Below you'll see a selection of ROBIN HOBB book covers

Dear Robin, many, many thanks for taking a few minutes out of your schedule to write for Gateway. I just finished FOREST MAGE and immediately chose it as my FANTASY/SF Book of the Month for August. Here are a few questions for you:

GM: Nevare is, in my opinion, one of your strongest ever characters, in the sense that he has to spend the whole of FOREST MAGE as more or less an object of ridicule, not what we’ve come to expect of an epic fantasy hero. Without giving anything away, does life become easier (or harder) for Nevare in the next volume?

RH:  Life becoming easier for the hero in the third volume of a trilogy?  I’m not sure many readers would find that interesting to read.  Of course, Nevare must confront and conquer his own difficulties as well as attempt to solve some of the dilemmas facing his world before he can think about looking for a happy ending.  I mean, after all, think about the next month of your life.  Do you anticipate that it will become easier for you? At what point do you expect to say, “I am now living happily ever after”?   My personal experience is that my problems go away only when I’ve laboured long and hard to fix them, or when something so much more disastrous befalls me that I can look at the leaking seal on the toilet and say, “Well, that wasn’t as big of a disaster as I thought.  I wish that were my only problem instead of my cat attacking my neighbour.” I do wish to assure the reader that I’m not planning to end the trilogy with an asteroid striking the earth (though that would put Nevare’s problems in a different perspective!)

GM: The Speck are a truly fascinating people. It seems to me that you’ve drawn a parallel with the old West and the plains Indians, how they were reviled by some settlers. Was this deliberate on your part, and is it the case that you see this series as your opportunity to cover this period of American history in the guise of epic fantasy?

RH: Um, well, actually, I did everything I could to divorce them from comparisons to Native American peoples, but don’t feel awkward about making that assumption.  I think it’s the word ‘cavalry.’  The second I say it, people seem to think about ‘cowboys and Indians’.  Even changing the word to cavalla didn’t seem to help much.  As far as I know, there were no native Americans who were nomadic folk with flocks before Europeans came to the Americas.  And the style of dress and weaponry is not right for Native Americans either.  I wanted to set up a conflict between a more ‘civilized’ science-based society and a more ‘primitive’ nomadic, magic-based technology society.  But many, many readers do assume that I’m trying to mirror the American West. I think a lot of it comes down to what the reader brings to the story.  I’m starting to accept that each book is different for each reader, for each reader sees it through his own lens.

GM: Do you tend to complete one series before embarking on another? The reason I ask this is because I am in the process of interviewing Bernard Cornwell, who has not only LORDS OF THE NORTH, the third in his “Wessex” trilogy, out this summer, but also another SHARPE novel later in the year. Can you think about ideas for a new series whilst you’re working on the adventures of Nevare, for example?

RH: The trouble with writing a book is that the ‘next book’ always looks not only more interesting to write, but much easier than the book one is currently labouring on.  So ideas for novels, trilogies, short stories, essays and epic poems come and throw rocks at my windows the whole time that I’m trying to write whatever I’m trying to write.  The solution is to have extra files on my computer.  It’s rather like popping a Bell jar over an interesting bug.  I seize the pestering idea with a firm grip on the nape of its neck and escort it off my desk top and into its own file.   A click of the ‘save and close’ button, and it’s under control.  Best of all, from time to time, I can open the file and drop in bits of other stray ideas that might adhere to it.  Eventually, I have enough stuff in the file to dump it out, sort through it, and assemble a story or a novel from the pieces.

GM: I also got the impression of one or two scenes from GONE WITH THE WIND in Forest Mage, not only the attitude of Nevare’s father, but also the scenes of Atlanta ravaged by fire and trampled to oblivion by Confederate and Yankee soldiers. Is GONE WITH THE WIND one of your favourite films, or am I wrong in thinking there are parallels between it and FOREST MAGE?

RH: Years ago, in Kodiak, I had the opportunity to see GONE WITH THE WIND on the big screen.  I think that is the only time that I’ve seen the entire movie.  I’ve read and enjoyed the book a couple of times.  It does a wonderful job of characterization.  As far as connections between the movie and my books, there are no intentional ones.  However, I think that very often, ingredients are stirred around in the back of a writer’s brain, and then are expressed in the book or story in a way that the writer is blissfully unconscious of. 

GM: Are you working on the third Nevare book right now or are you taking a break through the summer months? Do you work to tight deadlines or, as the best-selling hardback fantasy author in Harper Collins list; do you have a certain amount of freedom in that respect? Don’t forget there is an army of fans waiting to find out how Nevare fares in the next book, so don’t relax for too long, if indeed you are!

RH: Oh, definitely pitch that idea to my editors, that I should take a lengthy break between books!  Actually, they are not the ones who would chase me with a chain saw if I attempted it; the readers are the really bloodthirsty people who push me to meet those deadlines. 

I was horribly, horribly late with Forest Mage.  My life went through a substantial and personal upheaval, and I fell behind on my writing. The only reason that it was published on time is because of the dedication of my editor and the editorial staff at HarperCollins. When a writer is late, it throws the whole publishing mechanism into chaos, and editors have to give up sleep, coffee breaks and having lives (not that editors get to have lives much—all writers secretly suspect it is unhealthy for editors to have lives) in order to close up the gaps and get the book out there on time.

So, yes, I am working very hard on finishing up Renegade’s Magic right now.  I work on it daily, Sundays included.  My writing day goes from 6:30 in the morning until 11 at night. I’m not at my keyboard for all those hours, of course.  A lot of writing is accomplished while I’m sorting the laundry or pulling weeds, because a lot of writing has to happen in the writer’s head before it can be put on the paper.  Just because I’m not typing doesn’t mean I’m not writing.

And I’ve promised my editors that This Time I will try extremely hard to be on schedule.  Despite being a guest at World Fantasy Convention in November, and planning a visit to France in September.  I’ll take my laptop with me and try to hammer out pages there as well.

GM: I have to confess that although I’m a great fan of fantasy and SF, I have to get through thirty or so books each month for Gateway reviews. SHAMAN’S CROSSING was the first novel by you I’ve ever read, and as you know, it made an immediate impression on me. I will get to read your other books in time, of course, but I’d be interested to know if you have a favourite series, one you’d be able to look back on and say to yourself “that’s my best work”. Obviously, for me, the latest book and its predecessor take that prize, but I’d love to know if you feel the same way.

RH:  I don’t think I could really pick a favourite book or trilogy out of my work. Some stand out for various reasons.  I’m very fond of Assassin’s Apprentice, because that was where I first met Fitz and the Fool, and they are characters I really love. Among my Lindholm books, I love Wizard of the Pigeons because I had so much fun researching Seattle for the book.  Writing The Gypsy with Steven Brust was a great writing pleasure. But in truth I’ve both loved and hated every book I’ve ever written.  If I didn’t hate them, it would mean I didn’t do the hard work on them, and if I didn’t love them, I’d never write another book.

GM: I read somewhere that you wish you could write all the books in a series then release them simultaneously – that holds true for most of your fans, of course. I remember reading the first DARK TOWER book by Stephen King thirty odd years ago – here we are and the last book was published just last year – what a wait! It’s certainly sometimes a little frustrating from a reader’s point of view to find an author only to find it’s the first in a series which hasn’t been completed – do you get lots of fanmail nagging you about when the next book will appear? Please don’t think I’m nagging you! I’m happy to wait, but probably only because I have so many books coming my way!

RH:  I think it’s hard for a writer to labour on the book for a year, and then get an e-mail that says, “I read your book in 6 hours yesterday and really loved it. When does the next one come out?”  Actually, that’s a really wonderful letter to get, too.  My comment about wanting to write the whole trilogy before volume one is published isn’t really about pleasing the readers, however.  It’s more about opportunities lost.  Somewhere towards the end of book two, I often think, “Oh, it would be really great if such-and-such happened just now-----but I didn’t set that up in book one.”  Or I wish I hadn’t said something like, “It was impossible to use that pass in the winter,” because I suddenly want my character to be able to travel quickly through that pass.  Being able to write all three volumes would help me eliminate contradictions and also go back and paint in more foreshadowing and irony—all the fun stuff.

Book series can take a long time to complete, regardless of the author’s initial intention.  Here’s an odd thought I had the other day.  Consider Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.  There are readers out there who started reading that as kids, who have been married, divorced and possibly remarried in that length of time.  In other words, their relationships with those characters have lasted longer than their ‘real life’ relationships.  Isn’t that strange to think about?  For some writers that’s true, too.  I spent over a decade with one of the Farseer characters. 

GM: A book a year for the last fifteen years is something I also read recently. Any idea of the total word count so far? And how far ahead are you in terms of having books ready to go to the publishers? I’m again thinking of Stephen King – in some of his books he writes about authors, and suggests that they have a box of manuscripts in the attic from which they might select one if their publishers want something in a hurry – it might be a book they finished several years ago but never got round to submitting. Do you have such a box in your attic?

RH: The unpublished books in my attic are staying right there. Every writer probably has a ‘trunk novel’, a first (or second or third) effort that never quite succeeded. They are unpublished for a reason. They are books that don’t work.  So I don’t have anything that I can pull out of the closet in an emergency. 

I also can’t write to order like some authors can. Sometimes I’m invited to write a story for a Cat anthology or an anthology of teen heroes or something like that.  But I can’t just sit down and write a story of the proper length with the proper topic. It only works for me if I happen to have a story idea in my story file that fits the requirement.

Right now, with my life the way it is, I’m doing good to keep up with one book a year.  I have all these story ideas clamouring to be written, and no time to write them just now. I’ve had to really decide to focus on the book, do one thing and do it well, and trust that there will be time for those other stories later.  It’s hard.  Writing one big book a year is a real career choice when I could write two shorter books and a batch of short stories.

GM: You’re on record as saying how much you dislike “fan fiction”. What do you say to people who’ve read all of the novels by the great Edgar Rice Burroughs, and want more of the same? I agree that writing original characters and plots is far more satisfying, but surely you would agree that there is a market for this stuff? Of course, without the WWW, there simply wouldn’t be fan fiction, or at least, only in amateur fan magazines. It must be irksome to find people using your characters, of course, and I do sympathise. I personally think fan fiction should maybe be confined to authors who are no longer with us. Having said that, you will find Indiana Jones and Harry Potter fiction in Gateway, and I do think it fills a gap, but I can see where you’re coming from. On the other hand, it must also be an enormous compliment to you, in a way.

RH: A lot of people have read my Fan Fiction Rant.  Unfortunately, they’ve taken it out of context.  It’s been shaken in fan fiction sites like a red flag in a corral full of bulls.  If you go to my site, and access the Rant via the attic door and the mad woman there, you’re more likely to ‘get it’. 

That said, I’ll still repeat myself.  I don’t like fan fiction.  I think it crimps young writers with a mindset that Famous Writer’s characters and settings are better than your own.  So instead of learning their trade and writing the stories that only they can write, and can write only when they are fifteen or twenty-two or whatever, they are grinding out fan fiction.  For me to say that fan fiction is a great compliment or will boost my sales strikes me as exploitive of those young writers.  I don’t want them attempting to write my stuff when they should be doing their own stories.  Some stories really inspire the reader, but it should inspire him to write his own tales.  George RR Martin and I are both huge fans of Rudyard Kipling.  I think that shows in our work, but not in a derivative way (I hope!)  You mentioned Indiana Jones.  I’m willing to bet that somewhere in his genealogy, there’s a bit of Allan Quartermain ( H Rider Haggard. Try She for a great book.)

You also mentioned Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I love Tarzan and Thuvia, Maid of Mars as much as anyone does.  But it’s Burroughs’ Tarzan that I love, not imitations of him.  If I want to read Tarzan, I’ll read Edgar Rice Burroughs.  If I want a hamburger, I eat a hamburger, not a tofu-burger.  (There is nothing wrong with tofu-burgers.  They don’t have to pretend to be hamburgers or try to taste like hamburgers.)  Oh, yes, ‘there’s a market for this stuff.’   If I chose, I could exploit it myself. I could be commercial and cynical and keep cranking out Farseer stories until the cows come home, and some readers would keep buying them. I’d be writing fan fiction of my own work. Nothing original, just more of the same with a different sauce.  I think that’s called pandering.  Other readers would instantly know what I was doing and despise me for whoring out the characters.

There comes a time when readers or viewers should say, “Well, that was a great read. (or movie)  Now what else is out there.”?  We all know that we shouldn’t eat only lasagne or hot dogs, no matter how much we like them.  When the lasagne is gone, have a salad.  Close the Tarzan book, put it on the shelf and take down the Jungle Book for a wildly different take on the ‘boy adopted and raised by wild animals’ theme.  Or read H. Rider Haggard’s She instead.  Even better, take your own life, chop, drop in a blender with the inspiration from the Tarzan books, add some generous research, blend well and pour out something of your own.

GM: What sort of fiction do you read when you’re relaxing? Maybe you don’t read fiction…. Do you ever get inspired by other authors? Not to the point of plagiarism, of course, just a kernel of an idea?

RH: One of the toughest parts about writing full time is that it eats up so much of your reading time.  I recall with longing the 5 paperback weekends of my youth.  Gone forever.  However, recently I’ve discovered that I really enjoy audio books, and that has restored some of my lost reading time to me. The fiction I read is most often fantasy or mystery.  I love my genres.  Best book I’ve read lately is Appaloosa by Robert Parker.  He usually writes mysteries, and I love his Spenser books. But Appaloosa could be classified as a Western, at least in a shallow sort of way.  I think it’s a great book about men and I highly recommend it.  What else have I read so far this year?  Temaraire by Naomi Novik—the Napoleonic wars with some dragons stirred in.  Lovely.  In non-fiction, I’ve been re-reading parts of The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz, an account of an escape from a Soviet labor camp.  Do I get inspired by other writers?  Of course, and by other artists in all sorts of media.  I saw Mirror Mask and came away from that just charged up with energy.  A good play can get me going, too.  It isn’t the specific material that inspires me; it’s more like some work of art or literature makes me suddenly feel something intensely and I think, “I want to write something that will make people feel that strongly.”

GM: Some people think that LORD OF THE RINGS is the “original” epic fantasy. In some ways I agree, in other ways I think the genre probably started way back with people like ROBERT E HOWARD. Was it LORD OF THE RINGS THAT inspired you to start writing epic fantasy? I notice that some of your “pets’” names were inspired by fantasy – I’m thinking of Frodo and Loki, of course.

RH: Fantasy has always been with us.  I think the unique thing The Lord of the Rings did for us was to make us see that it could be written for the contemporary reader, that it could be immense in scope, that it could take itself very seriously and that it could ask us The Big Questions.  None of the other ‘fantasy’ I’d read prior to The Lord of the Rings hit me the way that it did. It definitely set something into motion in me. And when I feel worn out, I can always go back to it and discover something new and wonderful in it.

GM: What type of literature did you read as a child? Do you still have any of those books in your collection?

RH:I read everything.  I was voracious.  And of course I still have many, many of those books in my home.  Sometimes it’s the exact book or an identical volume if the exact one has fallen apart.  I loved my father’s old fairy tale books. They were lavished illustrated by artists like Kay Nielsen and Edmund Dulac.  And our copies of Robin Hood and Treasure Island had the Wyeth illustrations.  I had a wide ranging diet from Dr. Seuss to the Black Stallion books by Walter Farley, lots and lots of Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard. In my early teens, I discovered pulp.  Doc Savage, Tarzan, Conan, etc. I went through a horror phase, and read a lot of short work by authors like Robert Bloch.  Sherlock Holmes.  All the Little House books.  Recently I tracked down a copy of the first fantasy novel I ever read: The Joyous Story of Astrid. 

I never cared for Winnie the Pooh, but I liked the poems.  Didn’t like Nancy Drew or Charles Dickens.  Read a lot of the Oz books.  I wish those volumes hadn’t vanished over the years.

GM: Do you collect all the foreign editions of your books? And do you personally get to approve the cover artwork for the various editions of your books?

RH:  As part of the contract, I usually receive copies of the foreign language editions.  I like to have at least one copy for my archives, and the cover art is always interesting.  Sometimes I have approval on cover art, sometimes not.  For the most part, I’ve received wonderful art on my books.  My take on it is, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.  John Howe does my covers for the UK and Australia. I’ve loved all of them.  The cover for Shaman’s Crossing is great; I’ve actually got that on a T-shirt John sent me. 

GM: Over here we have a radio programme where celebrities choose their eight favourite pieces of music, and they’re allowed to take with them one favourite book when they’re cast away on a desert island. The programme is called DESERT ISLAND DISCS – I’ve checked the list, and you don’t appear to be on it! So I’m going to pinch their idea and ask which five books are your absolute favourites down through the years – in other words, which five books (and authors) couldn’t you do without? I’d be very interested also to know what your favourite pieces of music are, but don’t feel you have to answer that one if you don’t have time! This is a literary magazine, after all!

RH: Oh, we have Desert Island Discs on my favourite radio station, too, but rather than celebrities, regular people can fax or email their list of three, and the DJ’s pick one list to play that evening.  Lots of fun.  Five books.  Well, I’d start out with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  Does that count as one or four? Then I hit the dilemma.  If I had lots of time on my hands, I’d love to have a leisurely re-read of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.  But that’s going to fill up my allotment and I won’t even have the completed work.  So perhaps I could give up on those and just take a couple of my big Kipling omnibuses.  (Yes, I know I’m cheating.)  I think I’d actually want to take some books I’ve never read but always wanted to.  That’s always a gamble, but reading something new and good is always a keen pleasure.

Music?  Again, I’m an omnivore.  Old favourites are important to me.  I’d take some Cat Stevens, Teaser and the Firecat perhaps.  I’d have to have Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.  Loreena McKennit.  Sarah McLachlan (did I spell that right?)  Gordon Lightfoot. Billy Joel.  Lyrics are very important to me.  If I can’t understand what the singer is singing, I’m not caught by the music.  The exception is music in a foreign language. Then the voice seems like an instrument to me. 

GM: Finally, and God forbid! If you weren’t an internationally acclaimed author, what career would you have chosen for yourself? Is there anything you would rather be doing, or are you absolutely content?

RH:  Right now?  Or twenty years ago?  Right now, if I had to stop writing for some reason, I’d put the time and effort into being a grandmother. I’m really enjoying my grandkids.  The second time around, one realizes how quickly the years go by, and how fleeting are the windows of opportunity to pass on information and ideals and values.  I do a lot of grandparenting, and I still have a teenager of my own in the house.  Parenting is very rewarding and fascinating.

(Oh, this is cool  SpellCheck just wanted me to change grandparenting to Grandpa renting.  A whole different career choice.  I visualize a small service that rents out spare Grandpas to needy families.  Hm.) 

If I made the career choice going into college all those years ago, I might have been a mycologist.  Mushrooms fascinate me.  I also like electronics.

I don’t think I’d ever be absolutely content.  There are so many things that I’d like to learn and experience, and there simply isn’t enough time in one lifetime.  So, we pick and choose and pack in as much as we can.

GM: Robin, thank you so much for taking part in this Q&A session. I wish you every success with FOREST MAGE and look forward to the next book in the series.