Power: Flying

How do you feel about Nathan? There seems to be some underlying ambiguity about his character?

It’s close to playing a Richard III-type character but in a modern dimension. All I need is a physical kind of abnormality to befall me, like hump or a limp then I would have a really Shakespearian experience!

I don’t think he is necessarily concerned whether he is good or bad. I do think that there is a dark side that has to be dealt with, but the people who think they are good will probably turn out the other way on this show. It wouldn’t do me any good to speculate as to how I’m going to end up. I think there is both good and bad in this character which is interesting to play. I am as much a fan who is along for the ride as the public are with this character and where he ultimately is going to go.

Would you agree that your character is defined more by his relationships than his superhero power?

Yes, I find these relationship dynamics are more interesting to play than the perceived super power, they have written that very well. The relationships that I share with my mum, with Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), with my wife and with Niki (Ali Larter), all those elements are angling together toward defining who Nathan Petrelli is to himself and his potential constituency.

Ultimately, when you’re in the game of politics and you’re a man like Nathan Petrelli, there is only one seat that you want and that’s behind a desk in the Oval Office.

As we take this journey, we may find ourselves in the White House and that should make these relationships even more interesting.

Were you excited by the prospect of flying in the show?

Yes, although I was a little hesitant in the beginning. I was excited to read about the character’s power but when they describe the stunts in the scripts, you worry that it’s going to look cheesy. However, after seeing what the special effects team has been able to pull off every episode, it’s really exciting because they take it to the next level. I know that they’re going to do something that I can’t even imagine. It’s really fun to be a part of that. They write it with the enthusiasm of a child which is the best thing that you can have in this business.

Has anything happened to you to make you think this show is going to be a real phenomenon?

Yes, it’s the water cooler conversations, which are certainly a measure of success. There’s a real sense of involvement in the American culture with this series. At this point we’re happy to be able to contribute in a positive way. It is a positive show about people being confronted with an extraordinary situation and how they deal with it.

People don’t tend to recognise me yet. I’ve had conversations with people about the show and then I’ll see them realise that I am in it. It’s really fun to hear people talk about what might be coming up, what’s happened and who is going where, it’s fun to be a part of that.

What has surprised you the most during production?

The biggest surprise is that it’s all gone off without a hitch. Everything has gone according to plan. The plan was to deliver a quality television programme with excellent special effects and well drawn characters. Those three goals have been met but you can never predict what the audience is going to like. All you can do is deliver your best and I think everybody here has realised the potential of this story and they have done their best to achieve this result.

Finally, were you a comic book fan when growing up?

My favorite was the Silver Surfer when I was growing up. He didn’t really have many super powers other than surfing around on his board, certainly not as many as other superheroes. But I really like the philosophy behind him, he travels fast and he travels alone. That always appealed to me as a kid.

Find all articles on Scifi UK Review for Heroes.

Gareth L Powell is a speculative fiction writer from the UK. Critics have likened his work to Richard Morgan and Charles Stross. Recently, he has been published in America, Europe and the Middle East, and his work translated into Polish, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish and Portuguese. Earlier this year, his short story The Last Reef made the long lists for both the BSFA and BFS awards for Best Short Story, and placed highly in the 2006 Interzone Reader’s Poll.

Gareth keeps a blog at: http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com, with links to online examples of his work.

Well Gareth, it seems like it’s been a very busy year for you since we last spoke. Could you tell us about the books you’ve signed deals for?

Since we last spoke, I’ve been fortunate enough to sign deals with two very cool independent presses, Elastic Press and Pendragon Press. Elastic Press are going to publish my debut short story collection, The Last Reef and Other Stories, in August 2008. This collects together many of the stories I’ve had published in print and online magazines over the last four years, including the two stories that have appeared in Interzone.

Then in 2009, Pendragon Press are going to publish my first novel, Silversands - a breathless cyberpunk yarn, shot through with planetary politics, espionage and subterfuge. I’ve also just released a collection of poetry, entitled: Los Muertos. This is my second poetry collection. It includes around forty poems, new and old, and can be ordered via my website.

I understand you’ve also been busy academically?

That’s right. Somehow I found time to take the Institute of Direct Marketing’s Certificate in Direct and Interactive Marketing, and pass with credit – an achievement I’m still very proud of.

Has that experience helped shape the way you write your fiction?

Writing copy for adverts and sales letters has taught me to make every word count, and to communicate complex propositions as simply and clearly as possible. In a nutshell, it’s helped me to strip my prose back to the essentials, leaving out all the extraneous waffle and communicating only the specific evocative details that bring the scene alive.

Judging from the short stories you’ve had in Interzone and elsewhere, I’d say there are some identifiable themes running through your work: themes like love, loss, redemption, and loyalty…

I believe that in order to work, stories have to be based on believable human feelings and frailties, so that you, as a reader, can experience them at a gut level, as well as a cerebral one - so that you’re willing the main characters to succeed, even if you know they’re doomed to fail.

This time last year, you’d just sold a second story to Interzone. Since then, I understand you’ve sold a few more stories to various other publications?

Over the last twelve months, I’ve had work appear in Interzone, InfinityPlus, BestSF, Focus, Fiction, Phantastes, and Efímero.

Even though a year is a short time in the big picture, we’ve all read numerous reports from people who see SF as a dying, or at least slowing down, genre. Do you think SF has changed in the last year, or is generally
changing?

SF has always been a genre defined by its own restless experimentation. But if you look on the shelves at your local bookshop or supermarket, you don’t see that. You have to go online to find the good stuff. You can buy
books on Amazon that would never grace a bookshop’s shelves – authentic, honest-to-goodness classics that high street retailers would never touch, because they’re focused on short term profit.

If their sales are slumping, it’s because they’re not giving us what we need and we’re going elsewhere to find it. There are some excellent writers working in the genre at the moment, through magazines and independent presses, and of course, the Internet - which allows them to network with each other, and to interact with readers in new and interesting ways. Over the last week, for example, I’ve received emails from readers in Australia and Venezuela who’ve read stories of mine online – readers I could never have reached by more traditional methods.

How has the subject matter of SF changed over the last few years?

I’m not sure it has, to be honest. The best SF has always been about what it means to be human in a strange and baffling world, and that’s still true today. If SF has grown dark and paranoid of late, that’s simply a reflection of the world it’s being written in.

You’ve started a Friday Flash Fiction blog meme, where you and other members write a short piece of fiction every Friday…

The idea started out as an exercise to keep my writing muscles toned up, by forcing me to produce 100-1000 words of fiction each and every week. It was just a bit of fun, really. I didn’t expect anyone else to take much
notice. But there are seven of us now, all posting these vignettes on our blogs every Friday - and there are undreds of other people out there reading them. Since we started Friday Flash Fiction, the traffic to my blog has quadrupled – and I know the other writers in the group can report similar surges in the number of visitors they’re attracting.

Who knows where it will lead? At the moment, there’s some genuinely interesting writing being produced in the group by some genuinely interesting people. Maybe one day when we’ve produced enough, we’ll collect it all up in an anthology, or something.

What have been your favourite reads over the last year?

I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections this year, by writers such as Alastair Reynolds, Harlan Ellison, Cory Doctrow and Rudy Rucker. I find them easier to dip into than full-length novels - especially as I have so little time in which to read. But having said that, I did find time on holiday to read M John Harrison’s Nova Swing and Glasshouse by Charles Stross.

Any particular favourite films you’ve watched?

I don’t go to the cinema much - I prefer to wait for the DVD release, and watch the films in the comfort of my own living room. Consequently, I’m always at least six months behind the rest of the world when it comes to new
movies.

What are your plans for next twelve months?

At the moment, I’m putting the finishing touches to The Last Reef and Other Stories. After that, I hope to start work on another novel, and some more short stories. Maybe even another short story collection. I have lots of ideas, I just need to start getting them down on paper.

Thanks for your time, Gareth, it was great to catch up.

See a previous interview (2006) with Gareth.

Power: Can Bend Time And Space

Can you tell us a little bit about your character and what his powers are?

My character is Hiro Nakamura. He’s an office drone in Japan and he’s a big comic book enthusiast. He learns that he can bend time and space, so teleportation and chronokinesis, and he’s just absolutely exhilarated with the fact that he can do this. It’s been his dream all along and he’s so happy that he’s been chosen.

The character is a big sci-fi and comic book fan. Is this a trait which you relate to?

I believe so. I am definitely a big enthusiast of science fiction and special effects. I grew up with Japanese Manga (Japanese comics), so I know a lot about the Manga world.

I really, really love the character and I believe the writers are doing an amazing job writing Hiro and bringing who I am into the character and extending me in terms of being a big comic book enthusiast. “Heroes” is a big extension of who I am.

There is an online graphic novel which goes hand-in-hand with the series. How important is this to the show? How does it feel to see yourself in cartoon form?

I think it’s just absolutely wonderful. When we went to the comic convention, we had a screening of the pilot episode and we knew we had something absolutely special and magical when we saw the fans’ reaction. We knew we hit it right on the head and that we had served the comic book community really well. And you know, in particular with Hiro being the comic book enthusiast as he is, he’s somewhat the representative for that voice of comic book fans. To have him as part of a comic book too is just absolutely thrilling, both in support of the character and for myself.

You worked on special effects before becoming an actor. Do you find yourself looking over people’s shoulders as the effects are produced for the show?

Absolutely, anytime I could! Our special effects team have done an amazing job with the pilot and all the episodes coming up. It’s really wonderful.

It’s always fascinating because special effects are part of what makes the magic behind the movies. I’m like a kid watching all these cool things happen, even the green screen excites me.

What has been the most exhilarating aspect of the production?

The script is always both surprising and exhilarating. Every week we get something new. Every question they ask, they answer it but they also ask another question. It’s a constant rollercoaster going up and down.

You read the script and think, “Oh my God, wow. Wait a minute, that’s how it ends? No wait, come on, where’s the next script?” You get the next script and it’s like, “Oh my, that is just absolutely brilliant. I would have never thought of that!”

It’s a constant rollercoaster. That’s always been surprising how brilliant the minds of our writers are, they constantly top themselves week after week.

Finally, if you had a super power, what would it be?

As a kid growing up, the superpower I wanted was the Midas touch, the ability to turn anything into gold. My allowance was about a quarter every week and that was only enough to go to the arcade and play one game. So I would have to be really good at playing arcades or have a bunch of rich friends. But if I had the Midas touch, then I could have just picked up a stone and turned it to gold.

Find all articles on Scifi UK Review for Heroes (interviews, background etc).

Power: Has A Protective Alter Ego

What were your first thoughts on your character when you first came across the part?

When I read the pilot I didn’t actually know what direction it was going other than the fact that you’ve got a really complicated woman who’s just trying to get by. She’s trying to be a great mother to her son and her world’s really crumbling around her. So, it wasn’t about what kind of power she was getting, it was just about her dealing with her life and wondering if she’s going crazy and what’s happening to her.

Where we’re leading to is that there’s going to be duality within my personality. So there’s one side that has to conform to society’s roles and laws and the shadow side that can actually live out the dark fantasies that, you know, are repressed within all of us.

But we’re going to get a little romance, we’ll get a little bit of cheekiness in it and the amazing thing about this writing is that it really pushes me.

You have a son in the show, how did you find it playing a mother?

Noah’s incredible. He makes my job easy. Watching his relationship with his mother has been a huge inspiration for me. She’s so open and so giving, we discussed the scenes before and hang out whenever we have a chance. They have an incredible connection. Noah and I use as much as we can from that to inspire us within our roles.

I think that as a woman, there’s a side in all of us that really has this desire and this need to protect a child. Watching my nephews there’s definitely that side within me that would do anything to protect them. So I guess I understand that.

I’ve just been around kids my whole life. So it really hasn’t been a struggle for me at all. It’s been a natural transition and I just think it’s a really interesting unique relationship.

Your character has an inherent sexuality, do you think it is important to stay in shape? How uncomfortable are the more risqué scenes?

I think that I’m really actually lucky to play a very sexy, racy character. She’s provocative and really fun, and part of the job is just keeping in shape for it. I’m a runner, and for me, it’s not just the physicality of it, it’s an emotional release for me. It keeps me sane in a way. It’s getting out there and just running as fast as I can.

Those scenes are always very embarrassing. I think any actor will tell you that. On the other side of it, sometimes you have just got to throw your hands up in the air and go with it and have fun. You make light of it and you make jokes on set.

It’s a fun character and what’s great about her is that she does have these sexy scenes. But on the other side you see her dealing with her son. What’s amazing about this writing is that it found an incredible balance to show how multifaceted a character she is.

What has the response been from the actors to the huge success the show has already had?

I think it’s incredible. I think that, as actors, we just come in with great writing and everyone does the best they can do. So when an audience responds, that’s just the icing on top of it. We’re also lucky to have some amazing directors.

We’re all just thrilled that people are loving the show as much as we love working on it.

Finally, if you had a super power, what would it be?

I would fly. I’d love to soar, I think that would the greatest way to experience freedom, and I think that would be incredible.

Find all articles on Scifi UK Review for Heroes.

Power: Can Read People’s Minds

Can you tell us about your character Matt?

He’s an LAPD cop, he’s got dyslexia, he can’t advance and become what he really thinks he should be, which is a detective or something more important, be where the action is. He can’t do this because he has dyslexia and can’t pass the tests and now suddenly, he’s hearing voices. He gets the one ability that a cop needs to solve crimes as quickly as possible and be the best he can be. But this then changes the rest of his life.

Your character can read minds, how does he feel about keeping his mental powers a secret?

It’s going to be a constant struggle for my character. He’s having issues with his wife. They’ve not been at each other’s throat, but there’s a conversation they always have where she says, “Hey, why can’t you be satisfied with our lives?” And he wants more.

What I love is that it’s not as simple as telling people, “Hey, this is what’s happened.” People aren’t going to believe you, they’re going to think you’re nuts, how do you handle it. When my character first realizes that he can’t control it, it’s an amazing thing.

The scripts are so great. When I read them, I get an idea of what a cool idea it would be to read people’s minds. I’m like, “Oh, this would be great.” It’s on such a simple level, I read and it’s just like, “Wow, that’s the greatest way to use it.” I’ve already shot a little bit where I’m using it to satisfy my wife.

What does the future hold for the characters? Do they become a team of superheroes?

Don’t assume that every one of these characters is good, that’s something so interesting. As actors, Masi (who plays “Hiro”) and I have had this conversation, “Are we going to be good? How are we going to use these? Are we going to realise, wow, these powers, they empower me in such a way that I can use it for evil purposes?”

We have no idea whether we’re going to be good or bad. It’s just so interesting to see what somebody would do if given these abilities.

What was the most exhilarating aspect of the production?

For me, the most exhilarating thing has been the challenge of how to play, visually, a guy who can read minds. What does it look like when you do that? It’s been great fun.

When I read the pilot, it read not only as a pilot but as a show and a series with a past and a future. It constantly surprises and entertains me. It deals with character first, then once you latch on to these characters, you want to take this ride with them wherever they’re going.

I’m one of the fortunate actors to play a character who, just by definition of what he does, is a hero. Cops, firemen, they’re all heroes to me.

Finally, if you had a superpower, what would it be?

I always dreamt of invisibility, that was a really cool thing for me. But right now on the show, I get to read people’s mind which is incredibly cool. I’m learning throughout shooting, and by becoming this character, that, at times, it can be sad and really enlightening at the same time. You don’t always want to hear the thought.

If you could read anyone’s thoughts right now, whose would they be?

I would love to know the future of the show. Right now, I’d love to be in Tim Kring’s head.

Find all articles on Scifi UK Review for Heroes.

Following on from the information on the CSI 6 DVD release, Marg Helgenberger gives us the lowdown on the show, amongst other things.

Do you feel proud when people tell you they are big fans of the show?
I always love it when people say (assumes self-important mock voice) “it’s the only one we watch, none of them can compare to you guys, blah blah blah”.

We see a different side of you in Season 6 than we saw in Season 4. What do you think about that?
Oh yeah, well I think that’s how they, not run out of things to do, not that they’ve run out of crimes to solve because god knows there’s plenty of them around, or run out of ways to solve it, there seems to always come up with more techniques and instruments that are being made available. Of course, this show being state of the art in terms of what we receive and what’s out there in terms of forensic labs because it’s so costly that many of them don’t have the resources to have these, which is too bad, it’s really sad because crimes could get solved faster if they had the money. As far as the character development goes there’s a deep pool there, every character, mine probably more than anybody’s, we go home with my character more. I think there’s a well of opportunity there for the characters.

Do you get excited about character driven stories?
I do get a little spring in my step when it’s some character stuff because it involves usually a lot of history with that particular character, especially with a family member or a romantic interest, but she’s a family member because my father’s been on a few times and that stuff’s, it’s such a complicated relationship and in as little as six lines there’s a lot that goes on between the two of us: threats, weird stuff that happens and I always look forward to that and to working with Scott Wilson who plays my dad.

How do you feel about being demoted this season?

(laughs) I never got officially demoted! I never knew what they officially called it! I am the, we’re co – I don’t know, just something to justify the fact that I am now back with the team or something, the original team are back together, it really doesn’t mean anything.

Did you find it fun to split from the cast and do your own thing?
I don’t know, it wasn’t really that fun, I didn’t like having to play scenes where I was always kvetching about paperwork or that crap y’know, it’s just tedious. I’d much rather be in the field and y’know, it gives you the opportunity to work with other actors, we were kind of isolated y’know.

Do you find it strange that you’re part of a show that’s such a big part of people’s lives?
Somewhat, yes. Y’know it’s funny because in LA you don’t really feel the impact of the show because there’s so many celebrities here and you can pretty much just go about your business, but when you go out into the country or into the world, it’s a completely different ball game and they feel that – I don’t know, it’s inspired so many people and it becomes the Thursday night thing to do, when they see you up close and personal they want a piece of you essentially, they want a picture or an autograph, or they’ll ask you, “What do you think” about whatever high-profile case happens to be on Court TV that week and I don’t think about it! I think about fingerprints a lot actually, I think about what kind of fingerprints there are around and what I’m leaving behind.

The writer’s of CSI actually based your character on two real CSI agents didn’t they?
Yes, especially as I’d ridden a couple of times with the character I’m based on and I always have to qualify by saying she is not a former exotic dancer! I think she said she’d been some kind of a secretary, in law enforcement, went ahead and got her – not a degree, I don’t know what they call it, it’s like a two year program to become a CSI, but anyway she’s terrific and she’s now sort of become a star in her own right because she’s been featured in a lot of these shows like Dateline and she’s considered to be one of the best in Vegas because she’s so thorough and kind of fun and kind of sassy and all that. And Dan Holstein (sp). Obviously we take an enormous amount of liberties in terms of process, because DNA and toxology (sic) reports they take weeks sometime, who has the time to watch that? It’d be a very boring show!

Do you enjoy doing commentaries for the DVD releases?
Kind of yeah, because we’ve done so many of them now, what, 130? In fact I stumbled over my words one time on David Letterman, because sometimes he brings up topics that you don’t think he’s going to bring up, wasn’t in the pre-interview or whatever, and he mentioned and episode that was going to be airing that night or something, we’d shot it like a month before and I started to go with it, but then I completely lost my train of thought and I couldn’t find it, we shoot these and we forget them! But yeah, it was kind of fun to go back and now of course we’re on television pretty much 24/7 you can pick an episode of CSI, and I’ll happen upon it once in a while and it takes you back to that season and that hairstyle (laughs) and to think about what was going on then.

What shows did you like growing up?
I was fan of Mission:Impossible, and I always think of this show as being a modern day version of Mission: Impossible, just because of all the gizmos and the scientific stuff and the team and crime solving obviously. That show was always cutting-edge, it had a cool theme song, it was very intriguing and this show kind of has the same feel.

As an actress, how do you handle all the scientific dialogue?
There are certain terms that we’ve said so many times now that we know the correct pronunciation and we sort of know what it means but there’s always something new that pops up and you just sort of pray that you get through it and that you never have to say it again (laughs). I have to say the most complicated part of the job in terms of learning lines is not so much the actual terminology, it’s the way you have to kind of sell the plot or sell the story and this whole thing that we’re doing now, Georgia Fox’s dialogue is just baffling and it’s basically just one big long monologue with me interjecting. It’s called ‘Up In Smoke’. Not like the Cheech and Chong version.

What do think about CSI’s real life impact?
I felt it was innovative and it was – it was described (cos you never know how something’s gonna turn out when it’s described) as described in the script as all the, quote unquote, CSI shots, in fact I think one of the descriptions was ‘à la Three Kings’, with the bullet going through them, which was very innovative for that film. We’ve certainly taken that idea and ran with it. I also thought that it was just a great mystery and I think that a great mystery is always going to be in vogue, people have always enjoyed them throughout the ages, in every culture. I just thought all the science and the facts and the gizmos was going to be really fun for an audience, Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century.

I knew it was going to be a big hit, I felt that, especially when I saw it cut together, but I would have never guessed that we would have had two spin-offs in four years and would have really created a whole new genre of television. It seems like every network now wants to – PBS has a monopoly of forensic shows. If you watched the Superbowl there was an advertisement for this new one that’s coming out on EBC that looks like “Oh well.” People say to me that imitation’s the best form of flattery and at this point it’s like “No it’s not, now you’re just ripping us off!” Come up with your own ideas here! I say that having just said we took something from Three Kings, but that was just one part!

Do you feel it has changed the way a lot of juries are chosen now?
We’ve really educated the public. I do think that law enforcement probably resents us to a certain degree because the public is demanding “Well, they solve it on CSI, why can’t you find such and such?” I think criminalists are in great debt to us because they’ve all of a sudden brought these people who have always been in the background into the forefront. I think that detectives sometimes feel a little resentful! Science is fun and that is also something I probably wouldn’t have guessed or imagined is that it would have inspired all these kids to want to become criminal investigators. Kids in science classes and in schools, it’s become the hottest thing to teach certain techniques and make it fun.

Most people find CSI is less like a TV show and feels more like a movie in the way it is shot and put together. How do you feel about that?
Well yeah and certainly Jerry’s impact on this show, biggest impact, is that he really knows the look of a show. He made sure early on, a lot of people were replaced sadly, but he had a vision in mind of what it should look like, so a lot of department heads were replaced to make it more visually appealing.

Where did you get the inspiration for this series?

The germ of this idea came about a year ago now. I was supposed to develop a show for NBC and I became fascinated with this idea of a new paradigm of the serialized large ensemble show. I happened to see two movies that sort of moulded together in my mind. One of them was The Incredibles. And the other was the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman. I started to blend those two things in my mind over the next few days because I loved both of them. Mixing the idea of people who had superpowers trying to struggle with their everyday lives with these people that you could pass on the street and never think twice about. In my mind, those two things started to come together and that was the genesis of where the idea came from.

How does this show differ from other serialized dramas?

With this show I wanted to start from the very, very beginning. Looking at when people would discover these abilities. It’s very much a journey of the hero in the classic sense of the term. We watch their growth and their journey through the course of the show and ultimately, gain this kind of wish fulfillment that you or I could be these people. This is their journey from very ordinary to extraordinary people.

The show has some fantastic cliffhangers. Have you found it hard to maintain the suspense and intrigue with so many different plotlines?

That’s a very, very big challenge. But one of the fun things is watching characters develop and taking them to places that even you didn’t expect. The writers’ room is a very interesting place because ideas morph and bend and become very different things when you start filtering through lots of people’s ideas.

A lot of us in the writers’ room talked about borrowing Charles Dickens idea, who wrote most of his great books in one-chapter installments for a newspaper. This idea fascinates me, the idea of doing something very slowly and deliberately, the idea that each season would be its own volume with enough of a cliffhanger at the end of season one to launch you into a second season.

By having these constant twists and turns and revelations in the stories, I think the audience may feel like they’re going to run out of steam because there’s just too many of these coming along. It’s one reveal after another. But the truth is, these twists and turns are actually the engine that are allowing us to generate even more stories. So there is a natural progression that’s allowing us to go with a less and less scattered story.

Will any of the characters join forces to create a ‘superhero team’?

Well, these characters do start to cross in all sorts of interesting and coincidental and unexpected ways, which is one of the things that I was most fascinated with. I think that the audience is going to be really hooked on trying to guess and predict how these characters’ paths are going to cross.

So you take a character like Masi’s character, who’s an office worker in Tokyo and Hayden’s character, who’s a cheerleader in West Texas, and the idea of how those two characters will ever cross paths seems impossible and yet that’s what the fun of watching the show is, to see how it continues along for these two characters to actually come into contact with each other.

How relevant do you feel the comic book world is to this project?

Our particular venture into that world is through the idea of the online comic that will run concurrently with the show. So people can log on, view and interact with an online comic book every week in conjunction with the episode. The comic won’t be necessarily about that episode, but it will further enhance your viewing of the show. It will sometimes be an alternative look at what you’ve seen or the other side of what you’ve seen or a story that just sort of enhances your appreciation of the character and the story.

The show is called “Heroes”, but will there be a villains element to it?

Yes, absolutely. We are bringing in other people with superpowers and they are not necessarily heroes. The show does introduce the concept of a major villain in the second episode and that villain becomes a central character for most of the first season.

Finally, if you had a superpower, what would it be?

When I really started thinking about it for the show, I sort of decided that flight might be the best one to have it, just seems like it would be the coolest.

Find all articles on Scifi UK Review for Heroes.

Published by Puffin Books in paperback 3rd May 2007.

Ten millennia ago, the fairy people were defeated in a great battle with mankind, forcing them to move underground. Only the 8th family of fairies remained undefeated: the demons. But now one demon has discovered the secrets of the fairy world, and if humans get hold of this information, the fairies are in BIG trouble. Only one person can prevent this disaster - teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl.

Eoin Colfer’s world is one where fairies say ‘lock and load’ and the ancient magic of Eire is blended with weapons-grade hardware and high-level technology.

‘I love the old stories and I haven’t cheapened them,’ he says in an interview with the Times newspaper. ‘I was once taken to task at the Celtic Club in Australia, where an irate member turned on me and said: ‘Do you realise your books are ridiculous? There are no female leprechauns.’ But I quickly realised that if I wanted to write in this fairy genre I would have to bring something new to the table. What I brought was James Bond, Men in Black and Star Wars.’

Acclaim for the Artemis Fowl series:

‘Best described as Hans Christian Andersen meets Miami Vice’ - Anthony Horowitz, Independent

‘A hugely entertaining romp mixing folklore, fantasy and hi-tech wizardry’ - Observer

‘It reads like the fastest, punchiest comic strip you’ve ever come across’ – Daily Telegraph

In only five short years since Artemis Fowl, dubbed ‘Die Hard with fairies’, cast a spell on the book world, Eoin Colfer has become one of the UK’s best-selling children’s authors, with UK sales topping 1.7 million copies and over 7 million copies sold worldwide. His explosive blend of action, comedy and fast-paced adventure has won the former primary school teacher millions of adoring fans the world over. Eoin lives in Wexford, Ireland with his wife and two sons.

Rare videoed interview with Eoin Colfer.

“Warning! Maintain the quarantine. Deadly force will be used to protect this area.”

This article contains background information on 28 Weeks Later, including Cast, Crew and production notes, and interviews with Robert Carlyle, Danny Boyle (Executive Producer), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Director) and a whole host of other people involved in the project.

Play 28 Weeks Later: Infected online game!

Synopsis

28 Weeks Later, the follow up to the hugely successful 28 Days Later, picks up six months after the rage virus has annihilated the Mainland Britain. The US army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. As the first wave of refugees return, a family is reunited - but one of them unwittingly carries a terrible secret. The virus is not yet dead, and this time, it is more dangerous than ever.

How It All Started

28 Weeks Later is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto) and produced by Enrique López-Lavigne, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich. 28 Weeks Later is an original screenplay by Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López-Lavigne, and Jesus Olmo; with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland serving as executive producers. The cast is led by Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Trainspotting); Rose Byrne (Sunshine, Troy); Jeremy Renner (The Assassination of Jesse James, Dahmer); Harold Perrineau (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, Lost); Catherine McCormack (Braveheart, Spy Game); Imogen Poots (V For Vendetta) and Idris Elba (The Wire). Also joining the cast is a talented young newcomer, twelve year old Mackintosh Muggleton making his feature film debut.

Four years after the enormous international success of 28 Days Later, the director/producer/writer team of Danny Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and Alex Garland felt the time was right to make a sequel. “We were quite taken aback by the phenomenal success of the first film, particularly in America,” recalls producer Andrew Macdonald. “We saw an opportunity to make a second film that already had a built in audience. We thought it would be a great idea to try and satisfy that audience again. The hard bit was to try and find a story which would live up to the power and depth that Danny and Alex brought to the first film.”

The first decision the filmmakers had to make was when should the sequel be set. Should the film involve the original cast? Should it go further into the future? Should it be a prequel? 28 Days Later told the story of when the virus was first unleashed following a raid on a primate research facility by animal rights activists. Transmittable in a single drop of blood, the virus locks those infected into a permanent state of murderous rage. Within 28 days the country was overwhelmed and a handful of survivors desperately struggled to salvage a future.

“Alex came up with a lot of ideas and eventually we agreed upon a concept about what would happen to the UK after the disease had been eradicated and the quarantine was lifted,” explains Macdonald. “What would happen if there were only 500 people populating the UK? Who would be there to organize the survivors and refugees coming back from overseas, and what would happen to the Brits who survived? All those questions seemed interesting to us and it was out of them that the story evolved”.

Screenwriter Rowan Joffe, who had previously written Gas Attack and Last Resort, was hired to craft a first draft of the script. The search then began for a talented young director who would have the flare to follow in Boyle’s footsteps as well as be able to bring a fresh new perspective and their own unique vision to the film. “We were looking for a filmmaker of some individuality who could bring something different to the film,” says Boyle. “London was such a big part of the first film we thought that getting somebody from outside the UK to come in and direct would be an interesting approach as they would give the Capital a fresh look.”

Boyle had recently seen the provocative thriller Intacto, the feature film debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo which had been a huge international and critical success. “I thought Intacto was amazing,” recalls Boyle. “A terrific thriller with tremendous flare and energy, as well as being a highly individual piece of filmmaking. I recommended [Producer] Andrew Macdonald and [Executive Producer] Alex Garland go and see it with Juan Carlos in mind for taking the helm on 28 Weeks Later.”

After seeing Intacto Macdonald and Garland were also convinced that Fresnadillo was the director they were looking for, and the filmmakers approached him to direct 28 Weeks Later.

They were thrilled when Fresnadillo and his Spanish producing partner Enrique López-Lavigne agreed to come on board. Producer Allon Reich explains, “Juan Carlos and López-Lavigne, they’re a fantastic double act. Juan Carlos is very thoughtful, very much about the detail… While Enrique is a ball of energy, a film geek, and he’s seen every film of this type. And I think there’s definitely a yin and yang in their energy, and the way they approach life that leads to a very kind of a creative whole.”

Fresnadillo recalls being approached by DNA, “I’m a big fan of 28 Days Later. It was such a big honor to receive the invitation to direct the second film, but at the same time it was something really scary. I didn’t understand what I could do, you know, to improve on the first one or to follow that landscape. But DNA chased me for one or two months… And from the first time we met I was very comfortable with them, because they were open to my ideas.”

Fresnadillo and López-Lavigne began working on the script with the help of Spanish screenwriter Jesus Olmo, developing the story around a family and what happened to them in the aftermath of the original film.

López-Lavigne explains, “The family was a good idea for us, and we wanted to develop this into something. But there is always a problem with this kind of structure in which you are looking at the new world through four different eyes, instead of one. That’s why we had to find a really strong concept for the actual storyline. And what we came up with is a storyline, that we really believe; it’s about the idea that no one is unaffected from his past.”

Fresnadillo tells about the process of writing the script, “We worked on the screenplay for almost one year, and at the end we reached a screenplay that I really love. But I was concerned about if the producers were going to like it because it was very special and different from the first one. Obviously following the same landscape and the same situation about this apocalyptic vision of the world, but to my surprise they liked it a lot.”

Boyle elaborates on working with Fresnadillo, “He’s got one foot in two cultures, so he was an interesting guy to get, you know, rather than just get another Brit who probably would [have made] it much as I’d made the first one. So you need a kind of different eye on it, really. And there’s a great tradition at the moment in our cinema of Latin American and Spanish directors, and it’s, I think, great to be able to be part of it.”

Stephanie Brail has been putting her thoughts up on Science Fiction (.. News And Reviews For Cool Nerds) for a while now, which is always an interesting read; I thought I’d get to the bottom of just why she’s a Closet SciFi Geek.

What gave you the idea of setting up your blog on Science Fiction?

I had gotten one of those online movie rental accounts, and started catching up on a lot of science fiction shows and movies. The problem was, once I was done watching something, I was itching to discuss it, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. My friends are mostly not interested in this stuff, with a few exceptions. So I started Closet Sci-Fi Geek so I could decompress and debrief after viewing something that interested or intrigued me.

How would you sum up your attraction to Science Fiction?

I am a very imaginative, creative person, and science fiction (as well as fantasy) brings you to whole other worlds. Sci-fi expands the brain. It shows you what is possible. It helps us to reach for new horizons, as well as warns of potential pitfalls in our current path.

It’s also just plain fun.

From reading your blog, I came to the conclusion you are very much a watcher of scifi, rather than a reader or listener - is this true?

Right now, it is more true than not, but that has not always been the case. As a child, I sucked up science fiction and fantasy books like candy. But back then (and I’m not that old), cable was new, and my family didn’t have a VCR much less HBO. The quantity and quality of science fiction available in visual form today far surpasses what was available when I was a child, so perhaps I would have watched more than read back then if things had been different. Who’s to say.

When I got to college, I was concerned about fitting in with my literary friends and became a bit of an anti-sci-fi snob. I started reading “literature” and put the pulp fiction aside. The irony is that now, there’s a trend where writers are combining more “literary” forms with science fiction themes, such as The Time Traveler’s Wife (which alas, I wasn’t that thrilled about). I just started reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, which is another “high-brow” fantasy book.

I don’t think these new sci-fi literature books are necessarily better than traditional sci-fi and fantasy, though. They just make the writing more pretentious, sometimes.

So, while I do still read these days, because I have so much going on in my life, it’s a lot easier and quicker to review things I’m watching. I’m also reading more than just sci-fi, such as non-fiction books, so my sci-fi book reviews on the blog are fewer and much farther between.

I also play video games, which I feel is an extension of sci-fi. I don’t play them as much as I’d like, because they are time consuming, but I do have a male buddy I meet with on a sporadic basis, and we go to town on the Xbox (we like playing Star Wars Battlefront). I especially like it when a boyfriend enjoys playing video games with me, since that’s much more fun and interactive than just renting a video for your evenings at home.

I think there’s a stigma associated with admitting that oneself is into scifi (and fantasy), do you admit offline that you actually run a blog about it?

Yes, but it surprises people. I don’t fit the standard idea of what a sci-fi fan should look and act like. First of all, I’m female. Second, I don’t look like a nerd (though I did in high school).

I did actually date a guy once who thought it was strange that I played video games and I was female. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. Well, he should have just relaxed and had fun with it, but you know, some guys still have a hard time being friends with their lovers. It’s a strange thing, you know. It’s too bad, since they are
missing out.

You tend to talk quite a bit about retro scifi; films etc which appeared years ago, and you give retrospective views on them - do you think scifi has improved over the years?

Yes and no. I believe some of the best science fiction writing was done for the original Star Trek. None of the new Trek shows can match the original series in terms of social impact or memorability.

Special effects have improved, obviously. But that does not always lead to a better looking film. If you take a look at films like Silent Running or 2001, you will see amazing, beautiful cinematography, all done on models. I think model work is still, in some cases, superior to CGI and gives a depth and detail that is just lost with computer-generated images.

I also find that space battle scenes aren’t necessarily as fun or exciting to watch these days. Too much is going on. They’ve got 50 zillion ships all flying around, shooting at each other, and you can’t even see which ship the hero is driving. Sometimes, less is more.

If you were to pick just one scifi movie, which would be your favourite and why?

That would have to be Star Wars (the original). Now, Star Wars isn’t necessarily the best science fiction film ever made, and given a nudge I might even say I like Empire Strikes Back better. But I think Star Wars is the iconic, perfect space opera. I saw it in the theater for the first time in 1977 when I was just seven years old. I grew up with Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. No space mythology before or since has so captured our hearts and our imagination like Star Wars.

And Han Solo has to be the best sci-fi character put on the screen, ever.

Another, more recent film that had tremendous impact on me was The Matrix. Unfortunately, the second and third films kind of screwed the whole franchise up. I would have been happy with just the original.

What is your favourite icecream?

From childhood, black raspberry ice cream from Friendly’s, which is a restaurant chain on the east coast. I can’t even get it here in California.

That’s it! Thanks for your time, Stephanie.

As well as http://closetscifigeek.com Stephanie also blogs over at http://feelgoodgirl.com.

Gareth Lyn Powell is one of the new generation of British SF writers currently making their mark in Interzone, the UK’s longest-running SF&F magazine. He lives in the West Country with his wife and two daughters. His fiction has been published in America, Europe and the Middle East, and has been translated into Portuguese, Hebrew, Greek and Polish. He made his first professional fiction sale to Interzone in 2005.

His novella The Last Reef appeared in Interzone #202, and a short story - with the intriguing title Ack-Ack Macaque - will appear in a forthcoming issue.

In 2006, Gareth won the Firebrand Great Fiction Award from SFReader.com for his short story Sunsets and Hamburgers.

He keeps a blog a http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com: , where you can find links to online stories and reviews.

How long would you say you’ve been writing?

GLP: I’ve been writing stories my whole life, in notebooks and on scraps of paper. When I got my first typewriter at the age of 12, the first thing I wrote was a science fiction story called A Long Way From Home. I studied creative writing for 3 years at university, but I only started writing seriously a few years ago, when I turned thirty. I wrote a fifty thousand word novel, and then I started writing short stories. I wrote a story called Catch A Burning Star and submitted it to a webzine called Aphelion. They printed it, and that encouraged me to write another, which I sent to Quantum Muse. That got printed too, so I wrote another. And another… And I tried to make each one better than the last.

Which authors do you regard as being an influence on your writing content and style?

GLP: I was lucky that my local library had a very good selection of science fiction books for young readers - stuff like Brian Earnshaw’s Dragonfall 5 stories and Heinlein’s Have Space Suit Will Travel - which hooked me into the genre at an early age. As I grew older, I moved on to the short stories of Arthur C. Clarke and Larry Niven. I learned a lot about pacing and style from Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Elmore Leonard, Hunter Thompson and Raymond Chandler. And I learned a lot about science fiction from Cordwainer Smith, Samuel Delany, M.John Harrison, Iain M. Banks, William Gibson, and Olaf Stapleton.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

GLP: Good question. Sometimes I sit at the keyboard and the words flow - other times it takes determination and hard work. I keep a notebook handy and try to jot down observations, snatches of dialogue, and ideas. Sometimes a memory or an article will suggest a scene but the final version of the story’s often far removed from the idea that first sparked it off. The text evolves over successive drafts. Different themes come to the fore, or drop away. In the end, I can’t say exactly what prompted me to write this or that story in a certain way. For instance, with The Last Reef, the initial inspiration for the story came from a dream about blasting across a desert on a quad bike listening to skull-crunching music from speakers implanted directly into the auditory centres of the brain. But when I came to write it, the main character’s personality shaped the direction the story went in, taking it away from the original idea into new and unexplored territory.

How difficult was it to first get published? For example, I understand The Last Reef went through a few iterations before being accepted.

GLP: I went through four rewrites with The Last Reef. Jetse de Vries, the editor who picked the story off the slushpile, liked the characters and the scenario but felt the finale needed tightening up. We tossed the story back and forth until we were both happy with it, and then Jetse passed it to the rest of the editorial team.

Is science fiction a genre which you ‘got into’ on purpose, or did it just kind of happen?

GLP: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write SF. Apollo 18 docked with a Russian Soyuz module when I was 4 years old. And then we had Star Wars and all the footage from Skylab, and the new space shuttle that promised us easy access to orbit… I write SF because I grew up with it, and because you have to write what you know and love.

Where do you do write?

GLP: I’ve got a study at the back of the house with a window that looks out onto the fir trees at the back of the garden. One wall’s lined with books and there are racks of CDs against another. I tend to write after my family have gone to bed, so it’s very quiet in here.

Could you tell us something about what you are working on at the moment?

GLP: There are a couple of other ideas I’m playing with but I don’t want to say too much about them right now. I find that if I talk too much about a story, I lose the urge to write it. My wife understands - she won’t read a partial draft of anything I’ve written; it has to be finished before she’ll look at it.

Have you written a novel, or are you writing one?

GLP: I’ve written an SF thriller called Silversands. And I have a file of notes for an all-action space opera with the working title The Burning Sky.

You have also written poetry. Which do you prefer, fiction or poetry?

GLP: I only ever dabbled in poetry. At heart, I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer.

What are your writing plans for the future?

GLP: For the time being, I’m going to keep writing short fiction. I’d ideally like to have the time to concentrate on writing nlovels, but I’m getting some recognition for my short fiction, and I’d like to spend time to build on that.

What is your favourite icecream?

Strawberry.

Thanks for taking time out to answer these questions, and we’re looking forward to Ack-Ack Macaque in a forthcoming Interzone.

See a 2007 interview with Gareth Lyn Powell.

Trudi Canavan broke onto the fantasy scene with the Black Magician Trilogy’s first book, The Magician’s Guild, which was well received, followed by The Novice and The High Lord. She has recently completed the Priestess of The White.

Back in 2001, as The Magician’s Guild was being released, did you expect such praise and utimately for it to sell so well?

Everyone hopes their work will sell well, but few expect it. It surprised me that it sold at all, and then the degree of surprise I felt kept getting greater. I was surprised by the success in Australia, then astonished by how well it did in the UK.

Prior to completing The Magician’s Guild, did you have the continuation of the story in mind, or did that come later?

I worked and reworked that trilogy so many times over so many years that by the time I was nearly finished I was sure I didn’t want to write anything further in the same world with those characters again. But as I came close to finishing the last polish of The High Lord a sequel idea began to form. It didn’t have an ending, however, and I was content to work on another story and world and let the idea develop in the back of my mind. By the time I neared the end of writing the Age of the Five I knew I was ready to return to the world of Kyralia, and by then another idea – for a prequel – had also come to me.

I first caught sight of The Black Magician Trilogy in 2005 in a bookshop; it was the simplistic, yet eye catching front covers which originally drew me to them. This design, as I understand it, was not the original. Which do you prefer?

I like each of the three cover designs for different reasons. The graphic designer in me loves the UK design for it’s striking customer-attracting simplicity. The writer in me loves the Australian covers, because I worked closely with the artist to get the details as accurate as possible. The artist in me loves the US covers for the sheer skill in the illustrations (even while the author in me shakes her head at the flying horse on The Novice).

Was there a commercial reason for changing the covers, for example, different covers for different countries?

That’s exactly it. The three publishing companies know their own markets best, and commission covers accordingly.

When was the idea and storyline for the Trilogy originally conceived?

1992 – just before the Barcelona Olympics. I’d seen a late-night news report about the homeless being rounded up and trucked out of the city so they wouldn’t make the city look untidy. That night I dreamed the first chapter of The Magicians Guild. Generally dreams don’t make good stories, but I wrote it down anyway, and later other scenes and ideas came along to turn it into a larger story.

Inspiration can come from anywhere; was there anything specific you were inspired by for The Black Magician Trilogy?

Oops, I just answered that.

How difficult was it to first get published?

It took quite a few years. The first publisher I sent the Black Magician Trilogy to never replied – not even a rejection. The next held onto it for two years until I gave up and withdrew it. At this point I would have been happy to receive rejection letters! By the time the trilogy found a publisher it had been on editors’ desks for about five years.

Do you have a few quick tips for aspiring authors?

Read a lot. Write a lot. You have to be writing for the love of it, because most writers don’t make much money. Find out as much as you can about how the publishing and bookselling industry works, and you will not only understand and therefore be able to work within the limitations of it, but editors, publishers and booksellers love it when you show interest and understand the difficulties they face.

Could you tell us a bit about what you are currently working on?

At the moment I’ve given myself six months ‘long service leave’. Unfortunately, the four months I’ve taken so far have been mostly filled with writing-related work – fanmail, the website, conventions, publicity, etc. and I really don’t feel as if I’ve had much rest at all. I’d really like to write some more short stories, and polish up a novella I wrote years ago, but I still haven’t found the time.

I am not aware of any short stories which you have written; did you go straight into publishing novels, as opposed to publishing short stories first?

I’ve had two short stories published: Whispers of the Mist Children in Aurealis magazine and Room for Improvement in an anthology called Forever Shores, and they both won awards. They’re probably only available in Australia, but if you wanted to read them badly enough there are several Australian sf bookshops willing to ship copies overseas.

As an action fantasy story, The Black Magician Trilogy has the promise of transferring to the big screen - lavish scenery with a twisting plot and believable characters; have films rights been looked at regarding any of your books?

I have a film agent, but there have been no offers so far. I’m staying realistic about the chances. Most fantasy turned into films is either a classic (Lord of the Rings) or a children’s book (Harry Potter) or both (Narnia). In fact, while a film would be great I think an anime series might work better.

You’ve been painting since you could pick up a paintbrush; do you see similarities in painting on a canvas, with writing on a page?

There are similarities – too many to list here - but also some aspects that don’t translate from one to the other. I’ve turned both into work at one time or other. The main difference is that a painting is relatively static. It is a snapshot, even if it contains some narrative aspects. A story evolves and travels.

What medium do you prefer to work with, in terms of your artwork?

Oils are my favourite medium. I just love the buttery texture.

What is your favourite icecream?

Actually… I don’t like icecream all that much! But if I do have a bit I’ll go for a small bit of something luxurious like cookies and cream. Chocolate is my preferred treat.

Thank you for your time Trudi. We’re looking forward to seeing Sonea again in The Traitor Spy Trilogy.

I believe that Blood Music was originally a short story which was expanded into a novel and, in turn, was your first major break through. Where do you get your ideas from, in terms of the science side, and also the characterisation?

GB: Ideas come from all over–we swim in them. Characters are partly from inner voices, mostly from observing other people with critical affection. The idea for Blood Music was originally sparked by an article on biochips in a 1982 issue of New Scientist. That led to a cascade of thoughts, and the conclusion that DNA must be in some sense computational–a fairly radical idea at the time, old hat today. Blood Music as a short story won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards in 1984, and my novella, Hardfought, one a Nebula that year as well.

Could you tell us a bit about who influences your work and have they changed over time?

GB: That’s a book-length essay in itself! Not at all answerable in the length of this interview. I read widely– nonfiction, journals, and fiction–watch lots of movies, a fair amount of the very best television (plus news on all the news channels) and even play a few games now and then on the computer. Every novel, as I write, I refer to one or more exemplars–novels that I really admire. They give me the energy to keep plowing on, whatever mood I may be in day to day.

The Forge Of God and Anvil Of Stars, The Movies: Do you have any upto date news on these?

GB: Warner Bros. still has them under option. No news at the moment.

How did this movie project come about?

GB: My Los Angeles agent and partner, Vince Gerardis at Created By, worked with screenwriter Ken Nolan, who produced a scriptment–a condensed screenplay in treatment form. That sold the project within a week of its being shown to Warner Brothers. That was almost four years ago, now!

What were/are your feelings on having something you’ve penned potentially translated to the screen?

GB: I’ll let you know when it actually happens!

Do you read any scifi/fantasy magazines/periodical? - I know that authors, sometimes, shy away from reading too much of their own genre for various reasons?

GB: I try to keep up with current sf, and am saddened by the difficulties faced by many of our best magazines. Short fiction is still a terrific way to launch a career. That venue seems increasingly under threat–but thankfully, there are still brave publishers, editors, and writers continuing the tradition.

Who are your favourite authors and why?

GB: A long list.

What is your favourite film and why?

GB: Another long list!

What was the last book you read, what did you think of it?
Where do you write?

GB: I have stacks of books everywhere in various stages of being read. At the moment, I’m moving rapidly through the Fagles and the Chapman translations of the Iliad–also, The Sotweed Factor by John Barth. I usually write in a separate office near our home.

Are you working on a novel/story at the moment? If so, could you share something about them to us?

GB: I’m in the last third of a rough draft of City At The End Of Time, set in both contemporary Seattle and in the last city on Earth, a hundred trillion years in the future. Lots of history to catch up on!

What is your favourite icecream?

GB: Vanilla.

Thanks very much Greg for your time in answering these questions.

Q. In Blue Nights in Atlantis you are saying that modern man was created by a race from another planet who came here during man’s infancy, is that right?

A. Basically, yes, although I’m not necessarily saying they’re from another planet. I am saying they’re far more advanced than us. So much so that the Greeks and the Romans called them gods. Even the Aztecs and the Mayans had legends of gods who came down from the sky to teach them how to plant and how to live.

Q. In the book, you have modern man living side by side with ape-like beings.

A. Yes, Neanderthal did live at the same time as Cro-Magnon or modern man for a time. Some say they may have inter-bred but Cro-Magnon is said to have won out and eventually replaced Neanderthal. The mystery is, what happened to create that sudden jump in evolution. They’re still looking for the missing link.

Q. But you say the evolutionary jump was arranged by these beings?

A. In the book, I say that, yes. There is some genetic engineering going on.

Q. Where does Atlantis figure in all this?

A. Atlantis is a legend about an advanced civilization that preceded Egypt. It’s interesting to note that Egypt started out at its peak and declined as opposed to most other civilizations that build up to a golden age and then decline. But if Egypt was the remnant of Atlantis that would be perfectly logical. And it would have declined because it no longer had Atlantis to supply it.

Q. How did you come up with a concept like this?

A. It’s not a new concept. Erich von Daniken talked about ancient astronauts in his groundbreaking book Chariots of the Gods. All I did was to put it into fictional form. But even that is not new. Arthur C. Clark made a similar statement years ago in 2001: A Space Odyssey. So did other writers.

Q. So, where can someone pick up a copy of Blue Nights in Atlantis?

A. Any bookstore can order it or you can get it online in places like Barnes & Noble. I also have a Web site in the connections section of Amazon.com

Interview courtesy of Totally360.com / News0r.com and waytoblue.com

1) Hi Tim, it was great meeting with you during the European leg of 3D Realms/Human Head Studios press trip; from what the press has seen of Prey so far, what is the overall impression members of the press have walked away with?

Overall the press response we’ve received has been tremendous. Usually press play things pretty close to the vest when showing a game, but every time we demo Prey fro the press, we get lots of responses during and afterwards. During our recent multiplayer demonstrations, there were many instances where we had to pretty much kill the servers to get them to stop playing for the next group, and even then we’d have to intervene in a few cases to get the journalists moving on. That’s pretty high praise and humbling to us.

2) Can you tell us how the whole concept of Prey came about? And is Prey the longest game ever to be in development?

First off, I’ve seen several articles claiming that we’ve been working on the game for ten years, and that’s not really true. 3D Realms had been working on Prey during the late 1990s but shelved it in 1998. When Human Head began production late in 2001 we were working pretty much from a clean slate, so you can’t really say that the game we’re about to release is the same game as was begun a decade ago. Though they share the same name and some of the original features you can’t really say they are the same game or that it was one continuous production.

That said, I think 3D Realms other game, Duke Nukem Forever, is probably the longest game in continuous development in the history of video games, and Prey is probably not far behind.

3) We played the multiplayer aspect of Prey for as much as we could during the European press presentation and we’re blown away with the amount of fun that can be had with Prey’s multiplayer - how did 3D Realms/Human Head Studios define such a unique aspect of LAN/online play?

Our multiplayer was a gamble of sorts. Despite the amount of time we’ve worked on the game, our resources aren’t limitless, so we made the calculated decision to concentrate on DeathMatch as the primary mode of play from multiplayer, but to really do it right by bringing each of the single player features into multiplayer and focus on designing fun environments in which to play them.

I was honestly quite sceptical that even a killer DeathMatch experience would be enough to make our multiplayer catch the eyes of jaded gamers. I was concerned that with all the innovative elements we were concentrating on for single player that the multiplayer would just seem like a tacked on experience. I’m happy to say I was quite wrong in that. By concentrating on playing to the strengths of our single player features in multiplayer we ended up with an experience that really seems to reinvigorate the DeathMatch game. Several of the testers and press who have played told me that it ‘makes DeathMatch fun again’ and one journalist even told me that it reawakened something he hadn’t felt since he played the original Doom multiplayer. That’s high praise to me.

4) How many weapons are available to players? And are these weapons upgradeable during the single player game?

Technically we have 8 weapons in Prey, though the final weapon, the Leech Gun has four completely different fire modes based on how you choose to power it up, so it’s really 4 completely different weapons in one. None of the weapons ‘power up’ but most feature an alternate fire mode and almost all have some kind of bio-organic component to them. Each of the weapons has its own unique feel to them and you need to learn the best way to use them in each situation.

We’ve worked hard to balance them, so you can win with most weapons, including the wrench (though admittedly you have to get in close with that one, which isn’t so easy).

5) 3D Realms/Human Head Studios, your company is renowned for having a release date for a game of “when it’s done” will we see Prey before the British Summer?

3D Realms are the kings of ‘when it’s done’ and part of working with them is understanding what that really means. Therefore all I can say is that the game is nearly done and we’re working hard on making sure you have something to do on those summer days when it rains, and something to make you really long to do when on those days it doesn’t.

6) Once Prey is released, will Prey have downloadable content via Xbox Live? If so, will this include new maps and new game modes?

Absolutely we’ll have downloadable content. The extent of it really depends on how the game does, but we have plans to support the game with new characters, maps, skins and more. If the game does well, we definitely want to add new multiplayer modes.

7) Is it easy to program on the Xbox 360, compared to the PC or PS3? And which is your preferred platform to work with/on?

This generation of consoles really does make you stop and think about the best way to approach programming. It reminds me in some ways of the evolution from 16-bit to true 32-bit object oriented programming in terms of how you need to change old habits about code. So I guess in summary I’d say it’s not necessarily easier or harder, just different.

8) Would it be fair to say, if you had the Doom 3 engine and mixed it up with a modified Unreal 2 Engine you would get something similar to Prey?

If you did that you’d have a mess. ? We’ve worked in both engines and they are quite different in most approaches. Doom3 really compares more favourably with the Unreal 3 engine in terms of how it goes about things, but even then they are different animals. Both engines have their strengths and weaknesses in terms of tools, content creation and feature additions. However, we feel we took the best experiences we had developing in each engine and came up with something uniquely our own.

9) We noticed from early builds of Prey; that there was an option for ‘mods’ to be created/upload into the PC version of Prey - could this be reflected within the Xbox 360 version? And/or will there be a Map Editor?

Yes, we’re releasing the sdk and editor (Preditor) for Prey PC and will be actively supporting the mod community. However, to really make mod materials, you’d need a full keyboard and mouse set up, so the majority of the mods are developed for PC.

However, we’ve discussed the concept with 2K that we’d like to promote mods for the 360 community by selecting high end mods and sponsoring their conversion for the 360 and they were really receptive to that. There’s a fair number of details to work out before we can commit to that, but if we can make it happen, we really want to. We feel that promoting mods on Live would really expand the console gamer experience.

10) Would you like to take the opportunity to reveal any exclusive details on Prey and your upcoming titles? And finally what are your thoughts on Xbox Live Tournaments?

There will be a demo on PC and 360, though dates have not yet been confirmed. We’ve not announced our next game yet, but the reaction to Prey had led to some very unique opportunities for us. We would love to see Xbox Live Tournaments for Prey and support them in general. I’d like to have a nice spectator lounge, though, with cocktails. ?

Thanks for taking the time out to chat with us today Tim; we wish you every success with Prey!

Thank you. We hope that our efforts will find a home with the gaming community at large. We’ve worked hard to create something unique and entertaining and we hope that gamers judge us successful in those goals.

An Interview With Christopher Priest: 3 July 2006

My top two favourites are A Dream Of Wessex and The Affirmation; which novel are you most proud of and why?

“Proud” is the wrong word for most things to do with me. For my books, I mostly feel a sense of relief at having been able to start something, keep it going for a year or two, then finish it. Also, as a lot of people have pointed out, books are a bit like children, insofar as you have feelings about them. You often have an irrational love for the one with the spotty face, etc., and in any event feel differently about them all because they represent different aspects of your life, different periods. I’m fond of Indoctrinaire, e.g., because it was my first one, but its face seems increasingly spotty with age.
The ones I like best are:
Inverted World, because it’s the closest I’ll ever come to writing a trad sf novel. Also, because it has opened so many doors for me. It’s not well known or well liked in English (especially in the USA, where it did badly), but in translation it has been a great hit. This is especially true in France, where I have dined out on it for years.
The Affirmation, because it was the first novel I wrote that I felt came out the way I wanted it to. It was also, for me, an experiment in a new kind of plotting, which I’ve been developing ever since. I think the last dozen pages or so are amongst the best bits of me.
The Prestige, because it has a great and devious plot. Buggered if I know now how I worked it out, but there you are.
The Separation, because it’s the closest to the most “achieved” novel. It’s well-rounded, serious, complicated and is a pure but neglected form of sf.

I came across the The Last Deadloss Visions (AKA The Book On The Edge Of Forever) purely by accident when I was searching for a full list of your novels. What gave you the idea for writing the essay? Do you think the book ever be released?

Who cares, any more? Everything’s out of date now. Most of the writers are dead. Even Harlan Ellison has put on a lot of saggy bits himself recently, and doesn’t look long for this world. He should have put his anthology on a multi-media CD or DVD when I advised him to, a decade and a half ago, but the chance is gone now. He’s lost the copyright to most of the stories.
The idea came not as Ellison claims (a hideous revenge for him rejecting one of my stories — because he never did), but because for a while back in the 1970s I was writing a mild form of literary investigative journalism for one of the left-wing magazines here. I enjoyed doing that, but the subjects were dull: the Arts Council literature funding policy, etc. Afterwards, I thought it would be fun to deploy the same journalistic techniques on something a bit more interesting. I was still casting around for ideas when I saw one of Ellison’s letters in an American fanzine, promising untruthfully for the umpteenth time that he had just delivered The Last Dangerous Visions. It took me less than half a second to realize I had found the subject I was looking for. The story has everything, and practically wrote itself: Ellison’s boastfulness, incompetence, emotional blackmail, laziness, threats, bullying, self-satisfaction … and his habit of uttering one provable lie after another. It was not intended as a personal attack: I’ve never met the great man and know little about him, other than what he has said himself. But as well as being someone who tries to lie his way out of every difficulty, he apparently cannot believe that objective criticism of him could be anything other than spiteful or malicious. By his own lights does he seem to see the world around him.

[NB to copy-editor, proofreader, etc: “provable”, not “probable”]

With The Prestige movie being shot, did you have creative input into the screenplay adaptation?

Well yes, if you count writing the novel, without which the film would never have been made. Apart from that, no. The draft I read a few years ago was by Jonathan Nolan (brother of the director, Christopher Nolan), and it struck me as being an expert variation on the novel. The version of the screenplay I read had a few passages of weak expository dialogue (which I’m certain would have been cleaned up during Chris Nolan’s rewrites), and a rather chaotic ending (probably that too). It’s not the whole book — all the modern-day stuff has been lost. A lot of events have been compressed, and some of the characters combined too, but the two essential elements of the novel — obsessive secrecy and obsessive curiosity — are still there. I’m looking forward to it.

What are your views on having one of your novels made into a movie?

So far, it has all been a bit of an anticlimax. Life goes on as before. I wrote the novel more than 12 years ago, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since. I haven’t lost interest in the novel by any means, but you have to see these things in context.

Have you seen any promo clips of it yet?

No.

Were you asked to play a cameo in The Prestige, so that the theme of the self referential aspects of your novels gets carried over to movie (the author of the novel appears in his own work)?

No.

Are you currently working on a new novel?

Yes.

If you had a choice, which novel/story of yours would you like to see a director tackle? (Personally, I’d like to see The Affirmation filmified, the director would weep.) Seriously though, I think the dream like world of the Archipelago would be a beautiful and mysterious setting for a film.

Those are the two books of mine that I think would, as you say, present a substantial challenge to any director, of Nolan’s stature or not. They would also create a new kind of filming ethic that would shake up people’s ideas a bit. But these things are not up to me.

Real ale or lager or neither? If neither, then what?

If I drink beer I generally prefer light fizzy stuff that comes in green bottles with foreign-seeming words on the labels. But I don’t drink a lot of beer.

If you hadn’t become a writer, what do you think you would have been professionally? (maybe you are, in another reality).

I was supposed to become an accountant, but I was so useless at it, so loathed the work, and was so loathed by real accountants, that I gave it up while I was still in my teens. After that, I kind of drifted until I started selling fiction. George Bernard Shaw once said that to him writing tasted like water … with which I
can only concur. I’ve done it for so long, to the exclusion of everything else, that I can’t imagine what else I could do or be.

What’s your favourite icecream?

Häagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate chip. A double portion, please.

Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to answer these questions Chris.

Thanks so much for coming along to the screening – glad you liked the mini-movie and got our anarchic Q&A fun afterwards. Especially enjoyed the Commodore 64 comment: I do indeed own my original fully functioning C=64 and those front titles were my little tribute to it… as well as setting the whole computer game tone that runs through. The reaction to the short has been amazing, and I’ve been crazy busy setting up feature film projects off the back of the buzz that the short has created. I wanted to find some time to go through your questions properly, which I’ve enjoyed doing.

Who were the people (from left to right) who were in the QA/Interview?

(from left to right) Adnana Isratescu (actress), Niko Nicatera (actor), Stephen Harvey (publicist), Mark Davis (writer/dirctor), Luke Toulson (curzon soho host).

Toulson and Harvey are a brilliant comedy duo we are working with, who were shortliste