Last week we showed you the first part of this interview, in which Helen Lowe interviewed Ian Irvine about the publication of his brand new epic fantasy series, The Tainted Realm. This week the tables have turned! Click through to the interview to read more . . .
Ian: I haven’t done an interview swap with another author before, and it’s been a challenging experience to be put on the spot by Helen Lowe, who also writes epic fantasy and loves it as much as I do. But now I get to ask her the hard questions!
‘This is one of the great ironies of contemporary literature: the books that ask the deepest and most profound questions tend to be situated in the most marginalised of genres . . . Ken MacLeod’s The Restoration Game, like his previous novels The Execution Channeland The Night Sessions, are works of science fiction so worryingly close to reality that he may well be hailed as a prophet . . .’
So says Scotland on Sunday and I’m hardly inclined to argue. As you can see, Ken MacLeod‘s latest novel, The Restoration Game, published earlier this month, is already garnering high praise from the critics:
As ever, MacLeod’s grasp of political intrigue is first rate, and in Lucy he’s created a complex heroine forever in doubt as to the true nature of events’ Guardian
This is a writer at the peak of his powers’ SFX
Hear! Hear! And to celebrate publication, we are delighted to present this small but perfectly formed interview that Ken did on a recent trip to Orbit Towers.
What, exactly, is the hitherto undisclosed secret of Ken MacLeod? Watch closely and learn. The answer may shock you . . .
The official Iain (M.) Banks website has been re-launched at www.iain-banks.net. Check it out for all the news and reviews, along with some very interesting contests coming up…
“Thunderbirds gave me a love of big explosions I’ve yet to shake off. It’s kind of ingrained by now. Almost the first thing I think of when I’ve come up with an idea for a Really Big Artifact is how you could blow the living bijeesus out of it…”
Matter is Banks in top form. His characters—whether human, alien or drone—are spiky, opinionated, diverse, occasionally short-sighted and tragically believable
Matter is available from Orbit in the US and the UK.
The Ashes of Worlds will be published in the US in July 2008, following the mass market publication of Metal Swarm (book 6 in the series) in June 2008.
- - April 17th, 2012
