An Interview With Kevin J. Anderson

by Lynne Jamneck

Kevin J. Anderson has more than 16 million books in print in 30 languages. He has penned many popular Star Wars and X-Files novels, as well as six Dune prequels with Frank Herbert's son Brian. His work has appeared on numerous "Best of the Year" and awards lists. In 1998, he set the Guinness World Record for "Largest Single-Author Book Signing." Recent novels include Scattered Suns and Horizon Storms (in the Seven Suns series), and Frankenstein: Prodigal Son (with Dean Koontz). Anderson has written numerous comics for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Wildstorm, Topps, and IDW. An avid hiker, he dictates his fiction into a recorder while hiking. Anderson is a member of the prestigious Explorers Club, and research for his novels has taken him to the deserts of Morocco, the cloud forests of Ecuador, Inca ruins in the Andes, Maya temples in the Yucatan, the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD complex, NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, a Minuteman III missile silo, the aircraft carrier Nimitz, the Pacific Stock Exchange, a plutonium plant at Los Alamos, and FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. He also, occasionally, stays home and writes...

When you start writing a new book, what comes first: characters, plot -- the simple spark of an idea?

I consider myself primarily a storyteller. I usually start with an idea, some cool scenes in mind, then I develop the plot. As the story starts to come together, then I build the characters who DO the actions. As I get to know the characters, then it becomes clearer what they will do under certain circumstances, and the plot grows and changes.

What are you currently working on?

I have just started writing my half of the chapters for "Dune 7" -- the grand climax to the DUNE saga, based directly on Frank Herbert's last outline. Brian Herbert and I are writing the massive story in two volumes, Hunters Of Dune and Sandworms Of Dune. We're writing both volumes concurrently. And I'm in the final edit of the fifth volume in my "Saga of Seven Suns" series, Of Fire And Night; I'll start book 6 this fall.

And my wife Rebecca Moesta and I have completed the first book in a Young Adult trilogy for Little, Brown, "Crystal Doors." The first volume is called Island Realms and will be out in hardcover in June 2006.

Are there certain genres that are more challenging for you to write? Do you have a preference for writing in a specific milieu?

I'm most comfortable writing the big, sprawling galactic epics. I love having the whole universe as my playground. I read widely in other genres, from historical to mystery to western to suspense. Recently I wrote a novel with Dean Koontz, Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, which was a modern-day suspense, police-procedural novel. I found that to be very hard, because while I know how to terraform a planet or describe a black hole, I didn't know how cops fill out case forms!

Which aspect or elements of writing do you find the most challenging?

The promotion and publicity! No kidding -- I do enjoy book signings and meeting the fans, but for the past six years Brian Herbert and I have gone on exhausting book tours. I'd really rather be writing new novels, but I also want to make sure that I get READERS.

Do you think it's possible for a writer to step completely outside of their characters? To have nothing of themselves in any character they create?

If a writer can't put anything of himself into a character -- even the villains -- then the characters will probably feel flat and uninteresting. I always try to understand the characters, to get into their heads, to comprehend how I would react if I were them. Otherwise the heroes or villains will look cliched.

Have you ever experienced any animosity as a direct result of something you wrote?

The die-hard fans like to argue about different books. When I started writing Star Wars novels, a lot of the discussion boards got into flame wars about whether my books were better or Tim Zahn's. I think many of the most passionate fans have deep desires to write series books themselves, and so they look on any Star Wars (or whatever) author as getting a job they feel *they* should have had. So they look very hard for any sort of flaw.

When Brian Herbert and I began to write the new Dune novels, a group of Dune fans seemed to consider it sacrilege and got very nasty about it. Now, before he died Frank Herbert had asked Brian to write new Dune novels with him (in fact, the very last book Frank wrote was in collaboration with his son). Frank left specific notes and outlines for other Dune stories he intended to tell. I couldn't imagine any more legitimacy than that, but some fans got incensed by the very idea. They posted vicious tirades, then posted 60 one-star reviews on amazon.com before the first novel was even published. Several of them said, "I don't even have to read this book to know how bad it is." Fortunately, after House Atreides was released, we received apology letters from many of those fans.

What's the attraction for you of writing media-tie-in novels? Is it easier or harder to write a story when the characters (such as Star Wars or The X-Files) are already so firmly established in many readers' minds?

First off, I'm a big fan myself. Getting the opportunity to spend time up at Skywalker Ranch, meet with George Lucas, dig through the Lucasfilm archives... that's about as good as it gets for a fan. There's a real thrill and satisfaction in building upon a universe that I already love.

It's easier in a sense that the readers are already familiar with the characters, the scenario, the history. On the other hand, some of the fans know so much about the core property that it's scary (and it makes you be extra careful not to make any mistakes).

The political climate always has an effect on popular culture, positive or negative. How do you think what's currently afoot politically -- worldwide -- is affecting what people read and write?

In my Dune novels with Brian Herbert and my original "Seven Suns" books, I take many opportunities to expand upon scenarios that are very similar to today's events. By displaying something in a science fiction setting, where people don't have any preconceptions and without the editorializing of the news channels, I can maybe make readers look at it from a different perspective.

I see the resurgence in big epic fantasy and science fiction as a sign that readers want books they can sink their teeth into, but they want their stories in a setting far from home, with heroes and grand conflicts.

Should we be worried about the fact that politicians are talking about cloning people? Cloning a sheep is one thing, but cloning humans? Then again...

I really don't see what's the big deal. Even if it's a clone, it will still be a baby, a blank slate, grown inside a woman's womb just like any other baby. I think some of the people who are so vehemently opposed have been watching too much science fiction with embryos in vats and clones awakening with all their creator's memories. That's horse hockey.

My friend Greg Benford wrote an article for (I think) Analog magazine, "I Am a Clone." You see, he and his brothers are identical twins. Genetic duplicates. We all know identical twins -- and they're never exactly the same. Imagine how different "twins" would be if they were separated in age by decades. Personally, I don't see what the point of a clone would be! It wouldn't be the same as the "original" and it wouldn't have any of the memories. So why bother?

Are you seeing any interesting avenues into which the SF genre is expanding?

To me the most interesting change is the "mainstreaming" of science fiction. Only a few decades ago our genre was a really fringe movement. But thanks to Star Wars and Star Trek, all of the tropes are familiar to everyone, even people who don't like science fiction. Now readers are gobbling up Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz, without even realizing how much SF they're reading!

Whatever happened to the Space Program? With the earth rapidly running out of resources -- not to mention the environmental shifts -- should we be making space travel a priority?

I think it's a big no-brainer. If a SF writer had postulated a future in which we went to the Moon several times and then, uh, lost interest, he would have been laughed out of the publishing world! HALF of our fleet of space shuttles has been destroyed, and we haven't even started to build a single new craft. We haven't launched a shuttle since the Columbia disaster. What's going on here?

Tell us something about Kevin Anderson no-one else knows...

But if I tell you, then everybody'll know!

Okay, under certain carefully controlled circumstances (i.e., while wet and miserable in a cold campsite), I actually like Spam...

Is the notion true that it's more difficult for new writers to break into publishing now than it was twenty years ago? Won't the search for originality and good writing always be a constant?

I think the "constant" part is that new writers always complain about how hard it is to break in. It's ALWAYS hard to break in. I had 80 rejection slips before my first acceptance, and 15 novels published before I could make a living at it. There will always be outlets for creative and persistent people. But if it were too easy, then everyone would be doing it.

Any interesting and cool projects in the near future you'd like to inform readers of?

At the end of May, my novel The Martian War comes out, under the pen name Gabriel Mesta -- young HG Wells and his professor TH Huxley go to Mars to stop the Martians from launching their invasion. I really love that book.

Saga of Seven Suns #4, Scattered Suns comes out in July, and The Road To Dune in September.

The five things every aspiring writer (and the people living with them) should know and make peace with...

• Persistence is more important than sheer talent.
  
  
• Someone less deserving will get a big break that you never had.
  
  
• Publishers take forever to pay.
  
  
• The phone will ring when you are in the deepest point of concentration.
  
  
• You will never get the time you need to write. You have to make it for yourself.

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