Robert Sawyer calls Tobias Buckell "a dazzling new voice" while Cory Doctorow uses the phrase "an exciting new writer". The first third of his new book Crystal Rain is available for free online at http://www.crystal-rain.com - for the rest you'll have to check at your local bookstore.
You said that you read over 20 books on the Aztec culture and had been obsessed and fascinated by them as a kid - what sparked that interest for you originally? Was there some movie or book that led to the fixation?
TB: It's something that's been in the back of my head ever since I was in school and first learned about them. In grade school they always kind of blow past the whole 'human sacrifice' thing, like its a side note: "Oh yeah, and they believed in human sacrifice and killed a lot of people." It always bugged me that we never got into the whole thing any deeper. Why did they do it? How many were killed? Were the people about to be sacrificed okay with this?
After reading a couple books, most notably Gary Jenning's Aztec it firmed up in my head that it was one of my official fascinations.
The Aztecs had built an incredible, large, complicated civilization. And their main city outstripped its European counterparts by orders of magnitude in population, planning, orderliness and sheer physical presence (not to mention it was mostly built on a lake).
And then they had this brutal religion, complete with a long history, tradition, and set of rituals... that involved executing thousands upon thousands in these rituals. It's fascinating in this awful way. And they're the kind of thing that will keep you up at night wondering what in the world would have happened if you ever got to meet someone from that kind of society?
The dialogue in the book is smooth and self-assured. Are there echoes from your childhood in the Caribbean there? Are some of the voices people you know?
TB: The echoes are all Caribbean, though milder. It's all the sort of dialect I heard growing up in Grenada and the US Virgin Islands, as well as what I used at times.
There are a lot of odd reactions to my choosing to use Caribbean dialect, and a lot of reasons given to me not too, but it felt right to include it. I've heard dialect since I was a kid, it is built into the island culture, to pretend it doesn't exist is weird. I knew it might be a problem, in fact I doubted that I was being accurate with the portrayal, but the most vehement objections to it, oddly enough, haven't been from islanders so far, but from caucasian Americans. I either get accused of being racist, writing 'broken english,' or writing awkwardly.
My instinct is that it's a love/hate thing I have no control over, so I try not to worry about it and focus on the current writing.
You draw upon your experience in scuba diving when writing about Jerome descending to underwater caves. Are there any experiences tempting you right now that you'd like to do in order to be able to write about them, such as flying in a space shuttle?
TB: I've done SCUBA and free diving, but honestly, I've never been in a balloon. I do find blimps and airships so cool, though. Again, they are another official obsession. So that piece of the narrative was just all research.
Other official obsessions include race car driving, private spaceflight, and parachuting. But I may have to just research those for a while yet before getting to experience them.
What makes Crystal Rain your "Caribbean Steampunk" novel?
TB: Steampunk is a cool subgenre that obsesses over steam power, airships, brass and dials and this Victorian time period, very Jules Verne-ish. I've always liked the whole effect in books and comic books and anime, where it shows up the most. So far its only come to the screen in a few duds like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Wild Wild West, sadly enough. Most of the Victorian adventures were very racist, using exotic settings only as exotic locations and without much regard for the cultures and backgrounds of those settings. So making a Caribbean Steampunk novel was a lot of fun because I got to snag a lot of the material that made the work of the time roaring fun, but often racist as heck, and flip it on its head by having mainly only minority figures. It was really cool.
What's your writing pace like - is there a figure or goal you set for yourself on a daily or weekly basis?
TB: I try for a page or two a day, which is my average.
How much do you blog?
TB: I usually try to post once a day, weekends optional.
Why do you blog?
TB: I started out blogging because I wanted to do two things. One I wanted to put my self out in public, state my goals of wanting to become a writer, talk about writing, post how much I'd written, to spur myself on to doing more. When you put your goals out there like that, you feel somewhat obliged to try and meet them. The second thing was that I joined a group of writers who were selling their work to markets I wanted to sell to, so I wanted to join their community and learn from them.
Now the blog has mutated into something else, because the more I blogged the more I started to find out I had readers. Just a few at first, people watching me struggle my way up from unpublished to published. Mostly other writers like myself. But then readers who had encountered my work started emailing me, or commenting on posts. Now a day brings something like a thousand people a day.
So now its a bit publicity, a bit public goal setting, a bit ego-stroking/dancing in public, a bit public journal, and a bit me just sharing cool links and bits of information that I find interesting.
Should writers feel compelled to blog? What are the perils of blogging?
TB: I don't think writers should feel compelled to blog. If it is something that they might feel comes naturally to them, then sure, why not? But a starting writer should certainly be focusing more on writing, so if blogging gets in the way of it, then the choice should be obvious.
Do you use the Lulu Titlescorer to score your titles? How do you come up with a good title?
Where did the title of Crystal Rain come from?
TB: I've never used titlescorer, though I've been forwarded the link. I just had this post about memorable titles on my weblog at www.tobiasbuckell.com, oddly enough! The title comes from a translation of snow being 'crystal rain' by one of the characters, and since neither of the groups has a lot of experience with snow, and part of the novel's quest is to reach the snowy north of their world, I thought it fitting.
What's your current main project?
TB: I actually just finished my second novel, Ragamuffin, that takes a look at some of the rest of the universe the first novel was set in and am waiting for my editor's notes to come back. There's always this inner voice that tells me I'm a fluke and selling my first novel was a fluke and that I've completely screwed up the second, so I'm eager to see what he thinks. I'm starting to play with ideas for a third book, and some other ideas for another couple novels that I'd like to pitch that I'm very excited about.
What sorts of side projects are you playing with?
TB: I've always got a few short stories on the side that I'm playing with. Of late I've been paying most of my attention to trying to get paid blogging gigs and other freelance work because I'm being let go from my regular dayjob. We'll see how that goes!
To read the first third of Crystal Rain, go to www.crystal-rain.com.
