Up Close with Michael Cobley

Orphaned Worlds
Humanitys Fire #02
Michael Cobley

Darien is no longer a lost outpost of humanity, but the prize in an intergalactic power struggle. Hegemony forces control the planet, while Earth merely observes, rendered impotent by galactic politics. Yet Earth's ambassador to Darien will become a player in a greater conflict as there is more at stake than a turf war on a newly discovered world. An ancient temple hides access to a hyperspace prison, housing the greatest threat sentient life has ever known. Millennia ago, malignant intelligences were caged there following an apocalyptic struggle, and their servants work on their release. Now a new war is coming.





1. What started you writing, and is it the same thing that still inspires you today?

I was moved and entranced by books from an early age, and have been trying to tell my own stories since about 14-15, I guess. I was a very introverted kid, even up to my early 20s, so writing was my escape and means of expression. It is still that today, but now for me writing is also the means whereby I can figure out how to get ideas across. That's integral to how you write good SF, and also to writing non-fiction like book critiques and any political ranting I might get up to now and then!


2. How many novels did you write before you got published?

I recently unearthed the long-hand MS of the first novel I ever wrote, back when I was about 19-20 - its a fantasy vaguely in the Tolkien mode, and weighs in at about 55000 words, which makes it a short novel, longer than a novella, the kind of length of Moorcock's Eternal Champion books (but not quite up to his standard). I've lost the top page so I don't know what the title was but at the end it says something like 'This concludes the first part of the Lanarim Trilogy'. The second book I wrote was an SF novel called Catacombs, which ended up being largely rewritten at least twice and send round innumerable publishers who quite sensibly rejected it. After that I started another novel but abandoned it after getting several chapters in, the consequence of working up a chapter by chapter outline so highly detailed that I found myself getting bored. So about 1995 I started on the notes and background which eventually became Shadowkings, so the answer is two and a bit.


3. What was the first thing you did when you found out a publisher wanted to print your work?

That was some time in 1986 - I probably did a dance in my bedsit and/or punched the air, then went round to a local cafe bar called Di Maggios where some friends bought me drinks because those early acceptances were in the non-paying small press!


4. What books, or authors, would you say have most influenced you in the type of writer you've become?

That's a bit of a tough un' - there are lots of different types of fantasy/SF/even horror books that I want to write, but looking at the old track record so far, I guess for the fantasy it would have to be touches of Moorcock, Tolkien, Robert E Howard, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, and for the SF I tip my hat to David Brin, Iain Banks, Dan Simmons, Vernor Vinge, Dave Wingrove & Ken Macleod.


5. Your latest release is ORPHANED WORLDS, can you tell us a bit about the story and how you came up with it?

Well, it is the second part of the Humanity's Fire trilogy and continues and expands on the stories and themes began in pt1, Seeds Of Earth. In essence, the colonists of Darien, the lost Human colonyworld, have discovered just now low down, mean and dirty the offworld powers can be, since the colony's president and most of his cabinet have been murdered. In Orphaned Worlds I wanted to broaden the overall picture to include the other two lost colonies, to bring them into the picture, to link their fates together, and to deepen the grim consequences and multiply the mysteries, hopefully without mystifying the reader. All of which should set the stage for book 3, The Ascendant Stars, which gathers all the threads and forces and antagonists together.


6. Do you consciously chose themes to explore in your work or does it 'just happen'?

I try to think through an overall theme at the outline stage - for the Humanity's Fire trilogy the theme was centred around how guilt and remorse can make us try to escape it, something by quite drastic means. However, I'm not sure if that has come across to the readers - it's not crucial that the reader gets that, of course.


7. What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general?

Trying not to think about deadlines, and trying not to get sidetracked by other fascinating things in life.


8. Do you use an outline when you write, or are you more of a discovery writer?

I definitely need an outline - I need to know how the story ends and I need to know where the main dramatic turning points are, what the important twists and turns of character path will be. That said, it can't have too much detail since I need room to invent and create and let the old back brain leap off at a tangent; also, there has to be sufficient slack in the outline to allow for unintended consequences, which is part of the writing process. This isn't so much the old saw about characters taking over, rather that different emphases and outcomes can arise out of the story as its being created, which for a writer can be a delight.


9. How much research do you do, and is it before or during the writing process?

I have to do a certain amount of groundwork beforehand, like surveillance before a stealthy incursion. And yes, research is an ongoing process of checking and rechecking in the quest for scene-setting plausibility, those background details that reinforce the authenticity of the story's context. Yeah, I have reference books here, and am skilled at the old googling, there!


10. Do you ever base your characters on people you know or have known?

Not that I personally know, no. But I had a couple of actors in mind while writing some of the characters in the trilogy - for Greg Cameron I was imagining David Tennant speaking the words; Theo Karlsson was my Sean Connery stand-in, sort of.


11. What is your work schedule like when you're in writers mode?

Usually my head doesnt get fully into writer mode until after midday, then I work till about 5pm, break to rustle up dinner for me and SuperSusan (who's usually out working at a proper job), then work from about 6.30 through to 10pm, head down to the living room, watch an episode of the The Wire with Sue, then retire for the night.


12. What do you do to relax, when you're not in 'writer's mode? (are you ever not in writer's mode?)

Well, my writer-in-the-basement is always at work (although he usually gets into high gear when I'm off at the movies or a rock gig). For relaxation I read, or keep up to date with various current affairs-type happenings, and keep up with friends, or play computer games. Just finished playing Singularity, which was a blast. Am currently looking forward intensely to Bioshock: Infinite - oh yeah!


13. When you look back on your writing career, is there anything you would've done differently? If so, what and why?

Hmm, beyond try harder earlier, I think the main thing I could have done would have been to get an agent earlier - or rather get the agent I have now earlier than I did! Not just to increase the chances of being taken seriously by publishers, but also to get an idea of what trends and requirements are prevalent. Not out of some fad-chasing impulse, but to see which of my many current ideas might get an editors attention. That said, in the end it really does come down to the intense individuality of a writer's vision, and his/her ability to get it across on the page - fads come and go, but that ambition, allied to a thorough grounding in the techniques and craft of writing, goes a long way to getting the all-important first contract.


14. How do you balance what you're reading against what you're writing?

Once, my reading matter would stay solidly in the genre that I was currently writing in, just to feed it and mix it up. Now, my reading has veered off into different territories, been reading a lot of political stuff on democratic theory, as well as Joe Abercrombie's recent triumphs, stuff by Neal Asher, Stephen Hunt, Ian Whates, William Gibson...


15. And finally, what future novels/ideas do you have in the works? What can your readers expect next?

That's currently the subject of ongoing discussions, but I am fairly certain that it will be another book set in the Humanity's Fire universe, and it'll be a larger stand-alone novel. Beyond that, plenty of other ideas in the HFire background, a couple of weird fantasy novels, and a couple of outandout cyberpunk novels. Oh, and my parallel-universe-Scotland political novel. Just a few things to keep me busy for the next decade or so!