by Mike Collins

How would you describe the type of science fiction that you write Neal? I don't think it's easy to classify.

Others describe it as hard science fiction or space opera, or both. That sort of covers it, though I tend to be a bit more ‘biological’ and also lean more towards fantasy than what is usually accepted in those subgenres. Basically I’ve taken just about everything I love about SF, expanded it and put my own spin on it. Nothing is out of bounds since I’m not limiting myself to predicting the future but aiming to entertain.

It seems like many of the strongest voices in the genre are coming form your part of the world. Why do you think that is?

I keep hearing this, but I’m not entirely sure I believe it to be true since I’ve read some excellent stuff from elsewhere recently. If it is happening then I would say it is purely coincidental that some good writers have all hit the big time all at around about the same time. I would read into it no more than that.

I'd like to talk about Cowl first. How did you come up with the concept for the novel? It combines time travel, enhanced government killers, dinosaurs, spaceships and futuristic races. It's kind of a mind bender...

Cowl was originally written as a novella and then expanded into the book. I’ve always liked time-travel books that actually deal with the scale of prehistory rather than confine themselves to mere human history. I also have a fascination with all the life this planet has seen. How did I come up with the concept? The same way as I come up with them in all my books – the same way a builder comes up with a house starting out with a stack of bricks.

One of the main characters is a fifteen year old prostitute. Any reservations with how people might react to her initially?

Well, very often my main characters are very capable alpha males, so I thought I’d try something different. How people might react to her didn’t even come into my consideration.

How much research did you have to do for the various historic periods the characters visit?

I did quite a lot of reading on the subject. For the human history periods I read a book on Henry VIII, and for the Claudius episode I relied on Robert Graves’ I Claudius the book and the TV series with Derek Jacobi, and my other reading about the Roman eras. There’s plenty available about prehistoric life, which has been an ongoing interest of mine anyway (ever since finding ammonite and belemnite fossils when I was a kid). It was enlightening to discover how theories are ever evolving. Tyrannosaurus was a terrible predator, then merely a scavenger – a change in attitude I put down to political/green influence rather than fact. Reading about prehistoric environments was also very interesting – definitely stuff like that should be read by those predicting ecological catastrophe now. Though I felt I’d understood it for a long time, it was only when I started to work out an exponential formula for the length of the jumps back into the past that I truly understood just what four billion years means.

You introduce a character who could be about as vicious as any villain in recent memory. How did you come up with Cowl and his pet?

I guess that question is equivalent to the ‘where do you get your ideas from’? I wanted him to be extreme, so I took the Umbrathane/Heliothane idea of humans evolving and living in a society strictly adhering to the ‘survival of the fittest’ rule, then had Cowl’s mother – a member of that society – genetically altering her son to be what she believed the ideal of her society. She was wrong, since the fittest to survive, though they should be strong, should also be able to cooperate.

Any chance that there may be further adventures set in this universe?

There’s a short story called The Torbeast’s Prison in my collection from Cosmos Books The Engineer ReConditioned, but I haven’t considered doing anything else yet. I may, but I’ve enough on my plate right now without speculating about future books.

Let's talk about some of your other works. Gridlinked, Brass Man and Line of Polity all inhabit the same universe. How would you describe this world and some of the recurring characters such as Cormac and Mr. Crane?

When writing Gridlinked I wanted a setting in which I could tell any number of stories, so yes, you’ve got FTL, matter transmission, aliens, superior (and some not so superior) AIs, heroes and villains, ancient civilizations, weird and wonderful technologies and the kitchen sink too. Cormac is generic hero material who is slowly taking shape – often described as a far-future James Bond. Mr Crane was an aberration – one of those characters that grew with the telling and seems to have taken on a life of his own.

Do you find it more rewarding to continue the stories of characters or begin new with a clean slate?

They both have their pros and cons. Beginning something new you don’t have to research back-story and you don’t have the occasional albatross hanging around your neck that you created in a previous book. Also there are fewer constraints on your imagination, since in a series most of the world you are writing in you have already imagined. However, continuing a story, writing the next book in a series, can also be easier because you don’t have to work out all the details: you know the peopled, you know how they get from A to B, you know the weaponry etc.

You seem to like to create fantastic weaponry for your characters. Cormac has Shuriken and Tack has his seeker gun. Where do your ideas come from for these things?

The seeker gun is, I think, a fairly standard sfnal idea. Shuriken got its inception from by interest in martial arts and another old sfnal idea – that of intelligent weapons.

I'd like to ask you some general questions about writing. When you are working on a novel, what's a typical day like for you?

Is there any such thing as a typical day? After my wife, Caroline, heads off to work at about eight, I sit down at the computer and check my emails and various message boards I visit. I then turn off the computer and go for a cycle ride over to my parent’s house (about four miles away), have a cup of tea with them, maybe do some work on my vegetable patch there, then cycle back – this is basically so I don’t turn into a fat slob. Back home and with the computer back on I read through and make corrections to whatever I wrote the day before, then just continue. I aim for 2,000 words a day (this includes everything I write i.e. this interview will be included). If I do say 1,500 words, the 500 goes on my ‘word debt’, if I do more, then that amount comes off it. I’m currently about 20,000 in the red. But as anyone who has been professionally published will know, it’s not all about new writing since a great deal of time is spent editing. Those days I just call 2,000 worders.

Do you generally plot out the entire book? Or do you have a general idea of where you want to go and then let the story come to you as you write it?

I just have a very general and vague idea where I’m going. I know many writers have to produce synopses and plans and scatter their vicinity with linked post-it notes. I just can’t do it like that, since planning where a book is going to go takes the joy out of it for me. When I started The Line of Polity I had a synopsis and 30,000 words written. I threw away the synopsis and about 28,000 words.

Can you describe the process for how your novels written in the UK are picked up for distribution in the US?

That’s all down to my publisher. Macmillan holds the rights to my books and their excellent rights department sells my books on. Thus far they’ve got me into eight different countries so I’ve no complaints.

We have several readers who are aspiring writers. What advice would you give them about getting published?

I think the key is never give up, never stop and understand that though you may be published tomorrow it is also possible you won’t be published for twenty years. Write to the best of your abilities and forever try to become more able – if you ever think you’ve nothing more to learn then you’re an idiot. If you send in stuff to a big publisher, also send in copies of any reviews you’ve garnered. Be professional and adhere to the submission rules. I would advise getting an agent as publishers use them as a filter – no agent is going to put himself behind absolute drivel (which publishers receive by the shed load). I haven’t got an agent but, then again, I was one of those who had to wait twenty years. And every time you send something off, don’t hang about with your thumb up your arse, get on and write something more.

How do you think science fiction as a genre is doing? What does the future hold?

I think science fiction is doing fine and will continue to do fine so long as there is a future. Outside of book publishing it is doing better than fine what with the films, games and TV stuff being produced. Many have predicted its demise but it refuses to lie down in the coffin.

Are there any authors you enjoy?

Like I say in the foreword of The Skinner: ‘Thanks to all those excellent people whose names stretch through the alphabet from Aldiss to Zelazny, and who have kept me spell bound for most of my life.’ Presently the authors on my to-read list are Iain M Banks, Terry Pratchett, Bill Bryson, Richard Morgan, Sheri Tepper, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, C. J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, Minette Walters, Richard Dawkins, Peter Watts (look out for Blindsight when it comes out) … but I’ll stop there before this list becomes to unwieldy.

What can we expect from Neal Asher in the future?

The present state of play is that The Voyage of the Sable Keech (follows The Skinner) is just out from Macmillan, Night Shade Books is about to publish Prador Moon (a sort of prequel to The Skinner), and Cosmos Books have released The Engineer ReConditioned. In about eight months time the next in the Cormac sequence comes out – Polity Agent– and I’m presently working on a standalone in the Polity universe called Hilldiggers. Just expect more books, lots more books… oh, and if I get the time I’ll be aiming some short stories at magazines like Asimov’s and Interzone.

Thanks for taking some time to talk to us Neal!