aux éditions ActuSF
Auteurs :
Steven Brust
Date de parution : octobre 2007
Réédition
Langue d'origine : Français
Type d'ouvrage : Interview mail
Lire tous les articles concernant Steven Brust
Alors que sort ces jours-ci Les Gardes Phénix, nous avons posé quelques questions à Steven Brust, un auteur de fantasy plutôt discret avec un univers et des personnages hauts en couleurs. Les Gardes Phénix n’est autre que l’adaptation des Trois Mousquetaires en fantasy.
Steven Brust : The idea came from a role-playing game, run by a friend of mine, Robert Sloan, who also created much of the background for the world. No, in fact, I had no idea there would be so many. I wrote the second one, Yendi, just as a treat to myself because the novel I’d written before it, To Reign In Hell, had been so difficult. It was only when I suddenly hit on the idea for the third one, Teckla, that I realized (or admitted to myself) that I was writing a series.
Actusf : How would you introduce your Vlad character ? He is an assassin, a gangster, but at the same time somehow attaching with a lot of humour and a realistic point of view on himself.
Steven Brust : I don’t wish to be difficult, but I’m very bad at that sort of thing. I always enjoy introducing him in each book—finding new ways to communicate who he is is part of the fun for me—but I guess the obverse of that is my inability to really talk about him outside of the writing, if that makes sense. I can talk about my influences, or the research that led to him, but I can’t really introduce him. Sorry.
Actusf : What did influence you on this cycle ? Are there authors that have directed your work and from whom you took up some ideas ?
Steven Brust : Think of the style as coming from Raymond Chandler or Dashiel Hammet, the tropes from Michael Moorcock, the world from Fritz Leiber, and the general aesthetic from Roger Zelazny.
Actusf : You write mainly fantasy books. What are the reasons ? What do you like in that type of writing ?
Steven Brust : I’ve been asked that a lot, and I wish I had a good answer. The closest that I can come is to say it is when reading adventure fiction in general and fantasy fiction in particular that I most often find myself saying, "Oh, cool !" That’s the feeling I’m shooting for in the reader. Secondarily, well, I should point out at the least the Vlad Taltos novels owe as much to science fiction as to fantasy ; it’s just more fun for me to keep those elements in the background, and to write about characters who aren’t aware the underpinnings of what is happening around them.
Actusf : How will the story continue ? Do you have an idea of an end for this cycle ?
Steven Brust : I do have an ending in mind. I don’t know if I’ll actually get that far. I might die first, or I might get tired of writing them. I trust you’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you any details of what I have in mind.
This year the first volume of The Khaavren Romances is published in France.
Actusf : How was born the idea of this cycle ? It seems it is a fantasy novel but also with swords and capes, in the spirit the Three Musketeers. What did you like in the novels of Alexandre Dumas ?
Steven Brust : Now that one is easy. I’ve been in love with Dumas pere since I first read him as a teenager. Now, unfortunately, I don’t speak the lovely French language, so I had to make due with translations. But the good side is that it lead me to many different translations. The result of comparing the different translations, and deciding which I liked and why, led me, accidentally as it were, to internalize the way he used words. I completely fell in love with the way he used language, and I simply decided I was going to write a story that way, even if I was the only English speaker who liked it. I was very fortunate that it turned out I wasn’t.
Actusf : Why did you try to extend his work in a world of fantasy ?
Steven Brust : It came about by accident. In the world on which many of my stories are set, there are what are called Great Houses—clans, of a sort, in which people have certain similar characteristics. I remember sitting around with my friends Will Shetterly and Emma Bull one day, trying to explain to them what a Lyorn was like. I said, "Well, think of Athos in The Three Muskateers. That’s a Lyorn." Then I said, "And Porthos is a Dzur. And Aramis is a Yendi. Hmmm. " From then on, the idea wouldn’t go away until I wrote it.
Actusf : How would you introduce your heroes ? Who are they ?
Steven Brust : You mean in the Khaavren Romances ? I’d say they are quite simply Dumas’ heroes put into a world of fantasy.
Actusf : What are you currently working on ?
Steven Brust : I’m doing research for a rather difficult project that will probably take me quite a while. In the meantime, I’ve completed another Vlad novel, and am working on yet another.
