have a coffee with me. Yeah,
that would be a nice thing."
Finally, Powers offers these words for
SFReader.com readers: "I'd like you to know that if you would like to find
the sources where Powers scavenged the good stuff that is in his books--hoping
that you'll grant that there's some good stuff in there--I'd say don't miss
John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Lud-in-the-Mist
by Hope Mirrlees and Pervan by Keith Roberts [Tim, I couldn't find this.
Where did I go wrong?]. These are great books that I'm always afraid are going
to get kind of buried under the dust; that people won't go look at them and
notice how terrific they are."
copyright © 2005, Ken Rand
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